EA/Maxis has found the Nvidia problem!

[witch]

Here are a couple of comprehensive lists of services, which ones can be turned off completely, which ones can be set to manual and which ones are essential.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm (I've used this and had no problems. I see there's one for Vista now too.)
http://www.vernalex.com/tools/services/ (Haven't tried this one personally.)

As for anti-virus software and firewall software. I haven't ever had an anti-virus running constantly. I stopped using Norton after 2003, when its Internet Security feature it crapped my network and those of others I worked on. It is resource hungry and too big for its boots. I have Kaspersky installed and always virus check manually anything that comes off the net. Found a couple of backdoor trojans in some dodgy torrents lately, otherwise I've been fine. I do a scan about once a month but have never found anything. When you really get to know your PC you can kind of pick up when it's behaving oddly anyway.

I'm also lucky enough that I have a router to connect to the internet, it has a hardware firewall and I can close or open individual ports. There are sites on the net where you can test the security - make sure you trust the site! I used to use the free Zone Alarm when I had dial up.

[cwykes]

........ Those of you who have been following this story will know that after weeks of research and testing, we could not reproduce this crash internally, even using some of the exact same models of video cards that were being reported as failing by our customers.

After consulting with a customer who had experienced the crash with a brand new system purchased from Dell, we bought ourselves the exact same system from Dell and immediately saw the crash for the first time.

We named this PC "Crashy".

~MaxoidShannon

How about offering them specs for "Crashy 2"?

[ChamiMinds]

Ok so I have this problem to but Norton has NEVER been on this PC but I do have a duo core and nVidia card.

There's an easier way to force the game to use only one processor all the time-- use a handy little free utility called ForceCore (attached here).  It's pretty simple to use -- just put it someplace the system can find it (I have it in c:\windows\system32), and then put 'forcecore.exe <x>' in front of the rest of the target info in the icon that launches the sims game (right-click, then choose properties on the icon).  The <x> is replaced by the core number (1 or 2 on a duo), or you can use a -1 and it'll pick either one at runtime. 

I tried this and obviously PHAILED because the game won't load. I just get the forcecore popup notice. So here is what I put in my target line, please help me correct it?

C:\WINDOWS\system32\Forcecore\Forcecore.exe -1 C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 FreeTime\TSBin\Sims2Launcher.exe" -w

So as you can see I put the forcecore in C:\WINDOWS\system32\Forcecore\Forcecore.exe
When I try to put a " before it I get an error saying target is wrong. Does it matter that I'm trying to run in windowed mode, I really don't see how that could be the problem but eh. I've tried other tricks to correct this problem and am phailing miserably, very sad. But if this doesnt fix it there are a few other tricks still to try before I completely phail.. uhg seriously make a game that works!

[KatEnigma]

I'm not using it myself, but you're missing a " there somewhere. You have an end quote, not a beginning one.

[bowrain]

Are you sure the forcecore thing is supposed to be applied to the launcher?

[KatEnigma]

Are you sure the forcecore thing is supposed to be applied to the launcher?

I missed that. I'm pretty sure that's a problem, too. 

[jsalemi]

Yea, no -- you have to bypass the launcher, and make the target the actual game executable.  The correct string would be:

Forcecore.exe -1 "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 FreeTime\TSBin\Sims2EP7.exe" -w

(with forcecore in your system32 folder, you don't need to put the whole path to it, since that folder is already part of the system path.)

[ChamiMinds]

I wasn't sure if I needed to include the path for forcecore or not. Makes sense now, I had tried it without and just putting forcecore.exe -1 before the path but got an error so that was the reason for the added path. Turns out Forcecore doesn't like being in a subfolder, once it was taken out and just put into system32 folder by itself it worked like a charm. Oh the lil things you often have to do just to get something to work right! Thank you for the help! I have a slightly better understanding of target lines now.

[jsalemi]

The quote marks will get you every time if you're not careful.  The principle is, if the file path has spaces in it, you have to quote the whole thing.  No spaces, no quotes (though they won't hurt).

[Fubuki]

I wouldn't worry about it, Trigger. I have an AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core processor and a GeForce 8600 GTS, and the game runs beautifully. However, I only have the expansions up to OFB (plus FFS), so that could be why I haven't experienced any crashing yet. I'm not too worried, though. My system is optimized, I have plenty of RAM, and I run the game with the Win2000 Launcher. Win2k Launcher does the same thing as ForceCore, plus it has some very nifty extra features such as the "application priority" setting which allows you to decide how much CPU power you want to use to run the game. I set mine on "MAYHEM" since I don't run any other programs while playing TS2.

Edit: Removed an extra "yet."

[morriganrant]

I have a dual core and an ATI card. I didn't think that I had any problem with having a dual core but the other day, for shits and giggles, I changed it so that my game was only trying to use one, to see if it had an affect. It surprised me and actually ran smoother, and gave me less gripe at the neighborhood loading, unlike what it usually does.