More Awesome Than You!

For those who get either the random DOS "blue screen of death" crash, the "nv4_disp" infinite loop message, or unexplainable crashes to an in-game blue screen lockup with skipping audio, this is for you.

This latest news on the "nVidia crash" has a short version and a long version.

The short version: Make sure your anti-virus program(s) are disabled/turned off before playing The Sims 2. Especially those who have any Norton product installed. Games and Anti-Virus programs both like using a large amount of your system's paged memory. Even if your game did not crash you would probably see a reduction in your performance. For some reason when The Sims 2 is running with Norton Internet Security, the Anti-Virus is not releasing some of the memory which eventually leads to the system running out of memory.

The long version: Those of you who have been following this story will know that after weeks of research and testing, we could not reproduce this crash internally, even using some of the exact same models of video cards that were being reported as failing by our customers.

After consulting with a customer who had experienced the crash with a brand new system purchased from Dell, we bought ourselves the exact same system from Dell and immediately saw the crash for the first time.

We named this PC "Crashy".

As the error messages from the crash indicated the crash was occurring in the nVidia driver, we sent Crashy to nVidia for them to research the problem. After researching the problem for several months, nVidia concluded that the fault lay with our game, that the game was "leaking kernel memory" and that memory leak would eventually cause the PC to crash. How long the crash took to occur would be different for each individual gamer, as it is dependent on the specs of their PC. More RAM or more video card memory would delay the crash, or perhaps prevent it entirely.

When we got Crashy back from nVidia recently, we reformatted the PC's hard drive to start fresh in an attempt to isolate where and how kernel memory would be leaking from the game when we had not detected such a leak in any pre-release game testing.

Once we installed The Sims 2 and all the EP's back onto Crashy after the reformat, once playing the game, the crashing stopped occurring entirely!

This was very discouraging, as we can not fix a crash that we can not reproduce, and now it seemed we were back to Square One.

But upon further review, we realized that Crashy had come from Dell pre-installed with Norton AntiVirus, and when we first tried Crashy we had not been following our own Customer Support instructions about shutting off the AntiVirus before playing the game. The re-format had uninstalled the Norton from the machine, so now it was not running at all while playing.

Looking into Norton a bit on the Internet and with consultations with both nVidia and Microsoft, we learned that Norton has been suspected of leaking kernel memory while running, and this in combination with a program like The Sims 2 that utilizes kernel memory could be a fatal combination for a PC.

While we do not want to throw the Norton product under the bus, we have not been able to reproduce the crash since removing it. The Norton product is commonly bundled for free and pre-installed with off-the-rack PC's that many of our players purchase, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility that this could be the cause of this crash for these players.

So for those of you who are experiencing a crash, we ask that you turn off/disable/shut down your anti-virus program, Norton or otherwise, before starting the game. Report back to us what happens in the Technical Help Forum with an easily identifiable subject to your post so we will see it. Thank you, and we hope this works for you!

~MaxoidShannon

Yeah, right.  Like I'm going to do that.  My virus scanner and firewall are all-in-one.  So I disable that to play my game, and let you come into my computer through my always on internet connection?  I don't think so.

They're always said disable your antivirus/firewall.

Theres a simple solution Fourcats.  Don't Sim and Net.

Otherwise get rid of crappy Norton.

norton isn't our firewall and anti virus.  humm.  don't sim and net, that would require a lot of self-control.

I want to say that people running Norton have it coming to them anyway. There's no excuse to have that bloater on your system when there are so many free and effective firewalls/anti-virus programs.

But yeah. Saying that you should turn off your anti-virus before playing is a little bit cheeky. More than a little bit. Why not just fix that memory leak of yours?

Fourcats, if that fixes the crashing problem, I don't think people are going to complain. Simply disable your Anti-Virus and your connection to the internet.

Ok wait what.  Do you even have the Nvidia crashes? If not... why are you complaining about turning Norton off?

Its been said since the basegame came out that Norton and Sims won't play nice together.  Hell Norton doesn't play nice with anything.

I get the freezes/crashes.  But if I "useshaders off" then I dont

Edit:
My virus scanner & firewall is Zone Alarm. We like it pretty well.

Edit 2:

My spyware program just found, Grokster  listed as a P2P, what is that?

I read that as they "suspected" it was the games fault, but really, its Nortons!
Which may or may not be truth, but that's what I think they're saying.

How the fuck can it be Nortons when Iwouldn't let that piece of shit anywhere near my PC and I get the crashes.

Which is not to say I shan't check this out. I shall disconnect my internet connection from the wall. Turn on the shaders and turn off my Virus protection. But I won't hold my breath.

I'll get back to you on whether this makes any damned difference at all.

I read this yesterday and thought what total bullshit.

I always disconnect from the internet, disable my virus and spyware protection and I haven't had fucking NortonHogResources Anti-Virus in years.

They are so full of shit. The BV EP is the fucking problem and as per usual, they are passing the buck off to another software manufacturer and gee, once again, their customers.

Business as usual for EA.

