My game hates me :-(

[soundandfury]

Okay, my game has been unable to start for about six months, and I'm sick of it! Even when I remove all downloads, it still starts like normal, goes through the regular loading screen, then, when it's almost fully loaded, the music starts sounding like a broken record and the whole thing just disappears. No warning message, nothing. My computer doesn't slow down, like it normally does after it's done running the game. Is it just showing me the opening bit, but not really trying to run the game? I'm going through serious Sim withdrawal, so I figured it was about time to ask the masses.

What the heck is up? Any ideas?

[Tenshii~Akari]

*Love that avi.  YGO:TAS FTW.  :lol:*

You've deleted your Groups.cache, Accessory.cache, cigen.package, and the files in your Thumbnails folder, right?  And have you also tried moving out your SavedSims folder?  It's possible a corrupted sim (or some of those other files) may be causing the problem.  

If you've done all that, can you list your computer's specs?  Like amount of physical RAM, video card, processor, etc.?  (you can find this easy by  going to Start => Run, typing in dxdiag in the Open box, and once the DirectX Diagnostics Tool window pops up, in the bottom of the first tab that appears and top left of the third ("Display") tab is what we'll need to know.)

[soundandfury]

Okay. . . sorry it took so long to get back to you, it's been a super-busy week.

Anyway, yeah, I've deleted all of that stuff. So. . . the RAM is 448MB. The processor thing says AMD Athlon(TM) 64 processor 3300+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.4GHz.

And the video card is the top, left box in display? Alright, I'm just typing everything it says, because I don't know what's important :-P
Name: SiS 760
Manufacturer: SiS
SiS 760 Rev 00
Dac Type: Internal
Approx. Total Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Display Mode: 1280x1024 (32 bit) (60 Hz)
Monitor: HP vs17 flat panel monitor

Oh, and yay! YGO:TAS totally FTW.

[lonleyma1000]

remove everthing then package your house and uninstall 1 of your games and reinstall it and do your houses it works for me

[~Bejeweled~]

Reinstalling should be a last resort for you. Do not reinstall until you feel and know that you've run out of options and you absolutely have to. From your specs, it looks like you don't have that much RAM in the first place, and this might be the problem or not. First back up your sim files, then remove them from the sims 2 folder and start the game. This should generate new user files and if it works then we know it's a problem with your files.

[Tenshii~Akari]

Agree 100% with Bejeweled.  :thumbrig:

From looking at your profile, it seems you have BV as your highest EP.  When was the first time you installed that?  I might be getting a small hunch with where this is going.  :angel:

You have a very good processor, so I know that's definitely not the problem.  (way better than one on a piddly laptop like mine.  :lol:) And you only have 448MB of RAM total on your PC?  To be honest, that's definitely not enough to run the game at it's best, if sometimes at all.  (1GB of RAM is really the "unofficial" minimum, while 2GB is the safest route)  I'd say it's probably something to do with that and how much shared memory your video card has... which seems to be 64MB.  That's not nearly enough to run BV properly, unfortunately.  You may have been able to play your earlier EPs just fine, but every time you install a new EP, the video card minimum requirements up themselves... meaning that the game will demand more from that each time you upgrade to the latest EP.  That's one possibility.

The other... well... I'm sick of saying it, to be honest, but it's probably something with SecuRom.  Doesn't sound like the normal "symptoms" that usually displays when people have problems with it, but it does usually messes around with how your computer works sometimes, and that includes starting up your game.  Not saying it's the problem for sure, but it's a small possibility if everything you've tried (even a last-resort re-installation of the whole game) doesn't work.  :dontknow:

[soundandfury]

Ugh! Stupid SecuRom! Scourge of Sims players everywhere. . . .

Thanks everyone, though. I may back everything up and uninstall BV if RAM is the problem. I honestly could live without it I think I'll do that, then see what happens.

[Razamataz]

AAAAaaa Might be a Dumb question Might not be, But have you also removed, your SavedSims Folder? It carrys some Downloads there also.

[caffeinated.joy]

I'm not familiar with that graphic card. I tried doing a search and it gave me a bunch of chipset information. The best I can tell is it's integrated graphics, and if it's only 64mb of memory, then that could be contributing to the problem. It doesn't matter what the sims 2 site says. 64 mb graphics just doesn't cut it for the game. If you can afford it, I wouldn't go with anything less than a 256 mb card.