More Awesome Than You!

Hi all,

I haven't been simming for a long time but recently started again. Before my long period of total simming break, I used to play on and off and I had this problem too. I think the problems started after a while of playing pets, but since it's been a while I'm not sure.

The problem

After x amount of time of running the game, it freezes and I get the "Blue Screen of Doom". The last one I had was last night and it said: that the system was stuck in an endless loop or something and had to be shutdown. That either the drivers weren't properly installed or something else I forgot sorry.  :-[

*There's not a fix amount of time for this to happen. I could be playing the game for a long time while doing other things e.g. chatting before it happens or I could be playing for as lil as 20 mins.
*As my poor memory recalls, everytime this happened was while I was playing a family. I cannot recall if it happened while I was just building lots.
*Last time it happened I was playing in full-mode. While the day before I was building lots in windowed mode while chatting and surfing the net, downloading stuff, talking on skype for several hours whitout getting the BSoD. I cannot recall wether I had it happen while playing families in windowed mode, but it may be probable since I hardly play in full mode anymore.
*I believe that's all the info I got. I'll just write down my system specs and hopefully someone will have any idea what could be going wrong.

System Specs

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Processor: Intel Pentium D CPU 3.00 GHZ (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1024MB RAM
Videocard: NVIDEA GeForce 7300 LE
Videocard Memory: 256 MB

That's all I can think of atm. I really hope someone's able to help me out.

Greets and such from me.

There is a known crasher bug with (pre-8) Nvidia cards and TS2.

Put the following in your userstartup.cheat file: The downside of this is, you will lose the fish in the aquaria and pools.

Another way to prevent the crashes is to play in windowed mode, but keep in mind this is more heavy on the system. Your specs show your system should be able to handle it, though.

Is this actually proven to be true?

For me, the game always runs more smoothly and with less lag when I play in windowed mode. Also, if you are playing full-screen, leaving the game to do something else (edit pictures for custom paintings, look at something online, etc.) causes a blue waiting screen to appear when you return to the game. The blue waiting screen can keep you out of the game for several minutes, which is why I would never play in full-screen mode.

Not sure if it is proven, but when I was running TS2 on my GeForceFX 5900XT and suffered from the crasher bug, running in windowed mode allowed me to play with shaders on without the crash every 30 mins or so.

Windowed mode plays more smoothly for me as well, but you can see the system take more resources. If your system can barely run Seasons as is, windowed play might not work.

Thank you Jordi,

I'm pretty sure it's already written somewhere on the forum but I'd be glad if you could give me instructions how to put it in the userstartup.cheat file? I'd hate to miss out on the fishies but I can always change it briefly to take pictures and or make movies. My previous puter had an ATI card with only 64 MB of memory but I never had problems with it running TS2, I only had to update the drivers to be able to see the entire cinematics (I could only see half of the screen, the other half was black) Also Sara, it's true I got that blue waiting screen, the first time it happened to me I totally panicked thinking my card esploded. This NEVER happened with my ATI card!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm very unpleased with my current card and will update to another as soon as I got the funds. What's the best card I could get to run TS2 with? That's also compatible with my system?

Thank you so much for the help.

I'm sure there's a tutorial somewhere for userstartup.cheat, but I can't find it now.

Snotty Sims has a basic one you can download: http://www.snootysims.com/cheatsindex.php?id=userstartup
Just place this in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Config and then edit it in Notepad.
I have a large userstartup.cheat with many aliases and cheats in it, but my ISP's homepage server is down at the moment so I can't point you to it. which I have attached here. Review before using -- I've documented everything in it. You'll want to uncomment the last line (# at the start makes a line a comment, which is ignored by the game).

I have the testing cheats on by default, and also the faceBlendLimits are set to off. Additionally I use boolProp unevenTilesFloorable true to build on uneven floors, and floatProp tvVolume 0.1 (quiter TVs) and setHighestAllowedLevel 50 (building trick).


One more thing to add, just to be sure -- anything marked an "alias" is a shorter way to use a cheat. For example if I want to enable moveobjects, I go to the cheat console, and type "m". To disable, I use "m-". This is shorter than typing moveObjects on/off.
Additionally, since these aliases have help text defined, the y appear in the console if I type "help" should I ever forget them.

Easy-peasy.

1. Change the name of userstartup.cheat to userstartup.cheat.txt

2. Open with Notepad

3. Add the cheat you desire to activate on startup of game

4. Save

5. Close file

6. Rename file from userstartup.cheat.txt back to userstartup.cheat

The end!

Optionally, backup the original userstartup.cheat file and sock it away somewhere. You can do this by adding ".bak" to the copy of the file and leaving it as it is.

