Insimenator.org

Over the past day or so my game has been acting goofy. I enter a lot that I play every day and there are no issues while playing. The problem occurs when saving. If I simply save my game, intending to stay on the lot, it saves and saves with that darned tooting blue screen (blue screen of death) and never stops. I am unable to get to task manager to end task and/or shut down safely. I must hold my computer button in until it shuts down. If I am quitting the game to save, I end up with a black screen (the grim reaper of screens lol) and again cannot access task manager to end process/shut down. When I save game and return to the neighborhood, it will save on occasion (no blue/black screen) but when my neighborhood screen appears it will shake back and forth over and over. I am able to exit the game from there safely. I entered another neighbor hood and didn't seem to have this issue. It seems it is only with this particular one which I always play on.

I have deleted groups cache and cigen and I have removed the few things I have downloaded since this has been happening and even a few days before this has been happening to be sure.
I don't have problems with my computer other than this.

Here is a bit of info reguarding my computer and games:
 Here is a link on my cards info  (http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/512-P2-N447.pdf)
I have a GeForce 7300GT 512 mb graphics card (not overclocked)
I use AVG 7.5 Internet Security (not free) updates daily and deletes cookies/unwanted stuff daily so it doesn't appear to be a virus.


GAMES: Sims2 base, Uni, NL, OFB, GL, and  Pets none of which are new installs.
The only new hack/mod is Squinges Toddler pose but, as I figured,  removing this didn't solve my issue. The other mods/hacks are few, Crammy, Quaxi censor remover ,InSimenator, hula and more of which all, I believe, are correct versions for my game.

*attached image removed*

My first inclination would be to look at your hard drive.  You may be out of space or the write could be hitting bad sectors on the disk.

If you haven't performed a disk cleanup or defrag lately it might not be a bad idea.  Tools for those can be found in the Start Menu/Accessories/System Tools.

I went to another neighborhood and it did this again. This time I got the black screen but was able to get to my desktop to view my error message.

(http://www.insimenator.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=71623&stc=1&d=1178401038)

Apparently it has to do with my graphics adapter and could be one of several things according to NVidea/GEforce troubleshooting:  not having latest miniport drivers installed to the motherboard, other drivers updated such as chipset, video, sound or reinstall latest Direct X. We did recently take off the GEForce card and put my ATI Radeon, then took the Radeon off and reinstalled the GEForce (LOL, don't ask :)) so we may have left some ATI stuff on inadvertently or not updated/installed all NVidea drivers. We are now going to start over, remove all drivers and such, and reinstall the GEForce. I appreciate the help ancienthighway! By the way I have Total 143gb/Free 102 and I defrag/clean up every week or so.  I will edit this when we get it right! Thanks again!! *hugs*

Well, the video card and drivers were my second inclination lol.

With the crash only happening when you're saving, I thought disk right away, but the blank screens that you were stuck on does sound like problems with NVidea cards and drivers.

Well since I posted last I made sure all my drivers were up to date. Then when I would change my graphic settings it crashed to the blue screen. Again I was unable to see the error message. I then decided to see if it actually was a problem with the card so I uninstalled all NVidea drivers and took out the graphics card. I then put my ATI radeon back on with all drivers up to date and no NVidia stuff on the computer. Went back in the game and still have this issue I have not had these problems with either of my cards before the last few days. I am now assuming my problem is not graphic card related. I am really puzzeled by all of this.
I am wondering now if somehow my game or a neighborhood has been corrupted somehow and if a specific neighborhood is corrupt:
1. Is this typical behavior of a corrupt neighborhood?
2. Would it affect all neighborhoods or only the corrupt one?
3. Would a corrupt neighborhood allow the game to even load?
Is it now time to reinstall my game or should I first remove my downloads, saved sims/neighborhoods that aren't maxis etc and see if the problem persists? Any advice would be appreciated. I am simply out of troubleshooting ideas. *sigh*  :boohoo:  Thank you!

You could test the corrupted neighborhood theory by moving all of your neighborhoods to the desktop, then running the game.  Neighborhoods will be recreated and you can play around with it a bit, then do the save.  Same with possible bad CC.