Huh?  I've run Norton's a.v. program since my first desktop way back when (using version 2005 right now) and have never had any game issues (or virus). Just their a.v. and utilities, which I rather like.  My firewall is ZA.   No Nvidia card though; I run an ATI X850XT which does a dandy job.

Norton seems to take up way too many resources for something that should be running in the background.  Also, depending on what options you have, it can lock up so many things on the computer and make them inaccessible to the user.  We have Norton on the computers at work, and it drives me nuts, but what can I do?

I've run (essentially) without an AV for years, and I haven't had a virus either.  Products like Norton are mainly a) to make the end user feel real secure and b) to keep the really stupid from installing stupid crap on their computer.

The real nasty stuff circumvents AV stuff, anyway.

Seems I don't need to confirm it, but I will. I disconnected, turned off my virus protection and I damned well could have held my breath (almost). Barely two Sim hours in and my video card crashed so hard I had to do a forced reboot.

Wait. You're saying EA was wrong? Blasphemy!


 ::) Surprise, surprise.  ::)

I've had this crash with Castaway.  I do not have Norton and I turn off my antivirus when I play.  I still get the same crash.  I barely run any processes unless absolutely necessary.  I don't think that's quite where the problem is coming from. 

There could be a few other things doing this.  Paging file too small, video or soundcard acceleration too high, some codec or other file conflict.  I've already had crashes in FreeTime because of Divx's software.  If a sim turns on the tv, Divx loads up and bang, looping audio and a crash out.  I really haven't had the time to do anything about this yet, so I just get rid of the tv's on the lots for now.

I had this issue over a year ago with my old NVidia, I think it was when NL or Pets came out. The way I solved it was to put more RAM in the computer, and that was a PC which was purely for gaming- no internet connection, no AV, no background services or screensavers or nice windows themes. The PC was well above minimum specs at the time, too.

EAxis is so full of shit it ain't even funny  >:(

My first reaction when I saw MaxoidShannon's posting earlier in the week was "jeez, these guys are really clutching at straws". Here's my take on the whole situation from a post I made here at MATY last October:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8993.msg277139.html#msg277139 (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8993.msg277139.html#msg277139)

To quote myself:

"The logical conclusion is that the EAxis development team screwed up some of the DirectX code in BV. How can the game, which was working fine in Seasons + 162.18, suddenly get broken with the release of BV just 2 months later???"

I use Norton AV and have it on at all times even while gaming and it has never caused any issues. The bottom line is that the Sims 2 game code is fubar (Nvidia has told Eaxis that also). On a side note, ATI card owners are now experiencing gfx issues coming out of FT (not as severe as us Nvidia owners, but problems nonetheless).

The only way this issue will be resolved is if EAxis stands up and admits their game is borked instead of passing the buck to someone else (first they blamed Nvidia, now Symantec). I've resigned myself to the fact that a fix for this long running problem will probably never happen. The only saving grace is "boolprop useShaders false" (which is in my UserStartup.cheat file). This stops the BSOD for me at the cost of degraded gfx quality.


My daughter was experiencing severe BSOD's on her Castaway. From the readme file:

PROBLEM: Game crashes soon after starting.
Some recent NVIDIA drivers have problems when running when Hyperthreading is enabled on your processor. Try updating your driver first. If this doesn't help, turning off Hyperthreading in your BIOS will workaround this issue. If you have no idea what Hyperthreading or BIOS is, it's probably not worth messing around with this stuff. Contact your video card manufacturer for assistance.

Since her comp uses Core 2 Duo, I told her to use Task Manager and set the affinty of the game to 1 single core instead of using both. This solved the issue and Castaway is running quite stable for her. If you are using a multi-core cpu, give this a shot, may help.

I do not have boucoup amounts of RAM. I have NVidia. And most pathetically, I am a dial up user. Because of that, I never try to play this game while online.

When I had the base game, and even when I had an EP or two, I left security programs running. Blue Screen of Death, like clockwork. Once I installed Seasons, I knew that wasn't going to work at all on my crappy machine. Now I shut down Avast AV, ZoneAlarm, and just about everything else, up to and including Explorer.exe.  I haven't seen blue screen of death in ages, because I basically give Sims free run of my RAM.

So I agree with EA, it's a memory issue. Whether it originates with anti-virus or Sims 2 itself is up to the tech-type people to figure out, but I know when Sims 2 is running alone, I get no BSoD.

(And it says in the game booklets to shut down anti-virus and crash guard programs before running Sims. I just looked.)

I'm running TS2 with all EP installed on a notebook wich is 5 years old (Dell Inspiron 8200, 64MB ATI, 1GB RAM, 1600x1200 TFT). Before FT I rarely had a crash, but now with FT I started using Moniques "Save Reminder" to alert me every 24 Sim Hours to save.

To get TS2 running smoothly on this machine, I used a special WinXP Gaming edition, which comes with no bulk at all. Since that PC is not on the net with that configuration, no AV etc installed. Of course I'm dual booting with a "Real XP".

These crashes are IMHO sloppy coding, and any connection to specific hardware is purely coincidental.

