More Awesome Than You!

Hi all!  I'm still gathering info for my upcoming computer build (hopefully latter part of next month!) and am wondering about processor speed.  Obviously I want a good, fast processor that's going to be able to adequately handle TS2 and all the expansions if I should decide to buy them, as well as handle plenty of custom content.

It might help if I start with what I already know (like we've been building computers for somewhere around 6 years now on and off).

#1.  AMD processors are WAY faster than Intel and Celeron chips.
#2.  Processor speed alone doesn't dictate how fast the computer will run--good video speed and RAM coupled with good PC RAM make all the difference in the world, and of course there are a few other important things to look for when buying a processor and mobo.
#3.  Cooling is also extremely important; without proper cooling all kinds of things can go wonky.
#4.  That no matter how much I know I'm always learning more.  :D

Basically my PC (I currently have an Athlon 2200+ which = about 1800mhz, 512 mg RAM which is the max Win98SE can support, a GeForce4 video card with 128 megs of DDR RAM) handled TS2 by itself fairly well, with the exception of slowing down on large lots with 6 or more sims on them.  I didn't notice much difference after installing Nightlife.  However, since installing University I've noticed a drastic difference.  Now the medium lots are barely chugging along with more than three or four sims on them.

So, I need to know what makes a good combination to be able to keep the game running without much in the line of noticeable slow-downs.  I realize, of course, there will probably always be a little slow-down when night turns to day, when new NPCs are generated and stuff like that.

Thanks so much for input!

I have exactly the same specs as you - Athlon 2200 and 512MB RAM, although my processor is overclocked to 2000.  My video card is unsupported, so I have to cheat a lot.  As I've said on another thread, I am totally mystified by all this technical stuff because I don't have any real problems with slowing-down.  I did in the original game (couldn't even load community lots and wasn't able to play more than one lot without restarting), but not since installing Uni.  I regularly have 30-40 Sims on lots when there are parties going on and only really notice any lag when I get to around 32-35 or so and can play as many lots as I want now and go downtown over and over. 

It's all very confusing.

AncientSim, that is very confusing!  In the neighborhood I play I have one main family, a couple of sorta families in small residential lots, a dozen or so Townies I made myself, then the normal Downtownies and University people.  I don't even have a full gamut of NPCs, something like a couple of newspaper carriers, a couple of grocery delivery people, and one mailman.  I have the default playable sims at LaFiesta Tech, then four college students in one medium-sized house.  As I said, my game now grunts and groans at every turn.

I've been going through and deleting custom content and only installed a handful of custom houses to try to keep things down to a dull roar.  I do routine maintenance about every couple of weeks, shut off my background programs and the whole nine yards.   It's pathetic!

I thought win98SE could support 1G of RAM?

I suspect I need to double check that, as we are planning to take my computer up to the 1G mark...

I've got a 2.7G processor, and a radeon 9600 graphics card (128M video RAM), with the base game and uni everything was fine and on the highest settings - with nightlife, I've been dropped back to medium and have a few lag issues.

Current plan is to upgrade to a 3.1G processor (fastest supported by my motherboard) and add an extra half a G of RAM...

I have an AMD 3400+ (clock speed 2.2ghz), 1gb RAM, and a Radeon 9600 card with 64mb of memory. It's a laptop, so none of those specs are going to change until I get a new computer a long, long way down the road (the only thing I could upgrade is the RAM and I doubt I'm going to.) I have no trouble running NL with all graphics settings on the highest, and I've never noticed any major play issues on big or crowded lots, other than increased loading times and longer hiccups when a lot of people come over for a party. However, I have to cheat to turn smooth edges on, because Maxis thinks you need to have 128mb of video memory to adjust this, which is bullcrap.

My old laptop had a Pentium 4 processor (3ghz I think), 512mb of RAM and a Radeon 9200 card with 128mb of memory. It couldn't run with smooth edges or reflections on (slowed down to the point of being unplayable). It also had major issues with overheating which were not fun and are part of the reason it got returned to Best Buy under warranty and exchanged for my nice new (well, new a year ago) machine.

I have an Amd, athlon xp edition processor.   2.4 ghz

I have a Gig of memory

and I got a new video card today.  woohoo.   so I have a nvidia 5200 with 259mb of ram.

I don't know square one about what info you actually need, but my Sim game runs VERY smoothly, and this is what I can tell you about my computer:

HP Windows XP Media Center Edition OS
Intel Pentium 4 processor
2 CPU's with 2.4 gHz each
512 MB RAM

And I use Nvidia, but I don't even know what that means... ???

Apparently, the HP Presario (I think) is even better for gaming than what I have.  I'm assuming mine runs smoothly because of having 2 CPU's, but like I said, I have no idea.  I just thank God for small miracles!  :D

Hope that helped!

 
Welcome!

Welcome to Electronic Arts System Information Utility, Easy Info. This tool can be used by yourself and our technical support representatives to help find a solution to any technical issues you may be experiencing with your game. Please make sure that your system meets the minimum requirements and that you have the most updated drivers for both your video and sound devices.