I'd check both of those possibilities out before reinstalling.

I removed the suspicious neighborhood to my desktop (it was a custom neighborhood) and   was able to play and save. YAY! Hopefully all is resolved. I believe the culprit was a lot I downloaded but not from here.  Unfortunately it was my InSim neighborhood! Y'all are troublemakers, lol, but will now get new homes. Thanks again for all your help.

TRL I have the same problem with my game as well but I only play Pleasentview, and when my game crashed with the graphic display error it actually crashed my card. I had to reinstall it. Did you have to do the same?

Well I uninstalled one card and put my old card back on to see if it was a card issue. That is how I realized it was not due to my cards. It would happen with both cards.I don't think it crashed my card but I couldn't read any error messages but the one. I would get the black screen and then my monitor would turn off and I would turn it back on and it would turn off again.

 I have only played for a bit yesterday and it seemed ok but I will see the next time I play. Which may be awhile, I have been troubleshooting for 4 days straight, I am in a contest and didn't want to drop out, but I am just plain tired of sitting for hours at my computer. I just had all sorts of goofy things going on. I would try to move a sim and they would become invisible, many strange things like that. Both the graphics cards I have are well above the min and I had never had trouble before. Very strange. if I find out anything more I will pm you. Good luck. I tell my husband that I think there is subliminal messages in the game that addicts us to it. LOL I would never keep at something as frustrating as the SIMS 2 but for some reason I just can't kick the "habit". LOL  Again good luck!

When my card crashed it did the same thing, my monintor went on standby and I couldn't get it to turn back on. Do you have a lot of CC? PLay large lots? I found that my game ddaoes it morer when I play big lots with loads of CC than small Maxis lots.

Hmmm...so when the monitor was turning off that is the video card crashing? I thought it was just my game crashing. As far as the CC, I have tons of it, lol,  but I haven't been downloading much as I have been trying to get rid of stuff I don't use. Also my game, neighborhood and lots load rather quickly. I was playing on a big lot but the house isn't real big, it has also been in my game for a long time and I have never had trouble with it.
 After removing the 4 things I had  D/L that week and posting here I remembered that I downloaded a lot from *cough* the exchange *cough*. Now I never download from there but I saw it in someones contest pics here and grabbed it, it was a cool lot. I removed the lot and checked my files using clean installer and didn't find anything unusual. I keep thinking that the lot corrupted my neighborhood somehow. It didn't say it required Seasons, which I don't have but I wonder if it indeed did need Seasons. I don't think I am ever going to know what actually happened. I am going in game tonight so I will see if all is ok still but I fear my short bit of playing the other night was just lucky.

Ok, now I have issues once again. Since I last posted, I have been using my ATI Radeon 9250 256mb card and have had no issues. Five days ago I thought I would try my new GE Force 7300 GT 512mb (?)card once again (system info is in the first post) since I was finished with all my contests. I created a new neighborhood as well as a related downtown neighborhood. I have 2 lots in the entire hood. I was furnishing a med. sized community lot using maxis items for easier game play and my computer once again went to the black screen, I was moving a maxis toilet stall when this happened.  As usual when this happens I was unable to get my windows screen to come up to end task. I shut the computer down holding in the button, turned it back on and went back to the lot. A while later I was moving a maxis chair and it happened again; black screen. This time I did nothing as the light on my computer was indicating it was doing something. All of the sudden I got blue dots all over the screen and then for a moment my game came back and the screen quickly turned black again. I waited again and for a minute my monitor message came up saying "mode not suppoted" then went black again and nothing happened after that.
My question is this: What the heck is going on, lol! I am assuming that it isn't my game crashing since I got the screen back for a moment and my game was intact. What is crashing; my graphic card, my monitor or my game? I am unable to get any error message from whatever crashed because of my black screen. I sort of looks like my monitor turned off but the light on it was on. I really want to figure out what the issue is with this card because my game is much quicker. I believe we have the latest drivers installed. Again any ideas would be so greatly appreciated! :sad4:

If it doesn't happen with your old ATI card, but does with your new GE Force card, then it's possible the new card is faulty.