That readme note has been around forever in the regular game, too -- at least as far back as OFB. And yea, it is relatively useless these days, when all but the cheapest entry-level systems have at least a low-end Core 2 Duo in them. You can't really turn off one core.  :P  There have been many discussions about poor Sims performance on dual and quad core processors here for over a year, including a recent one in the 'you broke it!' forum about game lag.

The Task Manager method works, but unfortunately TM gets amnesia, and doesn't remember the setting from one play session to the next, so you have to load the sims game, then go out to the TM every time to set the affinity. There's an easier way to force the game to use only one processor all the time-- use a handy little free utility called ForceCore (attached here).  It's pretty simple to use -- just put it someplace the system can find it (I have it in c:\windows\system32), and then put 'forcecore.exe <x>' in front of the rest of the target info in the icon that launches the sims game (right-click, then choose properties on the icon).  The <x> is replaced by the core number (1 or 2 on a duo), or you can use a -1 and it'll pick either one at runtime. 

And yea, the whole Norton thing is bullshit -- their 'solution' only really applies if you're running the game with their minimum specs (in which case, you have more problems than just nVidia issues). On a dual or quad machine with at least 2gb RAM, the anti-virus software would barely make a blip in the amount of processing power and memory it uses, even with bloatware like Norton or McAfee. Better yet, of course, is to dump Norton/McAfee, and go with a good freeware antivirus (I use avast! and never had a problem with it).

It's probably a combination of the factors; system specs, nVidia, and Norton. I have 6 computers in my house, only one of them has nVidia and only that one crashes. I chuck it up to the card and the lack of RAM in the machine. Turning off Norton doesn't help, but that is probably because the RAM is so low, it wouldn't run the game either way. And...don't think just because your machine is relatively new (a couple of years old) that it'll run the game fine. That computer is a Media Center PC, purchased in 2006. It's newer and it doesn't play the sims. nVidia causes graphics issues and crashes the game.

My daughter has 1 gb RAM, a 6150 Nvidia card, AVG anti-virus, never disconnects from the internet or shuts down background processes and yet BV runs fine for her w/out any crashes.

I have recently added a second gb of RAM (for a total of 2), a 7600 GT Pro Nvidia card, AVG anti-virus, always disconnect from the internet and disable all background tasks and yet BV would consistently give me a black screen or crash.

I have never been able to play a game that I shelled out my hard earned money for, with a better system than my daughter's and yet EA wants to tell me it's my computer or a program that I don't even use. Riiiiiight.

Anyone who's ever left the game paused for a long time, say for overnight  ::) , knows that the game has a memory leak. I can certainly believe that running Norton or McAfee makes that apparent much faster than if you aren't running it. That's not to say that people who aren't running them aren't running other programs- or that since this is an endemic Nvidia problem, that Nvidia itself is sucking up more resources than it needs. (Who knew that Catalyst, in all its suckitude, was better than whatever program Nvidia sticks you with?) It's a heck of a lot easier to "solve" this problem by telling people to turn off everything than to actually fix a memory leak that's been in the game since at least NL.

Also, BSOD crashes can be caused by all kinds of things. Maybe someone is crashing because of the memory leak, while someone else is crashing because of an underpowered PSU- I know someone who got a new Dell, and had random crashes playing WoW immediately, took it back, got a new one, and THAT PSU asploded on her. Do not trust Dell (or HP, or anyone other than yourself) to have built a computer with a PSU that can actually run your video card under full load. Another person could be crashing because of overheating. But because they all have Nvidia cards, they say "oh, the Nvidia/TS2 problem" and don't investigate it any further.

I'm running Nod32, which was designed to not suck up my resources. I've run with AVG and Avira, but got sick of the "Buy Me" crap you get from free programs that have pay alternatives. Nod32 is lighter, anyway, even if it's not free. And unlike McAfee, if I do ever disable it, it STAYS off, instead of trying to "help" me by turning itself back on.  :P

Though really, it's no surprise that Norton Nazi causes things to crash. Hex, you can't even uninstall the thing without performing top-secret surgical procedures on your computer's software environment. And they now charge $50.00 a year for service, just so they can take up half a gig of RAM and ask you to authorize the computer to communicate with itself.
Yes, I am a former Norton user. I stopped using Norton Nazi when I updated my subscription last year and because of the daylight savings time change it told me that my subscription expired in 1900 (Y2K in 2007) , and I had basically wasted my money unless I wanted to uninstall and reinstall Norton, which required tinkering in the registry, etc. No, once I uninstalled Norton, I uninstalled Norton. And I haven't looked back since.

Oh, and I experienced the overnight game crashes quite frequently. I have 2 gigs RAM, an AMD Athlon 3200, and a Radeon 9600 on my computer, all hand picked by me for performance and afford ability. But when that was going on, I also had Norton Nazi. So, Maxis can point the finger at them and be justified, but I'm sure that's not all that's going on. Because now my game crashes if I leave it on for a more extended amount of time and it crashes eventually after days.

