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151  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Sims disconnect my internet on: October 24, 2007, 07:32:51 am
Thanks again, Beosboxboy.
Did Seasons already have SecuROM, or BV? On the package it only says it is copyright protected, but it doesn't say how. I really think there should be a law that they HAVE to state which protection they use. Of course they don't, or else many people wouldn't buy their corrupted products anymore. I have a couple of games with StarForce. I really don't want to have that on my computer. So I use illegal copies to play games I legally own, that's really sad.

For the router theory: wouldn't it affect ALL computers behind that router? My flat mate's computer stays connected just fine, it's only my pc. Or does it only affect the one ip in the network that sends it's requests?
Sigh, I'm gonna have to talk to my flat mate. The cisco is his baby. The nice baby that prevents my ip phone to receive calls, because it's protocols are not compatible with our provider's.

Quote
..ATI has to be "cash efficient" -- read as cut every corner possible.


So true! What's left of support is one AMD phone line. English only. For the whole world. I am not a native speaker and it would be a lot easier for me to describe the nature of the graphics corruptions I experience in my own language. Now I am very unhappy with my (quite expensive) GPU and have no means at all to solve this problem. Well, I guess I'm not the only one who will vow to never again buy an ATI card. Did you ever compare the look of bumpmaps on sims clothes on ATI and GeForce? What looked really nice when I made it while using a GeForce, looks totally hideous with the Radeon...

And just the other week they made a big thing of their new driver. So much faster, so much better, blah. It made not only my 3D applications, but my whole system slow down graphically and I had to fall back to the older driver (yes, I thoroughly clean my system of possible remnants of the driver before installing a new one).

What I really don't get, is why a windowed sims game doesn't use the driver. And I can't find any setting in that monster of CCC that might change that. I played Seasons in a window for a while and I think I already had that ATI card, so this may be a BV problem. Maybe I should ask EA about that.

I tell ya, if it weren't for the great custom content from InSim and MTS2 (including the adult sites *g*), I would've quit playing sims long ago. EA/Maxis should be more aware of the fact how important that is to the success of the sims. Instead of throwing bigger stones in the path of the creators with every new EP. Pardon my ranting. Cheesy
152  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Sims disconnect my internet on: October 23, 2007, 04:08:12 pm
Gaaaaahhhh!
I really hate that ATI $&%!!
After I took a break from trying to start playing the game again (after a long break), I am trying again. But it's getting only worse.

I intended to heed beosboxboy's advice and start the sims windowed. Not that it would make any difference to the disconnecting problem. But now I can't even use the windowed mode anymore, because the window doesn't seem to use the GPU/driver. You know, like when you've erased an old driver to update to a new one.
The catalyst control center is really of no use, I can't change any settings for overlay/3D that would make ANY sense.
Doesn't anyone want to swap my X1950XT for a proper GeForce card? Something in the 8800's maybe? Wink

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

On the other matter, I still didn't find any cause, let alone a solution. The Taskmanager didn't reveal anything and the stupid game keeps disconnecting me. Sorry, I say stupid game, because it is NOT supposed to do that. I can't have that. I need to be able to look up stuff. Because the game very often makes me want to look up things. And I need to be able to download files without exiting the game every time. That only leads to never starting the game again in the end. Bravo, Maxis!

More ideas, anyone? Sad
153  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Sims disconnect my internet on: October 08, 2007, 06:11:08 am
Hi beosboxboy, thanks for further input.
Okay, my internet connection is called DSL, which is basically an open line, the modem only needs to reconnect once or twice a month, IF the company did some maintenance. I don't use the Windows firewall cos I am safe enough with the hardware firewall on the cisco router.

Quote
If you have installed Bon Voyage expansion pack, then you can count yourself among the 10s of 1000s of other players "enjoying" this sort of problem. There is a raging mob of dissatisfied and angry customers just begging for a chance to use a baseball bat on the management at EA.


Lol. Yeah, you're right. They really lost it now. The Sims is the most sold and least copied game there is and yet they think it might be cool to do what all the other kids, um, companies do and spoil it for the honest customers. Ah well...
And I really wouldn't be surprised if that problem would've manifested after Bon Voyage, what with that stupid launcher. But it was there before. Very strange.

Quote
As for you thinking that alt-tab'ing in and out of the game doesn't result in performance woes, all I can guess is that your game's performance must be pretty miserable to begin with. Switching in and out of the DirectX control of the hardware will always result in some degree of performance fall-off and it is strongly recommended by EA that if you have the need to do this sort of thing, that you should use windowed mode.