I thank you Caffinated Joy for your help! It is appreciated. :)
I found a thread started by Dese that seems a bit similar but she didn't respond if the problem had been resolved. Her thread can be found  here  (http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?t=39135).

Quote Beosboxboy from Dese's thread:
Dese - you will need to disable hyperthreading in BIOS it seems

Beosboxboy, could this be my problem as well?
 Also, is this my card crashing or my monitor? I am very frustrated with this issue. I feel that it is my monitor crashing because of the things I mentioned in my post above Caffinated Joy's response but I really don't understand all this stuff. There isn't much technical support from this manufacturer that doesn't invole phone help for a fee, that I can find. My monitor is by MAG Technology. I attached more pics with info that may or may not be related about my monitor. I have tried changing/updating monitor drivers but there wasn't one for my model available. I know I may have to stick with my ATI video card but I really would like to use this GEForce if I can figure this out. NVidea hasn't been a lot of help either. I am sorry to keep posting on this issue but I am getting desperate! :smt106

TRL have you checked your connector wire from the monitor to the pc.. try wiggling it a little and see if it goes to black. I have had that problem with a monitor and jiggling the wire would cause it to flick back and forth as well.

Thanks Kathy, I tried it and unfortunately that wasn't the issue but I appreciate your help very much. Well hyperthreading was enabled and supported by this computer so we disabled it and it still crashed to the black screen, this time right after I saved. I am unable to get any error messages because of this. Is there a way to get/recover error messages from the computer if you had to shut down using the power button? I am going to see once again if NVidea can help since I am narrowing so many things down.*bangs head on desk* :) still trying to smile! LOL I will get to the bottom of this if it is the last thing I do dag nam it!

do you have both the ATI and and Nvidea drivers installed on your computer? If your new card isn't faulty, the problem could be with the different drivers conflicting with one another. (Just another shot into the dark from me ;))

Caffinated Joy has a point.  If you have both cards installed and two sets of drivers, this could definately present a problem.

You have to go into your hardware and set the chosen card and drivers as defaults and remove the other one.  I found that out the hard way too.

After looking over the images you post in #14 of this thread, I see nothing with those particular items that would lead to this issue, trl.

Before I start yammering a long while in techno-babble, I don't see anything in the posts above that indicate if this is a TS2 only issue or if it is happening frequently under all conditions.

If it is only during TS2, then there is clearly a conflict between the software and your system's set-up.  I will try to be as brief and informative as I may below, but it will be long and I ask you to look over these things carefully.

But let us think about these things in this order:

Hyper-threading

At the boot-up of the computer in BIOS there may be a setting to disable this, getting to your system's BIOS will require pressing some key or combination of keys; you will have to consult your system or motherboard user-manual to determine just what key(s)

Conflicting Hardware

Sometime two pieces of hardware just don't get along because they struggle for control of identical system resources; largely the plug-n-play technology of Windows PCs does not suffer this, but some times it does occur.  If you have any sort of built-in video card, you may need to disable this device in the System control panel - under device manager.

Possible sources other than a video card may be some USB device such as a scanner, camera, or multimedia adaptor.

Software conflicts

as DLMulsow remarks, having drivers for video cards that are no longer present may well cause issues.  In the Add/Remove Programs control panel make certain to remove all video card drivers there, even for your current video card, reboot the system as many times as it takes to remove each one, then re-install the most recent driver for your current video card from the nVidia.com website.

Insufficient power

Most newer video cards have very high power demands, most now require you have at least a 450 watt power supply, if you are using a pre-made system by a major manufacturer, they rarely add such a large wattage power supply, this could be part of your problem.

An older power supply, even 1 year old, may begin to drop off wattage production.  So it is generally advisable to replace the power supply once a year.  This was not a problem in the early days of computers, but since the days of the Pentium-III this has been a growing menace to computer owners.

Some systems have a BIOS that will display the voltage being fed to components, this is not necessarily a reliable thing, since one can only see the BIOS when the system is not under load.  If you can view these figures under load with some special software during Windows, you may see numbers below optimum and quite different from what you see in BIOS at boot-up when the system is pretty much at rest.

