More Awesome Than You!

So I just got my new computer after being on a craptacular DELL 2350 since march when a tornado decided my other comp needed to take a view of the roof before it got smashed. This comp runs OFB fine, except for it does something slightly annoying...

the first time I load the game after a reboot of the system, everything is fine. I can play for as long as I want and quit without any problem.

the second time though... the computer shows the OFB on the screen and the CD starts reading the disk, but after about three seconds the computer completely freezes up and I have to do a hard reboot. nothing can stop this from happening it seems. Even having task manager open doesn't help, because it freezes too...

I'm kinda stumped here and while you ponder I'll be make a virtual drive and CD image and seeing if that works any differently.

Computer specs

Dell E310

pentium 4 HT 2.8ghz 1mb cache
512DDR RAM 544mhz
80 GB hard drive
visiontek radeon 9200 256mb

the DVD drive is a 48XDVD/PC

Have you got Sonic or Nero software installed? Try disabling the Drive Letter Access (DLA) associated with Sonic etc. The option to disable it, if enabled, should be available from the right click menu of the optical drive in Windows Explorer.

Neither of them are on this computer, but both were when it arrived. But I immediately got rid of both of them.

Alcohol 120% isn't letting me play the game with a virtual drive so I'm going to be screwed to having to restart the comp everytime I want to play the game more than once a day.

Yes, its copy protection but they seen to updated it on some point because I am using Alcohol 120% and it load the game just fine.

Finally got 120% working and it loads fine everytime. Still not sure why this computer freaks out when sims 2 is starting up.

Dammit! It freezes up even this way also.

It just seems to bee luck that I get a computer that will run everything else fine, but has a problem with the game I enjoy to play the most.


Edit: I just talked to DELL, and remembered everyone there doesn't even know how to use a ccomputer, and doesn't understand questions even when you repeatedly say, "This computer runs high end games fine! ALL OF THEM! It just spazzes out at times when starting Sims 2 OFB!"

Nero has a way of really embedding itself in your system.  A friend put it on mine while trying to solve a problem with my DVD.  And while I officially uninstalled it a month or so ago, it still pops up when I use my DVD.

It has not, so far as I can tell, caused any problems with the Sims2.  And I have no idea what you, or I, can do about it.

Try cleaning your registry out (nero may have left it's settings there) and check out your virtual memory settings (if you don't know how--hunt instructions on google.)

Uhhh...I suggest you DON'T clean your registry out without some actual hlp, not jsut soemthign found on google.  Just the tiniest of deletion is enough to make your computer not run much of anything at all.

Well, yes, one does have to be smarter than a.....stick to do it right.....*learn*

Edit: I can spell, I can't type...

I'm stupid, but not sstupid enough to not clean out the registry of that crap. I'm not exactly sure if it's worked or not. Lemme start and quit the game a couple times...


Edit: Seven times and not a problem. I think this did the trick. I still found out I need to replace my video card and get more RAM but at least I don't have to reboot my damn comp so often.

all you have to do is a checkpoint for restoring if the registry clean or anything else goes wrong.   backups,  what you need is not perfection but BACKUPS.  after 20 years admining computers i know the most important thing is BACKUPS.

i frequently have the game freeze at this level of complexity when starting, unless i delete LotCatalog, or  more.    every now and then i dont have to do it, just to confuse the issue.  i have no clue whats doing it, but if there is a simple swift workaround, i dont care.  of course before i figured that out i was having kittens.  if removing LotCatalogs doesnt work i take out everything that i cant.  Logs, LotCatalogs, Teleport, Thumbnails, Group.Registry and um, there is something else.cache that can be removed.    give it a run and tell me if it helps.  it takes slightly longer to bring the game up if you have to rebuild thumbnails but with 4G of downloads its not noticeably longer

Mine was doing the same thing then I found out that anri-virus software was running and freezing the game at start up. Heh I don't know if this the same thing but worth a try to check.

RAM could actually be the problem.  Or rather, a memory leak from some other program that's consuming your free RAM and not letting it go.  Are you running anything else that eats a lot of resources, like Firefox?  A utility like MemTurbo that frees up unused RAM might help...

It sounds like a memory leak to me. Try running FreeRAM XP Pro after you shut the game down (it causes slowdowns for me if it's run while the game is running). You can find it here: http://www.download.com/3000-2086-10070530.html

Firefox and IE have both been known to start leaking memory under certain conditions, and you may wish to kill the process if you see it happening.