 
 System Overview
 Your System Operating System )  Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)  Windows XP/2000/98/ME
 
System Memory 1016.5 Processor Speed 2400.2  DirectX Version)  9.0c
 
Display DeviceIntel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller   
 
Display Memory 64.0 
 
Display Driver 6.14.10.3943   
 
Sound Device   Realtek AC97 Audio   
 
Sound Driver 5.10.5730   
 
 
 

Intel Pentium 4 with HT Technology
1 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 7800 with 256 MB RAM
2 CPU's, each with 3.4 GHz

Ooh drool, you must have great framerates.... 

 ;D
I have an alienware...
Amd Athlon 64 fx-51 that runs at 2.2 GHz
1 Gig of DDR ram
NEC multiSync nVidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra with 256 ram.
I'm running Windows XP home.

I have an Athlon 2200 XP system, with a GEFORCE nvida2 motherboard which cause problems with loading the sims 2 I use a work around to play. processer is 1.8 gig  I can up grade the processer without changing motherboards so I still have room to play with, not overclocked havent want to overclock it, 512ram, Radeon 9600 pro with 256mb of ram a Sound blaster live fantastic sound I can hook up suround sound if I want to. and I use XP home with service pack 2  I have had it for a year and am think of upgrading it

I have a Pentuim 4 3.2 ghz, 1 gig of RAM, 250gb hard drive, Windows XP Pro, and a NVidia Geforce 6600GT 128mb PCI-E. I expect it to be outdated any minute ::).

You no doubt ARE already outdated!  :o  LOL!!

My system will be outdated before it's ever built.  We do that because it saves a ton of money on components, yet at the same time you can build a decent computer.

Ness, sometime ago one of my friends who is big into building gaming machines told me about the 512-mg limit on Win98SE.  I'm not saying he couldn't be wrong, just that's what he told me.  If I remember right, when I upgraded to 512, a salesman at Office Depot said that was correct.  It would bear looking into, though, just to make sure.

Okay--I'm taking notes on all this stuff.  I'm planning on using WinXP Pro SP2 so at least that much I do know.  :P

From what's posted here it looks like I'll be wanting a gig of RAM and at least a 3-ghz processor and that two would be even better.  ;)

Thanks to all of you again!

this ram limit thing got to me...  as we were tossing up whether to stick in more ram, or upgrade the processor first...  a bit of research and I found this:

http://forums.wugnet.com/Windows-98SE-limits-ftopict444036.html

it appears that 1G ram under 98SE is doable, though...  although, I honestly believe I'll get more from the faster processor at this stage - and running under the theory that processors this motherboard can support will go out of fashion before ram, we've opted for the processor.

That is very cool that at least it can be done!  The sensible side of me says I should just upgrade the PC I have.  The other sensible side, though, realizes this may be the last time in a long time I have an opportunity to build a new one, so I should go for it! LOL

I have a little Shuttle:

Operating System 
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 
 Memory (RAM) 
Capacity: 511.48 MB

  Processor 
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz 
Version: x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 
Speed: 3006 MHz 

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz 
Version: x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 
Speed: 3006 MHz 
 
 Local Disk 
Total Capacity: 146.90 GB 

 Sims2 runs fine if a little slow on community lots... we also have a ton of other games on here.. I share with my 3 boys  :)
 
 I love my Shuttle cos it's small and quiet!

Home-built:

PC Power & Cooling Silencer power supply, 420W
Intel D845PESV motherboard, 533 MHz FSB
P4 2.8 GHz Northwood (the fastest CPU this mobo will take)
1024 MB RAM (Crucial, standard grade)
3 36-GB U160 SCSI hard drives w/Adaptec 29160N SCSI controller
2 Plextor SCSI optical drives, one CD reader and one CD-RW
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 (connected to an old receiver and a decent pair of speakers by an Audioquest iPod-to-stereo cable--sounds good!)
MSI Radeon 9800 Pro w/128 MB DDR RAM (256-bit memory interface) - AGP
Logitech MX510 mouse
Tandberg Travan NS20 Pro SCSI tape drive (not really relevant I suppose--but it does draw power)

This was adequate for TS2 original and okay for NL, but it's showing significant lag with Uni installed--video settings include Smooth Edges at about the half-way point, Reflections on, Texture Detail at Medium (all changed from what the game recommended), lot view (or whatever it's called) at Small. I could turn down some of these settings and get better frame rates, but the game looks really good with the greater detail at my LCD monitor's native resolution (1280x1024)--although it would probably look better on a good CRT. Just yesterday I received a Radeon X800GT that I hoped would be an upgrade, bur right out of the box it produced significant display corruption, when I tried to load a lot in TS2 the whole screen when to hell, so I need to send it back.

In short, I find this configuration barely adequate for TS2 with the expansions, knowing what the game can look like.