Case/Component temperature

In micro-electronics, heat is the rust of the technology era.  A temperature even 0.01° above the designed tolerances of the circuitry is enough to cause issues.  In the long run, the heating and cooling results in expansion and contractions that result on microscopic fractures that eventually lead to the death of components.  Many things can cause the heat production to increase.  A power supply that is old or clogged with dust may begin to feed uneven or lower than desired electricity to components.  Things will run hotter when they are running with too little power, fan motors burn out or fuse, and all leads to increased heat and faulty performance.

Look carefully at your case, does it seem dirty?  is it too close to a heat source such as a lamp or a window?  is there adequate air circulation around the case to allow for case heat to be dissipated to the larger area of the room?

Cleaning out the case with a can of compressed air will not hurt, no matter how clean it may appear.  Pay close attention to the very small wires on chips on the video card, motherboard, and RAM sticks.  Cleaning off any dust will improve the performance and eliminate this as a potent source of the problem.

If the hard drive is over-heating, this will cause all manner of problems.  Cases hardly ever allow for the heat production of modern large hard drives, so this could very well be your problem.

In any event, check all your fans and see if there are any that need replaced.

Potential Bad Components

Bad video cards happen far more now than formerly.  These things are mass produced in tropical locations with little or no concern for their well-being after manufacture.  They are stored in large metal warehouses beneath the equatorial sun and bake.  Then they are slammed with little concern into giant steel cargo boxes, dropped onto the decks of huge cargo freighters and shipped across the ocean.  The steel cargo box is generally exposed to the elements and may even be struck by lightning.  Then they are unloaded at some port, tossed about via lorries and freight trains with no protection against extremes of heat or cold, then dropped in a warehouse without any real temperature control.  Then they are handled again a number of times before you see them on the store shelf or some digital or print catalogue.

In truth, it is rather a miracle anything survives that sort of treatment, so it should not be at all surprising that some video cards have more "personality" than others of the same model. Truth be told, the £1000 video card and the £19 video card receive equally horrific treatment before you open the box; this holds true for every form of digital and electronic equipment.

Testing for a bad video card is not easy.  There is software that can check for certain things, but DXDIAG.EXE run from the "Run" on the start menu is about as good as anything you might easily use or understand.  It will also check your drivers and other Windows/DirectX environment for possible issues that may give you a clue as to where things are going wrong.

You will want to test your system's RAM to see if it has any bad chips.  You may only encounter this problem when the bad chip is accessed by a program that requires a large amount of system RAM to operate, such as The Sims 2.  You can download a number of different utilities that can do this, I prefer to use memtest86 - you can download a free copy here: http://www.memtest86.com/ (http://www.memtest86.com/)

You may have a hard drive that is nearing end of life, hard drives only have an expected life of about 3 years, it depends largely on how much you use then and whether you keep your computing environment to white room specification (most people don't).  Most hard drive manufacturers have some specific software that they recommend for testing the health of a hard drive, in all instances it is best to use their recommended software since this will read the error codes the hard drive produces and determine whether a replacement is necessary.  If the hard drive has problems, then it will most likely show them after something as demanding as loading TS2 happens.

Bad cables do occur, but I have only encountered this very rarely, which isn't surprising since humankind has been making wire for about 5000 years.  Still, look at the various wires in the case and connecting externals to the case, look for signs of obvious damage and heat stress.  Darkened, discoloured, cracked, or perforated coating is a sure sign they need replaced.

Closing thoughts

Updating your system's BIOS may be required.  Also whatever system resource drivers for the various USB chipset and other motherboard components may need to be updated.  Consult the technical support of your system manufacturer or the motherboard manufacturer for potential updates.

Run the EA diagnostic tool, EAsy Info - save the report to a text file, and paste it here.

Run the DXDIAG.EXE tool - run all of the tests and save the report to a text file, and paste it here as well.

Then try to remember when this problem started.  Think back and try to remember if there was anything no matter how small that you installed that might be a potential source of these problems.

