Grief, woe, despair and hideous black screens

[Orikes]

Hmmm. I have a friend looking to build a new PC. Maybe I'll talk to him about buying my Nvidia and get myself a Radeon to see how it does.

The funny thing is that the blue/black screen crash/freeze has been happening more since this conversation popped up here. It's like the game *knows*.

[MrsH]

Will try the PSU thing.  Otherwise it's looking to me as if EA have cunningly provided us with a game which is unplayable.  Well done them.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Otherwise it's looking to me as if EA have cunningly provided us with a game which is unplayable.

I'm inclined to call nVidia the culprit since the game does run very well with current ATI products.

[CatGirl]

I am running on a laptop with an ATI card. It ran fine for almost a year, then started intermittently slowing down--badly. After a trip to a hot climate, during which I couldn't play at all, the slowdown was so bad, I realized it was a temperature problem. (Duh! It took over six months for me to figure out it was my graphics card causing the problem.) I actually DO deep-freeze it -- when I play TS2, I set it on top of a brick of "blue ice." It works -- no slowdowns while frozen.

I may eventually get a desktop that can handle TS2, but I like to play with my feet up.

[V]

Now I would have thought dry ice was a bad thing to put in and around your computer. How does this not damage wires and transistors and things?

[Ness]

Dry ice is merely frozen carbon dioxide.  It sublimes - no liquid state.  In solid form, it's not going to do anything damaging.  In gaseous form, if CO₂ (what I wouldn't give for a subscript right now!) damages computers then we'd all be in big trouble just from having stuff in the atmosphere. 

Sorry, it's the chemistry degree in me coming out!

[V]

Don't apologize, Ness. That is just the information I was looking for.   That was why I asked. Thank you.

My husband makes such a big deal about dry ice being dangerous to touch and it seems that there are warning signs on the dispenser boxes at the store nowadays. It seemed to me that something "that dangerous" would not be something I would think to save my computer from overheating. Also I was envisioning the tiny wires on the green board getting brittle from being frozen, then perhaps cracking or breaking when the computer was moved off the ice at the end of gameplay.

So please feel free to use your chemistry degree or any other degree you like to tell me why those little wires don't get brittle when they get frozen.

You know, if you feel like it.

Oh, you have subscript available, CO₂

[Tgdrysix]

I installed a dashing new NVidia GE Force 7600 graphics card about a month ago

I have a 7600 nvidia GT... which now works.....but only after I added another gb of ram....it would not run correctly with only 1 gb....I would get the dreaded Blue Screen of Death everytime I played....sometimes I would get maybe an hour of play sometimes 5 minutes....I never knew and towards the end it would freeze up as I was saving....and there was nothing I could do but shut my computer down....it was very discouraging cause I had this compute build just to play this game.....now I can...but it took awhile to figure out what was the problem....hope your's get resolved soon....cause I've been in your shoes and it sucks....Tgdrysix

[Ness]

So there is!  I can now CO₂ and H₂O, etc to my heart's content!

With my handy SI data book I can tell you that CO₂ sublimes at -78C, which is -108.4F for you American people, that's why it's so dangerous to touch!

As for what temperatures that low may do to metal wires and their plastic coatings, I really don't know...  presumably it's only going to be a problem if you are trying to move/bend said wires - they may become brittle and break, but things inside a computer are relatively stationary...

[Orikes]

How much ram did you add?

[Tgdrysix]

How much ram did you add?

 I added another gb of ram....I started off with only 1, now I have 2.  Tgdrysix

[Orikes]

How much ram did you add?

 I added another gb of ram....I started off with only 1, now I have 2.  Tgdrysix

Hmmm. The only problem with that for me is I would have to buy 2gb from the getgo. I only have two slots (dual channel) so I've got two 512gb sticks. Upgrading isn't a bad idea, though.

[Tgdrysix]

[/quote]

Hmmm. The only problem with that for me is I would have to buy 2gb from the getgo. I only have two slots (dual channel) so I've got two 512gb sticks. Upgrading isn't a bad idea, though.
[/quote]

I have 4 slots so I guess techincally I could have up to 4 gbs of ram...but I think that would be a bit excessive...   .... Having the 2 made a real big difference and I have everything set on high....and I do have alot of cc....so far so good....I'm running sims2, uni, nl, ofb, glamour, and now pets.....Tgdrysix

[Flipant]

I don't know if this will help, but we had similar problems with my daughters machine.  Months later, updated the bios and that was the ticket.  Good luck.

[MrsH]

Updating the BIOS is about the only thing I haven't tried yet.  Thanks for the tip - I will see if this helps.

[Ambular]

I've heard that replacing fans and heat sinks can help with some overheating problems, as can clearing out any built-up dust inside the case with a can of compressed air (it blankets components and acts as an insulator.)

Also, in our just-in-case department, try running the game in windowed mode, bring up the Windows Task Manager and go to the Performance Tab and watch what's happening with your system resources for a while (especially if you're in the habit of running any other programs at the same time.)  It's conceivable some other process could be draining your available memory to the point that it's choking the game.  Before I added more RAM to my machine, FireFox's memory leak would occasionally do that.