I meant, when I am currently on the desktop, I can't have a bad performance in game, because I am not playing and wouldn't know. I didn't notice performance fall-off yet and it isn't miserable. I upgraded for seasons, now have a dual core cpu, two gigs of ram and a ATI X1950, that should suffice for now. But you're right of course about the windowed mode. I guess I just didn't think of modifying my link since the new version (BV) and am too comfortable with edge scrolling, which doesn't work in window. But of course it is easier to switch between tasks. And I did run Seasons windowed, but the connection problem was there. Sad

I really wonder why I seem to be the only one to experience that problem, at least since Seasons. Did that phone home, too? Then maybe it tried to keep a line open, so to speak, and the router would inhibit that for as long as the game would be open... mh... got to take a close look at those logs, I suppose. And I've yet to do the logging LuckyKitten suggested, so I'll first do that and then squint at the cisco logs and report back then.
154  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Sims disconnect my internet on: October 07, 2007, 08:45:04 pm
Hm... I didn't notice any changes in the processes for my user - I check every once in a while because there's always some to better kill off that are not useful at the time, but hog memory or cpu.

Also I believe I had many different settings over time and there's been not one where the game AND the internet would work together. Since Seasons, that is. Since this occured first, I built a new pc, so video and audio are different hardware than before. But I'll be sure to take a very close look at the task manager the next time I start the Sims. Thanks for the tip - although, lazy that I am, I prefer to make quick screenshots instead of writing it all down. Cheesy
155  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Sims disconnect my internet on: October 07, 2007, 03:09:42 pm
Well, when I want to look up something, I alt-tab out of the game anyway, so it can't possibly slow down gameplay. Also, my pc can handle it and as I said, I am online all the time, I'd have to physically pull a plug to disconnect. [sarcasm start] Or start Sims.  Thank's for a feature I didn't ask for. [sarcasm end]
So thanks for your contribution, but the answer didn't have anything to do with the question. Wink
156  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Sims disconnect my internet on: October 07, 2007, 12:25:30 pm
Since Seasons my pc goes offline when I start the game (by default I am online the moment I turn on the pc). So I can't do anything in the background like downloading or looking something up when a problem with the game comes up.

I tried to search for the problem cos I doubt that I'm the only one experiencing this, but I couldn't find anything about this annoyance. Or I am too stupid to use the search.
Is this a known problem and is there a solution for it?
157  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Is it possible? on: June 22, 2007, 09:28:59 pm
SimPe. But that's even more complicated if you've never even used BS.

And you can't just open a file in BS, you'll have to "create parts" -> "clothing" -> select the outfit in question -> click on the export button at the bottom (that makes themeditable, but also produces a lot of junk -> mark all the categories you want the outfit to appear in -> update tooltip -> import into game.

It's quite easy, but you'll have two same pieces now. And because BS is soo very practical, it won't let you delete anything in "create parts" mode. That's why you now click on "create sim" and search the outfit there. Identify the old one by your tooltip and delete it. Also, there's the junk from the exporting, so you'll have to go to EA Games/The Sims 2/Projects and delete the folders there. If you forget to do that, you'll suddenly find that there are hundreds of MB of unneeded files that may crash your CAS. And while you're in the neighborhood (literally, not the folder), go to Saved Sims and get your newly created files out of there (don't let that folder clutter, too) and move them to your downloads folder.

This procedure is a little annoying, so it is only practical if you want to change but a few outfits. If you intend to recategorize lots of your clothes, you should find the tutorial over on MTS2 and do it with SimPe. Looks scary the first time you use it, but that'll pass quickly.

Hope I could help!
158  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / What does this mean? on: May 25, 2007, 11:24:58 am
Quote from: Squinge;740760
disabling hacks won't risk anything Smiley

Thank you very much for that sound advice, Squinge. Smiley

But I wondered about disabled files, that are not hacks, because all offed hacks I did off myself for compatibility issues and I know where to find them (very organized folder structure).

I think they are mostly clothes and some objects. But I think I can live without those, if not, I'll follow the sugestion from ancienthighway. Thanks. Smiley
159  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Unbearable Lag; Choppy game performance for no reason on: May 25, 2007, 08:11:08 am
Your copy of the Sims has expired it's shelf life, you got to get a new one, like Maxis designed it.

I'm sorry, I know this isn't funny when it happens to you, I am deeply ashamed. I had a bad problem myself for the last MONTHS: my CAS would terminate the game each time. Even without ANY custom content. I tried EVERYTHING I could think of. And just yesterday I found out what had caused that problem. As simple as a couple of mp3 files in the CAS music directory. One of them must've gotten corrupt.