If it proves to be an incompatability with Pets EP, could you live without that EP?

I hope that this has not been too long-winded for you.  I know you are nearing the end of your patience with this problem.  Bear up, and we may yet whip this thing.

You are such a sweetheart to take the time to help me. I cannot emphasize enough how greatful I am. Some of the questions I can answer immediately.

Software conflicts
 I don't have 2 cards on at the same time. My hubby removed the ATI card as well as any and all files/drivers related to it prior to putting this card back on. We also have the latest drivers installed, the 94.24, as our card manufacturer recommends (we had the 91 something driver before today). Still crashed.
He is actually quite computer "literate", I'm the one who isn't but I am learning everyday. You can teach an old dog new tricks LOL

Hyperthreading
We disabled hyperthreading and the problem still occurred so we have enabled it again.

Temperature
I check my temperature often, lately, and it stays at around 52 degrees even when I have been running the game a long while.(That is if it lets me play long lol). I also have the computer set to warn if it is getting too hot through my cards control panel. We also keep it dust free inside and out and are diligent about this.

Crashing only in game
This computer was purchased in December as a gift to me and I only have the SIMS and it's EP's installed as well as a few photoediting programs. That is all. It only crashes when I play this game. It hasn't crashed using the internet or photoediting programs, yet.  The GEFORCE card was purchased as a gift for my birthday at the end of April and has only been used for a total of about 10 days tops between my first installing it in April (then uninstalling it a few days later) and the past 3 days since I reinstalled it. I had went back to my ATI because I was in a few contests and needed my game to run. And it ran flawlessly with that Radeon 9250 card but my load time and such is better with a 512MB card. This leads me to believe the GE Force card is conflicting with something.

Hardware conflict
We do have an on board video card (it is an ATI motherboard type card) and I will have my hubby see if it can be disabled. Although I do have an exernal harddrive which is used only to back up data and such to keep my available memory as high as possible. The game is installed on the computers C drive.

As for my power supply, I am not sure about that. I didn't purchase anything like that or does it come with the card? Hmmm...maybe this is the problem! Wait I think mine is 350 watts. I will check into that.  I do believe something is conflicting with this "fussy" card because as I mentioned I have never had a crash with my ATI card. My hubby is teasing me that "If it ain't broke don't fix it" but I have a need for speed, baby, so this card with more video ram is just soo tempting. (Although my load time with the other card was not very long).
The thing that is getting to me is that last night when it crashed to the black screen my game came back for a minute, and I keep thinking it must not be the game crashing but the card or the monitor. The computers  yellow power light was solid, blinking then solid etc and my monitor power indicator was lit up so the monitor was not turned off. If only I could see the error messages!
 I have added the easy info file as well as the dxdiag file. They were very long so I compressed them to save space on the forum. I still have to run that Mestest thingy you linked me to but I will wait until tomorrow. I did notice on the Easy info report that I had 44 background tasks going on. WTF! Maybe I should turn some of them off. :idea1: :doh: :scratch: <--sorry I couldn't resist.

Thank you again for your time and patience with me. I know this isn't your "job" so I am very greatful for your kindness. I am in no hurry so read these at your leisure.  *big hugs and messy smoochies* ~TINA~

Hi again, Tina.

If you have a 350 watt power supply, this is most likely the cause of the issue.  Upgrading the power supply to 500 watts should cost in the area of USD $ 50-75 depending on your local source, similar figures in £/€ for anyone else reading this.

I read the files for DXDIAD and EAsy Info - both give what I would typify as "stellar" results; so we have eliminated software drivers and low system resources.  The only thing I saw that I don't care for was the monitor's refresh rate set to 60MHz.

Try looking on the MAG website and see if they have a download that will more properly identify the refresh rate for the game, it will likely be called a driver, but isn't really a driver.  Just a file with the proper refresh rates for the different dimensions the monitor supports.  The optimum will usually be 75 or 85 MHz; this will result in superior performance under DirectX.

If you can't locate a driver - in DXDIAG under "More Help" tab you will see a "Override" button - there you can manually enter a refresh rate to force the game to use in full screen mode.  Be sure to look at the monitor's user manual or the MAG Technologies website to get the proper value to enter.

