Insimenator.org

Hi

First i apologize if i do some language's mistakes but i'm french :D

Now my biiiiiiig problem:

one week ago i bought a new computer.
CPU Intel Dual Core 6420
3 Go RAM
Graphic card Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTX (768 Mo RAM)
no sound card, sound comes from my mastercard.
All my drivers are up to date. (i checked again yesterday, no new version)
i'm working with win XP Pro SP2

I installed the game and all the EP's on my new computer, loaded my saved downloads , ran the game and .... it crashed after 5 min  : fatal error has occured the program will be close (or something like that, it's translated from french ;)  )
The game was working with the same downloads on my old computer, but just in case i deleted all the downloads . Same problem again :sad3:

to make a long story short
i formated my hard drive and installed windows again
installed the game and all ep's.I applied the appropriate pach after every installation, before the next one.(game , patch, ep1, patch ......)
didn't put any download file or lot in my ea games\sims2 folder
stoped my fierwall,antispyware, antivirus (and my internet connexion too to avoid any risk)
went in task manager and stopped every non system task exept explorer and task manager (as suggested in the sims 2 official website )
launched the game
enter in pleasantville and waited 2 min in the neighborood doing nothing ....
and the game just stopped, without any error message :(

has someone any idea of what's the problem ?

thanks for your help !

Perhaps you have spyware or a virus. I'd suggest doing a scan on your complete system.

I forget to say it, but i did
i scanned with 2 antivirus both up to date with virus definitions, and 2 antispywares, both up to date too and my computer is perfectly clean

It sounds like you may still have something running in the background interfering with your game.

how could i know what it is ?

as i said in the first post, befoer launching the game i stop all the process running that are mine and not to the system. So it should be a system one ?

thanks for both very quick answers :)

Before I load my Sims, I press the  Ctrl,shift, and the Escape keys together, it brings up the task manager, under processes I click the user column to sort everything to do with my logon, under my name I disable (highlight the line and click on end process) for each idividual item listed) everything that is running in the background except explorer and the task manager.  If you have Vista however I don't know if the process is the same(I got the instructions for this from the small booklet that comes with the game, it lists it out step by step**look in yours, hopefully it would be in French making all easier for you).

I have XP so that's how it works.
That's exactly what i do. I stop every process that are  under my name exept explorer and task manager :)
sorry if i didn't explain it properly

I don't really see what the problem would be with a new computer, but I would start by looking at the forum at EA.  There are several issues with both NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards.  I know because I had issues with mine and had to go to the forum to find out what to do.  My card is not the same as yours although it is NVIDIA so I don't know if or what issue there may be, but that is what I would start with.  I also thing beosboxboy has a post here on some of the cards and issues.  Will try to find it.

I went there and there's nothing about my graphic card , they only say about Geforce 7400 or 7500 i dont remember

I posted a question to the support , saying exactly what i said in my post.
And they answered : ensure that your graphic card and sound card drivers are up to date ......

i'm not sure they even read my message. that's the first thing i wrote ...

Did you try to load another hood than pleasantview to see if the same thing will happen?

When trying to load Pleasantview, did you saw a mention of "creating seasons" on your screen?

If not, I am thinking the game is trying too and cannot for some reason, maybe the seasons ep did not install correctly, you might want to try and uninstall and reinstall that ep only.

yes i tried with all the neighboroods and i have the same problem
and the seasons are created, pets too, no problem at all with that.

I'll try without entering in any neighborood, just to see what happends. But if it works it wont be very helpfull to play ^^

Are you sure the weather is created correctly?  

Normally after the game creates the weather it should load the hood.  It does not seem to do that for you so maybe the problem is there.

You could try and create a new cc hood to see if the same thing will happen, if it hangs again after the creating weather message it is something about that part that is not working correctly.

Did you do a dxdiag and test your videocard to see if it is ok.

You can run a dxdiag by clicking the start button, choose the "run" option and type dxdiag in the window.  Once it is done, there are option in there to test your videocard.

EDIT:  En passant je suis francophone moi aussi alors si tu as des problèmes à expliquer certaines choses en anglais, n'hésite pas à m'envoyer un "PM".

i followed all your advices

to be sure i even uninstalled everything, installed it again exept the last  EP and tried to play with pets .... nothing changes :(

and about the dxdiags i ran it and everythig is ok. i ran all the tests in there, graphic ones and sound ones.

that problem is driving me crazy :(

I wished I could help more but your problem is starting to drive me nuts too.

Did you try to play other 3d games to see if they are working fine?  Maybe another game will give you your much needed error message.

Very good idea !
i'll try with oblivion. This one is quite sensitive too :D

If it works properly i guess it's a compatibility problem with my mothercard
maybe ea games didn't try with it so they still dont know ...

anyway i'll post the solution when i'll know it.

thanks again for everybody's help !

After a lot of tries and two extremly useless answers from the french EA Helpdesk i think i found the solution here:
http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=06c442234ffa7adb4557aaac3804ab89&directoryID=21&startRow=1&openItemID=item.21,item.61,item.41,item.127,item.23 (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=06c442234ffa7adb4557aaac3804ab89&directoryID=21&startRow=1&openItemID=item.21,item.61,item.41,item.127,item.23)

Seemes that the problems is very well known since at least 2 years with the GeForce graphic cards .
And Nvidia endly found the solution :D

I'll try with that beta driver and let you know if it works as soon as i can

By the way my computer crashes too with Oblivion. But i could play one or two hours before crashing.
But then i remembered that it use to happend too with my old GeForce 6800 GT graphic card.

So i hope that driver will solve both problems ;)

No change at all :(

I'm afraid my new computer has an hardware problem ...
Anyway i hope that new driver will solve the problems for others !

Thanks for the follow up.  Sorry about your card problems I hope they can find a way to fix that.

After 3 hours looking on every technical forum i could fin , i have the solution :D
In fact the driver works fine, but the old driver has to be removed wih an apropriate tool and not just with the windows installer.

I'm playing since 15 min and no crash ! Of course maybe i'm too optimistic, but before the max i could stay in the game was 5 minutes.

*smacks self on forehead* I should have thought of that! I'm glad you got it worked out!