Let's talk principles instead of specific components. And let's start with that glamourous item, the power supply. To be blunt, the power supplies that come with most pre-built systems are crap. And if you're going to load up a new or rebuilt machine with a hot new motherboard and CPU, a high-power video controller (even the Radeon 9800 Pro requires its own power connection), a couple fast HDDs, a CD-RW and a DVD burner, that POS 300W power supply isn't going to cut it. Get yourself a quality power supply rated for at least 450W from a reputable manufacturer (PCP&C are the best, but the top Antec models are okay). Pay particular attention to the regulation, and don't settle for anything worse than ±5% on any of the + voltage lines ("rails")--±1% is preferred, and ±3% is acceptable. Inadequate power can lead to graphics corruption, spontaneous reboots, and worse. Power output declines as temperature increases, and the cheap power supplies can't supply their nominal rated power at normal operating temperatures.

Plus, with a quality power supply, you'll get a quality power-supply fan, one that is less likely to fail and cause your PC to catch fire, probably in the middle of night, thus burning down your house. This is no joke, and something for those of you who run your PC 24/7 to consider. I used to know a Web site with photos of burned PCs, but you just can't find anything useful with a Google search anymore. With a new power supply, you can get dedicated SATA power connectors for your new SATA hard drives.  :)

CPU choice comes down to a price/performance calculation, and whether you want to buy a new motherboard (recommended if you current one is more than a couple years old, since you'll need Socket 939 for AMD or Socket 775 for Intel). AMD vs. Intel?  Take your pick. In benchmark testing, AMD wins some and Intel wins some. AMD is currently the big winner for gaming, while Intel still wins for some high-intensity image and video processing. It once was the case that Athlons were hot and P4s cost more, but these days the Intel chips are hotter and the upper-end Athon 64s cost more than equivalent Intel CPUs. Intel has an advantage by supplying its own chipsets for its CPUs, while AMD relies on third-party suppliers with an uneven track record of stable products. Athon CPUs gain a performance advantage by having the memory controller on the chip, but this restricts you to DDR for now while the Intel CPUs have large on-board L2 caches and can use the most current RAM technology, DDR2 (if the motherboard supports it). This could provide a cost advantage to AMD.

The most value for money in a CPU is usually found a couple steps down from the current top of the line. In this particular instance, you're probably better off not going for that next-higher model for just a few $$$ more--use the money instead for the next-higher model graphics board, which should probably give you a bigger performance boost in TS2. You shouldn't need an after-market heatsink/fan (or water cooling) if you don't plan on overclocking the CPU. For TS2 and most (all??) other games, a dual-core processor is uneccessary as the game won't take advantage of the second core in any significant way, if at all. But if you use some other apps like Photoshop a lot, a dual-core CPU might be worth the premium price--you would need to see which apps you use can take advantage of the dual cores.

Graphics board/video controller:  Get the best you can afford (although a $500 model is probably overkill). Make sure you have room for the cooling aparatus, since the heatsink/fan assembly on most current upper-end models will block the adjacent PCI slot. If you're buying a new motherboard, make sure it has PCI Express instead of AGP, and get a PCI-Express video board (fortunately, the PCI-E boards are slightly less expensive than their AGP counterparts). DON'T buy a reduced-performance OEM or "SE" model to save money--these are usually low-performance versions of the retail boards, made for the big manufacturers like Dell and HP. You are going to want at least 256 MB of DDR3 memory with a 256-bit memory interface. Be sure you will have a spare power connector for the card.

RAM:  1024MB, or more if you can afford it (but only after getting the power supply and video card). Don't get the cheap no-name stuff--there is a difference, so stick with quality brands like Crucial, Corsair, OCX, and Kingston. In the US you can buy Crucial direct at decent prices. You probably don't need the varieties with platinum heat spreaders and LEDS unless you're planning on overclocking your memory.

Hard drives:  If your motherboard has serial ATA connectors (SATA), then by all means get SATA drives, preferably ones that have a native SATA interface and implement command queuing. Many SATA drives on the market, especially older models, are really just parallel ATA drives with a SATA connector added. Two drives are better than one! Given a choice, take two smaller drives over one large drive. Any version of Windows will work better if you can put the paging file at the beginning of a separate physical drive from the one on which Windows is installed. With SATA drives, I believe each motherboard connector will accept only one drive, so multiple drives on a channel isn't an issue (and shouldn't be anyway with a serial device), so you would have each HDD on its own cable, and your optical drives on a separate IDE channel (another advantage of SATA, as many motherboards with plain old IDE connectors provide only two channels). Even if you have parallel drives, try to have each drive on its own cable, and don't an optical drive on the same cable as a hard drive (double up the HDDs on one cable if you have to). Avoid 5400-RPM drives--7200 or 10K (Western Digital's Raptor drives) are the way to go. Be sure to get an on-board cache of at least 8 MB.

Motherboards:  PCI Express instead of AGP, Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA, three fan headers (instead of one), and enough PCI slots for everything you might stick in your PC while leaving room for Slot 1 to be blocked by the graphic card's heatsink. RAID is an unnecessary luxury, but having plenty of SATA connectors as well as the standard two IDE connectors is not.

Sound Card:  A SoundBlaster Audigy 2 will still sound better than any onboard audio, and because it has its own DSP, it takes the audio load off the CPU.

