More Awesome Than You!

My game has been displaying SEVERE symptoms of graphical vomit as of late. I'd point the finger at usershaders, as I have a nVidia 8600, but I play with shaders off, and even before I fixed the issue I NEVER had anything this severe.

Essentially, when I go to load my neighborhood or a lot, empty or occupied, my game completely shits itself and starts throwing textures up like mad and essentially trying to make me have a seizure. I was thinking CC, but I'm not familiar with any instance of CC causing my menu to vanish and go insane as soon as I load a hood. This also occurs during loading screens, and causes my computer to launch into a stuttering fit until I can manage to pull up the task manager and shutdown the Sims.
This is a recent issue, and it began shortly after I patched & cracked FT, as well as updated my drivers. However, it also appears to be somewhat random, and so is really throwing me off when I try to troubleshoot.
I really hope it's not my hood, as it's fairly new, and I don't believe I've done anything outside my normal playing style.
I'm running XP, not Vista by the by.

I'm sure I could just wipe the hood and start a new, but I've grown rather attached to this family(only one so far). I'm willing to do so, but I'm more interested in finding out what the hell is borking my game.

I just tried flipping through hoods and lots to try and catch pics of the madness, but no go. I'm not particularly looking to screw my machine over anymore than necessary, but I'll keep trying to catch shots.

Thanks in advance!

It's not the hood. Behaviors like that tend to be the last gasps of a dying or overheating video card.

Ffffuck.
Well, Sims2 seemed to be the only one it wasn't playing nice with so I thought it was worth a shot.

Thanks so much for the speedy reply, Oh Awesome One!