More Awesome Than You!

I have a 128mb GeForce FX5200 and ever since installing Nightlife I am unable to get it to work properly. My game crashes,reboots,glitches and generally screws up. I have tried about 10 different driver versions all to no avail and I am finally getting to the end of my rope. Any suggestions on a new card would be appreciated. I am hoping to keep the cost to about $150 Canadian.Thanks.

I use the exact same video card, and I have never had any serious issues with it. I use the latest drivers from nVidia.

I wonder if I have a different configuration in some way that is causing issues? I have a 2.2mhz Pentium 4, 1000mb ram, 80gb hard drive, Windows XP home. Can a card become unseated? Would that cause these types of problems? Any ideas,thoughts or suggestions?

What type of sound card do you have? Sims 2 has a ton of issues with audio.

Try adding "-nosound" to the end of the "target" line in your Sims 2 shortcut icon and see if that works.

I have a Realtek AC'97 audio. Really don't think its a sound issue, but I will try the -nosound option. At this point I will try anything suggested. :) Thanks

Also use the "-w" option. I never run in fullscreen mode.

Another thing I reccomend doing is temporarily taking out your downloads folder, you can move it to the desktop, and trying to run the game. Don't save anything, just see if it runs okay. There's a lot of things in downloads that have the potential to cause problems, especially after you install an expansion. Even if you have no hacks, sometimes other types of custom content have been known to cause problems. It's a good idea to just try and eliminate any of your custom downloads as a possibility. If they aren't the cause, you can always just move the downloads folder back and no harm is done.

I've had endless video driver problems. I have GeForce 5700. Recently when I tried the newest nvidia driver, released at the beginning of this month, I read some advice on installing drivers. Usually I just uninstall one driver, then try re-installing a new one. This time I read in a forum to uninstall and reboot into VGA mode. (F8 on bootup, choose 'run in vga mode'). I installed the driver once I reached the desktop and so far, touch wood, no glitches. This seems to be a cleaner video driver install to me.

Thanks Witch, I will try that too. I tried Motoki's suggestion, but the graphics are still choppy and slow to render. I'm getting really tired of this and am considering the new card more and more all the time. This card worked fine with University, all these problems started with Nightlife. Did Maxis change the way the game uses graphics or something? I am so frustrated! I checked to see if my card was seated firmly and that looks fine, but I noticed that the fan plug (a little white plug) on the video card isn't plugged in anywhere, could it have come loose and thats what my problem is? Where do I plug it in if thats what I need to do?

I have a GeForce FX5500 and only problem I have is after I go from downtown to reg neighborhood, many of my houses turn red and white.  I also can't see any of the enter buttons when I try to get into a lot.  I just have to click around and guess.  It turns to normal after that.

I switched from a ATI Radeon 5200 series to a PNY Geforce 6600 GT AGP 128 with a core clock speed of 500 and the difference is between night and day. I also removed my old 512 memory and added two Kingston 512 3200 (400HZ DDR) and now my game is smoking.

Finally gave in and took my computer to a shop. I have always done all my own teching about, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why my graphics are so crapped. I am hoping the shop will cost less than a new graphics card. The cards are so expensive. Will let you all know if there are any significant finds from the tech. Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

Uh...did the graphics card ship with a fan? If so, and having heard of the infamous heating problems of nVIDIA chipsets, that might have been the problem: overheating. Damn I wish I had seen that post of your sooner, might have saved you some cash!

yes, it may be overheating... you know i have a nVidea GeForce4 MX 440 it alwasy worked fine (as far as you can consider it fine). I mean i have some gliches like the ground textures don't look much bigger than they should, and the water animation from the bathtubs looks weird, but that's about it. It worked just fine for the other things

However, i started trying to do some overclocking, and at the beggining of the game it actually worked fine, however after 5 minutes the game started to slow down and the there were some graphic glitches, with stuff not showing or blinking.

