More Awesome Than You!

I always wondered why with NL...I could never see lot from houses I was playing s like a lot of the Maxis screenshots pictured them...I could usually only see small lots next to me...if there was a large community lot next to a house it  completely disappeered from being next door when I loaded the house up.

Just the other day I discovered the option in the control panel to make medium...large..x-tra large lots viewable (it was set by default  to small)..gee I feel dumb...I've been playing all this time with NL and just figured that's how the game was meant to be.  I finally went searching for options when I had Dina's daughter move into a lot next door to her and Dina's extra large lot and house weren't showing up next  door.

Now I can see half way across the neighborhood when playing a sim house and it looks so cool.   All the neighborhood decorations and everything..I'm thrilled lol.   It seems to slow my house loading time down a bit, but nothing I can't handle.  My sims finally have lots of neighbors instead of the house or two next to/in front of them :D

Congrats on working it out!  ;D Personally, I don't use lot view. I don't like it for some reason, probably how hazy the graphics look on the other lots...

It looks cool and is fine for photo shots, but it really takes your frame rate into the tank.

I like it for story telling photos, but it is next to impossible for me to play with it on for very long, it brings action down to just above a crawl, for me anyway.

I just left it on default, but I agree, the lots are hazy.  Useful to change from one lot to another, but with JM's new lot timer you don't need it.

you know for me it's the "realism" thing of it.  I know it taxes the system, but my sims love looking out the windows, and with the option off it looks to me like they are staring at nothing.  So, I keep it on.

Does it work without Nightlife...  8)

Sorry Im oblivious

Sadly, no....

No, it's a feature added in Nightlife.

I don't like it, my game is slow enough as it is.

I didn't know that either.
I've never seen anything from my lots. I saw other people post pics where they did. I never knew what made my game different.
Guess I was to lazy to ask anyone about it cause it didn't disturb me much. Glad you mentioned it though. I'll probably run mine so that I can see it once and then turn it back off.

I love that feature and always had it on till I got to Uni and my Greek houses were so slow.  Later I was weeding through my downloads and realized that my Greek houses are 19 KB--I think I have to make new Greek houses-They are perfect but a tad too big.  Need to redo them I guess.  Before NL I would put the main family's house next to each other but never had that next door feeling.  It was awesome to look out from Regan's house to see Consort's house and next to it is Kent's house and down the street is Goneril's house.  It feels more like a home.

19kb? Or mb? or gb?

19kb would be too small for a lot file and 19Gb would be too big. It's probably 19Mb.

My lot views don't work. I can't select any option except small. The others aren't grayed out, they're just not selectable. The patch caused this and nothing I've tried has fixed it. Thanks, Maxis.  >:(

Well, if it's a big greek house with all the sims living in it and all the baggage files of every sim they've ever met, then 19GB isn't impossible!

It's b/c the game has decided that your system cannot handle it.
I don't know why it would suddenly happen with the patch installation, but I wouldn't doubt it either lol
I have two options on my graphic control panel greyed out since the installation of NL....thankfully the default settings are good enough.
Personally though I wish that I could decide for myself rather or not my computer could handle it. 

I am still loving my full neighborhood view after playing with it now...I haven't noticed any slow down at all..except like previously mentioned perhaps the loading screen takes longer.  Yay for a decent system I guess lol

I personally think the guys at Maxis all have shares in RAM makers, video card makers and CPU/motherboard etc. makers - since they probably know that most of us are continually upgrading rather than buying a new system!  And of course, they actually WANT us to upgrade for every EP!

Pffsh. I haven't upgraded my computer once, since I got it around two years ago, and it still works fine. No need for upgrading every six months.

I guess it depends what you started with!

Sorry for this being a lil off topic but I was wondering, my free will options are always greyed out.  I reinstalled everything recently and I still don't have the option.  Do I need to set something anywhere? I'm quite sure that it shouldn't have anything to do with graphics.

your free will options are only highlighted when you are playing your sims in their house,  glad I can give advice instead of asking for once... :o

Ty so much, I never knew, guess you learn something new everyday :)

Sorry--Mb  I now have the All-in-One maid also so who knows now.  Plus all the sims have custom hair,clothing and skins--I wonder how much that adds to it?  I decided that the greek house is too perfect--just have to deal with the drag.

19MB is still like nothing!  I have 2GB and rising!  Or do you mean that your downloaded hacks are 19MB?