More Awesome Than You!

Thought this thread might be of some interest to people here who prefer not to brave the BS BBS:

New nVidia driver. (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.21,item.61,item.41,item.127,item.23&threadID=06c442234ffa7adb4557aaac3804ab89&directoryID=21&startRow=1#0f96f0db5a9a764180a58842a7683dea)

I've been having problems with my GeForce 7800, so I'm hoping this turns out to be a permanent fix.  Should I try the beta driver or wait for the final release?  I'm still smarting from the slap of the Pets patches, so I'm a bit unsure whether or not to trust Eaxis on this yet.  Although, it is nVidia not Eaxis that is handling the problem.  Any thoughts or advice?

If you're having problems, what's the harm? It's not like you can't just reinstall your current drivers if it doesn't work. 

Well, it seems to be working so far.  :D

I played for 3 hours last night.  Normally the computer won't make it past 45-50 minutes with shaders on.  And I can see fish now!  Woo!  Hopefully this is a permanent fix.

Well, the game works great but my Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI won't open.  >:(  It freezes while loading and makes that "doink" sound like there's an error happening somewhere, but when I open Windows Task Manager it still says "running", and it will sit frozen like that for at least 30 min (I lost patience at that point and closed it).  I have added nothing to my computer except the nVidia beta driver since the last time I opened Paint Shop Pro.  Should I contact nVidia or Corel about this, or wait it out and hope for the best?  I love that my game doesn't crash, but if itsn't one thing it's another I guess.  Any ideas?

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to double-post.

I downloaded the beta drivers today, but haven't had a chance to play the game and test them out. I'll poke around and see if any of my other programs give me a problem.

In my experience, nvidia beta drivers are usually pretty safe to use. I used to use them all the time when playing EQ.

I've been using the beta drivers since Saturday and have logged many hours of Simming -- no BSOD.  My other programs see to work as usual.  The only comment I can offer is that my sweetie, the artist, used to have an earlier version of Paint Shop Pro, and it was very touchy -- it would lock up very often, and sometimes had problems loading.  You might want to try starting PSP in safe mode and see if it will load.  If it won't, you might try uninstalling it and reinstalling.  That's what I'd do, anyway.  Others more awesome than I may be able to offer better advice.

I take it you have patched to v. 11.11?  If not, you may want to do so.   

Something that may need to be mentioned, and I am usually the one that needs to be told  ::) 

"This driver does not work for laptops!  For info on what to do if you have a laptop that has the "nVidia Crash", visit this thread here:"
 http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=e5d1332287852b0d11cd1c57202a2fce& (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=e5d1332287852b0d11cd1c57202a2fce&)

I did, and restarted in safe mode.  It worked, so I restarted normally and now it worls just fine.  Whew.  Thanks for the advice.

I've only had the game crash on me once since installing the new driver, and then it was to the "normal" Blue Screen of Death rather than the game's Blue Screen of Impending Doom.  It was probably overheating, since our AC hasn't been working the past couple of days.