Obviously the overclocking had overheated the video board and so it was't working ok

I have that same card that I just bought for UNI and it was great.  I could even run the game in 800x600 which is better for the middle age eyes.   ;D


 but now with NL, the graphics suck.    I have had to go to a higher resolution and the little tiny icons are making me blind.   ;D
 
 I am going to buy a new card with 256Mb of ram,  I guess I will get another Nvidia because it is the only card I have ever tried.      I hope I can get a decent one for about a hundred, twenty because I have to pay to get it installed too.   The sims and EA are sending me to the poor house.    :'(

just a note:
The game has since ever , ran better with radeon video cards.
there are inumerous glitches posted in forums and even in tech support, that happens with nVidea Cards.
my friend has a 9600 XT 128 and his game runs with no graphic issues
i'm buying a x600 XT 256

I can't speak for Nvidia cards, but I can say the game runs fine in my experience with an ATI Radeon 9500, 9700 and X300. The only problem I've ever encountered is after installing Nightlife getting all my settings defaulted to the lowest, but I was able to change them and to invite more guests again via the cheat code. Anyhow, I think everyone's getting that and it's just something particular to Nightlife.

My graphics look good but I had an issue with the main neighborhood making the computer reboot.  No other hoods or parts of my custom hood were doing this.  I deleted all the characters and took away some houses and it stopped.  I am going to make a completely new hood anyway, my current terrain is way too HUGE.

Why do you have to pay to have someone install your card?  It is not too hard to do and myself and I am sure others here could give you tips on how to install it yourself.

Look for 'cabelle' in recent posts, last fortnight maybe? There was a thread of info on how to install your own video card. Cabelle did it successfully.

okay you say that the raedon is better so how about this one ?

 PowerColor Radeon 9550 / 256MB DDR / AGP 8X / VGA / DVI / TV Out / Video Card 


I can get this one for about 70.00.    I just want to be able to invite more than two people to a party,  I used to be able to invite 8.  and I want my download clothes to not look weird with square shoulders like before I installed NL.

I don't think I need more ram because I have a gig of ram and winxpro and a 2MGHertz processor.  So, I must need  more ram in my video card.   ???

thanks you guys are so nice but believe me I can't install my own video card.   I  bought a stick of ram last year and was gonna install it myself.  I read all the directions and even bought a wrist strap, well it took me forever to get the case open and when I did  I could not even find the slot because I was afraid to undo the cables because I might not get them reconnected right, so I called the tech shop and said "hurry up and send me a man over here, I have this case open and I don't know what to do"   He got there in about 10 minutes and he charged me 70.00   :'(

but in a way it was funny too, there I stood with my little wrist strap on and I was lost and confused.   :D
 

It's a decent card. I had a Saphire 9500 which is similar. Don't expect to be able to invite 8 sims without a cheat though. I honestly think it's a bug with NL and how it identifies our hardware. It seems to now assume everyone's hardware is crap no matter what you have.

From the config file:

Memory levels are:
Low: 256
Medium: 384
High: 512

Cpu Levels are:
Low: 1000
Medium: 2200
High: 2800

The CPU levels are up from 600/1200/1800 pre Nightlife.

If you meet both high RAM and high CPU speed, then it checks your video card.  The code is more than I wanna tackle at the spur of the moment, but it appears that you want a non-integrated graphics card with at least 128 MEG video ram.  More modern ones should have the necessary processing power to give you the high end options.

Hook

     

no, I already have 128 FX 5200 NVIDIA,  now I am going to upgrade to 256MB card.   but the other man said that no matter what card you have,  NL will not let you have more than two people for a party.
 But when I use the cheat with the current card I have, it makes my game slow down.

I hate what they have done to the sims with NL, people don't know if they need to upgrade their hardware or if the game is  messing everything up,    :-\

 I just know my graphics look weird since NL, also I cannot enable  the picture in picture,  because it resets back to off as soon as I do.

You know Hook my specs meet or exceed all those requirments except my video card is integrated, but it's a decent integrated card. It's an ATI RS480 chip which is essentially an X300 but with 2 pipelines instead of 4. It's got 128 MB of video RAM too. The only thing I can think of is that this particular chip is not on this list in the file they have of various video card settings. I did add it, but it didn't seem to help so I just cheated to get 8 guests and have had no problems in doing so. *shrug*

The configuration script doesn't seem to care what the specs are on an integrated card, just that it's an integrated card.  I'd have to go research it again to give you details, but having an integrated card forces your settings lower.  My specialty is software, not hardware, so I have no idea why the config script would do that.

