More Awesome Than You!

I'm not sure what to do with this. I have a GeForce 8500, drives updated. Every time I'm playing, I know it's just a matter of time until the game starts showing some graphics weirdness (sims becoming invisible, black spots all over the screen) and then the game freezes. The error message is:
"Direct3D returned an error: D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE! The application will now terminate".
Please, do any of you have any idea of what's going on? Any help would be much appreciated. Restarting the game every 20 minutes or so is driving me crazy.

Sounds like power shortage or overheating issue. A 8500 is a beefy card which likely generates a great deal of heat and draws much power.

Thank you very much for the input, Pescado. Is there anything I can do to prevent this overheating or I am doomed to live with it?

Go to your nearest Radio Shack (or other electronics store) and get an add-on fan for your computer.  There's a couple of types -- some mount inside the case in an empty card slot, others mount on the outside of the case by the air holes.

Double ressurecting to find out if anyone discovered if this was primarily an overheating issue or actually a driver related thing.

Prior to Freetime p.3 and installing the latest Nvidia drivers, this was not a problem for me. Unfortunately upgrading drivers and installing patch 3 fell on the same day.

My card has more than enough power. I made sure to buy well over the recommended power supply when I bought my GeForce7950.

Going on the idea that it is probably driver related - anyone with Nvidia running D3DERR_NOTAVAILBALE free and if so, which driver version are you running?

I have an Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT and my current drivers:  nv4_disp.dll - 6.14.0011.7516.  I got that error ONCE.  I rebooted my machine and haven't seen it since.  This happened while playing Sims 2 shortly after all the installing and logging in and out of the game after bringing my newly rebuilt rig home.  The guy who upgraded it for me inverted the back fan to be sure there was extra air blowing on the card and so far so good.  I don't have any program to test the temp or anything but I haven't had any errors, save that one time, so it seems to be doing OK.

My issues with game are not due to my video card drivers, unfortunately.

Now that I've read this I'll be sure and keep an eye on things.  Hope you both find solutions for your issue!

Does the error occur if you run Windowed? Based on when I've seen the error, it is unlikely it will occur in windowed mode.

Hello.

I've been getting the same error message: D3DERR_NOTAVAILBALE , it started about a month after changing the Video Card form ATI to Nvidia.

I did try a few versions of drivers, including non official... results remain the same (and did change the power source to a better one).

Also did try to play in windowed mode, but the game crash anyway, however with a diferent message, relating to the board itself (can't remember it correctly, and I'm at work right now)

Quite probably I will give up and downgrade for my old video card... at least I still can trust that one.

ps.: I have installed SPs up to FT, patched. If it is of any relevance, the erro occur's with or without custom content.

Sorry for the bad english... not my first language (obviously)