Bottom line: Symantec eats system resources for breakfast, but so does the Sims 2. BOTH should fix their problems!

Grokster is a peer-to-peer file sharer, like LimeWire or... um, LimeWire's actually all I use, so I can't think of the others. Anyway, that's what Grokster is, and if I'm remembering it right, it requires you to download something called the GAIN network with it in order to function. It leads to a lot of spyware. So much, that it once choked my old tower to the point that it wouldn't even start. I haven't used Grokster in years.

GAIN is bad. Hella bad. GAIN killed my old laptop when he was just a week old.

If you want to rid yourself of Norton, there's a NortWare Begone tool in my 4shared stash. Link's in sig. Got it from Major Geeks forum.

I find this all very interesting.  I am also having problems with nVidia since I installed BV, but no BSoD, just a lot of graphic artifacts and distortions.  They are much worse after a longer period of gameplay.  I do not use Nortons, I use McAfee, and have always found it to be bloated and a major pain in my backside! 

I used McAfee for years, but the latest version really is too bloated (and too annoying -- I wanted antivirus, not a nanny!).  Finally took the chance to dump it completely when I reinstalled XP, and switched to avast!.

Okay, I got home from work and fired up the computer the 12-year old uses. It's an old Dell Dimension 4100, maxed out with RAM (512). Windoze ME, Pentium III processor, an ATI Radeon 9200 card and Symantec SystemWorks 2005.  Since I've disconnected the modem, the a.v. and ZA firewall were removed from the startup.

This old tub has the base game, NL, OFB, Uni, Pets - and against my better judgment, I gave into the pleas and added Seasons.  I was surprised that Seasons even ran, but it does.  There's plenty of CC and select hacks.  No crashes, black screens, or other issues.  Doesn't run the game fast, and I don't think the fishies can be seen, but the kid put in 40 fruit trees, spent days spraying, and managed to get a Plantsim, so she's happy.

Maybe the newer versions of Norton cause issues.  Don't know.  As suggested above, the screwups are most likely related to EAxis code.  They have a long standing reputation for that.

I wonder how that got on my computer?

Artifacts and distortions that appear over time are generally a sign of overheating.

Norton is NOT the cause of the nVidia BSOD problem.  At least, not the true nVidia BSOD problem that they are supposedly trying to fix (the one that is solved by turning off shaders, not having anything to do w/ overheating, low system specs, or outdated drivers).  My computer meets/beats all system requirements, does not overheat during gameplay, and has all updated drivers.  I used to get the crashes about 20-30 min into gameplay, until I started using the boolprop useshaders off cheat.  I do have Norton installed, though I shut down all unused programs during gameplay so that nothing is running but the bare minimum to keep Windows alive.  I STILL get the BSOD with shaders on regardless of whether or not Norton or any other program is running.  This is a bullshit excuse from Eaxis, and the problem will never be fixed by them.  I finally put the shaders cheat in my user startup file.

I've been lurking here for some time, and I've always been curious about these graphic cards horror stories.

I have a custom rig (which I nagged my dad to build) that's over 2-3 years old with Windows XP, Pentium 4 3.00 GHZ, 1GB RAM and Radeon 9600. It has always run like a dream with Uni/NL/OPB/Seasons and BV (no Petz -*I bite my thumb at thee, Petz!*). Everything's been gravy; I'm guessing it's because I have the habit of removing crap, even though I have 3 of 5 Orange Box games installed and two MMORPGs.

However, with Sims 3 coming, I fear I may need a new graphic card soon. (And a third hard-disk... running out of real estate too). Is the Radeon 9600 good enough or is it time to update? No FT at the time, lack of disk space and too many scary bugs dissuade me.

Educate me, MATY. Am I being paranoid or are my specs good enough?

What a funny soccer ball game?
A quite potentially multi-factor-based phenomenon is simplified as a soccer ball.  The companies are just kicking the ball to whoever around in the game and pointing their fingers "vaguely" or "loudly" at the ones they kick the soccer ball to, leaving the customers wondering, discussing and wandering... :giggler:

A whole truth is that let's kick the asses of the involved.  EAxis seems to be the more predominant one!
:P


I personally have no crashing problem at all running from the base game up to EP5 Seasons skipping EP4 Pets (I haven't) with my homely Norton wares and other security wares. It was EP6 BV with securom that successfully damged the DVD features of my DVD-RAM burner and cause frequent loading failures (say, ~5% loading success rate)!
Most of the hardwares of my present PC wwere made in 2004.
PC specs:
XP pro Eng, 1 Gb Geil DDRAM 400, Nvida 5700LE, Norton Internet Security 2004 with Norton AV, some other security tools.

Just in case that might be related:
I've only disabled or nullified a few programmes in the my copy of the OS winXP pro:
1. MSN and its explorer uninstalled and nullified
2. MSN messenger nullified
3. printer port disabled
4. address book nullified
5. MS outlook nullified
6. windows CD burn disabled
7. etc... a few more minors
I cleared up some junks like media in the help and wmp and a few others.


