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

[morriganrant]

That doesn't work, it just makes the game slow and choppy.

I thought it would fix my crashing, and now the wierd line problems, but nada.

I've asked on here a few times for peoples input about what could be causeing my problems but no one has even registered my posts.

Possibly because no one knows? Most of this thread is full of people with crashing issues on all kinds of different cards.

What is the weird line problem? Got a pic? That could be a few things.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Also, everything has jagged edges. I read something about anti-alias? Would someone mind explaining that to me?

I was having the jagged edge problem.  You need to go into Nvidia's control center (I can't remember what it's called now because it's been about two years since I had a Nvidia card) and make sure that adaptive anti-aliasing is turned off (because it usually isn't).  Then you should be able to go into the game's graphical options when you load it and turn the edge smoothing all of the way up.  Of course, things would like prettier (like in GTA 4) if the adaptive could be used, damn it.

[Vren Lyet]

Also, after installing the Razor + patch version, I'm still getting random crashing to desktop.  Is anyone else without overheating issues getting this error, too?  I'll wait for an answer here before I try switching drivers.

YES, my game also most annoyingly randomly crashes to the desktop BUT I had an error when unpacking the ISO and ignored it, had another error during installation (of course) and just let the installer "retry" and it "worked". Now, I have those random crashes and presumed they were related to this data corruption issue. Please tell me, these crashes are gone when I get my legitimate copy in three days.

Buy the way, I'm running the game on an 2007 Edition 24" iMac (Intel Core 2 Duo 2,8 GHz, Radeon 2600 Pro HD) and it crashes under Windows Vista and Mac OS X although there were no errors during the Mac OS X installation. Weird!

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but I was told (and have also read) that those of us with ATI Radeons (and apparently the HD cards) are having crashing issues.  I never had any problem installing the iso (but I've been installing iso-ed games for a long time) for either version, and yet I'm still crashing occasionally (and this is with the patched Razor version which is supposed to be the final version).  Now that I've had more time to play continuously, I've noticed that the crashes are definitely random.  It's like the Nvidia nightmare all over again; sometimes the crashes are a few minutes into the game, sometimes I can play for hours before crashing, and sometimes the crashes don't come at all.

[witch]

Not all ATI Radeons - my HD 4870 is running TS3 RLD version just fine, thanks. With everything turned up full.

[Vren Lyet]

Well, my game crashes mostly when I try to use the neighbourhood view, which is especially annoying as being a totally new feature in Sims 3, of course - only sometimes it crashes when in sim view, which again makes me presume it's due to the data corruption in my downloaded ISO. I so much hope that to be the cause.

[kitgyrl]

Hi all, not a noob just can't remember what my username used to be (dang it!!!)

Anyways, count me in on the ATI video problems.  I have an X1950 and as soon as I try to do anything in CAS I get those funky rendering things that make the sims look like they have spikes through their bodies.....or they are unicorns. (I like unicorns better)

As far as crashing, I got the blue screen once but I think that was a random as I had just fiddled with my drivers and settings and stuffies.

[morriganrant]

Anyways, count me in on the ATI video problems.  I have an X1950 and as soon as I try to do anything in CAS I get those funky rendering things that make the sims look like they have spikes through their bodies.....or they are unicorns. (I like unicorns better)

That may not be just the card. It could be that the card is unsupported. It could be your drivers, it could be that you have more then one set of drivers installed, it could be overheating. Those lines are called artifacts by the way. Try searching the term artifacing.

[kitgyrl]

Anyways, count me in on the ATI video problems.  I have an X1950 and as soon as I try to do anything in CAS I get those funky rendering things that make the sims look like they have spikes through their bodies.....or they are unicorns. (I like unicorns better)

That may not be just the card. It could be that the card is unsupported. It could be your drivers, it could be that you have more then one set of drivers installed, it could be overheating. Those lines are called artifacts by the way. Try searching the term artifacing.

Yeah artifacts!!  I couldn't remember.

This card is listed as being game compatible by EAxis (but yeah....)
I originally tried it with the 8.5 drivers and then updated to 9.3 from March and neither worked.  I always overwrite my drivers to guarantee only one set.

Tomorrow I am going to switch out to my Nvidia 8600 and see if that works. 

[Lorelei]

KittKitt, is that you? 

[Miellerie]

Once again confirming the ATI problems

I have x1950 pro, and I'm crashing much less now (only once or twice every 6-7 hours) but also randomly getting artifacts, or at least I haven't noticed any pattern to them. So it seems there is definitely a problem with this card!

If you guys haven't seen this thread about the FPS Limiter it might be worth trying: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15092.0.html

[kennyinbmore]

Not all ATI Radeons - my HD 4870 is running TS3 RLD version just fine, thanks. With everything turned up full.

