I know that I have the same video card that you have and I recently needed to update the drivers. You can do that on the Nvidia website. I update them not because of Sims but because of another game that had higher expectations. Also Look at the other threads in this board you might not have enough ram. I know that Vista almost always needs more ram than a computer that uses xp. Why? I don't know but my guess would be something to do with virtual memory.  I saw an estimate stating that Vista my need 3gb also I believe I read on here that the black screen could be a symptom of you processor not cutting and the computer shuts the program down because its overheating?

Based on my own computer knowledge and just reading about other peoples problems the above is my guess as to whats going on.

Sometimes if your sim is in a bad mood they won't want to change their appearance or if there is an event going on.

As for you Video Card check Best Buy, a good one can be a decent chunk of cash so until you save up turn your settings way down. Also you may want to check on your ram. I was just reading another thread in this board and seems like allot of people that are having problems don't have enough.

I know I have 2gb ram, Nvidia geforce 7600 video card, and a 3.06 ghz processesor and I don't have any issues at all.

Here's a link to the BB site:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat168200050003&type=category&cpncode=733a2944-d0c0-441e-85c8-e593bd77a94e

Remember that you can only have as good a video card as you have slots on your motherboard so you may just want to pack the tower up there with you if you go and dump it on the geek squad(or whatever they have) desk and say"Tell me what I can get."

*Fixed the link*

I've been playing Sims3 for a few days now and I really like it. I have no modding ability and it is nice to be able to make things all matchy-matchy. Also I noticed allot of the features people have a problem with can be turned off in the options menu. You can stop the story progression, aging, whatever. I bought mine at Game Crazy and my Fiancée' is all about hating secure rom and is a computer programmer ( so I would assume he knows things about things that have to do with computers), so he did some weird techno magic to check things out and its not on my computer. I suspect that if I ever ended up with it on my computer it would probably explode in morally outraged goodness.

That said, Sims 3 runs really well. Its so much faster than Sims 2. The frustrating I'm-going-cry laggyness is gone and I like traveling around the neighborhood. The only thing I miss is the pets expansion. I have all the Sims 2 expansions and I realize now thats the only one I really liked. I obviously like bits and pieces from all of the various expansions but thats the one I miss the most. I don't agree that just because Sims 3 doesn't have a bunch of content packs that its not worth playing. I mean there are lots of reasons to like this game and I remember when Sims 2 came out and everyone was up in arms about how they would never play Sims 2 and that it sucked so much more because you couldn't be Harry Potter in magic land.

I figure this too shall pass.

Thanks these are great!

You know I don't say much...err...or anything at all. But I read all the threads here and promote it as my favorite site. When I saw the pay announcement I turned to my boyfriend and said, " This is the day The Sims died..." and made this face >>>>=(<<<< except with flesh and muscles and such. I was budgeting donating to Insim in my monthly budget when I realized that it was April 1st. So my cat can continue to have cat food (I hope), I was going to cut that out, and my donation awareness has been awakened with a bucket of cold water.  

Funny how money can do that to you.

I don't really post often. But I had to just to say how wonderful your dresses are. ^^