One other thing to check is that your power supply is a high enough wattage to handle all the other hardware you've got installed.  I was told when I installed my new high-end video card that it was possible my power supply wouldn't be adequate during heavy usage and it might cause my computer to crash.  (It hasn't, but apparently the possibility does exist.)

[ElfPuddle]

Are the problem cards primarily nVidia?

My little troublemaker is a Radeon 9550 (thank you, I know it has issues. I deal with them and am saving pennies.)

The old one was a S3G UniChrome....so all people wondering why I put up with the crashing may now stop. Even with base game, the old card never showed the in-game PIPs and special movies. Those little gems were as mysterious as the floating pig.

[J. M. Pescado]

The old one was a S3G UniChrome....so all people wondering why I put up with the crashing may now stop. Even with base game, the old card never showed the in-game PIPs and special movies. Those little gems were as mysterious as the floating pig.

WTF is an "S3G UniChrome"? Is that even a graphics card? My Linux box made of recycled parts and running in console has a better card than that.

[astraled]

Well, if you want the expensive solution... upgrade to a 7900gt, a 550 watt PSU, and add a gig of ram (2g total).

That's what it took to cure my Nvidia problem after OFB. I had a 6600gt running on a 300 w PSU so it wasn't all Nvidia's fault.

[gethane]

No, do NOT upgrade to a new nvidia card. It is absolutely ridiculous to think you need 2 GB to play this game. I realize that does SEEM to "fix" the problem, but it just camoflages it. The problem is STILL there and who knows if it'll crop up again after another expansion pack?

If you want to escape the nvidia problem.. BUY ATI. I bought only Nvidia for 8 years, until a month ago when I bought an ATI card. It works PERFECTLY with only 1 gb memory.

If you read the thread at MTS2 I linked to, it becomes clear that this IS an nvidia problem, or an Nvidia driver problem, since the old drivers (18 months old) seem to work fine. Unfortunately, if you want to play new games as well as the Sims, or if you have a new card that can't run on old drivers, that doesn't help you.

And bottom line, it doesn't matter if its the Sims that is causing the nvidia problem, or Nvidia that's causing the problem. Nvidia has competition, namely ATI, and the Sims has no competition. If you want to play Sims, and you are having the Nvidia blue screen hourglass fade to sometimes black and turn off your monitor problem, buy an ATI to fix it.

[J. M. Pescado]

Actually, you do need 2 GBs of RAM to play this game. Most people have a ridiculous amount of CC, and as you should not exceed half the amount of RAM you have in CC, you need more RAM.

[gethane]

No, I'm sorry Pescado, you don't. It's NICE to have 2 gb. But you shouldn't NEED it. And I'm speaking SPECIFICALLY about this goddamned nvidia, blue screen, hourglass, black screen problem. And I'm a bit testy about it.

I've built over 1200 computers. I worked as a computer builder in a retail computer store for 2 years. After than I managed 300 computers for a university library system (with 9 branches) for 3 years.

I'll speak slowly. If.. you .. want .. to .. fix .. the .. specific .. problem .. I am .. speaking about .. Buy .. an .. ATI card. There is currently no guaranteed fix from Nvidia or EA. The 2 GB of memory does seem to mask the problem. But it isn't FIXING the problem. And, Nvidia doesn't seem to give a shit about it. I contacted them 6 weeks ago, and they never have bothered to reply. And we all know EA isn't going to give a shit, since they don't care about their OWN coding.

[astraled]

The ATI problem with Civ IV was worse than the Nvidia problem with the Sims 2.

If I don't see a problem, it's not a problem  . I don't care if it's fixed officially or not, my game works. The newer drivers do work with the newer cards.  My card and my driver are about six months old.

I'm up to 4 1/2 gigs of CC, thanks to PMBD . Guess I better buy more RAM, it's easier than deleting all the stuff I hate.

 

[ElfPuddle]

WTF is an "S3G UniChrome"? Is that even a graphics card? My Linux box made of recycled parts and running in console has a better card than that.

It's a built-in excuse for a card that came in my HP Preario. I told you it was crap. 

[gethane]

The ATI problem with Civ IV was worse than the Nvidia problem with the Sims 2.

If I don't see a problem, it's not a problem  . I don't care if it's fixed officially or not, my game works. The newer drivers do work with the newer cards.  My card and my driver are about six months old.

I'm up to 4 1/2 gigs of CC, thanks to PMBD . Guess I better buy more RAM, it's easier than deleting all the stuff I hate.

I don't see how a problem that was fixed by an official patch is "worse" than a problem that is getting no serious attention from either EA or from Nvidia. Seems to me that something that has been unfixed for over 6 months is worse than a problem that was quickly fixed by an official patch.

I think its great that the game works great for you now. However, I do have problem with telling someone else that to fix their nvidia problem they should spend EVEN MORE MONEY, on a new nvidia card and then even more on more memory, to fix a problem that's easily fixed by getting an ATI card. I mean, if you are spending all that money anyway, might as well NOT throw it at a company that doesn't care that their game doesn't work with the Sims 2 OFB expansion. Ultimately, yes, its the game company who should be making sure that their game works with the only two video cards out there (for all intents and purposes), however, EA is totally unresponsive to the Sims community. Other games get patches in hours, days, and at most a couple weeks. We wait months for a Sims patch. So that leaves it up to Nvidia. And they don't give a shit either.