That's it! I'm saying Bon Voyage to BV . . .

[diane7403]

I gave myself until Free Time was released to try to work out the bugs. Alas, BV has beaten me. I give up, I give in. But, of course, I ran right out (well, actually a whole day after the new release) and spent my $26 for Free Time - am I a sucker, or what? I'm just praying it's not as buggy. Thank goodness everything else up through Seasons works beautifully, especially with all the mods that I've downloaded (mostly from this site and Mod the Sims). Thank you all so, so much!!!

[PegasusDiana]

I don't know if it was the patch or freetime, but since I installed freetime it seems to have taken care of most the glitches I had in BV. I hate calling them glitches because their not really glitches to me, they're more annoyances. Which BTW installed properly the first time. CC all showed up properly, etc...With BV I ended up having to uninstall Season's with it. Re-install Season's/patch it/then install BV. Twice! BV was my thorn.

[danceswithwands]

My report- LOL

I installed FT and all my custom content was showing up with that lovely blue-flashy thing.

I exited out and figured I would need to uninstall all my CC.

Instead I tried one more time- and the second time I tried to play it almost everything showed up just fine.

I had a custom pc that was a hack that didn't work- but otherwise all the other CC is there now.

The only "bugs" so far...

Even if I lock a gate or door for "disallow pets" the random pets in the neighborhood get in.

I will see them just walking through my houses at random now.

Oh- and not a glitch or bug- but the constant phone ringing is getting almost as annoying as that sea-chanty thing.  LOL

Otherwise- it's pretty good so far and despite the SecuRom- nothing seems to have blown up, fried, or exploded... yet....

[CynaraBlade]

You actually need to enable the CC on that "We have noticed that Custom Content is Enabled in your game" message which appears when the start up screen finishes loading. Do that by checking the box besides the "Enable Custom Content" message which appears at the bottom of that screen, and then reboot the game. Then the custom objects won't be flashing blue anymore.

The program automatically disables all CC whenever a new EP or SP is installed, save for all bodyshop stuff and wall/floor coverings. It's something which shouldn't really come as a surprise to anybody...

[danceswithwands]

That is a "thing" with my game or pc...

I know this- that you have to re-enable the CC-

Sometimes though--- I click the "enable" and it sort of doesn't "take".

Does that even make sense? LOL

I logged in the second time and it was still marked as "enabled" but I went ahead and disabled and then re-enabled it just in case.

I am pretty sure it is one of those weird things that only happens to me--- kind of like the snowing crashes my game thing.  LOL

[diane7403]

I never got to take my sims on vacation past the first time. After that I could never even get anything to run without crashing except the sometimes the CAS screen. The phones didn't work, cell phones neither. It just crashed and burned and ticked me off. So now if Free Time took care of the bugs -- well, I'll have to give it another try.

[itsatrashylife]

i had tonnes of glitches with BV so i stopped using my custom content which sucked so someone on here surgested donwloading a patch and that has cleared everything up and i can now use custom content and have no problems. give it a go.

[tonksiemaria]

Its funny cause some ahcks work but it loses some of the interaction between sims and I am trying to slwoly try and figure which ones r safe to use and also my custom hair and clothes work but my furniture doesnt fo figure...

[diane7403]

I know it was Free Time and not the latest Patch from the EA Site that seems to have fixed my Bon Voyage problems because I tried that again before I uninstalled BV. Even as I was reinstalling BV I was hovering over the keyboard having second thoughts --- but, voila! everything seems to be working correctly now. I even took one of my little Simmies on a short vacation and he didn't get stuck there or anything. The phones and cell phones are working!!! I haven't sent any kids to college yet cause I don't have any teenagers (since they all got killed off from the reinstills). I'm hopeful now.

[JaCalsGal]

I'm scared to get Free Time, but if it solved your BV problems, maybe I should give it a try haha.  I think because when I put Seasons on my pc it kept doing something weird to my graphics card.  It like, resets it or turns it off or something and every time I re-downloaded the drivers for my card, it'd be fine.

 I have to do that every time I play sims now!  BV was being so weird too, that unsavory guy kept showing up in my neighborhoods outside of vacation and walking right into the house annoying ppl lol  I wasn't sure if he was supposed to or not, and I couldn't click on him or anything.

 So I assumed that seasons and BV may have been conflicting off of each other.  I'm still not sure, but I know I don't want to get rid of my BV lol  Now that Free Time is out, I should probably dl the BV patches.  I haven't touched it in months because I was afraid of it haha  But I would give BV a second chance!  It seems to be more fun than trouble for me so haha.  Ok sorry for all that typing!

[velvettears82]

I never had problems with bon voyage and never with freetime..some people say they have problems because of windows vista but i have vista and never had any problems.
I have a lot of cc and hacks lol maybe the game works better with those then without them!

[baddboy]

velvettears82, you are one of the lucky ones. I have also said Bon Voyage to BV and have given Free Time the boot. I have had nothing but trouble since I installed them on my Vista machine.

I have a generic computer with an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, running Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit edition). The computer has 4GB RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT video card with the latest vista certified drivers installed.

I've lost count of the number of times my computer would go through the motions of starting up and then hang, just before the green Microsoft bars would scroll across the screen. After uninstalling Bon Voyage and Free Time, the computer starts up first time, every time.

I spent the half the weekend doing a complete manual uninstallation and reinstallation of The Sims 2 and all expansion packs, plus the Family Fun Stuff and Glamor Life Stuff Pack with the H&M Fashion Pack and all available patches thrown in for good measure. (Call me a glutton for punishment.) I played the game for about an hour, trying out a complete neighborhood I'd downloaded. I played one of the families, saved and exited to the neighborhood screen. I then attempted to exit the game. Lo and behold, "The Sims 2 Free Time" dialog box popped up with "this application has crashed. This application will now terminate." Also a little wanning from the Windows Security Center popped up advising me that my anti-virus was turned off. I did not touch any of the settings of the anti-virus.

A number of times I was also a victim of the NVIDIA "Blue Screen of Doom" when I had all eps except H&M Fashion Stuff installed.

Once again The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Stuff, Bon Voyage and Free Time have become paper weights and I will NOT be buying any future eps from EA again.

Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Sims 2 and all EPs up to Seasons are stable and don't have any memory leaks. (I considered skipping Pests during the re-installation, but most lots and houses I downloaded were built with Pests installed.)

[EKozski]

baddboy, i had a problem with pe(s)ts. I kept getting a warning sign saying that my virtual memory was running low. Yes, I installed the patch before playing. I took it out, no more problems, other than that blue screen.

For the life of me, I couldn't understand why I kept getting that warning sign. I've got the memory to play the game(s). I chalked it up to a memory leak. And my OS is, XP.

I only own up to OFB. I refuse to buy anymore games or EP's or Stuff packs from EA.

Since I finally updated my graphics drivers, today, I'm just wondering if I'll stll get the blue screen.

[Ark_Sky]

Eh....I'm always getting the blue screen,right after BV,actually.

[EKozski]

Once I installed, OFB, I started getting that blue screen. Once I learned how to turn my shaders off, it stopped. After I installed pe(s)ts, it stopped, but I had to uninstall it, because of the memory leak.

These games kept me coming and going. I hated trying to second guess them. Now, I have no problems. I can play the game for hours. As long as I remember to turn my shaders off.