Technical problems with THE HORROR: downloading, installing, and running it

[Skadi]

Look at post 141 - files are interchangeable.


Moderator edit: This thread is split from the main HORROR thread to keep the installation stuff in one place for easy reference.

[LFox]

Look at post 141 - files are interchangeable.

Thanks i'll take a look.

Question does Winrar tell you if one rar file is mismatched with anothers contents even if they have the same naming?

[ShortyBoo]

Well, I got the game installed and everything, replaced the TS3.exe with the crack and started up the game. Everything went fine until I went into CAS. It crashed after I tried to switch from a female to a male sim. I thought maybe it was a glitch, so I tried it again and went back to CAS after it loaded (luckily the game loads in just a few seconds) and tried to adjust the skintone and it crashed again. The music skips for a few seconds, then it goes to this grey-ish colored screen and I can't minimize or otherwise exit out of it and have to hit the reset button on my computer. I was really excited about getting to mess around in CAS and this isn't making me very happy. Also, when I start up the game, my only options are to move one of the bin families to a house or go to CAS. None of the other houses look to be occupied. It's really strange.

[J. M. Pescado]

Sounds like a personal problem to me, soldier.

[ShortyBoo]

I really doubt it's my computer. It says in the readme that it automatically sets the options to what your computer can handle, and the options were all set to high when I started the game. Plus, I'm well over the minimum requirements. Here's my computer specs:

Windows XP
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+
ATI Radeon HD 4850
2 GB RAM

[LFox]

Look at post 141 - files are interchangeable.

It would seem these files are incompatible with the ones in post 75.  As are about 3 other ones i've tried.

[Skadi]

Which files are you missing?

[LFox]

Which files are you missing?

From post 75 i'm missing

5, 8, 10, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

Unfortunately file 1 does not seem to house the interior rar files 00, 01 ect.  They seem to be all jumbled up inside the 26 piece rar.  I'm getting it slowly through hotfile since those links are left but that's gonna take a long time, assuming they don't get deleted.

Clearly i underestimated the time it'd take for the files to get deleted.

[chann]

I've got a few SecuROM questions: what version is it, v7 or newer? Does it install the standard registry keys and rootkit-files?

Has anyone tested the removal tools and turned up something?

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes, it is the same primary version as Splotch.

[ShortyBoo]

I skipped CAS and went straight into the game the third time I played (I just picked a house to play at random) and the game went longer before it crashed. But still, after 20 minutes or so, it did freeze again on the grey-ish screen. But this time, when I restarted my computer, my fans had kicked up to high and I wasn't getting a video signal on my monitor. I checked the back of my case and there was a ton of heat where the video card is. I shut it off for like 10 minutes, and now it's fine. I have 5 fans so I've never had any problems with anything overheating. Even when I played games like Dead Space, Bioshock, Witcher, Fall Out 3, and F.E.A.R. 2 all at maximum settings, it never got that hot. I wouldn't think Sims 3 would cause problems on my PC. But if it's just going to overheat my video card everytime I play, I guess I have no choice but to stick to TS2. I'm going to try playing with some of the settings like Draw Distance turned down to see if it helps. If not, I don't know what else I could do.

[ShortyBoo]

I wish I could figure out why my game keeps crashing. I've tried lowering the settings and I even tried reinstalling, but it still crashes, usually in CAS. And now I don't think it's because of overheating because I have a tabletop fan pointed at my computer and it's nice and cool. There's like no heat at all now. So now I have no idea why it's crashing. I know it's not because of my video card not being good enough, but I guess it could be RAM. I only have 2 GB right now. If I had purchased this game, I would be really pissed.

[blackcat]

Do you have AMD dualcore by any chance? If so you might need DualCore optimizer from their site or manually appoint only one core to the game in task manager.

[Solowren]

Well my torrent is taking its sweet damn time. I want to experience the horror.

[KellyQ]

Well my torrent is taking its sweet damn time. I want to experience the horror.

Same here. At this rate I'm never going to be horrified!

[Jelenedra]

SEED, bitches. =p

[Mixreality]

I wish there was a stupid-questions-type-thread opened already, but I'm impatient and ZOMGexcited, so I'll bite...

About that unwrapping thing... Do we just mount the ISO with the suspicious setup.exe, then open it with WinRar and start the real .exe from there? Or there's more to it? If there is (more), can some kind awesome person write up a guide for dummies? Does the process involve extracting the ISO contents, fixing the setup and making a new ISO?

[Giggy]

Let us know when TS3 sucks ass!

*Stuffeths removed

Reading failure FTL

[Solowren]

Try harder, Giggy. Mixreality is referring to the warning Pescado issued about a spyware-like wrapper on the iso in the TS3 L&P thread.

[Giggy]

... Fuck.

[ShortyBoo]

Do you have AMD dualcore by any chance? If so you might need DualCore optimizer from their site or manually appoint only one core to the game in task manager.

Yes, this is my processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103228

I didn't have any problems with TS2 and I thought TS3 was supposed to work well with dual cores?

[Lum]

Let's talk about rig set up for a moment: if a computer runs TS2 with all Expansions, can it run TS3? If not, is the game worth a new video card? How graphically intense is the game? Does it run pretty smooth or is it the type of game that kinda stretches and groans upon loading?

In short, is it superior to TS2 or just TS2 with a boob and paint job?

[LFox]

Let's talk about rig set up for a moment: if a computer runs TS2 with all Expansions, can it run TS3? If not, is the game worth a new video card? How graphically intense is the game? Does it run pretty smooth or is it the type of game that kinda stretches and groans upon loading?

In short, is it superior to TS2 or just TS2 with a boob and paint job?

To be honest i think it might actually be less graphical intensive than TS2.  All textures, objects and details seem to be on a low quality load in unless your looking at them.  If you go a good distance from wherever your looking it'll take several moments to load everything in.  It'll have no model then it'll become a model with no texture then it'll load the texture.  It's all done relatively fast but the point is unless you can see it, it probably won't be taking up system resources.

Still need to test it with a super large house though.  That was the thing that really dragged down performance in TS2.  I'm not sure if it does this load what you see with your house when your at it or if it loads everything to do with your house.

[Edana ni Emer]

I'm having a *really* weird problem with getting the blasted thing installed.  I'm running Vista, and even in the Administrator account, the setup.exe file from the .iso gives me a "destination folder access required" error.  I can't copy it, paste it, run it, open it... nothing.  I can't even put it in a zip file.   I've tried everything I can think of to give myself permission to mess with the blasted thing, but nothing works.

EDIT: Never mind, found a fixed installer.

[daydreamer]

Check your "Sims3Setup.exe" with WinRAR. If you can open it in WinRAR and find another one in there, along with a "codec.exe", you has it. That's the real one. Copy your CD contents, replace the wrapped version with the inside version.

*prepared for n00b pies to be thrown at me*

How do you do the bolded part? Do you burn it again or something?