black screen

[Indiasong]

I have been struck with the dark screen, have to stop the computer syndrome.
I have bon voyage, but never really played, and now freetime, which my daughter is trying to play with no hacks on a different xp account.
Every 20 mns, lights out! 
I heard of this problem with BV, but as I installed it much later, did not check.
I don't have securom, played with the nocd right from the start.
Anyone have a solution?
Thank you.

[J. M. Pescado]

"Dark Screen"? Take a screenshot of this.

[Indiasong]

ahaha...I mean "blank screen".

[KellyQ]

I'm assuming you mean the computer monitor goes black or shuts off even though the computer is still running and then you have to manually shut off the computer? If so, I had the exact same problem with BV but I've been playing just fine with FT installed *crosses fingers* so far.

I installed moar RAM this weekend but I still don't know if I will even attempt to run BV again. FT has a lot of the things from BV that I wanted, mainly the new turn ons/offs and "walk to lot" feature. My sims can live without vacations, after all, I don't take vacations either. 

[KatEnigma]

Try different video drivers. Either newer or older, depending on what you have.

[Indiasong]

I still get no signal after a freeze.
I tried to change drivers, and I remembered what it was like: new drivers make my screen ripple, with a few minutes between the ripple and the response to the point or click. I had to change back. Last time it took quite a few times to get them to work: install over, new install, etc.The newest ati drivers do not play nice with agp cards from what I have heard anyway.
Why is it that you have to jump through hoops to be able to play a game???
Maybe it was the same with BV, I didn't not really play, just read about your glitches, waited, prepared, installed, and there was free time. I'm glad my daughter came to visit with it, buying something that doesn't work is infuriating, specially when you go to the BBS and read comments like, it's not a game problem, it's a problem with your computer, said to someone with the same problem. By Paladin, no less.

[KatEnigma]

You're told that it's not a game problem because it isn't.

What are your system specs?

And when you install ATI drivers, do you use the uninstall tool to get rid of what you already had?

[Indiasong]

It is not a computer problem since freetime is the only game or application that does not work!
My ati agp has 256 ram, and I have 3000 memory.
And of course I cleaned the drivers before installing the new ones.
And the answer was directed not to me, but to someone with the same problem.

[KatEnigma]

Just because it's only FT that has the problem does NOT mean that it's not your computer. And lots of people have outdated computers. It's not the game that causes crashes. It's usually video drivers, not enough RAM, or other things like that.

[Jelenedra]

Did you check the minimum requirements for FT? They HAVE changed since the base game, ya know.