So tired of video card issues

[gclnin]

Hi all,
I recently got an Nvidia GeForce 6600 with 512mb. First I went through the blue screen crashes happening in the nvidia drivers. I got that cleared up, now when I try to save or leave a lot It does not crash the whole system but the game crashes with the error:  
Direct3D returned an error: D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE! The application will now terminate.
I have been through driver updates, directx steps... really everything I could find. Now the card shows signs of corruption (glitchy lines and such) so I am sending it back before the protection plan is up. A couple of questions...
1. Has anyone else been through this and what did you do to resolve it?
2. Time for a new card... looking at the nvidia 8600 GTS (I guess I like pain). Is anyone using this card without issue?
3. Suggestions on other cards?
Thanks all!
:sad1:

[caffeinated.joy]

First off, what are your system specs? It might be a problem related to RAM, or something else. The more info you give about your computer, the more we can help

[gclnin]

Happened to be looking at my past order at tigerdirect ;-)

Motherboard
PCChips A13G+ v3.0 Motherboard - NVIDIA GeForce 6100 (this wasn't being used since I had the Nvidia 6600), Socket AM2, MicroATX, Audio, Video, PCI Express, 10/100 Ethernet LAN, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, CNR

Memory
Crucial 1024MB PC4200 DDR2 533MHz Memory
 
CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ 2.0GHz, 2 x 256KB Cache, 1000MHz (2000 MT/s) FSB, Windsor, Dual Core, OEM, Socket AM2

[caffeinated.joy]

My next questions now (sorry, I should have asked these all at once):

What EP's are you running?

Next, go into My Documents/EA Games/Log and look for a txt file(s) whose names starts out as "Sims2Exception" and then is followed by a date and time. If you could upload the most recent one to your post as an attachment, that would help out. It'll give us an idea of what's going on in your game when it shuts down. Just in case you don't know how to add a file as an attachment, click on the "go advanced" tab at the bottom of your post, then click the paperclip icon.

[gclnin]

No problem I used to be a computer tech... I know how it goes.
File is included, I am a bit confused about it because the date is long before I started having issues. Or even before the major upgrade, back before I had any issues, at least that I knew about.
I have all EP's and stuff packs.... Yep totally addicted.

As an update to the issue, I got rid of Securom following the steps I found here I believe, and got the no CD crack for Free Time as a note to everyone the one I got worked with the new patch for Free Time. Does not ask for the cd or prevent me from copying things. When I loaded the game after this it was a little bit better but still locked up and crashed when saving.

The next thing I did was the AMD dual core patch? I guess it is? I know it stops me from overclocking, but since I used to support video cards I don't like to overclock anyway. (Nothing against anyone who does, I have just seen the things that can go wrong.) I had already removed the GeForce 6600 to send it back, so all I had to test it with was on-board video (GeForce 6100).

Launched my game, played for a couple of hours, went to Downtown lots and back, saved used my inSimenator repeatedly... made some sims, just generally tested everything. It worked with no crashing, no errors... YAAAY.
I left the graphic settings on low, because I know the on-board can't handle anything more than that. So I think when I put in the new GeForce 8600 I should be ok... I hope.  I still want thoughts and ideas though, so I am prepared for whatever fresh h@@@ the card will bring ;-)
Thanks for your time!

[jaccirocker]

gclnin, I've gone through everything that you and the only thing that solved it was a better Graphics card and more ram. I hate say it but it's true and the right driver makes a huge difference. I think you're going in the right direction.

[caffeinated.joy]

I looked at the report and this is the first thing that jumped out at me:

System memory: 960 Megabytes total, 112 Megabytes free

It looks like you've got something(s) running in the background and eating up available memory.

[EKozski]

I have a GeForce 6100 nForce 405. 256 MB

I had to turn my shaders to false. Once I did that, no more blue screen. I played for hours on end.

But I'm ordering a GIG more memory. I'm going to try and run Pe(s)ts again.

[MaryH]

Even if your game is running well, you still might have something in the background working-the hubby had to turn off two background programs and up the virtual memory on my computer to make it behave..and it worked.
One of the programs was IE-or Internet Explorer..and the other one was Adobe Reader. They were both hogging the memory badly on my computer.
You might check to see if you can de-link some of the programs you're not using for the computer to run faster.

[gclnin]

Thanks for the tips, I will watch for that, I normally monitor that kind of thing pretty close but that is showing very low in the log file :-)