The same here with my 4670. I don't have everything on high, but I have yet to have a crash. Even my son's game has yet to crash with his old X-300

[tizerist]

CAS PROBLEM (GeForce 8800 GTX)

With me, its not crashing, just the game display turns to black about 20% of the time, and I get a balloon then saying "nvlddmkm has stopped working" and the game still runs, but i have to restart to see anything...

[TashaYarrr]

Tizerist, I'm using the same card and have never experienced that error. You might be having an overheating issue, or else you've got a bad driver in there.

I would completely uninstall your NVIDIA driver--maybe even get a driver cleaner--restart whenever asked to, and when it's completely cleaned out install the latest NVIDIA driver.

[jonsnow]

How do I enable cheats?
when I click ctrl+shift+c it doesn't open the cheats console
has this happened to anyone?
(I'm using the razor version)

[dorquemada]

Update your drivers, they say. Riiiiight. Did just that -- y hallo thar, artifacts! Toying with options didn't help, neither did simpler tweaks of ATI Tray Tools (by the by: if your card is ATI and you use Catalyst - don't. Kill that memory hogging garbage and get tiny yet powerful ATI Tray Tools).

What solved the problem were alternative Omega drivers. No artifacts, and the game has yet to crash (before, two trips to CAS screen was a guaranteed crash).

[Scotty]

Well, EAxis strikes again. People are having trouble downloading the game via digital download. Everyone is getting errors, and LONG download times. And they are out for blood. The idiot SimGurus, who are JUST moderators, say they are looking into it. Apparently, EA wasn't expecting so many people to by the game with digital download. So, once again, they are caught with their pants down. Good Job EA! Oh, and of course their forums are now down.

[Crmelsimlover]

Well, EAxis strikes again. People are having trouble downloading the game via digital download. Everyone is getting errors, and LONG download times. And they are out for blood. The idiot SimGurus, who are JUST moderators, say they are looking into it. Apparently, EA wasn't expecting so many people to by the game with digital download. So, once again, they are caught with their pants down. Good Job EA! Oh, and of course their forums are now down.

Scotty, that's par for the course! So typical!

[Salomon]

I'd like to know if we could be expecting another pirate cat release of the final final version or if the Razor one is the very definitively one.

I'd also like to know that if one happens to download an ISO with the evil codec.exe on it, if Autorun is going to auto-infect the computer when one mounts it (I DNW to infect my new computer with anything.)

[tizerist]

Tizerist, I'm using the same card and have never experienced that error. You might be having an overheating issue, or else you've got a bad driver in there.

I would completely uninstall your NVIDIA driver--maybe even get a driver cleaner--restart whenever asked to, and when it's completely cleaned out install the latest NVIDIA driver.

I see. Tomorrow i'll do that and get back to you, cheers.

[Honeywell]

Is this possible?  EA did a bang up job, as usual, with the non-invasive DRM if it is.

after a quick look, it seems that this MAJOR BUG changed my CD/DVD ROM drive to DVD-RAM drive. my computer would recognize that there's a disc in the drive but it won't display any files... this goes for my SIMS 3 DVD, my SIMS 2 Apartment Life DVD and other DVD-R's where I backed up some files.

SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!

http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/617.page

[Zazazu]

I'd like to know if we could be expecting another pirate cat release of the final final version or if the Razor one is the very definitively one.

I'd also like to know that if one happens to download an ISO with the evil codec.exe on it, if Autorun is going to auto-infect the computer when one mounts it (I DNW to infect my new computer with anything.)

Hold down SHIFT while mounting the disk. Same rule applies with a physical one. That disables autorun.

[SlickCee]

  Note: Try not to beat me over the head for using the Sims Store, but I involuntarily got a thousand Sim points with my game and I want to use them. Also, this problem keeps me from downloading the free neighborhood as well.

  I have bought a legit copy of the game. I have been having this problem for a year now where the adobe flash player would not install on Internet Explorer 7. As a matter of fact, it is that problem that made me use Mozilla Firefox instead which had no problems with the flash player.

  I still have some programs that use the internet, like the EA download manager and Bearshare, to work. They use Internet Explorer whenever they prompt me to go install the flash player. Internet Explorer would not install the flash player so these programs will not work. How do I make these programs use Mozilla Firefox instead? I already made it my default browser.

[Vren Lyet]

  I still have some programs that use the internet, like the EA download manager and Bearshare, to work. They use Internet Explorer whenever they prompt me to go install the flash player. Internet Explorer would not install the flash player so these programs will not work. How do I make these programs use Mozilla Firefox instead? I already made it my default browser.

It is my understanding that these kind of applications use the Internet Explorer "engine" internally so they cannot be tricked into using another browser (engine!) like Firefox' Gecko engine. How to get Flash working in IE if not by simply following "on-screen instructions" when prompted to install the flash player I don't know.

[kitgyrl]

well I think my problem was my card overheating.

I put a new fan back there and it seems to be ok now.  KNOCK ON WOOD....I'm serious do it!