MTS2 has a tutorial on various things the various cheats do, if that is of interest to you.

Oh THANK YOU soooo much you guys!  :D ;D :D

Yes, Lorelei, I'll be checking MTS2 soon for those tutorials. Thank you for the tip. I sometimes tend to forget MTS2 has that kind of stuff too. (I mainly go there for Bodyshop type downloads) Also thanx for the back up info, even if I wouldn't have forgotten about it, I wouldn't have known about chaning it to .bak.

Many thanx Jordi for your personal startup.cheat file ^^ Especialy the "alias feature" will be very handy.  ;D

Greets and such ^^

Not a problem, I was glad to help!

And welcome back, Virgalibabe!  Long time no see! :D

Hook

I noticed a post by Maxoid Sam on the BBS announcing that Nvidia has a beta driver that's supposed to fix this problem.  I haven't decided whether I'm going to try it or not. The thread is here. (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=06c442234ffa7adb4557aaac3804ab89&directoryID=21&startRow=1&openItemID=item.21,root.1,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23#0f96f0db5a9a764180a58842a7683dea)

I'm using the new beta driver & haven't had the BSOD since I installed it.

I should add that I also recently upgraded my memory to 3gig and I used the advice in this post for dual core pc's: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7748.0.html (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7748.0.html).

The driver change is the most recent, but I'm unsure if it should get full credit.

OMG! That Necromancy pic is soooo freakin'cool I'm concidering to do a LOT more! ^^

Well Hi all.

I know I already made this thread and I think it's stupid to start a new one for the same prblem so here I go...
I just downloaded the new Nvidea drivers that's supposed to fix the crashproblem tho I haven't tested them yet and I still have the settings that makes it unable to view fish in the cheatstartup file.

Tho I did this just now because I didn't play much once again (grew totally bored with gaming in general) but I'm totally hooked on BV atm so I wanted to give it a try. I played for several simdays and spent some time decorating lots and so far no crashes. (that's just with the cheatstartup file thing not with the updated drivers)

My problem is that apparantly with the arrival of BV the crashing seems to be start happening again. Someone posted at the end of Sam's thread eventhou he requested it to be locked? Either ways. Was wondering if you people knew more about this?

I have the same issue.

The latest NVIDIA driver had fixed the problem but with BV the infamous blue screen of death issue has returned.

EA really sucks at life, I cannot understand how they wouldn't check on one of the most largely known issues before releasing their latest EP. I'm tired of giving money to this inept firm.

oww! this sucks! And I waited til the last moment 'cause they said the new drivers were a beta version anyways! I hope they release a solution soon tho. I'm so bummed I couldn't get this pc iwth an ATI card! >:(

*sigh*

I wonder if my built-in NVidia laptop card is going to finally go tits up with this new EP. Joy. :/

By way of contrast (and perhaps reassurance), I have been running BV using an Nvidia card for the past five days with no issue.  I'm using the latest beta drivers (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html) alongside two 8800GTX in SLI. 

B, your avatar looks hung over. ;)

I don't have that card so I'm not sure what good that piece of info is to me, tbh.  :-\

If B spent half as much time TAKING HIS DAMN TURN as he did on his stupid avatar, he could FINISH DYING FASTER.

If your server didn't keep crashing my game, I could take more turns!  Anyway, I just played two, and am inches away from death.  Unfortunately, I'm looking at houses for the next few days, so I'm not sure when I can play again.

I'm having the Blue Screen of Doom again.  I've got a nVidia GeForce 7800 and the most recent drivers for it.  And all other system specs are at or above requirements.  I can play for 40-50 minutes at best. *throws tantrum*

CHeck your temps to make sure overheating is not the culprit.  Also, try the beta drivers if you're not using them already.

Temp is well below maximum.  The driver I'm using is the final-release one than was posted as being the fix for BSoD previously, and it did fix it.  Is there a new beta driver out already, or are you referring to the beta of the pre-BV BSoD fix?

I'm using the BETA released yesterday which can be found on this page (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html). 

Sweet, thanks for the link.  Silly me, not checking for driver updates every fracking day.  ::)

Seriously though, nVidia has had to bend over backwards to fix a problem that isn't their fault in the first place.  What's up with that?

For a guy too busy making up excuses not to TAKE HIS DAMN TURN, you SURE ARE HERE A LOT, B.

It's a logistics issue.  I can only take my damn turn on one computer at the moment, but I can post on MATY from any computer.  Besides, I kept getting the bad packets error this morning when I attempted to connect.  I'll try again when I get home.  I was also kind of hoping that you managed to finish me off last turn.  Did my pathetic defense actually work?

