Game Decides to Just Not Work Anymore

[nikita]

I wish I would remember the last thing that I was doing before this happens because this is the THIRD time this has happened to me, granted, over a period of almost a year.  However, I'll be playing the Sims, everything is fine and hunky dory and then the next time I start the game, it just doesn't run.  It gives it a try and then gives up.

At first I thought it was a CD problem but I don't use my CD anymore to play (nifty little program called Game Jackal) so I can't think of why this happens.  Has this happened to anyone else?

Reinstalling always fixes it but I figured I might as well poll the populous to see if I can find another solution.

[neriana]

That happened to me once. When I tried to load the game the next time, my power supply blew up. Is your computer kept sufficiently cool?

[nikita]

Define "sufficiently".  I'm not sure.  How hot is too hot?  I mean, I doubt I could fry an egg on it but I'm sure I could melt wax given a couple hours of playing.

However, it was off all day and I just turned it on less than 2 hours ago.  Or maybe it was on standby all day.  Hmm...okay, maybe I'll let it rest overnight and test it again.  Thanks for the suggestion! 

[neriana]

Well, I'm sure there are lots of other things that will cause it not to load. That's just what happened to me recently, and since it's summer, and the game uses so much processing power, it's a possibility. I thought my computer was fine too: well-ventilated, on top of the desk, nothing blocking the fans. But then it had a little fire.

[gypsylady]

Try deleting your groups cache in C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2

[J. M. Pescado]

This sounds like the "old car syndrome" I've had for ages. You just gotta bang on it a bit, mash the start icon about 30 times, one of them should load.

[nikita]

You just gotta bang on it a bit, mash the start icon about 30 times, one of them should load.

The words "bang" and "mash" make me uncomfortable when used around my 3-year old craptop.     I've heard of this "groups cache" file corrupting and causing problems (the squiggly lines in text balloons?), what is this file, what does it do and will it regenerate if I delete it?

[Katze]

Yes it does regenerate.

[jsalemi]

The words "bang" and "mash" make me uncomfortable when used around my 3-year old craptop.     I've heard of this "groups cache" file corrupting and causing problems (the squiggly lines in text balloons?), what is this file, what does it do and will it regenerate if I delete it?

It does regenerate, and as I understand it it caches a lot of info about what's in your The Sims 2 folder so the game loads faster next time.  But it does get farkled quite a bit, and many folks just make it a habit to delete it every time they play, and just live with a slightly longer loading time.

[nikita]

I just deleted it and the game is running again.  Thanks everyone!    Now I will happily sit here for 30 minutes as my game loads....   

[kutto]

Wow, that's news to me. It always felt like the game ran a little bit faster each time I played it, but I thought that was me getting used to it.

[jrd]

groups.cache and cigen.cache apparently cache the thumbnails you get in the catalogs, CAS, and makeover screens. Deleting the cache files can cause a noticable delay when first opening any of these windows.