If you're going to buy a new case, it's better to have one that's bigger than you need than one that is too small. And a large case should ventilate better. Look for a case that's well-finished inside (no sharp edges), has sufficent drive bays for everything you want to install (including the breakout box for your new high-end SoundBlaster), and offers good air movement. An extra fan in the front and two in the back can be valuable. A 120 mm fan will move the same amount of air as an 80 mm fan but at a lower speed, hence less noise.

Hegelian: Now how did I know this subject was going to get a very long post by you? ;) I think you've stolen away the most loquacious poster award from syberspunk.  ;D

Dewshine: Do you know if Alienware got bought out by Dell? I went to their site recently and it looks suspiciously like Dell's. :P

Hegelian, thank you so much for your thorough reply!  I very much appreciate your insight! :)

Well, that's what I pulled off my DxDiagwhatever:

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Compaq
       System Model: 6027US
               BIOS: 686O2 v1.08
          Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
             Memory: 768MB RAM
          Page File: 962MB used, 564MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
    DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
     DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

     Card name: RADEON 9700 PRO
     Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
        Chip type: RADEON 9700 PRO AGP (0x4E44)
         DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
       Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E44&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00
   Display Memory: 128.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
          Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
  Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
      Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
   Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6571 (English)
      DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
 Driver Date/Size: 8/30/2005 21:42:53, 238592 bytes
      WHQL Logo'd: Yes

Sound like this to me:

lajdifuaoe9r0jfkcspirer90=-4ajfauh9ru
0wr80a9jfaguht7q=]kkfjg-a0875gifja[
jt9ty9wwopijfpuethpy]t
.....ad infinitum

So, all you clever computer people, is what I have good or bad? Do I have too much garbage or something? My game runs okay as long as its not a larger lot with more than 3 sims on it. Shouldn't it run better than that? Please... keep in mind that I speak english only in english. If I run into problems understanding I habitually translate into my own language, the results of which are sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious, but never informative.

Dell Dimension 8400
Pentium 4 540w/HT technology (3.20GHz, 800 FSB)
1GB dual channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
128MB PCI Express x 16 Radeon X300SE video card
Microsoft optical mouse
16x DVD-ROM + 16x DVD+/RW w/dbl DV16DVR layer write capability
80GB serial ATA HD

TS2, Uni and NL all run fine on this machine, although it will be one year old 12/15 and is already outdated.

But...no cable t.v. or broadband where I live; just dialup.  The view is nice, though.

gee, motoki, I don't know... I sure hope not!
I love my alienware but would never buy a Dell... I've had too many folks buy them and have little software issues crop up (like screenshots disabled when DVD's are played).  I'm sure Dells are nice computers for the market they are sold to, I just don't want someone telling me I can't do something by removing or locking up functionality.
My motherboard and chipset can be easily upgraded and I have a great local computer shop that will order parts, sell with little mark up, and even install them cheaply. Heck, when I upgraded to DSL and bought a router to hook my older computer up he gave me an extra DSL worthy cable for free. My Hubby's comp needed a new DVD drive and he sold it at cost because he had to order a black one to match and made us wait for the part.   I love my littile town...  ;D

Here's the info from Hoovers about Alienware and Dell


There's no news about a takeover...

Sorry! It wasn't intended to be long when I started, but I like to write, and, well, you now how it is. . . .

Anyway, let me take this opportunity to add just this:

Ditch Win98 and get WinXP (preferably XP Pro)—it is a huge improvement over 98/98SE/ME. You (speaking generally) can get it for relatively cheap (compared to the full retail price) when you by some internal component from one of the reputable mail-order dealers—a motherboard, CPU, hard drive, or video card, for example.

Neither good nor bad, really. Are you satisfied with the game performance? The limiting factors on your frame rates (how smoothly the game runs, especially when you move the "camera") and the number of sims you can have on a lot are probably:

1. The video card. The Radeon 9700 Pro isn't really old, but it's not new either, and a video card with current technology and with 256 MB of video memory would probably give you a significant performance boost and let you turn up the detail settings--for example, are you currently using Reflections On?

HOWEVER, looking at the system specs for you computer, it may be that the power supply will not support a modern video card, since it is rated for only 220 Watts:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?dlc=en&lc=en&product=94088&dest_page=product&cc=us&docname=c00009568

2. System memory. Increasing system RAM from 768 MB to 1024 MB might give you a noticeable increase in performance by allowing more game data to reside in RAM instead of needing to be fetched from the hard drive. In combination with this, changing your virtual memory from Windows controlled to something like Initial:  100, Maximum 800 could improve performance by reducing the amount of data Windows sends out to the paging file. (See my looong posts in the Graphics Card thread for screen shots of how to do this).  ;)

3.  CPU:  Upgrading to a faster CPU would also give a noticeable performance boost, perhaps even more than increasing system RAM—this is something you will only know by trying. Maxis provides minimum requirements but not an optimum system configuration. Since your computer is a Compaq, it probably has a proprietary motherboard which was likely made by Intel. Again, looking at the system specs for PCs in this series:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodinfoCategory?dlc=en&lc=en&product=94088&dest_page=product&cc=us&

it appears it may not be possible to use a CPU faster than 2.2 GHz in your computer, or a CPU that runs on a 533 MHz front-side bus—and I think it would be difficult to find a 2.2 GHz Willamette P4 (1.75V) CPU these days, or even a 2.2 GHz Northwood P4 (1.5V), and if you could it would probably cost more than the performance increase would be worth.