Sooo...I've been getting the blue screen of doom since installing the beta drivers. It did fix all of the creepy graphics glitches I was having, but I would rather have those than not be able to play at all.

I'm kind of a dipshit, so...is there a way I can uninstall the beta drivers?

ETA: Well useshaders false has fixed it so far...I think/hope.

Sign me up for the nVidia nightmare of non-awesomeness. My 5600FX ran the game fine but I upgraded to a 7600GT and now I am in black/blue screen Hell. The latest drivers did squat, I'm trying an older one that was suggested and playing in windowed mode which I both hate and love. I don't use a start up cheat, do I just enter that shading thing via the cheat window?

Is this the same BSOD problem that started with OFB? Cos yer know, all I had to do to be able to play for more than 30 minutes at a time (and avoid all that delicious hard rebooting) was to fork out £70 for more memory (I believe that works out at about $5968 in American) whilst muttering darkly about evil tycoons and their champagne parties that I was probably funding. An extra gb of memory didn't actually fix anything, but it massively extended the amount of time the game would run for. I haven't had the problem since and I reckon I play for about 4-5 hours in one sitting.
I haven't really been following the BSOD saga since then as I assumed that Eaxis and Nvidia were still too busy, locked in heated squabble over whose responsibility it was, to actually fix the problem. And of course there are all those champagne parties they have to attend. So as with many things in life, the quick solution may be to assume that help is not forthcoming any time soon, and chuck good money after bad. Just a thought.

I must now join your cult. After four days of nVidia and EA giving me crap, installing, uninstalling, reinstalling, running data tests, blaming me, checking my CPU, my memory, my drivers... this has stabilized the game enough to run one hour and counting with no crash.

Why didn't ANYONE but MATY have this info?

Probably because MATY is the "it's broken" center of the TS2 community? If it's broken, someone has probably mentioned it here?

Final release of the new driver is out now.  I'd been using the beta driver with only minimal success, and I haven't had time to test the game with the new driver- hopefully they figured out a fix before they even knew there was a problem, if it makes any sense to be hopeful about that at all. 

New driver didn't help me out at all; within seconds of a lot loading, I got the blue screen. >:(

Final version did not help me either. Oh, well, I'll try the boolprop useshaders false, I was never that fond of those fishies anyway.

I know the source of this information may be slightly dubious, what with all the know-nothing know-it-all 12 year olds who hang about there, but some folks on the BBS reckon that evil evil Securom 7 is the cause of the renewed BSOD problem.

 LINK (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=dae561cbfa04b52f89b0edb3732e70f3&directoryID=21&startRow=1&openItemID=item.21,root.1,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23)

Have a look at mone0615's comments.

I tried that new driver, and my game still crashed.

Has anyone tried using the XTreme-G (http://www.tweakforce.com/) drivers? I've been using the mobile version (GeForce GO 7900GS on my lappy) and the normals drivers (GeForce 7800GS on my media center pc) for a long time and haven't had a BSOD.

You might also try setting anti aliasing to application controlled, since according to Graphics Rules.sgr, TS2 doesn't like it when you set it manually and turns "dirty rects" (whatever that is) and something about estimated texture memory adjustment off as a result.

So sorry to be a bother, but could you please explain this in layman's terms?

Your video card advanced control panel usually has a setting for 'anti-aliasing'. The default is usually 'application controlled', but what Argon is suggesting is to check it and make sure it's set that way.

I know this might now be an issue, but do any of you guys get the BSOD while playing other games?

I was getting the BSOD all the time anytime I played ANY type of video game. As it turned out, my 2 sticks of DDR RAM weren't playing well together anymore because one of them burnt out. Removing the bad one fixed my problems. Running at half capacity right now, but that's not an issue since I'm not playing the Sims.

Thanks.


Nope, only with Sims.  I only play one other game on this computer though.

I used the instructions from here to remove Securom.  My computer ran okay for a while, but I'm still getting the crashes (although less frequently).  My guess is that it may be contributing to the problem but is not the direct cause of it.

I'll have to give the shaders cheat a try.

(My specs in case anyone's interested -- an HP box with NVidia 7600GS, 4G of RAM, Intel Duo chip, 250G SATA disk.  )

dano

What is the general consensus on this beta driver? Who is it working for and who hasn't had any luck?

I had to replace my video card to a GeForce 6200 recently and have had no end of headaches trying to find a driver that works.  My old card died, but it worked brilliantly with the game and I cannot remember which driver version I was using.  (I had to use a crappy old 64 meg card in the interim, untill I could save up for a new card).