No need to thank me, it may not be my job, but it allows me to be of some use to people to answer these more troubling questions and earn my keep as an admin :lol:

Hi, trl!

Don't know how much I can add to this conversation, but I was also having the problems you're describing, and (funny enough) I also have a GeForce card and a MAG monitor.  I got mine to work, so I thought I'd tell you what I did, just in case one of these things might be the fix.

First of all, I went through 3 video cards before I got the right one.  Beosboxboy is right--determining faulty cards is a pain!  The first two failed because they didn't have a place to plug the power supply unit directly into them, and the load of the game was just too much for them to handle, I guess.  I finally settled on a new GeForce 8600, updated the driver (like you've done), and changed the system BIOS from "onboard" to "PCI-e".  I also bought a new 650 watt PSU.  And though that made my game look really good, none of that seemed to do the trick.

I don't know how much cc you have in your game, but I had about 5.5 gigs (about 20,000 files), which I ran through the Sims2 Clean Installer.  I got rid of all the duplicate files, but I didn't find any problems.  Since the game worked without my cc, I decided to organize my downloads folder into subfoldered categories (kitchens, bathrooms, hacks and mods, etc.) and put them into my game one at a time to see if I could determine if it was a corupt file that was causing it.  Sure enough, everything was fine until I put my "Other" file in, and the crashes started again.  I took the file out, and put another one of my folders in, and the problem went away.  However, the more cc I put in, the more my game lagged and stalled.  I think I was battle a couple problems and didn't realize it.  So, the main problem was the corrupt file (which I still have to isolate), but I think my game also just might have a limit to how much cc it can handle before it slows to a grinding halt.  I have about 2.5 gigs in there now (11, 263 files), and I'm right on the edge.  It's a little jerky sometimes, but it's not crashing anymore.

So, I don't know if any of that will help you, but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.  Hope you find a fix soon!  I know how difficult withdrawal from your Simmies can be.  Good luck!

:)April

Hi Yakov,
   I went to the MAG website and there were no drivers for my monitor model. I also let Windows search and it said that I was up to date. My monitor is new so maybe I have the latest stuff available. I manually changed the monitors refresh rate to 75 (picked this at random) and did the same for my graphic card as well as in my game. I am not sure if they all need to be set to the same rate but it made sense to do it. My husband, Steve, said that he had disabled the onboard card before putting new card on so that is ok.

    I went in game for a short time and things seemed better. I messed around in a few different community lots and deleted items, added items and was able to save without any crashing. I wasn't in game long and will know more tonight but so far so good. :angel:

    As for the power supply, since the minimum required for my computer is 350 watts we are going to get a 500 watt supply, as you recommend, even if I have no more issues. I am sure that is in my best interest.

I also went to E-Machines and saw many drivers to download. We have never done this since I got my computer in December so I probably need to.  There are several available for my model here  (http://www.emachines.com/support/product_support.html?cat=Desktops&subcat=T-Series&model=T5048). There are ones for BIOS, Intel VIIV Driver1.5.1.188.50 , Chipset- Intel Quick Resume Driver,  Audio, Video, Fixed Drives-Intel SATA RAID Controller Driver and Chipset Intel Chipset Driver -Original Driver Version 8.0.0.1010. I know in your first post you mentioned chipset drivers so I definitely should download those but should I download all of them? (except of course the ones for Vista as I have Media Center edition of Windows XP. Also should I still run that other test you linked me to? I haven't done that yet.

I definitly see a light at the end of the tunnel! Again, I will know more later when I have more time to mess around with the game. Thanks again!

Sweetswami, thanks for your help as well. I do have many many downloads but my game runs very quick inspite of this. My issue only began when I put this card on and it just kept crashing. I do appreciate it though and I do need to clean out my D/L folder. Yuck!

Yeah, my game ran fine until I installed my new video card, too.  That's why I thought I'd mention it.  Turns out, the corrupt file is one that I've had for almost a year, not a recently downloaded one.  My old video card didn't have a problem with it, but my new one does.  Maybe it conflicts with the updated driver or something.  I didn't even know that was possible.  So, if all else fails, I'd suggest checking the cc.  It might be something you've had for awhile.

