Upgrading Computer Hardware

[Motoki]

You know, I also used to think you had to buy the absolute best card out there to keep it from being obsolete as soon as possible but now I think it's better to get the best value for the money and the best card you can afford. Getting the best card out there probably means spend $300+ US and if you consider the whole SLI/Crossfire thing (getting two video cards and having them work together in tadem to run even faster) it's twice that. A lot of times there $50-$100 difference between the highest performance card and the next one down when the actual difference in performance is around 5%. CPUs are like this too. I don't think a 5-10% performance increase is worth $100.

The video card advances have thankfully leveled off to some degree from what they've been in the past where a new generation card would come out quite literally every 3 months. I think even a $70-$100 card can last at least a couple of years if you're fine with not having to have the absolute best video card on the market. And a lot depends on what you do with the card. For playing TS2 I don't think you need as good of a card as say some of the more recent FPS (First Person Shooter) games. For someone going from an old Geforce 4000 series card, for the purpose of playing TS2 almost any video card from the last year or so, even the lower end ones, are going to offer some improvement, enough that I think it's worth justifying getting an upgrade and certainly better than not having one.

Now if someone has the money and wants a high end top of the line card by all means don't let me stop you, I used to be one of those people. But now I prefer to try and research find what I can determine to be the best performance to price ratio, and I also have to take budget considerations into account since I'm no longer living at home with my parents rent-free.

[Brynne]

Can I jump in, too? Can someone tell me how much or if the harddrive speed affects performance? I bought my laptop about 6 weeks ago specifically for the Sims 2 and it plays the game beautifully and smoothly at medium settings, and decently at high settings. Cinematics work great. But the load times are terrible! Is that due to the hard drive? I know it's also my overstuffed downloads folder, but on other applications I've noticed load times are slow. It's not spyware or anything. Spyware removal is my other hobby. I'm anal about it. Anyway, my harddrive is an 80 GB 4,200RPM, and it is upgradeable. How would upgradeing my hard drive affect game play? And what should I upgrade to? Would a 5400RPM be enough, or should I go higher? I also need more RAM, as  I only have 512MB. Which does RAM have a bigger impact on: load-times or performance? Would it be better to spend my money on a new hard drive or RAM, if I had to choose between the two? I can't do both right now. Like I said, performance is pretty decent. Loading is horrible.

For all you computer tekkies, don't laugh at me if I'm speaking gibberish. I'm clueless about computer hardware!

I guess I should probably give my specs? It's a WinBook W364.
Intel Pentium M 2GHz
512MB RAM
Ati Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB dedicated

[dizzy]

There's the issue of hard drive speed and the amount of RAM, and there's also the issue of your "swap" file (how big it is and where it's located).

You can speed things up quite a bit if you put the program and its files on one hard drive and the "swap" file (the virtual memory paging file) on another drive.

Here's a good link for that: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

[Motoki]

Getting a faster HD will help somewhat, 4200 RPMs is pretty slow these days, but only for the load times really and it will only help so much. If you're a total download whore (like me! ) then I'm sorry to say that you're pretty much stuck with slow load times. Start the game up and go grab a cup of coffee or something.

[Brynne]

Yes, I'm a download whore My downloads folder is just over 3 GB! I just checked and I shocked myself. I *think* I need to do some housecleaning. Thing is, I just did. When I got this laptop I had only backed up about half of my downloads from my previous laptop. I had all intentions of keeping a much smaller download folder on the new lappy. Then I went to Sims Showcase, dammit. I need to remove that from my bookmarks.

So more RAM would be the way to go, then? And about the second drive: would that require reformatting my computer? And how would I go about setting that up? Virtual memory is another thing I'm clueless about. I've gotten the "Your system is low on virtual memory..." pop-up a few times. Virtual memory is a complete mystery to me. My husband has patiently explained it to me a billion times and I still don't get it. I have it set (custom) to minimum 1000MB and maximum 1500MB. Recommended is 766. 767 MB is currently allocated. What did I do wrong? Would putting the swap file on another drive improve that?  I have to play the game in windowed mode because the damn virtual memory pop-up would minimize my game, and then getting back into the game would take forever.