If your motherboard would accept a 2.8 GHz Northwood P4 that runs on a 400 MHz front-side bus, it might be worth the upgrade, but then again it might not:  I just bought for my mother for Christmas an HP Pavilion with an Athlon 64 3400+, 1024MB RAM, an 80 GB SATA hard drive, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, keyboard and mouse, and WinXP Home, for 500 USD plus shipping, which is probably less than it would cost to upgrade the CPU, memory, power supply, hard drive, and operating system of an old PC (the model year for your Presario 6027US is 2002--it is nearly four years old). Granted, the HP has integrated graphics (ATi Xpress), but if you were to get something like this, you could always stick your Radeon 9700 in it (you would probably need to go into the BIOS setup to disable the integrated graphics).

I've an Alienware as well.  It's 2 1/2 years old now, and upgraded almost everything since we bought it. ::)

3.0Ghz proc
2 GB Corsair XMS
nVidia GeForce Ultra 6800 256MB
Audigy 2 (bleh, next thing to go)
XP Home, SP2
500w power supply
Sony DVDRW, Plextor CDRW

I run Sims2 with maximum specs, including smooth edges all the way up.  The only time I lag is on large community lots at night, and when I first load a lot I have to pan completely around the house before it runs normally.

Hegelian: 'sokay, I'm just teasin' ya.  ;D I can get off on a long tangent when talking about geeky technology stuff myself sometimes.  :o

Dewshine: Hmm, okay. Well maybe they just hired Dell's web designer lol. I swear their new site makeover just looks terribly Dell-ish.

Hegelian:

We've been trying desperately to upgrade my computer from 98 to XP pro for the last 4 or 5 months...  everything goes smoothly until we install the graphics drivers and then we just lose the display all together - pretty blue/green cross-hatching pattern.

So far...  we've tried the graphics driver through windows update, we've tried the graphics drivers from ATI (both the 5.9 that was current when we started and the 5.10 that is now the most recent), we've tried the drivers that came with all the original disks for the computer...

ATI's tech support suggested we needed to upgrade the AGP drivers - we got the absolute most recent ones...  someone else suggested that we don't install the AGP drivers at all (motherboard originally had onboard graphics, but the capability to add the graphics card later, which we did)...

All this, the same result - if you've got any idea how we can get the graphics card to work under XP, we'd love to hear it, because then I get my other hard drive back!  At this stage, the drive that is usually C drive has XP on it and is disabled under BIOS so I can work on what was the D drive with a fully functioning 98SE install.

Ness

My computer is not a name brand, but something put together by a local shop according to what we asked for (but several parts have been updated since I bought it)

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3000+ 1.8 GHz
1 Gb of RAM
NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra 256mb
480W power supply
Windows XP Home

This combination runs the game quite well, although always upon loading a lot, there is a bit of lag at first. With my previous video card, ATI Radeon 9600 XT (128mb) the graphics would often blur when the lots got busier, but after upgrading the video card (which may be a bit of overkill), that never happens anymore, and the graphics details are preserved at all times. The only thing I'd complain about is the loss of object specularity which seems to have something to do with the video card and its compatibility with the game. And the latest NVidia video drivers don't work very well with TS2, so I'm using version 77.77.

Thank you Hegelian, I was actually able to follow you for the most part. I updated the driver(s), because that's something you mention in the graphics card thread, but I wasn't able to find anything that says 'virtual memory'. Does it go by another name as well? I found all the anti-aliasing hints, and the page things (how professional of me), but nothing that says 'virtual memory' outright. I remember seeing something like that somewhere while checking around. I wish I remembered where I saw that.

I do play with 'reflection' turned to 'on', should I change that? Dang it, I like the feature. I have the neighborhood view on off, as well as the decoration view, but I guess that doesn't help much.

Anyway, thanks for the information, that was very helpful.

veilchen: In XP if you right click on My Computer, go properties, Advanced, Performance > Settings, Advanced, Virtual Memory and change you can set the size of the swap file/virtual memory.

I found that even having a gig of ram, when I turned it off sometimes TS2 would crash with out of memory errors. Usually this only happened when things got really crazy like when I threw a party with 30 plus sims on a large lot  ;D but I set my virtual memory to about 4GB min and max, which admittedly is probably overkill, and had no problems after that. This game is somewhat of a memory hog.

I personally have this kind of computer:

P4 2.0 ghz
Windows professional XP with service pack 2
1 gig of ddr ram memory
ATI 9800 pro 128mb videocard (I had to change my power supply to a 350watts)
Onboard soundcard

The game runs fine.  It is slow on huge lot other than that I have no problem.  And since I don't really like huge lots I don't really mind.  Though the game limit me when I start it to no more than 2 guests, I use the cheatcode and have no problem with 8 guests on my lots or community lots.