Hook

I just bought an Nvidia GForce FX 5200 with 256Mb Ram and it works great.  I bought it on eBay for $49 plus shipping.  My system is not top of the line by any means.  2.6 ghz processor, 512 ram and 80 gig HD.  The video card was easy to install.  I haven't had any parties so I don't know how many people I can have.  This is the first time I've been able to enable the special events camera, though.

$70 to install a card, what a bunch of BS.  I'll install it for a couple of Wendy's triple cheeses. :)

Just to point out, having a 128mb NVidia FX 5200 doesn't automatically mean you're only allowed to invite 2 people to parties - it also depends on the rest of your computer. I'm allowed to invite 4 without a cheat (got an AMD Athlon 64 3400+ with a gig of RAM). It also defaulted the graphics to medium with Nightlife, rather than low (but I turned them up to high and nothing lags).

I do want to get a better card though... anyone suggest any low priced ones that show bumpmaps?

Adding more memory to a low-end graphics card is like installing racing tires on a Zastava. You won't see much of a difference. Better to scrap it altogether and aim for a better model.

I am going to get the new card, have it installed and pray for the best.    I have the AMD Athlon too with 120 gig ultra hard drive.

hey, Maltesebippy too bad you don't live in Ohio,  I would buy you the wendy's triple cheeses for a week,   :-*

 but since you don't I will be paying the tech man another 70 bucks.   :'(

I hope some of this information can help so that someone can get down to the bottom of this.

I have a Radeon 9600XT 256mb
AMD Athlon 2600XP CPU
2 Gigs DDR Ram
80 Gig HD w/40 free space
Win XP Pro Svc.Pack 2
300 Watt Power Supply
Most Updated Drivers for ATI Catalyst

Before Nightlife everything ran on high and absolutely no probs. except that I was going to update CPU anyway for smoothness in gameplay.
After the installation of NL, my settings changed (which I read that this was supposed to happen because Maxis enhanced the Video Graphics etc. etc.)
So I changed all my settings back to normal (high) and did not have a problem with gameplay except that I noticed my custom skins were not defined and a little cartoonish. So I raised the resolution in game after that every thing was crystal clear and beautiful....until...my pc crashed and rebooted in the neighborhood screen. My first thought was, I thought there was a spike in my house...until it happened again. My second thought was okay Maxis changed the graphic specs requirement so I lowered the setting to medium trying to accomodate..it crashed again and this time it also crashed on a Lot with the neighborhood view on.The neighborhood also looked funky(flashing houses and Terrain turning white.
Immediately I thought it was my drivers. (I had just updated my video drivers. I've always used Omega beta drivers for performance)I figured it could have been a glitch w/the beta drivers so I uninstalled and replaced w/ATI Radeon Catalyst most recent.
Well, it stopped crashing in the neighborhood screen so I thought that was it. But just the other day it rebooted in one of the lots when I was trying to show my daughter the new neighborhood view.
I am NOT an expert but I see alot of people going out and updating their video cards(which is all good) but I wonder if the problem lies in the CPU. It seems that Nightlife is making the CPU work harder and it only happens when I have the neighborhood view on. Also since I changed the drivers to it's original maker it stopped rebooting in Neeighborhood screen. Which tells me The drivers that I had before(were set for high performance) was too much for my CPU.
I have ordered a new power supply 550wt and new CPU 3200XP which I did not install yet. So for now I play w/mostly med. settings and no neighborhood view(which really sucks...the whole point of NL, to me anyway.)

Someone on this thread said that the games auto detections for your comp. specs is not being read right. This makes alot of sense since I never had a prob. before NL, my system is not shit and supposedly it meets and surpasses requirements. Hmmmm Don't think it's supposed to be rebooting w/neighborhood view on, which is a huge feature in this expansion.

Hope a Maxoid is reading this thread and can give conclusive answers to this prob that many of us are having. :-\    :'(

I've got an ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB video memory.

Game runs fine.

Looks excellent with graphic effects all the way up. I just need more ram because it gets slow at times.

And there's a problem with the cinematics. Sometimes the sound is slower than their actions, or sometimes the whole cinematic is choppy and will jump ahead a few hundred frames and the sound will still lag behind.

I have a Radion 9600 PRO. 256 MBs The game runs awsome with everything set to high. Im pretty happy with it. :)

Well, I just tested it with Brandi and Darren's wedding party, and was able to invite 8 guests.  :-\  So I guess it's not a universal bug, and still does depend to some extent on the computer.