It seems the RAM used is a critical thing according to Simsample.
So, what were hers at that time when with problem and at the time when she solved the problem?
In other words, what are the working range for RAM sizes?

"boolprop useshaders off" can be useful?
Does that mean the shader codes are really in trouble especially to grade which video card can read or use certain functions :P  They could have made more fallback settings in EP5 Seasons for video cards like mine. :(

I guess they could have pressured the market too much and/or been really careless on the graphical coding parts. Nvidia may not have been perfect, but the latter seems doubtless. :P




Carrigon,

lol just in case,
I wonder if disconnecting the file type  association betwen the avi and divx at the folder otion menu (XP) or else can help avoid the such crashes.

That is the question, what is the nVidia BSOD problem? The way Maxis/EA defined it, it had nothing to do with the nVidia problem as I understand it (goes repeatedly into loading loops with sandclock and blue - or in my case purple - screen, graphics loose definition until it crashes) and it did not surprise me that they were unable to replicate the problem since they were looking for something that did not exist.
And Norton is not the problem, because - undoubtedly like many others - I never had Norton installed. Like many others - at least 20 in a German forum posting on this topic (everyone who tried it) - I could solve the problem by switching back to an "outdated" driver. Unfortunately this is not a solution for anyone with a brandnew nVidia card because the latest series don't work with this driver.
Did I report my finding on the BBS? Did I tell EA tech support? - Yes. What is the first message you get from tech support? - Update your drivers.  It's pathetic.
Now if I have a driver that works and then the next version doesn't my logical conclusion would be to compare the two, look at the changes and try to narrow down the problem. It's not the way EA/Maxis approached this though. I do not expect them to ever find the answer, so I am sticking to my old driver and my old card (which is pretty good anyway and can handle the game without problems) and have the problem solved for myself.

The 9600 is really the low end of video cards these days (and I don't think it's even sold anymore). If for nothing else, it's worth upgrading your video card every couple of years just to take advantage of improvements in the GPU technologies.  You can easily get a newer, better card online for $100 - 200, depending on how fancy you want to get.

I use AVG which doesn't hog resources (well not as much as norton anyway) and I still turn it off and disable my internet connection before I load up the Sims 2. I always have done.

Now I have TS2 installed on a computer which has only ever seen the internet once, and probably never will again. I DO NOT WANT service pack 3, thanks. I simultaneously sim and net by netting on my laptop.

Also, get MOAR RAMS. RAMs are fun. They make things go whoosh. They are also much cheaper than you would think. Don't buy from your computer manufacturer. Buy from a place such as Newegg. IIRC, going from 2 gigs RAM to 4 gigs RAM cost me less than $100.

Yea, these days you can pick up 2 gig of DDR2 ram for well under $100.  I got 2GB at newegg for $70 with (if memory serves) a $40 rebate.

Weird. I have Norton Protection Center and I've never had problems. o_O

I have Norton, ATI Radeon x1300 video card. I have never turned Norton off during gameplay. I don't get crashes.  If Norton were the problem, wouldn't everyone's game crash with Norton installed and working regardless of video card?

edit: The Norton is 2007, pc has 2gbs, I have all eps except Free Time, no stuff packs.

I have 1Gb RAM and a Radeon 9600 graphics card and I've just started getting blue screens since installing FT. The screen goes blue for anywhere between 30 seconds to five minutes but the game has never crashed so far, it always comes back. I have Norton installed, never even thought about turning it off since it's been there for so long and never caused problems. I think I'll try playing with it disabled and see if that stops the blue screen appearing, worth a try I suppose!

Sadly I can't afford to update anything on my computer right now, no matter how cheap it may be. Hopefully before Sims 3 comes out I'll be able to upgrade most of my computer because I doubt it would cope with the game at all and I certainly don't have the harddrive space for it.

I had Norton on this pc, well up until a few eps ago anyway, it came with the system and I was waiting until the sub ran out. I have an ATi Radeon Xpress 200 card. I have never seen a blue screen from The Sims 2 or it's packs with that arrangement.
I don't see anywhere in that explanation of EAs, where they said that they re-installed Norton to test the configuration again, after they suddenly decided that it was the issue.

It's not JUST Norton, it's Norton in conjunction with nVidia and possibly system specs. Read and use logic dammit!

If you have an ATI card, this does not pertain to you...

I know that, but they are arguing that their game does not have a memory leak. Which it does. Norton is also a resource hog. You would think that at least some issue would come up with others if it is just Norton, even if it wasn't the same card. It is still a little mysterious what it is that Navidia has that seems to go "ARrRRRRGGGGEEEEE NOOOOO" when in combination with Norton. Is it that NAvidia needs more from a machine then an ATI card does? Thus card that requires a lot+ Game that requires a lot+ virus scan that hogs a lot = boom? The point is that they can not just blame Norton, there is more there, how many other performance demanding games get this blue screen with the same card and Norton running? I mean seriously?

What gets me is that they are basing this conclusion off of one instance that they experienced on one computer and are pretty much completely ignoring customer feedback.


