Game is crashing

[sims2groupie]

Ok so I went out and bought a new video card today because the game wouldnt even stay playing into create a sim. All the hair styles werent showing up and the game kept crashing. Now I installed the video card and my game worked for a good hour or 2 in create a sim. It was a little slow but it worked perfectly. Then I moved her into a house and this is when it started crashing again! I tried the game compatability test and I passed. I have a compaq Presario which is about 2 years old if that. I just got a Nvidea geforce 8400 gs with 512 mb. I have 1.5 RAM, plenty of hard drive space, and windows xp sp2. My processor is an athlon 64 with 2.2ghz. I'm quite low on money, but I'm assuming its crashing because of RAM. I was planning on buying some, but is this a good idea? A  message came up like the 5th time opening the game after it worked saying my video card isnt compatable. I just spent more than 60 dollars. It'd be greatly appreciated if someone could help because I did enjoy what I got to play and this is frustrating. Thanks in advance! 

[Chaavik]

Did you check the official list of supported video cards for the game?

Also, have you gone to the manufacturer's site to download the latest drivers for your new video card?

And, if you installed the new video card and drivers, you should also re-install DirectX 9 after you get it from Microsoft's site. Sometimes installing video cards and its drivers will uninstall DirectX.

These are a few things to look into and check to make sure you got the latest video drivers and get DirectX reinstalled.

[sims2groupie]

It wasn't listed but it says fx 5900 or better and mine is a 8400. Plus I talked to the guy from geaksquad. He helped pick it out. What is the latest drivers? I'm not very good with computers. I just want to make sure I dont waste any more money than I have.

[Ali]

Have you checked in your My Documents\Sims 3 folder? There should be a text file starting with x - it produces one every time the game crashes, I know coz I had issues with mine last night!

Look in the text file and read it, see if it gives you any indication of what the problem is - mine was a missing dll file

[kaoz666]

I don't know about how things are where you live, but here in NYC Geek Squad advice is as helpful as having eyes on the back of your head in a Guillotine. Like Chaavik said, your 1st step should be checking to see if your drivers are up to snuff. You can do so by accessing your control panel (or whatever it's called on Vista, I still run XP). I'll explain it in full for if you're running XP...

Step I - Locating the GFX on your system

1st order of business, go to your Control Panel, then located the "Systems" icon. Click it, then click the "Hardware" tab. This will bring up a window that lists all the hardware you have running on your PC. Locate the drop down that says "Display Adapters". This will show you the GFX Cards running on your rig. Double click the one you want to check and it will open another window, this one showing all the diagnostic info of the GFX card.

The device's product name
The device type
The manufacturer
The location of the device in your system's set up. (Example: My GFX Card is in the 3rd PCI Slot on the Motherboard, so it displays "PCI Slot 3)

Underneath all of that it shows a dialog that's labeled "Device Status". If your card is operating correctly, inside of the border it should say this.

This device is working properly.

If you are having problems with this device, click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter.

This means there's nothing wrong with the card. There's pretty much no need to go further at this point if that's what the Device Status is. It's definitely your PC not having the punch needed to run the game, not the GFX card. However, if it says anything else aside from what's italicized above, move on to the next phase.

Step II - Trobleshooting if your GFX Card isn't functioning correctly.

So your card isn't working properly, be it the Drivers aren't valid, or your system isn't even reading the damn thing as being connected. Here's where we attempt to fix it. Underneath the Device Status dialog, there's button that says "Troubleshoot". Don't even bother clicking it...it's not gonna help you a damn bit. Go back to the top of the window and click the Driver tab. You'll see a whole bunch of buttons:

Driver Details
Update Driver
Roll Back Driver
Uninstall

The one you want is the 1st button, Driver Details. Click it. Yet another window will open, this one showing all of the drivers for the GFX card as well as the locations of them on your hard drive. If you see them, that means they're on your system, they're just not doing what they're supposed to. If you don't see anything, then that means you ain't got the drivers for the GFX card, and you'll have to download them and install them as per the requirements of whatever brand your card is. In either case, you need to update your drivers. Exit that window, and back in the Driver Tab, click the Update Driver Button. This will bring up a window asking for you to insert the installation CD the came with your card. Do it. Follow all of the prompts given to install the drivers. A lot of times people install a new device to their PCs and assume the drivers are installed along with the device, sometimes that's not the case, and sometimes it is, they just need to be reinstalled on TOP of the initial installation again. If you follow everything that's asked of you for the installation, the updated drivers should be installed correctly, and things should run as they should. If it doesn't...you've got a problem that's way more then just the need of new drivers.

You can also find the drivers usually from the manufacturer's website, but that's only for advanced users who know where the drivers are supposed to go. (Like myself.) Hopefully this will help you out some. Another thing to take into account is how much memory your system is running on. You might need to increase your Virtual Memory and create a Non-Dynamic Paging file to pump a lil' more juice out of your rig. But try what I've suggested above 1st. See if it's your card or your system causing your crashes 1st.

[saowens]

The card can show up as working properly in device manager even without the latest drivers installed. That display is only based on the windows os. It tells you nothing about how hardware will react with other programs installed on the pc.

