Sims 2: Who has it?

[Nikolai]

I have got a problem with Sims2 currently... When I start the game, it loads well, except the text sometimes is flickering, but then I am lucky if I get to the neighbourhood at all...! You see, the game seems to freeze or something, and it takes ages for the next picture to come. F.ex.: I get into the neighbourhood, and the picture freezes. Then I click on something, and some 15-20-25 sec later, the thing I clicked on reacts, but now THAT pic has frozen...!

I thought this was a local Sims2 problem and reinstalled the game. It didn't help. I then found out that this also affected GTA3. I did a system recovery operation to see if that helped, but it didn't. Not at all. On the contrary, the game wouldn't load, and most folders in the Sims2 folder was duplicated. So I rolled back the system recovery(after yet a couple of tries), and gave up. I'm completely lost!

[Adagio]

Have you tried to read on the official Sims 2 forums?

[Nikolai]

No. I tried to fix it myself, then I turned to the superior Poly community.

[Blake]

Sounds like a problem with your video card, video card drivers or DirectX. If I had to guess I would say your video card is on the blink - it is entirely possible for a card to be 100% stable except when rendering 3D graphics. So I'd update the video drivers (assuming you havn't already) then try another 3D video card... assuming you have one lying around, or can borrow one from another computer.

edit: Other hardware or funky driver problems are also possible, like the sound card, or even motherboard.. these are more likely to cause problems in non-games as well. I assume that GTA3 used to work fine?

[Dis]

It's weird why some games have problems on certain systems. It's hard to say whats wrong.

I'm sure you installed the latest direct x and updated drivers and all that.

I've had the game crash a few times on me. The problem is sometimes I get so engrossed in this game I forget to save. . I find the game can be very addicting. But lately I've been saving fairly often. I get crashes maybe once or twice a session (long sessions for me )

[Nikolai]

Blake: I did update the nVidia drivers(I have a GeForce4 Ti 4600 card), with the only file I could find on their site. It didn't work unfortunately... Other than that the problem suddenly didn't affect the opening screen, but only when I go into a neightbourhood... I have no problems except in these two games(I may have problems in other games I haven't played in a while of course). There is a weird sound in the computer, as if there is something broke, a friend said he wondered if maybe the thing that holds the processor cold has problems functioning. But other than the sound that lies there, I have no problems I know of from this. And that it only should affect two games? That sounds a bit far off, doesn't it?

[Blake]

Well without knowing what games work, and whether or not GTA3 used to work it's hard to say. When only a couple of games are broken it can be because they both use one particular feature of DirectX that is broken in your system, if other games don't use that feature, they will work fine.

Another possibility is that GTA3 and The Sims 2 are the only games you play that really stress your system, if your using a reasonably modern intel processor and your cooling fails [to keep it cold enough], then the processor speed will be automatically scaled back to prevent it cooking. A sudden reduction in CPU speed is ofcourse going to cause some problems with a game. If your processor is an Athlon I imagine overheating would cause it to just plain crash.

[Unspeakable Horror]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Blake: I did update the nVidia drivers(I have a GeForce4 Ti 4600 card), with the only file I could find on their site. It didn't work unfortunately... Other than that the problem suddenly didn't affect the opening screen, but only when I go into a neightbourhood... I have no problems except in these two games(I may have problems in other games I haven't played in a while of course). There is a weird sound in the computer, as if there is something broke, a friend said he wondered if maybe the thing that holds the processor cold has problems functioning. But other than the sound that lies there, I have no problems I know of from this. And that it only should affect two games? That sounds a bit far off, doesn't it?

If the cooling system fails the processor will get a bit hotter than normal when working at full load and become unstable, you should check if everything is ok inside.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Blake: I did update the nVidia drivers(I have a GeForce4 Ti 4600 card), with the only file I could find on their site. It didn't work unfortunately... Other than that the problem suddenly didn't affect the opening screen, but only when I go into a neightbourhood... I have no problems except in these two games(I may have problems in other games I haven't played in a while of course). There is a weird sound in the computer, as if there is something broke, a friend said he wondered if maybe the thing that holds the processor cold has problems functioning. But other than the sound that lies there, I have no problems I know of from this. And that it only should affect two games? That sounds a bit far off, doesn't it?