I've also heard that using old drivers helps.  I tried going back three or four drivers with no luck.  That was last summer.  What drivers are you using?  I may just not have gone back far enough.

On top of all that, they have already fixed this problem once before.  It broke again with BV for me.  I'm inclined to lay the blame equally on nVidia and Eaxis, because similar-quality ATI cards don't have this problem with TS2, and my nVidia card doesn't have this problem with any other game.

I got tired of arguing with TS2 tech support about this several months ago.  Here's what we know: across multiple system builds that include otherwise satisfactory nVidia cards, turning off shaders fixes the mystery BSOD, and apparently using outdated drivers fixes it too.  Now, what could those two things have in common, besides having absolutely NOTHING to do with Norton?

6.14.00010.7772 build june 2005. I got the problem when I updated with the next version, build sometime 2006. I get a few minor graphical glitches (sometimes the neighbourhood screen darkens when I rotate the view, but only for a few seconds), but otherwise it works fine, I get all the effects, water reflections, fish etc..

I have a Geforce 6600 GT.

I run a GeForce 8600 GT, and if I don't turn off shaders I get the BSOD about 10 minutes within the loading of a lot. I don't have Norton on my computer and I turn everything, with the exception of iTunes, off before running Sims. These guys are so full of crap it's starting to really piss me off... Is anyone here going to bother fighting EA on the subject?

On a different note, I'm sorry if this sounds incredibly stupid... but what exactly do you guys mean by a "memory leak" and how would they fix it?

A memory leak is when an application keeps taking new memory to run the same functions rather than using the memory it's already allocated. They fix it by proper programming (i.e., having the app check to see if what it's looking for is in memory already first before allocating more).

If simmers are not united to boycot or spend some times or moments to think or consider if to buy EAxis products, the company won't listen to most of the real complaints and problems because their sales and stock market(s) are still good enough to pretend nothing happened.

I know some people are not affected and they can be just being lucky.  But if some of them pretend there's really no problem or the problem is solely on those who complain simpl because they just happen not to have any problem, these people are just being ignorant.
Companies may like to disintegrate a crowd of complainers for easier management and make some tokens to create false impressions or confusions.

Customers without unity can barely fight against the tyranny of a big company when without no effective law protection.

Yes, it's a game only and so it's not really such a big deal.  So, we can wait and not rush to buy EAxis products like we had to.  We shan't die.  The sky won't fall simply because of that.





added:

Can you turn off the automatic update for that?

In my cases, I only let the OS inform me of any new updates, and I'm the one to decide if to download and/or install an update.
Normally, I skip over updates on outlook, messenger blah blah blah...

any chance our awesome modders can make a hack/fix to fix the memory leaks?

:giggler: Oh my goodness, modders are supposed to fix ignorant companies' problems!
So, ignorant companies can stay ignorant?  (just being acidic for kidding... :D )


BTW, which version of Norton may cause a problem with TS2 so far?

From me, it's at least not Norton Internet Security 2004
vikitty: not Norton Protection Center  (year?)
WandaAnn: not Norton is 2007 (AV? , Internet security?, or else?)


Also, which versions of Nvidia cards are affected due to the use with the newer drivers?


doren:  6.14.00010.7772 build june 2005 works

We may need a table to fill out different infos in the hope to single out those combinaitons are more likely to be problematic.

Thanks for sharing!  I have a GeForce 7800 GS which I purchased in early 2006.  Not sure when the card was made, though, and I don't know what it shipped with.  Does anyone know how I could find that info so I can figure out if it is OK to roll back to the earlier driver?

With the exception of Itunes? Are you crazy? Itunes is a resource hog too. Even I get weirdness when I try to run Itunes and TS2 (If I start Itunes while TS2 is already running,  it corrupts my Library while trying to read it. So I have to load Itunes first.) That's the thing, because it has a memory leak, ANY other program that uses a lot of RAM is going to cause problems. An AV is just a handy place to point because of all that it uses. But obviously there are other issues with the way Nvidia drivers are handling the shaders.  I'd guess something about how it handles them eats RAM. Because some people, even with new cards, can run fine, even with the shaders. It probably has a lot to do with what other crap is running on their machines and how much RAM they have.

Holy crap!  Even if I did have this problem, turning my anti-virus off would be the very last thing I would ever do!  I feel so sorry for all of you who are experiencing this problem and I really hope you get an actual solution instead of the insane amount of bullshit that's been given to you from those EAssholes.  Turning off anti-virus programs is EAsshole's solution to very problem!  When are those jerkoffs going to realizse that it doesn't work and will actually do something about this memory leak? 

No; memory leaks are internal to how the application works, so no mod or hack can fix it.  It requires a completely new executable, or a patch for existing ones.

We all know the chances of that happening are slim to none!   ::)

Something to think about is editing your startup apps and processes. You can try changing them in the programs themselves or by typing msconfig into the run text box and selecting the startup tab. Here is a site that will help you determine what is and isn't needed: http://www.processlibrary.com. I guarantee that almost everyone has more shit running than they need. Won't solve the problem, but maybe will increase the playing time.