Do what Chaavik recommended. That's an older Nvidia model card and it could have loaded a down version of direct x and I'm sure the drivers it loaded are out dated also.

[sims2groupie]

  Ok I did all that you guys told me to and still it crashes in create style or when im zooming in and out of the neighborhood. The screen will turn dark

[gazania]

It might be one of two things, and neither one is very pretty.

See this link:

http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:System_Requirements/MTS2_Recommendations

It looks like the card is iffy at best with some Sims 2 expansions. (Yes, yes, I know that's Sims 2. More on that later.)

Many 8400-series cards had a problem. (As did certain 9600-series cards, by the way ... I have a similar problem with Sims 2.) And if you try getting help from NVIDIA, certain individuals will make it look like YOU screwed up something. Don't let them make you feel that way. Most likely, you didn't.

But you may argue, "AHA! But you're talking about the Sims 2! This is Sims 3!" Perhaps, but I'm not too sure that NVIDIA ever fixed the core problem, or when the card you bought came out. If it was an earlier version, you might be more at risk of having a defective card, I believe. Once again, I found that was the case with me and my 9600.  What is infuriating is that I didn't see the problem with several other games on my machine. It seems like sometimes, the Sims games act as a lightning rod when a video card experiences problems! And I wouldn't be at all surprised if a dozen people with 8400-series cards post on here and proclaim that they never had a single problem with any Sims game. This doesn't affect all cards in a series.

It's frustrating, I know. Boy, do I know. Good luck. If there is any way to RMA the card, you might want to find out, just in case. Or if someone you know has a spare card from another NVIDIA series just laying around ....

[sims2groupie]

I talked to a guy from EA today and I was told the game should work I just need to change my Nvidia settings or something. I'm so lost

[Llial]

First download the newest driver for the card. It cost nothing. That is free.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us It is easy to find your driver. Make sure when you install the driver, that your Anti-Virus is turned off. After installing you can turn it on again.

It's a while that I used nvidia cards, so I'm not sure what that guy said about the settings. Can you post me the link?

[sims2groupie]

I called EA so I dont know exactly what he was talking about, but the game has been playing more. The only issue I have is it will crash sometimes plus it messes up in create a sim a lot. Could this be my RAM? Because the game is going really slow.

[SimGirl20]

Heh, you sound like your surprised that the game is crashing? Well if you are, then you and 200 more over at the tech forum at OS is as well.. anywho I am having major issues with my game as well, I know that when I first played the game, the game defaulted my settings to low, and it took me 3 hours in CAS (no joke!) to make a sim, because the clothes catagorey would take 5-10 minutes at best to load. Even when I place a new object on my sim, her portrait at the lower bottom would go blank, apparently processing the change, and then change to what I put on her 5 minutes ago. Furthermore any sim whether it be CAS or already in the game sim, will stand in one spot for 20 minutes before moving and even then when she does move she moves verrryyyyy slowly I have also noticed the audio in my game will skip, almost like its buffering. I have 448 MB of RAM. That might be the problem. I am also running an NVIDIA 6150 LE (which according to EA is not a supported VC) yet I have had no crashes. I also checked my dxdiag report and it showed that my VC drivers are out of date 3 years, so I am currently working on updating them as we speak, hence the reason I'm still yapping on here, this late at night. I also had to get off the tech forums over on the OS, before I got banned for cussing some people out! Let me explain, okay you are supposed to use a tech forum to report problems with your game, right? well here lately I have noticed people that games are working for them saying stuff like "Oh leave poor EA alone, go buy a new computer noob" and so on, I am just getting really pissed about people coming in the tech forum and more or less 'rubbing it in the faces of the unfortunate ones faces that there games work, Haha' I mean seriously if you can play your game then why go in a tech forum and make the people that can't even more miserable?! My advice to them is to STFU and go play the magic and rainbows shiny new TS3 games and gtfo..

Anyway I hope you get your game working, I didn't mean to be rude if it was implied that way, I am just sick of people being all big-headed when there games work, and just trying to say its more than likely NOT your computer but that of the game as well as EA, and this should all be remedied soon with a patch. When ever thats going to be!

[Llial]

You need more RAM to. The minimum for Sim3 is 2gig for Windows xp.

[Ali]

Sims2Groupie - have you looked in your error log to see if it highlights a problem??

[sims2groupie]

Well I played last night for like an hour or two. Then I was using create a style for my furniture and it crashed. After that I logged into the game again and it didnt even load, and the next time I clicked it I got a message saying error 0 I believe. It said my videocard is not supported. The guy from EA told me it was. So right now I'm guessing I'm having some sort of glitch with my videocard could it be overheating? Because it seems to play perfectly well until about a couple hours in. I'm planning on getting a GB of RAM soon when I get the money because the game is fairly slow, plus who knows? it could stop the problem. I've been messing around with my videocard, but to be honest I have no idea what I'm doing. I just hate talking to people at best buy and such because they make it seem like I'm an idiot. Thanks to all of you trying to help me in this frustrating time. It has helped because the game wasn't even playing when I got it. I guess patience is a virtue here. Slow and steady progress.