[dizzy]

So more RAM would be the way to go, then? And about the second drive: would that require reformatting my computer? And how would I go about setting that up? Virtual memory is another thing I'm clueless about. I've gotten the "Your system is low on virtual memory..." pop-up a few times. Virtual memory is a complete mystery to me. My husband has patiently explained it to me a billion times and I still don't get it. I have it set (custom) to minimum 1000MB and maximum 1500MB. Recommended is 766. 767 MB is currently allocated. What did I do wrong? Would putting the swap file on another drive improve that?  I have to play the game in windowed mode because the damn virtual memory pop-up would minimize my game, and then getting back into the game would take forever.

Whatever RAM you can add will help. The only thing you need is to format the drive itself (in Windows, which is pretty easy to do).

Virtual memory is where things go when they don't fit into your computer's physical memory (RAM). Having a second hard drive for virtual memory seems fairly obvious, especailly since (IIRC) Windows doesn't yet support things like SATA drives.

[Motoki]

I have my virtual memory set to 4000 min and max. I used to run without any at all, which you can do if you have a lot of RAM ( I have 1GB) and does speed things up (RAM is faster than the HD and the virtual memory uses HD space at 'virtual RAM') but I found I got crashes when there was too much going on. Of course I probably shouldn't be throwing parties with 30 plus sims.  

The game is a total memory hog though so if you are getting out of memory errors then the best thing to do is to increase your virtual memory size, even if the size you currently use meets general Windows reccomendations.

Installing a second HD wouldn't require reformatting your original HD necessarily, but if you wanted Windows on the newer and faster HD, which might not be a bad idea since if Windows runs faster then in theory everything else running on Windows should, then you'd have to install Windows on the new HD. What you can do is install Windows and TS2 and anything you are concerned about running slow on the newer faster HD and then keep your original as a secondary HD with all your original files and use it to store stuff like text documents, mp3s etc. Things that you archive but aren't concerned about having to load quickly.

But honestly, cleaning house with some of your downloads is probably the best thing you can do to speed up the game and trust me as someone who has spent many an hour on file cleanup and maintanence, I know how much of a pain it is. Start by looking at some of the bigger files. I know that skintones tend to be large because they contain multiple large image files for every age, gender and fitness tone. If you absolutely don't need a skintone and don't have sims that are using it then get rid of it.

[Motoki]

(IIRC) Windows doesn't yet support things like SATA drives.

I have a serial ATA drive running under XP Service Pack 2 without problems. I just installed it a few days ago seems to be going well. I don't know if 95/98/NT/2000 support SATA but XP definitely does, although I'm not sure if you need SP2 or not to get that support.

Serial ATA (SATA) btw for those who many not know is a different method for transporting data between the hard drive and the motherboard. It allows for faster transfer speeds, generally up to 1.5x the fastest old ATA style hard drives, but older motherboards may no support it and you also have to buy a specific SATA Hard Drive and hook it up to a motherboard with SATA slots to support it.

[Brynne]

Okay, thanks, guys. I am going to take your advice and install windows and reinstall TS2 on a new drive. How do I go about creating a new drive in windows xp pro? I reformatted an old laptop a long time ago, but I forget what I did. That was when I was still playing the Sims 1 on a 6GB 366Mhz laptop and trying to reshuffle things around to make space for the game. If I remember correctly, I had 2 drives and neither was large enough, so I wanted to combine them. I also had partitions on the main drive, which I had to resize. I found a free program that I put on a floppy, and I followed the directions and successfully did what I wanted to do. But, like cramming for exams the night before, I was an expert about reformatting and repartitioning for about a day, then forgot everything I learned the next day.
 
To create a new drive do I need any other software, or can it be done in windows?

[Motoki]

What I would do, and what I actually did myself recently is this:

Temporarily unhook your old hard drive.
Hook up the new hard drive
Install Windows from the original CD to the new HD (you may have to go into the BIOS options, usual by hitting delete at startup, and make sure your computer is setup to be able to boot up from a CD)
The Install will probably ask you about formating the new HD, go ahead and do it, if it gives you a choice between formatting for NTFS or FAT I would go with NTFS. If you want to make two or more partitions you can, but XP can handle very large partitions so just having the new HD as one big partition should be fine.
Once all the Windows install is finished then shut down the computer and hook up your old hard drive. Windows should then automatically detect it next time it restarts and will probably label it as drive E: (assuming you only have one CD Drive, the new HD should be C: and the CD D:)

If the computer is booting up from your old hard drive and old install of Windows once you hook the old hard drive back up you may also have to go into the BIOS and change the boot load order to put the new hard drive first.