Turning off your AV is something necessary often because they use so much of your processor and RAM and dig their hooks into so much of your computer that it borks other programs. Every program out there, basically, has that as the default instructions if you're having problems.  I know people who don't even run with AV, and I don't on my laptop. This is not the big danger symantec and mcafee would have you believe, and when I do run an AV, I do NOT run their bloatware.

Anyway, I use http://www.blackviper.com/ for looking at what services to shut down. Black Viper says to NEVER use msconfig to turn off services- use services.msc because msconfig allows you to disable services that will prevent your computer from booting, while services.msc will not.

While disabling services, however, I recommend keeping track of everything that you've changed so in case something borks, you can go back and set to defaults. I once had a windows update bork because it needed a service that should have been safe to set to manual. I print out his charts and then mark the settings I've changed on there.

Tis true, Kat. But when I disable the damn things, I want them down for good. I know what I'm doing, though and I don't suggest msconfig to anyone who would use a Windoze fer Dummies book to walk them through it. It's just a different and (for me) easier way to go through the list of startup processes and disable them.

 ;) Well for the startup stuff, I go into msconfig myself. LOL And have googled for anything I don't recognize off-hand.  It's the only thing I've done since I rebuilt, too. I really should go in and shut down Microsoft's crap.

They don't appear over time.  They'll show up at random times, and sometimes from the neighborhood screen when I first open the 'hood.  :(  Worse when I use shaders or camera mods.  I've tried to snap screenshots to post here and ask how to fix, but every screenshot I've taken does not show the distrotion.  The flash of the camera corrects the problem.  LOL  I guess I could use Print Screen, just hadn't thought about it. 

Okay, when I Alt-Ctrl-Delete it shows that I have 70 processes going.  I remember back in the olden days of TS1 there was a program that would cut off all the unnecessary background programs so that the game would run a little smoother.  Is that what this Black Viper program does, Kat?  Or, is there another program out there that does this?  I know that I do not need 70 processes going. . . and I don't know what is necessary and what is not.  It would seem that all I'd need in reality are the "System" processes, right? 

Wow 70! This makes me feel a lot better, I only have 28. I always shut down unnecessary ones from inside task manager, as far as I know anything that has the name of your windows account under the column user name can be closed down with the exception of explorer, although obviously this might be different for you. I sometimes do this before I run the game but since there are only about 4 processes that I can turn off taking up under 0.5Mb it doesn't really make a lot of difference, might do if you have 70 running though!

You really should look at your msconfig and turn off autostart for all the unnecessary apps. I'm using vista and I only have 13 including the AV.

Mentioning of "memory leaks, When securom began causing significant problems related to BV, I started reading various sites that were about different games and their problems with Securom. Repeatedly, was the mention that Securom caused "memory leaks". This was also posted numerous times on the EA Games site as one of the complaints about the use of Securom in Sims2 games. Of course EA denies this as they do no wrong.

Smells very very fishy... If this were truly Norton related then the useshaders cheat wouldn't do a damn thing to change it - yet in many cases, that resolves the problem.

Perhaps it's two (or more) unrelated causes resulting in the same or similar symptoms... but if this is a Norton issue, why would it only effect computers with nVidia graphics cards?  Surely having an ATI doesn't automagically protect you from memory leaks...

I agree with the previous poster whose name I'm too lazy to look up... it's irresponsible for them to release this info while having tested it on one and only one computer, and ignoring the other fixes which are known to work or at least help.

Explorer can be turned off too. I always do to give my games a little more help. To turn it back on when you are done, just open up task manager, File> new task. Then type in explorer.exe and press enter.

You can't blame SecuRom for the memory leak because it's been part of TS2 since the beginning- long before they went to SecuRom. Srsly, people blame SecuRom for everything, and it's ridiculous and takes away from the things that it ACTUALLY does.

Yes, going through Black Viper's lists and turning off services that he says are safe will reduce the number of things you see running in task manager. The startup part lets you kill 3rd party aps from starting automagically, services.msc lets you kill WINDOWS crap.

70 seems like really a lot. I haven't tweaked my services since I rebuilt my machine, and I only have 37.

I had trouble downloading that tool so I did a search for Norton removal tool (or whatever the tool is called on 4shared) on google and got the tool on Norton's site. I downloaded and ran it (because I had just removed Norton from my brand new laptop yesterday and wanted to be sure that everything was removed from the system) and when I rebooted, I couldn't access the internet. The diagnostics tool said that there was another firewall blocking my access. I had to do a system restore because tech support didn't know how to find the rogue firewall and disable it, or whatever would have had to be done. I guess I should have left well enough alone.

Hmm. I get no Nvidia problem and I have Norton Anti-virus and Security protector and God knows what other Norton crap on my machine, and I always leave my internet on, and I have a very old Nvidia video gaming card.
But even I know not to turn my anti-virus off and leave my internet on; that's just asking for trouble.

