List your Bon Vonyage bugs and compatabilty issues

[One4JW]

Hi
I'm new to the posting area of this site, but since BV came out I've been lurking in the shadows reading all the posts.

I have noticed something with the beach lots that I think is weird, but not a bug.  With Insim installed you don't have the sunbathe option etc... but if you click on the water you can still have your sims 'get in' but you have to be facing the water from the front of the lot.  Even without Insim when you click on the water from behind the lot you get nothing.  

Just thought I'd share an observation and hopefully this will be helpful to some of you because for some reason I am more comfortable watching my sims from behind the lot and not from the front (street) as I think others may be as well.

[Cleo999]

Hi everybody.
So far, BV is the only expansion I've ever had problems with (and I have all of them). Thanks to Pescado, I never experienced the spamming issue, but my game does have a bad habit: sometimes it freezes for a couple of minutes, sometimes the image goes blue (a nice shade of blue, but really annoying!) for some minutes, once the game crashed and I had to restart my PC.
I found out that saving after these events (well, except for the crash) does help the game to run smooth. However, they keep happening randomly.
I don't have hacks / mods on (excpet for Pescado's antispamming). I'm wondering wether this could be due to a sound card problem? It is DirectX9 compatible, but reading your previous messages has started me thinking.
Any idea?

[simkitty]

I lowered my audio settings in the game and turned off shadows and reflections and that seemed to decrease the lag.But I was also informed that there may be a memory leak with the game launcher itself from what i read on another forum.Go figure.The atiredudancy hack stopped the Charlatans and Tourguides so now I have 7 charlatans and 3 tourguides but in the main hood I noticed it creatd 3 of those 7 there....wierd EP ahhh UNI days revised.

[blu00]

Hi all

I have noticed something again and it's pretty annoying. My mystery hut won't load. I don't know if anyone else has this problem but I really hate it. I almost have my "complete" traveler sim but unfortunately I can't go on that lot. Anyone has any idea about this?

[Deviancy]

My bad, I forgot list one of the things that helps with the lag somewhat.  Someone had already mentioned it so I didn't put it in my list.. so I'll do the list of tricks again..

1. Go into My Computer > C drive > program files > EA Games > The Sims 2 Bon Voyage >  TSBin

You'll see a few pretty icons.. One of them is called "Sims2EP6".  Right click on that icon, click on create shortcut.  Now you'll have something called "shortcut to sims2ep6".  Drag it out of that window and put it on your desktop.  Once it is on your desktop delete the shortcut to Bon Voyage that you had prior to the one you just made.  What that does is it bypasses the stupid launcher that BV has. This helps with the lag a bit if you have a dozen other processes running such as virus programs and what have you.

But you're not done yet..

Now what you want to do is you want to right click on the new shortcut that's on your desktop.  Left click on properties.. then you'll see the "compatibility" tab.  Click on it.  Put click on the box that says "Run this program in compatibility mode for".. then use the drop down box to pick Windows 2000.. click apply.. click ok.. you're done.  This trick helped me with the lag a little bit, the audio still clips but not as bad.  

2. Run the game..

3. Once in the game go to options, go to audio.. lower the audio quality as far as it goes. Remember.. the audio quality not the music volume.

4. Go to graphics options.. set shadows to medium or disable them.. your choice.  Make sure your refresh rate in that window is the same you use on your desktop.  Most likely you're using 60.. that's the norm.  Disable reflections as well.. helps quite a bit.. especially if you're using a lot of custom content.  And like I said before, do you really need to see your sims reflection in a mirror?  I mean I know there are some objects with reflection for clubs and such that people like but.. it's not worth the lag.

5. Keep your family sizes down.  I keep it down to 4 per lot.  Not much you can do about vacation spots since they tend to have a lot of visitors.  I generally buy lots on vacation spots therefore the sims can visit their own lot and this is better than staying at a hotel since there's less sims and less lag.

Now these steps help with the lag somewhat.. but you may still experience the out of sync error which causes your monitor to shut off or will give a blue screen of death error.  This might might be due to a video error or a memory drain issue.  The game does have a memory leak.  This causes your pf usage to go to high which at times can make the operating system unstable.