Actually, I was thinking perhaps you were not able to have reflections on, because it could cause a significant slow-down in the game. In truth, I was hinting that you could see more of the good game graphics with an updated PC.   :)


I posted two or three messages with screen shots, so you may have missed the one showing the Virtual Memory settings (also known as the Paging File). So here it is:



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Yes—all versions of Windows since Win95 require some virtual memory to be allocated or else they freak out. The trick is to find the balance where the PC runs smoothly with the least amount of "disk thrashing" (paging data out to VM). As a general principle, the more RAM you have, the less virtual memory you need. The exact best settings can vary from user to user.

I have a second machine that dual-boots to Win98SE and DOS 6.22, and a very interesting thing occurs. This machine has 512 MB RAM, and with the virtual memory set to a fixed 128 MB, it uses the swap file (virtual memory/paging file) until it is full, and then stops using it at all. I think this is an effect of having a registry hack (thanks to Cacheman) that tells Win98 to minimize data swapping, so once the swap file is full, Windows empties it and won't use it until I restart Windows. This is actually pretty cool, since there is no disk thrashing at all—everything is held in RAM—and I don't use any software on that machine that would require more than 512 MB of RAM. So for what it is (Tualatin Celeron, 1.3 GHz), the machine is pretty responsive.  ;D

I can honestly say, with 1 gig of ram and no page file the only program I ever had freak out is TS2. Of course, I don't run CAD and hadn't tried running Photoshop or any other memory hog programs either. *shrug* But anyway, I just keep one now just in case.

Here's mine from dxdiag.  I have an aging Dell which has never had any problems, unlike both of my son's custom built gaming machines.  I game up on the integrated graphics and bought a (PCI) graphics card after about a month of having the sims grind to a halt at dawn and dusk.  I got into building small lots early on!!!  It runs the base game very nicely, but I don't fancy adding Uni or NL to this set up.  couldn't stand to go back to low quality graphics and lots of slowdowns

   Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2
System Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation
       System Model: Dimension 2400               
          Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
             Memory: 510MB RAM

       Card name: RADEON 9250
     Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
        Chip type: RADEON 9200 Series (0x5960)       

thanks for all the info - do tell me if I'm wrong about adding Uni & NL.

Thanks bunches for the great advice, both of you. I went and upped the VM (I hope I was supposed to do that), and I'll try and see if that helps the game's choppiness. I get the 'Virtual Memory too low' when I have not even entered a lot yet, so maybe that was the problem. I shut down McAffee (again, I hope that wasn't a braindeadness move), and I made sure the game does pay primary attention to 'programs'. The VM is now set to 'initial: 1000, maximum 3000 MB. I know you wrote 100 and 800 in your other post Hegelian, but that didn't help any at all, I got 'VM is too low' almost immediately upon initially loading the game. I hope I didn't do anything really foolish.

Hegelian, I wish I could afford to update my computer, but I am so broke it's almost funny. I can put some things on my christmas list though; I have to check and see your posts again to find out what should be top priority. I have no clue what 'disc thrashing' means, but boy, its scary :D

Hey, I've been there a lot recently. It is difficult to evaluate any PC without being able to actually open it up, but from the speciifications that are available on the HP/Compaq Web site, it seems that your current computer probably cannot be upgraded much further—and the increase in performance you could get would probably be too little to justifiy the cost. I suspect that you might be better off just waiting until you can afford to replace it. I do not know what prices are like in Germany, but in the U.S. you can get a new PC that will run TS2 quite well for much less than 1000 USD, if you keep your current mouse, keyboard, and monitor instead if buying new ones along with the PC.

"Disk thrashing" is just a term to describe all the hard drive activity (and the sound that goes with it) when Windows accesses the swap file a lot. Usually making the virtual memory smaller will reduce how much Windows moves data back and forth to and from the swap file, and increasing the minimum size of the swap file will increase the amount of data swapping.

To be honest, I have never seen a "Virtual Memory too low" message from any application. I don't really know what that could mean. You have more than enough system memory for TS2 to run without needing a big swap file. The only thing I can think of is that maybe you are running out of space on the hard drive? But this is just a guess.

Setting a swap file (paging file/virtual memory) "too big" will not hurt anything, but it could have a negative affect on your PC's performance, because Windows could end up swapping a lot more data from RAM to the swap file than it needs to. If your game performance does not improve with the new settings, I would suggest that you change the Virtual Memory setting back to System Managed Size, since reducing the size of the swap file from what Windows recommends seems to cause problems for you.

3.2Ghz Pentium 4 processor
2 GB DDR 3200 RAM
Nvidia GeForce 5600 FX w/ 256MB
on board sound (really need to upgrade this)

All in all I get darn good framerates.  I just need to pare down all my downloads so the game loads faster!