I am aware it has been a problem since the beginning, but when EA Games blames memory leaks as a problem and Norton as a source of these leaks, I question whether or not the situation is made any better by having a game protection such as Securom, which has been accused of causing memory leaks itself. I don't see how this observation "takes away from things".

I'm in a similar position; I play on an ancient nVidia card that doesn't know what a pixel shader is, and it has never blue-screened on me playing Sims 2 or anything else. My instinct is saying that it's either a EA problem, a nVidia driver problem, or some combination of both, and that Norton is fairly irrelevant; however, really EA and nVidia need to be working together to fix this, as it's not doing either company any good, rather than sniping about it.

Eh, I have my virus scan off when my games are on, but the firewall stays on. I do run my virus scan at least twice a week though. I caught a little something last week but I was rid of it rather quickly. I don't see all that much of a problem with turning it off, so long as you are diligent in your scanning. Unlike my families home computer, whose virus scan is on all the time. What good does this do them when they don't know how to use it, or even leave the pc on so it can run on it's own? Last time I was there I had to remove three things (one by hand) and install ad-aware, it was so full of crap. I've talked them through running both programs but every time I go it hasn't been used since I was there last.

I use a program called "end it all" I'm not sure where I got it.  It's a little program.  I like it.  Maybe do a websearch?

Here are a couple of comprehensive lists of services, which ones can be turned off completely, which ones can be set to manual and which ones are essential.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm (I've used this and had no problems. I see there's one for Vista now too.)
http://www.vernalex.com/tools/services/ (Haven't tried this one personally.)

As for anti-virus software and firewall software. I haven't ever had an anti-virus running constantly. I stopped using Norton after 2003, when its Internet Security feature it crapped my network and those of others I worked on. It is resource hungry and too big for its boots. I have Kaspersky installed and always virus check manually anything that comes off the net. Found a couple of backdoor trojans in some dodgy torrents lately, otherwise I've been fine. I do a scan about once a month but have never found anything. When you really get to know your PC you can kind of pick up when it's behaving oddly anyway.

I'm also lucky enough that I have a router to connect to the internet, it has a hardware firewall and I can close or open individual ports. There are sites on the net where you can test the security - make sure you trust the site! I used to use the free Zone Alarm when I had dial up.

How about offering them specs for "Crashy 2"?

Ok so I have this problem to but Norton has NEVER been on this PC but I do have a duo core and nVidia card.


I tried this and obviously PHAILED because the game won't load. I just get the forcecore popup notice. So here is what I put in my target line, please help me correct it?

C:\WINDOWS\system32\Forcecore\Forcecore.exe -1 C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 FreeTime\TSBin\Sims2Launcher.exe" -w

So as you can see I put the forcecore in C:\WINDOWS\system32\Forcecore\Forcecore.exe
When I try to put a " before it I get an error saying target is wrong. Does it matter that I'm trying to run in windowed mode, I really don't see how that could be the problem but eh. I've tried other tricks to correct this problem and am phailing miserably, very sad. But if this doesnt fix it there are a few other tricks still to try before I completely phail.. uhg seriously make a game that works!

I'm not using it myself, but you're missing a " there somewhere. You have an end quote, not a beginning one.

Are you sure the forcecore thing is supposed to be applied to the launcher? ???

I missed that. I'm pretty sure that's a problem, too.  :D

Yea, no -- you have to bypass the launcher, and make the target the actual game executable.  The correct string would be:

Forcecore.exe -1 "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 FreeTime\TSBin\Sims2EP7.exe" -w

(with forcecore in your system32 folder, you don't need to put the whole path to it, since that folder is already part of the system path.)

I wasn't sure if I needed to include the path for forcecore or not. Makes sense now, I had tried it without and just putting forcecore.exe -1 before the path but got an error so that was the reason for the added path. Turns out Forcecore doesn't like being in a subfolder, once it was taken out and just put into system32 folder by itself it worked like a charm. Oh the lil things you often have to do just to get something to work right! Thank you for the help! I have a slightly better understanding of target lines now.

The quote marks will get you every time if you're not careful.  The principle is, if the file path has spaces in it, you have to quote the whole thing.  No spaces, no quotes (though they won't hurt).

I wouldn't worry about it, Trigger. I have an AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core processor and a GeForce 8600 GTS, and the game runs beautifully. However, I only have the expansions up to OFB (plus FFS), so that could be why I haven't experienced any crashing yet. I'm not too worried, though. My system is optimized (http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html), I have plenty of RAM, and I run the game with the Win2000 Launcher (http://www.majorgeeks.com/Win2000_Launcher_d438.html). Win2k Launcher does the same thing as ForceCore, plus it has some very nifty extra features such as the "application priority" setting which allows you to decide how much CPU power you want to use to run the game. I set mine on "MAYHEM" since I don't run any other programs while playing TS2.

Edit: Removed an extra "yet." ::)

I have a dual core and an ATI card. I didn't think that I had any problem with having a dual core but the other day, for shits and giggles, I changed it so that my game was only trying to use one, to see if it had an affect. It surprised me and actually ran smoother, and gave me less gripe at the neighborhood loading, unlike what it usually does.