Once you do this, you technically won't need the Windows directory and its files on your old HD and can delete it if you want, however I prefer to keep it as a backup. That way if your new HD gets hosed and won't boot to Windows, you still have a backup drive with Windows installed that can.

If I'm talking too much in computergeekese let me know and I'll try and explain myself better but it really isn't too bad to do, it just takes some time to set up.

[Brynne]

Would creating a partition for the game help? Wait, I lost myself. I forget what a partition is. And, I don't have a second hard drive. Add me to the daily idiot...

[Motoki]

It could, in theory. The partition sets aside a certain piece of the Hard Drive, so you could set one up for Sims 2 and it would help keep those files from being defragmented, however the main part of Sims 2 that loads slow isn't the stuff in Program Files/EA Games/ etc it's the stuff in My Documents/EA Games/... and in particular the downloads folder. Setting aside another parition will require you to name a set size, but your download folder, if it's like mine, will probably keep growing. So if you set the partition for it too small then you might run out of space for downloads and if you make it too big, then it's kind of wasting space you could be using for other stuff. Also, it might be tricky to get My Documents over onto a different partition than Windows is installed on. I don't think you can just up and move it to another drive letter because the game will be looking for it on, say C: and not expect to find it on E: etc.

It's probably doable but IMO will complicate things and not worth the effort but maybe someone else has some different thoughts on this.

[chintznibbles]

Edit: Whoops, I just noticed that the computer in question is a laptop.  You can pretty much disregard any notion of upgrading it yourself, then- they're tricky bastards for even extremely experienced amateurs (like me, for instance).  Probably best to have any kind of work done on it done by either the company that made it, if you have a support contract, or a large-scale technician place.  Small-time techs and people's friends who are great with computers probably won't cut it.

If you can afford it, I'd say pop the RAM up to 1gb and get a faster hard drive.  4200 is pretty.. um... not going to say "dinosaur-ish" , but quite slow by today's standards.  It's also because you have a laptop, and faster drives generate a lot of heat.  I once owned a 10,000 RPM drive that could double as a space heater, but thankfully modern drives have the heat issue down a bit.  Try to maximize the RPM and Buffer size with the actual storage space and price, whenever possible.  If it's only a few dollars, always get something faster.

Stuff regarding desktops:
If you're using a modern hard drive with a modern operating system, multiple partitions do very little good and only complicate things.  Don't bother with them, says I.  The only real benefit you get from having multiple partitions is the option to have smaller cluster sizes, which can save you a tiny bit of space on the drive (probably less that ~1GB. If you've got a 100GB+ drive, the like of which is quite affordable these days, that's not a whole lot- especially since you're still losing some to the file table and so forth anyway.)

That said, separate hard drives are a nice way to upgrade, and probably a good plan.  Motoki's plan for Windows installation is a good one; just be sure that, like he mentioned earlier, that you buy a drive that your motherboard supports.  If your computer is two years old (or more) and you haven't specifically replaced the motherboard in that time, odds are you'll need a standard IDE (ATA/PATA) drive.  If you do have a SATA connector, which is small and square (random googled image: http://www.cselex.com/images-large/SATA-Signal-Cable-1.jpg) then you can use a SATA drive.  Be warned that vanilla Windows XP (with no service packs) has issues with SATA drives, since it came out before they did, mostly.  You may not be able to install a no-service-pack version of windows on one.  SP1 is the minimum, I believe.

Also, you can get 1GB of ram for about $100 at electronics stores (near me, at least).  I think my sister just paid $114 for a gig of some brand-name stuff with a fancy heatsink at my local Fry's Electronics.  You might shop around online, too, if that's your bag.  Just be careful of generic ram- some of it's not so great.  RAM is one of the places it normally pays to buy brand-name.