I really want to get the game running because I haven't had much time to play recently.  I have BV installed but haven't been able to try it out yet.  Would I have better luck if I just un-installed BV until all of these problems are resolved ( or should I just assume they are permanently borked and try to find another way around it)?  I really don't want to use the useshaders false cheat if I don't have to.  My old card had me spoiled because my game looked so pretty.

I believe the new driver (163.71) is official now, no longer beta.  It has not worked to eliminate the BSoD for me.

The useshaders false cheat is not so bad, except for the fact that we shouldn't have to use it in the first place.  I have all other graphics setting turned up high, but it bugs me that I can't use the snow x-ray thing.  I payed a buttload of money for this card (GeForce 7800) and I want it to work like it is supposed to, dammit!

I'm looking into older drivers now.  I'll post if I find one that works out for my card.

When I installed the card yesterday I just grabbed the newest drivers Nvidia told me I needed, thinking that they certainly must have resolved the driver issues by now.  I can see now that it was silly of me to assume so.  I am not sure which one I have installed as I am away from my home computer at the moment.  Within minutes of trying to run the game I got the infinite loop BSOD.

I cried when my old card stopped working.  I had it working perfectly and loved how good my game looked.  It sucks that we cannot play the game as it is meant to be played.  I know I am being a big baby, but I want my game to play like it did before.  Until I can come up with something better I will have to try the useshaders cheat.

God forbid I should have any REAL problems in my life.

I would appreciate it if you  (or anyone else) would let me know if you find an older version that works.

I've heard/read that, with certain Nvidia cards, it helps to roll back to a much older driver, rather than 'upgrading' to the latest one. Alas, I have no suggestions as to which driver(s) work best, but it might be worth searching the web for.

I haven't seen a Blue Screen of Doom (and I hope it will stay that way) and I'm using:
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
driver version: 6.14.10.9371
driver date: 22/10/2006

(Old drivers I know. And to be honest those drives are the ones that were on my computer when I bought it. I just never bothered upgrading them. If I would upgrade my drivers, would I have to remove my 'current old drivers'? Or can I just install the new drivers?)

Anyway I figured, since I keep hearing about the blue screens, but haven't seen any I could post my card and drivers... (You never know what it is good for)

As I already said I haven't seen a blue screen, but the game has this lag, but that might just as well be my downloads-folder having over 10.000 files in it.

I'm not using the useshaders false cheat and I use the snow x-ray thing.

You should be able to save a copy of the current drivers so that if upgrading doesn't work, it's easy to roll back.

I read that thread and agree with ReneeFox 100%. The problem is of EAxis's making.

I have an Nvidia 7900GT 256MB card which was purchased in July 2006. For a year, I suffered through the "Infinite Loop BSOD". The game would randomly crash. Sometimes just minutes after starting the game. But it was guarunteed to crash within 45 minutes. I just didn't know when.

In early July of this year, I saw posted on the front page of The Sims 2 home site that the 162.18 beta driver would solve this. Lo and behold, I was now able to play the game for hours and hours on end without a single problem :) Talking about being overjoyed. This all changed with the release of BV. The dreaded BSOD has reared its ugly head again. The strange thing is that the game would crash after exactly 45-60 minutes of gameplay (a couple of times sonner). Like clockwork. I just make sure I do a save game after every 10 minutes of gameplay so I don't lose much.

I have tried EVERY driver released by Nvidia since July and none of them worked. Here is the list:

162.18 Beta
162.18 WHQL
163.44 Beta
163.67 Beta
163.69 Beta
163.71 Beta
163.71 WHQL
163.75 Beta
169.01 Beta (came out a few days ago)

The logical conclusion is that the EAxis development team screwed up some of the DirectX code in BV. How can the game, which was working fine in Seasons + 162.18, suddenly get broken with the release of BV just 2 months later???

I have the base game + all EP's + all SP's which I paid alot of money for. The EAxis coders need to put down the crack pipe and fix this shit once and for all. One of the greatest games ever created is being ruined by inept coding :(

Comes of employing ex-Toy Story people, stuff like that!  No doubt WW took all the best people with him!

I tried this yesterday on my laptop, which has a Geforce 7400.  Now instead of the BSOD I got a D3DERR NOTAVAILABLE! error.

After some googling I learnt that this error usually means the driver isn't compatible with your hardware.  However I got it after 3 hours of gorgeous, smooth gameplay, so....

hm! I'm going to file the Xtreme-G drivers under the "improvement" category.

I still can't believe after all this time there still isn't a fix for this! I feel like going to EA HQ and punch some people.  >:(