What I want to say with that: think OUTSIDE the box. Look at the other files as well, which are not in the downloads folder. Look at your dvd, is something wrong with that? Did you do a full scan disk with surface check (sorry not familiar with the names of the routines on English windows)? Also, there's a tool which checks your RAM physically, try a google search. Did you try another performance hungry game and did it run smoothly? Hmm... that's all I can think of for now. Good luck and please report back.
160  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / What does this mean? on: May 23, 2007, 03:22:28 pm
Quote from: ancienthighway;728013
CI won't disable any files automatically, you have to do it.

I suspected the game disabled the files. Because I know which files I offed myself. And those I wondered about, definately weren't amongst them.
So my question was basically, if the game did such a thing by itself.

Quote
To reenable those packages just change the extension from .off to .package.  You can do this manually, or using CI.

Weellll.... I do know how to rename a file... but I am not sure if I'll be risking my game if I do that. And that is because, see above, I know that I didn't off these particular files myself. So I don't feel that your answer really applies to my case. But it's not that important, I have other issues with my game that annoy me currently. Wink
161  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Uploading custom content and finding it on: May 16, 2007, 09:21:34 pm
You'll find your stuff here: (path to: ) EA Games\The Sims 2\SavedSims.
Don't try to rar and upload the package files from the Projects folder, they are not finished.

I recommend to clean out both the Projects folder and the SavedSims folder, as they may crowd your game and crash CAS if you don't do that (my CAS crashes anyway, but I can at least use it for a couple of minutes).
The files in the SavedSims folder go into your downloads folder (you can make a separate folder four your own stuff, so you'll find it easier later). The content of the Projects folder you can delete completely, except for the "HomeCrafterPlus" folder, if it is in there.
162  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / What does this mean? on: May 15, 2007, 02:24:40 pm
Why would clean installer disable packages by itself? They unhealthy?
Because I've been wondering about these packages, that I definitely didn't off myself (pardon the pun). Files I did off myself are usually hacks that don't work with another hack, but I want to keep nevertheless for sometimes I want to use different hacks, depending on what I'm doing right then.

I wondered if I could enable those files, but didn't dare for fear of crashing my game with them. Seems to have been a wise descion. Wink
Soo.. in conclusion, it is possible, that a file breaks once in a while and when I make a full CI scan to find duplicates for example, they are being disabled?
So, if I want those offed packages, I can reinstall them from the original archive, if I still have it and it'll be okay again?
163  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Need help transferring data to new PC on: May 07, 2007, 05:48:54 pm
Quote from: Beaucat001;717051
This is despite the fact that I've downloaded Seasons and clicked on the Seasons shortcut to start the game.

What exactely do you mean by "download"? Downloading is receiving something from a remote server (internet). I guess, you mean that you copied data from your old pc and put it on your new pc, right?

Sooo... you didn't install the Sims, but rather copied all the data to the correct path where it's supposed to be? That doesn't work. You have to get all your cd's and dvd's out and properly install the game and every ep (plus patches in the proper order: game, patch, game, patch...). Then I'd recommend you run the game once and make sure it's all fine. After that, copy all your custom data to where it belongs (mostly the download folder and subfolders, if you have them).

Is that it or did I understand you completely wrong with what you meant by "downloading"?
164  Simmers' Paradise / General Sims 2 Help / Can't Fish on: May 07, 2007, 01:48:48 pm
Quote from: LittleRed;710838
Just a note....adult sims cannot catch fire flies and butterflies...only young child sims.  Sad


That is not true. If that is the case for you, it's another of your specific problems.

May I give you a little tip for the cleaning/searching procedure?
I hope you have the hacks in a seperate folder, or else this is kinda pointless: I'd first remove the whole hacks folder and try if everything works as it should. If that's the case, I'd split the folder in half, put one half in... you see where I'm going with this? You can keep splitting, instead of testing them one by one, which is REALLY time consuming.

And... 32,000 downloads? Whoa, I thought I am too greedy for not managing to keep the number under 5,000! Currently it's about 6,700 in 130 sub-folders... and I just don't have sub-subfolders, because clean installer can't work with them...
165  Sims 2 Community Downloads / Misc. Mods and Careers / Auto Compost of Tending Garden Plants/Trees on: May 07, 2007, 11:02:37 am
I kept wondering why it wasn't like that before - you made another fix, not a hack, lol. Thanks a lot!

Do any of you ever suspect, that Maxis makes totally stupid and illogical things on purpose to keep the modding community occupied?
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