Hegelian, have you checked out this site yet? What do you think abou the product, can something like that really help those with non-updatable computers?

http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/index.html

It looks pretty good to me, but what do I know. Maybe some people can benefit from it if it does what it promises. I found the link to it on a german site:

http://www.zdnet.de/downloads/prg/b/w/de0BBW-wc.html

but I have no idea if it might, possibly, hopefully, maybe help :D

AMD Duron processor, ~1.1GHz
512MB RAM
GeForce MX 440 (64MB memory)

If OFB increases the graphics card requirements again, then either the game will run on such low graphics settings to be unplayable, or just not work.

Hi veilchen,

It doesn't look to me that this does much that is useful. The Web site claims that "Windows fills up your computer's memory (RAM) little by little and finally RAM is filled with unnecessary data," but this isn't really true. The problem is that Windows doesn't fill up your RAM, but constantly swaps data from the RAM to the paging file on the hard drive even when it is not necessary. In fact, at the default settings, Windows is excessively paranoid about "filling up" your RAM—until I used a custom configuration of Virtual Memory, WinXP wasn't using even half my RAM.

The one thing this program does that might occasionally be useful is recover RAM that is not "freed" when an application closes. What this means is that some poorly-designed programs do not clear themselves and the RAM they use when you close them, so that Windows (and other programs) thinks that the memory is still in use. Fortunately this is not as big a problem as was in the past. The Cacheman program, which I use, allows for memory recovery, but I don't find any use for it.

If you want a program that manages your memory and swap file more efficiently than Windows does on its own, CachemanXP seems to be a better choice than this Rambooster. However, the current version requires you to buy a license before you can do much with it, while the older, free version I have (Cacheman 5.1 or something like that) did allow you to make basic changes to things like the size of the disk cache and some other things. To be honest, I found it more useful for Win98—WinXP's memory management is much better than that in Win98, so there is less to do. But I still use Cacheman because it lets me easily monitor my swap file use (currently at 8 MB, with 563 MB of free RAM).

Now, to be fair, Rambooster appears to the work of a single individual, and is "cardware":  instead of money, you send the developer a postcard from where you live; you can also make a donation if you like. So he's not trying to take your money by selling you a worthless program. In fact, a quite excellent "cardware" application is the audio extractor, Exact Audio Copy (MD5summer is another). At the same time, I would be careful about any software program that requires a big notice on its Web page stating that the previous version causes "a CPU Index out of bounds" error. At least Cacheman is a professional product that has been in development for several years and won't mess up your PC.

The bottom line is that there are no software fixes for the shortcomings of your (or my) hardware.

Thank you Hegelian, I had a feeling you would say that :D. As my grandmother used to say: if it sounds to good to be true....
Oh well *sigh*

I have already put extra RAM on my christmas list, that's about the only thing I can do for my old and un-trusty computer. I had a friend look at its insides and he tells me that I can use a 1-dimm GB memory addition if I throw out the 2-dimm 500 MB. I plastered a very knowing and wise look on my face and nodded in agreement. I figure 'dimm' is a computer-people name for 'stick' (looking at the slots that were pointed out to me), and I will definitely ask for that. I'm not going to look at the price, I'll just ask for it, maybe I get lucky.

At least browsing around for free stuff can get you some good things every once in a while, like the audacity program I found. My, that's fun to play around with:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity

Thanks again Hegelian, I really appreciate that for once a computer specialist can manage to explain things to me in a way that makes sense to me instead of the usual:
Well, you need to install the ;akdfjaj and then la;jdfkjal;fj;asjf while lajdfljfldajfdj;a is included in rgfhoriprihvbh[swjf. Incorporating this with woa;lsdjfapj, it will increase your power by ierioqw[94tnpaosfi, and we can install it for a mere $500. :D

Here's mine

Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.80GHz
1.80 GHz, 512 MB of RAM
Windows XP,SP2
DirectX 9.0c
NvidiaGeForce3 Ti200, 64.0 MB (updated drivers several times though)

My pc is nearly 5 years old.

Well, I hate brand names but decided to get a Dell XPS Gen 5 last summer.  Have an old Dell at work that's probably 8 or 9 years old, still running Windows 95 and has been trouble-free, so I decided to take a chance and get one, mainly because it had the biggest and best CPU I saw when I was computer shopping.  Don't plan on buying another one for quite some time.

DIMENSION XPS GEN 5 Pentium® 4 Processor 670 with HT Technology (3.80GHz, 800 FSB)
Memory 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs
Video Cards 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800
Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition
CD or DVD Drive Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable
Sound Cards Sound Blaster Audigy™ 2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1, IEEE 1394 capability

This is right from the email I got when I ordered the system.  Also has a 450 watt power supply and the fan is super quiet.

Compared to a 2.2 GHz system, 512MB RAM, 64MB video card, 40 GB IDE HD, this thing runs anything and everything.  The things I looked at most were CPU speed, RAM size and speed and read up on the PCI-E before I decided it had to be the way to go. 

I have a slight lag (and I mean SLIGHT lag) when a visitor or carpool comes onto a lot, but community lots are now actually DOABLE, whereas before they were not.  I actually have a small store I put in my 'hood that has everything - food, clothes, electronics, etc. - that was kind of slow running on my old system, but is no problem on my new one.  Have sent sims downtown only a few times, and the lots are no different in speed than a regular lot, even with a lot of sims running around.