My tech checked everything out with my card and discovered my fan wasn't working properly so I had him fix that. Brought the comp home today and still have choppy graphics. I am even running it with the case open thinking it might be airflow problems, but that is not it. Wondering if what Kryptmoon said has some merit to it. Before Nightlife, I have never had a problem with my graphics card (Geforce FX5200 128mb) Since Nightlife, I get spontaneous reboots, neighborhood view "earthquakes" (the graphics shake back and foth really fast), the edge and arrow key scrolling is choppy. I really cannot afford a new card but I also am NOT able to play the game as it is! What has chaged with Nightlife? My specs are more than adequate(2.2 ghz P4, 1024mb RAM, 80gb hardrive only 50% full and of course the video card mentioned above. Someone? A Maxoid? Please help...I can't even play the game anymore and I am obviously not the only one with these kind of problems.

Whenever your PC "crashes" this could be due to any number of hardware conflicts: video, CPU, RAM, audio, hard drive etc. Suffice it to say that the only reliable fix for this is to scan everything at the lowest level possible. In particular, you need to test your RAM and low-level scan your hard drives. It's not always a software fault (i.e. updating drivers).

I got into my performance and settings options in my nvidia control center and changed some of the settings,  I had no clue as to what I was doing but anyway my graphics look better and I can play again in 800x600 resolutions again which is great on the old eyes.     :o

maybe I won't have to buy a new card just yet.   ;D

I ran a diagnostic stress test on my pc.Tested all the hardware.No probs according to the results.(It took 11 hours :o) Like I said I had no probs playing the game before so I'm waiting for my upgraded CPU to come in.(Process of elimination)to see if that changes anything.
There are plenty of other threads about this situation that I have found on other sites. Could'nt be everybody's computer suddenly gone fu.. up. :-\

I'll keep reading..somebody's bound to have an answer.

Prior to Nightlife, 1800 would have given you a high CPU level.  With Nightlife, it wants 2800 for high.  Your 2600 is now considered medium CPU level.  (Low/Medium/High is now 1000/2200/2800).

Hook

That's what I said in my original post, that it could be the CPU. Thanks for pointing that information out. I have to wait for Monday for my new CPU, install it and see. ;)

I have no idea what Bravehearts Pentium 4 is equivelant to but I Hook's  info helps. Also upgrading the video ram to 256 or higher does'nt hurt either. I will let you know if the rebooting stops as well as overall gameplay.

Okay, I keep on trying....I deserve an 'A' for effort and patience if nothing else. Thinking that possibly something had hooped with my video card in the last while, I unistalled Nightlife and am back to running only Sims 2 and University. Guess what? All is fine! Graphics are great and running on maximum settings. No glitches, no reboots and no choppiness. It believe the issue is with the Nightlife expansion. What does Maxis expect us to do? Buy a new and improved system each time they release another expansion? I bought this video card specifically for the Sims2 and now its not going to work for it? Please, Maxis? Address this issue if at all possible. I am not the only one having these problems.

My system is 4 years old and I had it built custom by Dell. Its almost time to upgrade, expand drive space, get better sound card, video card... in other words, buy a new tower.. but right now, I have this:

2.2 processor
512 memory
1000 mgs virtual memory
40 Giga HD
GeoForce 4 - 64 mg video card
Soundblaster 32 sound card

My computer runs High/Med for Uni. Graphics are good and I don't plan to upgrade anytime this year. Waiting for the sales in 2006 ;) . But I do like the Geoforce series and they wont cost you an arm and a leg.


.

I honestly wouldn't worry too much about what the game thinks your settings should be. Most of the settings and resolutions you can turn up yourself and you can add a startup cheat file to always let you invite 8 sims. As long as you can run on high settings without much problems and the game lets you see cinemas and get reflections and bump maps and all that you should be good to go. NL seems to think my Athlon 64 3400 1 gig RAM and ATI X200 Express integrated video card with 128 MB RAM is a low to mid level setup but I've upped all the settings and added the cheat for 8 sims and have no problems.

NL's hardware identifying system is by no means perfect so I'd take it with a grain of salt personally.

Opening the case will not improve airflow, it'll only make it worse. Unless you pop a big fan blowing air onto your mainboard next to the open case, like I did with my old Celeron 1.8!