Is this a Nvidia issue or something else?

[angelyne]

After must whinning and pouting that my old CRT monitor was causing eye fatigue, my dear partner gave me his 21 inch LCD monitor.  (Bought himself a iMac, so now I have that on my conscience).

Anyway, this monitor has this enormous resolution of 1600 X 1200, which I would have sworn, I could never use without going blind.  But lo and behold, it's not that bad.  Better than the fuzzyness of trying to run using a lower than native resolution anyway.

Anyway, blah blah.  Get to the point Jane you blabbering fool.  If I try to get the game to run using this max resolution, I get strange a strange fuzzyness in the graphics, noticable on things like bedspreads, carpets, wallpaper and clothes.  It's a lot like when you are trying to run with details set to low.  Except the weird thing is that the fuzzyness is not constant.  If i use the design tool, I'll get a crisp image, but after I've done something else, the bedspread looks fuzzy again.  If I drop the game resolution, the problem is less noticable, but still there.  Except of course I am playing in this tiny window in the middle of a huge desktop.

Is this because of my vid card?  I have a GeForce 6600GT.  All my settings are set to high.

[dizzy]

Are you using the nVidia settings to set the antialiasing or are you setting that in the game? I use the nVidia-settings control panel, myself.

[angelyne]

right now the setting is at application controlled.  What would you suggest?

[gethane]

Like this?

http://prismbaby.com/sims/clothingtextureproblem.jpg

This drove me insane last September and I did what was suggested in this thread:
http://modthesims2.com/article.php?t=97876

and it fixed it.

hth

[J. M. Pescado]

I don't use this "AA" business. As far as I'm concerned, AA is for dealing with planes. I don't WANT my edges to be blurry! Edges should be SHARP and EDGELIKE. That is what makes them EDGES. I want edges so sharp they puncture BlueSoup's fat, super-deformed bobble head on contact.

[angelyne]

Gethane you rock!  That fixed my problem.  However, it broke my cut scenes, the sound play but with no video.  However I can live without them.  They get on  your nerves after a couple of times anyway.

And JM, thanks for your err contribution

[angelyne]

Sorry to ressurect this thread.  I find that ever since I made these changes, my computer has been locking up when playing the sims.  It seems to occur randomly, but when it does, the computer becomes competely unresponsive, and I need to do a hard reboot.

It seems to happen once a playing session on average.

Has this happened to anyone?

I've updated the drivers and am about to redo my settings. I played all day with the default (blurry) settings and the computer has not locked up.

[J. M. Pescado]

Overheating, perhaps? That'd be my guess if it's apparently random.

[angelyne]

I've updated the drivers but am still experiencing problems.  Except now, instead of just locking up, the error gets trapped.  The error is something along the lines of "Your graphics adaptor has experienced an internal error.

Since overheating was a possibility, I monitored temperatures.  The default threshold for core slowdown is set for 145C.  The highest temperature I saw was around 68C, well below the threshold.  So I don't think it's overheating.

[witch]

RAM? Run a memory test? Reseat your RAM after cleaning the contacts with an ERASER.

[Khan of Wyrms]

Why is it that I seem to have had every computer problem under the Fat Old Sun at one time or another?  Your troubles certainly sound familiar, so here are some points I would consider:

First, overheating may still be an issue.  Get inside your computer case (No, don't actually get in, just open it up!) and make sure your CPU heatsink is not clogged with dust and debris and physically make certain it is still snugly attached, and that the fan is still working.  Also, CPU temp software can be notoriously uninformative about the temperature of critical areas of the core.  Temp values can swing widely based upon CPU type and motherboard manufacturer, as well as from one part of the CPU to another.  In fact, if you don't have one of the very newest, shiniest motherboards and processors, you are not likely getting an accurate or even remotely usable reading at all.  The actual temp in critical areas of your CPU core may vary by, I don't think anyone really knows, there are too many variables, but 40 or 50 degrees or even more would not be unusual.  Also, CPU failure can occur on processor-intensive applications, like TS2, at temps well below 145 degrees.  You should never, ever have your CPU get anywhere near that 145 degree 'slowdown threshold".

Second, does your Windows recognize your new monitor?  Check your Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager for monitor properties and see if it gives you an explicit description of your particular monitor, or if it says something generic like 'P-N-P monitor' or some such.  Different monitors can scale graphics in slightly different ways and some monitors operate at certain resolutions better than others.  In order to ensure sleek operating efficiency, your computer needs to know about the exact capabilities of your hardware.  This is not as much of an issue with older monitors, which may work just fine as PNP, but newer ones, as a 21" LCD flatscreen likely is, can have particularities.  Don't underestimate this, I know from experience.  I was having problems that Windows was pointing at nVidia drivers with errors.  One day I checked Windows Update 'optional' downloads and saw a patch to make WinXP recognize my new 19" Samsung monitor.  I downloaded the patch and suddenly said goodbye to the problem.