Granted, you don't need a mega machine to run TS2, but if you're going to have to buy a new computer, get the best you can afford.  I never used to say this, but technology is getting so much better so fast, I have decided that I'd rather spend more on a system that might last 5 years than to spend a little on what turns out to be old technology and have to constantly put money into it to make it run the software I want to run.  My last 'puter cost $500 US and only lasted 3 years, and I was constantly upgrading - more RAM, better video card, bigger power supply to run the better video card, better CD/DVD reader/writer, you name it, I was adding it.  Would have spent less in the long run if I had bought a better 'puter to begin with, and probably wouldn't have needed to upgrade now.

So just learn as much as you can about the components that are important for what you need now, and expand on what you need now for what you'll need a year or two from now, then get a system that will handle that and is capable of handling more.  Hegelian has some great advice.

Oh, and of course, make sure you have the best drivers for your video card.  From what I've read, that may not necessarily be the most recent one.

Since we're on the topic of PC specs, I found this site (http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-2558-x-x-x) very useful when it comes to seeing what TS2 uses and needs to use when you're playing the game, and how your specs really effect the game.
Basically the theory says that it mainly depends on your proccessor or something like that, I haven't really read it in a while.

Although, I'm not saying that article is speaking the complete and honest truth as I'm no computer whiz, but it does come from a reliable source.

i know sims2 requires an 800 mhz processor and nightlife requires a 1000 MHZ processor. mine is well above  the minimum at 2400.2 mhz  or 2.42 ghz . I also have a pentium 4  with onborard intel extreme graphics for the moment and a 40 gb hard drive.my new hard drive  just game in so I will be jumping to a 160gb HD and my processor speed  will be changed  to a 3.0 at same time as well as the new  video card that will be  installed the new video card is a Nvidia GE force  with 256mb ram. . I also Have 1024 mb of  RAM on my Desktop.

my Alienware computer is about 6 months old

Aurora 5500
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Chassis: Alienware Full-Tower Case - Space Black
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling 510 Deluxe Upgrade
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 4000+ Processor with HyperTransport Technology
Motherboard: ABIT AV8 - VIA K8T800 Pro Motherboard
Memory: 2GB Alienware Dual Channel Low-Latency DDR PC-3200 at 333MHz - 4 x 512MB
Graphics Processor: ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out
Chassis Upgrades: AlienIce 2.0 Video Cooling System with Acoustic Dampening - Terra Green
System Drive: High Performance - Serial ATA - 160GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache
Optical Drive One: NEC ND-3520 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Optical Drive Two: NEC ND-3520 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Floppy Drive: 3.5" 1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive - Black
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS High Definition 7.1 Surround Firewire (IEEE 1394)

runs TS2/UNI/NL great ;)  This is MY baby, noone else is allowed to use it! 

I have another thats about a year old that my daughter is allowed to use, it runs TS2/UNI/NL really well and she has rarely managed to crash the game (shes 12 and does all sorts of stuff to her sims)  and shouldn't have any problems with future TS2 EPs but I don't have the specs on hand so I can't list them, spent app. $2,000 on it and my alienware baby was app. $4,000.

I'm not rich *is actually very poor* but I "came into some money" when I got my SSI back and knew I needed to replace my ancient computer (which TS2 never would have worked on and I doubt TS1 would have worked on it either) so I choose to spend the money and get the best I could since it will be a long time before I can afford to buy another new one.

Mine isn't anything exciting, but here ya go.

Vista- Home Premium

AMD Athlon 64X2 Duel Core Processor 5000+2.60 GHz
1918 MB Ram
32-bit operatiing system
455 GB hard drive
DirectX version 10
NVIDIA Geforce 6150 SE nForce 430


The only thing I've done with it is added a 500 GB external hard drive.

I generally play with reflections on, but reduce shadows to medium.  I found that significantly increased performance in my game.  Don't know if that's helpful in your case.  Looking over your specs, it all looked fine to me (maybe a boost on display memory would help.

My own specs:

Intel P4 3Gig dual core with HT
1 gig RAM
ATI Radeon eXpress200 Northbridge (based on X300 chipset) (onboard)

Plays a Base/Uni/BV game with no problem, no lag, as long as shadows are reduced to medium.  Load time is approximately 30 seconds from initial double-click to Neighbourhood view.

Not too fancy, but I am happy.

Dell Precision 370 Workstation (low profile) with:

Windows XP Pro SP2 (Yarr!)
3.8Ghz Pentium 4 processor (w/ Hyper Threading)
3GB DDR2 RAM
nVidia GeForce 6600 128MB PCIe (soon to be upgraded to an 8500 512MB PCIe)
Soundblaster Audigy II
DVD and CDR-W
250GB SATA, 80GB SATA
Saitek Eclipse II backlit keyboard (with three pretty colors to choose from!)
Logitech Mx310 gaming mouse
Logitech 4.1 speakers
Samsung SyncMaster 191T LCD 19" monitor
A ton of USB and 1394 connectors
...and a 3.5" floppy (yay!)

Welcome to December 2005.