[DrBeast]

I don't think anyone's mentioned defragging. If you write and delete stuff all the time (especially large stuff), you'll see performance go up a bit after a defrag. Don't expect WARP speed though. 5400 rpm is slow, no matter what.

[Kala]

My computer has put me in a postion in which I have to choose between playing with downloads or playing with EPs. If I have more than 200 downloads in my Uni game, it take forever for a house to lode.  When I say forever, I'm not exadurating that much.  I've had to turn off my computer to stop a house from loading several times. When I get families/houses past the loading screen, the family is frozen.  I stile have issues now that I'm only playing TS2.  I spiritedly get ATI error messages when I place lots in a neighborhood. 

I have a Dell Dimension 2,300 with a 1,7 P4 processor.  I have 1,024 of 256 DDR RAM and an ATI Radeon Sapphire 9,000 video card.  I don't know weather I need a better video card or what.

[Motoki]

Kala: That's probably not hardware related. I know there was a bug with custom careers created prior to university where they would cause a lot to stick on the loading screen forever. Newer created or updated careers should fix this, but you may have some lingering older ones. You can also have careers and other custom content you didn't explicitly download because they can sneak in through house downloads.

If you don't already have it, get Sims2pack Clean Installer http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com

Browse your download directory with it, and if you have a lot of stuff it can take a while to load them all. Sort by type and then remove any careers.

Note that due to Sims2pack Clean Installer improperly identifying some files, certain of JM's hacks like Autoyak phone, Skillinator, Macrotastics etc may show up as careers but they are in fact not and do not cause the lot loading problem. I've notified Phervers (the creator of the program) numerous times about this and he still hasn't bothered to fix it so I give up and we'll just have to ignore it.

[Kala]

When I first got Uni, I used clean installed to get rid all my careers and other hacks that would mess with Uni.  I don't know what JM hacks I have other than the lot box.

[Motoki]

If you've been downloading lots, it's quite possible an old career could have snuck back as a stowaway in the lot's sims2pack file, won't hurt to check with clean installer. The J.M. Hacks that show up as "careers" are pretty obvious by the names, but if you have Nightlife, you may just want to yank out all your hacks too until we figure out what works and what doesn't. 

If you want to rule out anything hardware related like your video card etc, you can drag your downloads folder to the desktop and temporarily move it there, run the game, try loading a lot but don't save, just exit without saving if it loads. If the lot does load that way, then it's not your computer or any hardware but definitely something in the downloads folder.

[Kala]

I know this may sound crackish, but could empty packages hurt my game?  I just did a scan with clean install and there are many empty packages in my game.

[Motoki]

I've never known them to hurt the game, but they don't seem to really do anything either. I'm not exactly sure what causes them, but if you open them with a text editor there's literally almost nothing in them so they don't seem to contain any content. I always just remove them and have never had any problems in doing so.

[Ancient Sim]

I have Nightlife now and needless to say, because my video card is unsupported all the neighbourhood stuff was turned-off.  I turned it all on, maximum for all, and it works perfectly.  No slowdown and I can see everything easily and clearly.  It seems to me that my card is perfectly capable of showing the cinematics, it just won't because Maxis don't recognise it.  I know there's a way to trick the game into thinking your card is capable (someone mentioned it somewhere on this site recently), so does anyone know what that trick is?  I've been able to add a cheat code to allow me to enable cinematics, but they still won't work because I know there's more than that I need to do.  I see no point in getting a new card if the one I have is capable of running them.  Certainly in terms of graphic detail and so on, what I see is no different to what people with fully-supported cards see in terms of what I have seen posted on forums. 

[gali]

Ancient, I got today NL, but it has not serial number on the box. Can it be installed without the serial number? Is it something new? - I didn't install the game yet, waiting for JMP's list of fixes.

[gynarchy]

The serial number should be on the back of the manual.

[Motoki]

LOL I did that too at first, I didn't see the serial on the back and CD case and paniced at first, but I guess since the box is the case they couldn't very well put it on the box.

[Zeljka]

I know there's a way to trick the game into thinking your card is capable (someone mentioned it somewhere on this site recently), so does anyone know what that trick is?

I've seen that trick somewhere, hmm
Could this be the one you're talking about? http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=47559 (nomercy's post)