Third, graphics drivers are terribly finicky little SOB's.  There are some conflicting theories about them and I advocate a bit of unconventional wisdom in this area.  Almost every source you can seek when having problems will ask you, "Do you have the latest drivers installed?"  My humble opinion is that this is not always the best idea.  For one, the newest drivers are never free of bugs, and for another, unless you have one of the newest video cards, the bug fixes included in the newest drivers will likely not apply to your card anyway.  I recommend getting your video card drivers from the maker of your video card, not from nVidia, the maker of your GPU.  All graphics cards are not created equal, and it is not reasonable to assume that all cards would function equally well with any given drivers.  It may be naive to think so, but if the graphics card maker is reputable, then they ought to know if upgrading the drivers would help your card, and they should have the best possible drivers for your card available for you.  Also, GPU overheating can cause problems as well.

And finally, I realize this has become terribly long-winded and probably over-boring, but a word of caution about graphics driver installation.  Anti-virus software is evil and it ought to be destroyed, but you can not dare do it, as it is very necessary evil.  If you use 'Safe Mode' for driver installation, you should maybe be able to avoid the problems associated with anti-virus corrupting your driver installation.  I, on the other hand, loathe 'Safe (I)M(pl)ode' and refuse to use it.  If you don't use it you need to make absolutely certain that anti-virus will not interfere with any part of the installation, or driver instability is almost certain.  For some reason which completely escapes me, anti-virus software manufacturers do not want you to be able to disable the virus-protection easily.  You must check your software settings very carefully to ensure that the virus-protection is not going to be running even when the program seems to be closed, that it will not boot up automatically when you restart Windows, and finally that the program itself is indeed closed.

I'm sure that somewhere, someone would like to dispute some of these points, but I have in fact demonstrated positive conflict resolution on my own systems at various times with all of these considerations, and others. I am not a computer professional, however, as may be plainly obvious to some, but I do know how to swing a hammer and I'm not a carpenter either.  If you have any questions or need further help, feel free to ask.  I hope this helps, I've been there and I know how frustrating it can be.

[KatEnigma]

I'd like to add that 65C isn't terribly cool, despite the "default" settings. That's about where I used to start slowing down and freezing or throwing weird errors on my last CPU, and somehow, I doubt that a video card can handle it any better. Plus, that heat then makes the system too hot.

[angelyne]

Well thank you kindly for that information Khan, I appreciate you taking the time to write a lost post.

The temperature I was monitoring is not the CPU but the graphic adaptor.  I haven't monitored the CPU.  I haven't completely rejected the overheating theory, but I don't think that's it.

I'm fairly certain the problem is my graphic card and/or drivers.  The problem only started occuring since I changed monitor. (which is being properly recognized by windows, no problems there). I am now using a  Samsung SyncMaster 204b.  I went from a CRT 19" to a LCD 21".  The big difference was the resolution.  Where I use to operate in 1024 X 768, I am now using 1600 X 1200.  Although I am not playing the game at that resolution, I think the graphic adapter is being pushed harder than it used to be.  I also modified anti-aliasing because I was experiencing fuzzyness.  Although I did do a test run with my video card settings back at default and it still crashed, so that might not be it. 

I downloaded the latest drivers from the vendor, and installed those.  However, I think they are just the regular nVidia release. So I am not expecting a change.

Following your advice I did a check for Optional window updates and lo and behold there is an update for my LCD monitor.

I'll install it and see if it helps in any way.

[J. M. Pescado]

Going from 1024x768 (768K px) to 1600x1200 (1920K px) will increase the strain on your graphics card by a factor of 250%. This is not a healthy thing if your card was barely clinging to life before. Forcing your card to work 2.5x as hard is going to lead to increased heat and reduced frame rates. One thing you can do freeze your card in dry ice before starting. Be sure to make sure that there are ventilation holes in the ice so that the gas sublimating from the heat sink can escape. Note that you will have to periodically refreeze, because all of the dry ice will eventually evaporate, and without cooling, your card may catch fire.

[angelyne]

Very funny Pescado

However maybe using the card at 1024 X 768 was the equivalent of using a Porsche to drive Grandma to church, and increasing it to 1600X1200 is liking driving on the Autobahn.

However, I'll be the first to admit that my GeForce 6600 card isn't exactly a Porsche.  It's not an old clunker yet.

I did a little more research and finally got something.  Turns out that this is a well known bug and that Maxis code does not work correctly with the Nvidia driver, ever since Pets.  The solution is to turn off useshaders.  EA is supposed to be working with Nvidia to resolve the problem.

I haven't tried it, but that's my next step.