Good luck!  Hope you find the solution soon!

:)SS

That is always the first thing I check when I have trouble, I just put my D/L folder to the desk top. I don't use subfolders though, I like the chaos! lol  Thanks though, it was definitly worth a mention. :)

Well I have had the game running for about 4 hours decorating/furnishing community lots. I saved with no issues amd I even changed my graphic settings to high with reflections turned on then changed them again and all was okey dokey. (Sometimes changing my graphic settings would cause a crash). I don't want to speak too soon but it appears that changing the refresh rate has done the trick but I am still not gonna hold my breath yet. Tomorrow I will actually play one of my families and see how that goes. *crosses fingers*

it's not uncommon for games to have trouble identifying the abilities of certain video cards when they are new on the market and the game doesn't have a "recognition file".  What happens is games usually default to VESA mode (the 60 MHz refresh rate is a dead give-away here), this means base-line performance with almost no hardware acceleration (which is required for any sort of 3D fast rendering in a modern 3D game).  It can lead to the sorts of problems you encountered, rare but it does happen.

When I force my system into VESA mode, the game will still play, but with no high res capabilities, because the games "recognition file" has values for my card.  As I mentioned, video cards that are newer than the game tend to cause various problems, and we cannot hold game designers too accountable for the rapid release of dozens or 100s of new video cards per year.

I have heard the phrase "rust never sleeps" - well, in the same spirit, technology never sleeps either, but more like technology drinks 20 pots of coffee laced with crystal meth and crack every day so not only never sleeps but actively bounces off the walls and runs at 200 km/hr at all times.

ROFL I love your wit! Well thanks again and I hope this will be my last post on the subject. So it probably wouldn't hurt to download the E-machine drivers that I listed in post 23, right? *hides in corner for asking a question I already know the answer to* :)

Hello again, Tina :)

It sounds like this may have fixed your problem, and that is good news.

There is much wisdom in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"; but this wisdom is at odds with the gamer mentality, we are, after all, the peerage of over-clocking and system tweaking :lol:  But for now, just play your game and enjoy it, if you later feel the urge to trouble your sleep, come back here and do the following:

At your option, I would recommend doing the following updates from the web site you link in Post No.23:

Grant County BIOS Update - seems to worth the trouble

But download updates for this at the Intel download centre:

Intel VIIV Driver - Intel® Viiv™ Software 1.7 Upgrade (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=2223&DwnldID=13501&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All%20Operating%20Systems&lang=eng) - seems to correct a number of perfomance issues that make it worth the trouble of installing.

The rest have not been updated as far as I can discern, but maybe downloading from eMachines and archiving against future need would not be such a bad idea:

Intel Quick Resume Driver

Sigmatel Audio Driver

Intel SATA RAID Controller Driver

Intel Chipset Driver

If you upgrade to Windows Vista, then most of the needed updates will be available on the Microsoft Vista update site.  Because of the significant differences between XP and Vista, I would recommend that you make it a point to make sure there are Vista updates available for your hardware before upgrading.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Yakov

Here is where you can download a monitor driver for your MAG monitor: http://www.maginnovision.com/download.htm

Oh thank you. I purchased a 550 watt power supply an AGI-U550UBBK today (the store had a cheap 450 watt but no 500) and my hubby will install that and update all those drivers when he gets home. It has dual 6Pin power connectors forr PCI-E cards and supports NVidia technology. Hope I made a wise choice.

 It crashed 4 times yesterday to the blue screen when saving several different lots both small and large but only when I was going to the neighborhood. If I stayed on the lot and just saved it was fine. Again these are lots that I played regularly even on my old computer, a 4 or 5 year old Dell with 512mb total ram and a no nothing, unable to upgrade onboard graphic card. It was slow but never crashed. Haha go figure.