As for patches..

Unless I'm reading this wrong..

Sims Seasons came out on Febuary the 23rd..

The first patch came out on April the 2nd.. it took them over a month to solve the first batch of issues?  That's bullshit..

The second patch, which supposedly fixed the really big issues came out in June.  That's Microsoft like.. and totally unacceptable.  I mean the guys at Winamp fix things faster and winamp is freeware.. well the basic version is.

[mrs ladybug]

Ok now get I can get reasonable game there are few glitches still with the dragon and other big hotel  but have to deal with them and avoid the dragon breath for now.. I hope Maxis comes out with patch soon I think it could be realyl good game. Thanks to every one for helpful tips

[Sorrowful Mouse]

Sorrowful Mouse, you've got mods not compatible with BV in your game.  Squinge's Talkpool is among them.  It's displaying the desperation actions.

"Talkpool"!?!? What do you mean? I know I deleted that hack. I cannot find it anywhere in my files! Oh, no. It would not happen to have an extra file with numbers and letters in it, would it? I don't think it did. But, if it did...:smt120:sad4:

Oh, jeepers. :jaw::help:

[ancienthighway]

SM, I'd delete all those files with the 32 character name consisting of numbers and letters.  Use Clean Installer to find them, and if there's no type, use a big sledge hammer on it.

[honestsim]

my game is absolutely fine it runs great no crashes i can move from lot to lot easily and quickly went on vaca and it was awesome one of my sims left..lol...then it was over it feels like bvo is missing something i do need to get the prima guide for it....

[bulldawg]

At first I couldn't 'dig for treasure' or use any of the beach commands like 'watch waves' & 'dig for shells', but that was due to the insimenator.  I removed insimenator & those commands are available.  I patiently await the new version. :angel:  

The only problem I have experienced since then has to do with a Vacation lot one of my Sims owns.  My Sim was able to visit the lot after he bought it but since then it is unavailable if he wants to visit.  Also, if you click on him, the option to sell the property is nowhere to be found.  The deeds are still in his backpack so he still owns the property in effect.  The only thing I can think is that it must be a bug...................................or maybe my Sim is self-aware and did it......................{{{cue Twilight Zone music}}}

[lilibet]

I just want to respond to an earlier thread.  I've had several Sims lose the wants that they earned in college.  This was before I installed BonVoyage.  I never know why it happened, suddenly they are gone and with it the chance to lock the second want.  Also would like to be clear about the talkpool that was mentioned a couple of times earlier.  Is that the hack whereby people talk while in the swimming pool and build friendship points?  If so, I probably need to delete it even though it does help a lot in friendship building.  Ancient, I've learned a lot from your responses.  It isn't possible to make everyone happy.  Just think of all of us you have helped!!!

[Cleo999]

I contacted EA listing all the issues I experienced plus the spamming problem. They told me they are currently working on a patch, as these issues are pretty common ... so all we have to do is wait - wait and apply Deviancy's tips which are really helpful (thanks for sharing!).

[Deviancy]

I'd imagine they would be pretty common.  The hardware it seems to be buggy with is very popular hardware.  

Any of you try my tips with Vista?  For the first time since Windows 3.1, I haven't updated my operating system right away when something new has come out.  I mean I hopped to windows 95 right away.. I hopped to 98 right away.. I got Windows Millenium right away.. tried 2000.. went to XP.  But I won't touch vista.  I've heard it's buggier than Bon Voyage.. so I was curious how the Sims 2 works under it..

[Petalstaken]

i had to erase all the folders in my document ea game file, it had been doing fine then boom, a family got stuck between home/vacation, the home lot said they were on vacation but the vacation lot was stuck on build.
and i did get it back up, but it crashed shortly there after, i have vista and have has since seasons.

[KarateMama]

I have a minor annoyance, it seems when the phone rings and some one in the household answers using the cellphone everyone who is on the low end of the friendship meter (about to lose friends) comments -- " Hello.....I am sure you are busy....."   It happens for every person in the household, not just the one who answers the phone.