More Awesome Than You!

I now have 4 party guests without using the intProp cheat,  I did it by editing the graphic rules sgr,  I went from the maxi default for NL to
High cpu 2000
med  cpu 1800
low  cpu 1000

that is what I set mine on.  I also was flipped out when I opened the game and there was a house next door showing, I always had the option to enable it, it was not greyed out or anything before, but it was set to off by default before I edited the graphic rules file.

You have to edit it both in config and in Csconfig.

I do have a question though, if the default high in maxi is 2800, does that transalate to 2.8Gigahertz proccessor speed?

well, they managed to keep that little secret to themselves before releasing NL.   >:(

I mean how many of the young kids and us seniors who only get paid once a month can afford to buy a new computer with that fast a proccessor?

The pc I have been using is a P4 3GHz and my pc is 18 months old.  The 2.8 Ghz processors first came out mid to late 2002 so it isn't really new technology.  I can understand your anger but at the same time I do think it is reasonable for the latest games to run more efficiently on newer systems.  That said I wish EA could be more honest when it comes to listing minimum system requirements.  The Graphic Rules file seems to be the same for TS2 and Uni however medium has gone from 1.2 GHz to 2.2 GHz and high has changed from 1.8 Ghz to 2.8 Ghz.  I sincerely doubt you can play Nighlife on a 1GHz system with 256 Mb RAM as is stated here (http://thesims2.ea.com/help/detail.php?help_id=176).  Even I can't run everything on high without experiencing lag.

You can buy a 2.8 for about 90$ now. You just need to know how to install it and what type fits your motherboard.

A quick search gave me an 80$ one. Thats the price of a game and a half once a year to stay fairly current.

http://www.epinions.com/pr-Intel_BOXED_CELERON_D_2_8GHZ-533FSB_256K_S478_bx80546re2800c

Anyway, Maxis was very sneaky with their changes in system requirements for NL.

You "can" play it, but you won't enjoy it. :) Proabbly get assloads of lag even in a small 1 person house, and stuttering when rotating, light changes, people entering or leaving the lot, etc.

With a 3.4, 2 gig ram, and 7800 512 you can run a MONSTER house (max size lot, many levels, shitloads of lights, some mirrors, etc. Maxxed with 8 sims and 8 guests with about 7 FPS average. So even the top of the line computers cannot run maxxed sims 2 under the extreme situations very well. 3.2, 1 gig ram, 6800 256 overclocked to the max can run the same lot with 8 sims and shadows off with 7-9 FPS average.
If you max everything and use a small lot with only 1-3 sims you hovor near 30 FPS all the time. At least maxis didn't do what some companies are doing and putting preprogrammed limits on FPS rates (I AM LOOKING AT YOU SONY!!! YOU BASTARDS!!! I WANT MORE THAN 30 WITH MY SYSTEM!!!)

Now I hear tell that a dual 7800 system can hit 20+ FPS constantly, but if you ahve the that kind of money to dump on graphics cards and a system that can handle them, you shouldn't be playing video games. Go better humanity with your massive wad.

Actually that got me thinking...the best dual-core AMD processor is the Athlon X2 dual-core 4800+ and it will run at 2.4 GHz.  An Athlon 64 FX-57 is a single core but has the highest clock speed of 2.8 GHz.  How does the Graphics Rules file cater for AMD processors?  It seems to me that these users are being forced into lower settings when their systems out perform mine :-\

I already have an Athlonxp with 2gighertz and a gig of ram but I found this upgrade :

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ / 512KB Cache / 400MHz FSB / Socket A / Barton Core / Processor

for 149.00 and they said you have to buy a fan and heat sink at the same time to get a warranty.

what is a heatsink, does it come with the fan?

by the time I buy that and a more ram,  video card I will be broke forever, but my computer is only 3 years old and I payed 1,200 for the tower alone,  and I already spent a lot of money installing more memory  and 1 new video card  or I would just by a new one but I am not ready to give up on this one yet.   ::)

a heatsink, is kinda like a..radiator or sorts. It spreads the heat around so it can dissapate faster. yes you can get a heatsink fan combo - or just a heatsink if your card has a fan or you can just use the fan that came with the card. Or what ever combo you prefer...

I am not sure why your card would generate that much heat unless you are overclocking it.

oh by the way a heatsink fan combo will run you at most another 40 bucks

I believe the game is stupid and knocks it down a catagory.

I had only 2 guests, but after my technician updated my drivers - I was able to invite 8 guests. So not everything is connected to the RAM.

I have a Radeon 9600SE but I can't seem to find any NEW drivers for it. I used to be able to invite 6 guests or so before NL but now I can only invite 2.

Andygal, you should be able to just get the newest drivers for it on ATI.com. The drivers are sort of a one size fits all for all Radeon cards, not just the 9600, so you would go to Customer Care > Choose a Driver, then pick which operating system you are using and then chose Radeon for the product type, and finally Catalyst driver (you only need the other stuff if you have an All in Wonder card with a TV Tuner built in).

Thanks Motoki.  I once investigated new drivers for my Radeon card and was scared off by the ATI site.  I followed your directions, then theirs, and hopefully I can now invite more than 3 guests in a house of 4! 

It's certainly a good idea to update your drivers, but I doubt it will allow more party guests. For me it didn't. I had to use the cheat to get it back to 8.

In the directory My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Config make a plain text file named userStartup.cheat and add the following line then save:

intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 8

Or you can change 8 to whatever number you want, but it seems in my game to also effect how many townies end up on a community lot so you don't want to make it too high.

If the Config directory isn't there then create it and if the userStartup.cheat file is already there then just add that line to it.

Thanks, Motoki.  I think I'll do that.  I'm so thoroughly sick of trying to meet townies on community lot, only to have them leave after 2 seconds because another townie showed up.

Edited to add:  Hey, it worked great!  Made a zillion townie friends this weekend  ;D

Thanks also from me Motoki.  You were right - I still couldn't invite more guests.  I will have to use the intProp cheat, I guess.  At least until I upgrade my puter parts.