 I didn't want to post about the cashing until I got the power supply. I wanted to post only good news. LOL This truly must be the issue so I will see over the next day. I will be sure to post whether this solves the problem. :smt120

EDIT:My husband just put the power supply on and I am going to load the game in a bit but we found something surprizing when we removed the old power supply...it was only 300 Watts!! No wonder this card was crashing, it didn't even have the minimum required. When I purchased the card E-machine info said my computer had 350 watts packaged with it (the computer person who helped me at the store went on the website and checked) so we just believed that. :D I will let ya know but I have a good feeling about this!

A ha! That sounds like it's the culprit! Your 550 watt power supply sounds like it should do a great job of fixing things up, so your game should now run more smoothly. Good luck! I hope this means we'll be seeing an entry from you for the Man of the Season contest! :)

Aww. you pushin' my contest, Joy? Bless you! LOL Good luck with that, Tina, I had a similar problem with my power supply, so it may be very helpful!

Thankies Bren! LOL Joy, I decided to take a bit of a break from entering contests (I enter a lot at the adult site)  but the Man of Season's is killing me!! I stalk and stalk thinking "Must not enter, must not enter" I am just too addicted to contests.

 Well today I didn't play I just entered neighborhoods and lots to see if it would crash. I had my settings to medium with shadows and reflections off. I went to several lots and nieghborhoods just messing around with decorating and all saved fine.  Then I turned up my settings but kept shadows and reflections off. I tried to enter another neighborhood, it loaded then went to black (usually does for me for a second just before the hood screen comes up) and then it went back to the blue loading screen for the neighborhood; the screen was flickering over and over. It didn't do this before! The hourglass kept turning and turning; usually this hood takes about 30 seconds to load. I then clicked on the main menu and that came up and I went to a different neighborhood and that loaded fine.  This time I went to a larger lot, messed around there and saved and it crashed to the black screen.
After the crash to the black screen I had to hold in the power botton until it turned off. I rebooted and checked the temperature and it was 50 degrees. It was cooler than usual (52-53 degrees).

It did do much better than it has the last several days but it is still not right. I really want to just say "I quit!!!" but I don't want this "diva" of a graphics card to win darn it!! *sigh* I know that the 550 power supply definitely was needed and worth the money but am disappointed it didn't completely solve the problem. Well I still have 2 drivers left to update but I am tired of fiddling with this and will probably take a break from it tomorrow. Thanks for all the support from everyone who has taken the time to respond.  Next time I go in game I am going to play in Pleasantville or Veronaville without my downloads folder and see what goes on. I have already done this but it can't hurt to try again. :)  :chainsaw:

I adore my Nvidia card.  Now that that's out of the way, I had to install a heat-sink (a fancy fan) right underneath it, to keep it happy.  Mine was only a cheap model at $20, but well worth it.  The other thing is, after you finish getting the drivers updated (it shouldn't take long, even with a "knock-off" like mine) make sure that you run the tests, and check your SOUND DRIVERS.  No kidding.

I don't think I need a heat sink, Brenda. My power supply has a big fan on it. But then again, I am beginning to think I don't really know what I am talking about half of the time! :toothy10: :dontknow: :tard: ROFLMAO.

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue]UPDATE:[/COLOR]
I once again talked with my cards manufacturer and the tech believes there is some ATI data somewhere. He recommends using the repair disk for the operating system and if that doesn't work, a total op system reinstall. *I am keeping my fingers crossed!*  :notsmili:

SUCCESS!!!
Sorry to double post but I am finally not crashing!! After taking a day off from troubleshooting, my hubby and I went through each bit of advice given with a fine tooth comb because we didn't want to do an Full Operating Systems re-install. The last thing we did was look for ATI stuff we may have missed. A tech at E-Machines felt there were hidden/not obvious ATI files somewhere. We again looked in Properties and found nothing, we looked through add/remove and  C dive and again, nothing. So we then did a search and it brought up several ATI files for the integrated/on board card. Steve deleted them all. I don't know how these files were missed but they were. Everything is now running as it should. I even pushed the card, turning settings up and tried to load the large community lot that was crashing on load and it loaded! YAY! Lesson learned: Search is your friend! To all you wonderful people who offered help, especially Beosboxboy and Ancienthighway...