Far off or not, a new sound coming from inside the computer is more likely than not a bad thing. About the only things rotating in there are the power supply cooler, the CPU cooler, potentially a graphics processor cooler, if you have a fancy graphics card, and varius disks - the hard drive, and the CD.

It could be the CD - in my experience, when the drive is only starting to get screwed up, it stops liking only certain disks, and then eventually starts making nasty noises for all CDs and then dies. Of course, if the noise is coming out of the box even with no CD inside, that's not it.

It could be the hard drive, but then I would think that reinstalling the game either would not have worked in the first place, or would have helped.

It could be the power supply fan or the CPU/GPU cooler, but I imagine it would have more widespread effects, unless, like Blake guessed, you don't run any other system resource-intensive processes.

[Dis]

I may be playing too much. The other day I was cooking something in the microwave, and I spilled something. And I thought, no biggie, the maid will clean it up

[vovan]

Originally posted by Dissident
I may be playing too much. The other day I was cooking something in the microwave, and I spilled something. And I thought, no biggie, the maid will clean it up

Uh oh. It's time for a "You know you've been playing the Sims 2 too much when..." thread is it?

FWIW, I got the game last friday, and pretty much spent about 40 of the 48 weekend hours playing. Good stuff that. Though now I have to catch up on the work I would normally have done over the weekend, and have no time whatsoever to play. Meh.

I really like the aging aspect of the game though. Just appeals to me a lot and adds quite a bit of satisfaction to the gameplay experience.

Vovan

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by vovan


Uh oh. It's time for a "You know you've been playing the Sims 2 too much when..." thread is it?

You know you've been playing the Sims 2 too much when you've played the Sims 2.

[Dis]

finally got my character maxed out in the scientist career. I'm ready to retire now. A few more days, and I'll retire. As I've said, my first daughter will max out in the business career. I'm still not sure about my 2 other kids. I'll play through to my grandchildren. I'll probably be bored of my family by then. Then the evil begins.

[Blake]

My Artist Couple (they aren't married, they just live together) had a child, they attended to it's every need and whim because they could stay home all day. I was so sickened that I went on a murderous rampage, murdering 3 families, in total about 15 Sims in a house'o'death, it was fun. Now I can put a nice big haunted house there.
Incinerated 6
Starved 1
Drowned 4
Scared to Death 4
Got Rescued by Social Services 2

If I could find a way to kill toddlers I would be very happy. Blasted Social Services keep rescueing them before they die, toddlers seem to be fireproof, even when being carried by a burning Adult (Now why don't they build ovens out of toddlers?). Also it seems to be hard to kill a child except by drowning or maybe fire, deaths that involve ruining their stats results in rescue by SS.

Incidentely I've found that Adoption Services don't care how badly you abuse your toddlers and children, killing them is even okay, only the action of "repossessing" the toddler/child prevents the family from ordering future victims.

[Adagio]

I hate those social services... in my last family I used I tried this:

First the couple got a girl, who got full logic before becoming a child (without using the milk)... everthing was going fine... then the couple had a boy, which I didn't want so I just put him in the garden forgetting all about him... then the couple (the wife ) got pregnant again, giving birth to another boy (Shortly after the social service took the first boy (who was named 'Baby Boy' )... I did the same thing this time, making sure he wasn't fed and all that... Then I saved the game, and a few hours (game-time) later the social service picked up the boy... but this time they also took the girl (who was almost maxed out in cooking too, and was about to become a teen) because of this
then I tried reloading, but now I couldn't hold the boy in the garden... I could give the parents the order to do so, but they ignored it, so I couldn't do anything to stop it... Thereby the whole family was destroyed, so I decided it was time to do something new... her husband was stupid enough to get into a pool without a ladder, so he died, while the wife quickly married a new girl in town