Gardening badges. At first you can only plant tomatoes, the other seeds gets unlocked as the sim who is planting them becomes more proficient and earns badges.

And The Sims 2 is supposed to be a "nVidia game"

Though I'd just like to say that problems like these are 90% not the fault simply of the videocard, but a combination of things. Like the general state of the OS, video card drivers (the newest is not always the best), god forbid, virii in the system, overheating (those high-end videocards need a damn powerhouse to work correctly), the overall compatibility in computer parts, I could go on. I had overall performance problems before because dustbunnies were piling up in the CPU fan and I was too lazy to vacuum it It could have been anything, from CPU to faulty memory or just fragmented system disc.

But this aside, I'd advice finding someone who knows about computers and is willing to look over and diagnose things in the computer. Adding a new shiny hardware can and will problems, and it can freak those people out who don't even know where to begin the troubleshooting. It's always the best to test with other games first (overheating problems are most likely to come after half to one hour of playtime) or just watching a movie on it and seeing how it responds. It's also good to have a diagnostic software handy (Everest has a free version for home PCs). Also, check the power supply, for that kind of card at least 400W should be the minimum and it must be connected separately to the card.

It's hard to say much from the distance, but the solution most of the time is not the change of the hardware. PC configurations these days are so layered and complex that manufacturers simply can't do anything with reports that say "so and so don't work", because the issue is most probably not with the card itself. Also, making the advice to "get another card" won't help that person if s/he runs into the problem again, either with Sims 2 or another game. What, then s/he should get another one until the problem goes away? Personally, to me, the problem seems overheating / not sufficient power supply. And to go against the nVidia-hating a bit, I went through six years without touching my videocard, and it always gave me perfect performance. The only reason I had to change is because it was a "bit" behind on pixelshaders. Both cards are nVidia (GF4Ti4200 and GF6800), both run games flawlessly and glitch-free, including post-OFB Sims 2. Either I got the only non-faulty videocard from nVidia or the problem is not just that easy it might seem first.

I remember hearing the boxing fight, well, at least the gong before the round. I saw the dog + cat terrorizing sims, a pizza commercial, one that looks like a comm for a soap opera and a strange one with social bunnies stops watching sims watching tv

During those few minutes I watched it, the sim's meanest cat just came over and plopped down to watch it with her I think this random cute act saved its sorry ass from getting pawned off to some unfortunate soul

I think I saw one that involved pizza (on the Sports channel, maybe?). I only saw it for a few moments, but I think it wasn't there before

I still use RDRAMs as well, and they are crazy expensive because they are no longer produced. If you want to go for the cheaper RAMs, it might require to change your motherboard, and with that the CPU, because the slots for DDR are different than RDRAMs and they won't fit.

RDRAM was introduced back in 2000-2001, these are the RAMs used in various consoles, but eventually DDR took over the market and Rambus for the PC was discontinued. I still use the best motherboard for RDRAM and have 1gb of it, with a 3ghz P4 processor, but this is the limit. The old motherboards that still use RDRAM limit your videocards (mine allows for 4x AGP, it currently holds a 8x card, but most are PCI-E anyway and the newer ones doesn't even have an AGP version) and CPU (3ghz is max), so for now it might be enough, but later you'll have to update anyway. I'm sticking with it, because I like it how this old 5 year old junk is faster than most modern PCs, but if you can't and won't tinker / sacrifice time to find parts for it, I'd advise to save up money and buy an up-to-date system with DDR rams. Those are cheap

*geek out*

Shaders are, in simple terms, are the card's displaying ability. It is everything from shadows, textures, the shiny effects, for example how the mirror reflects in the game. The stronger the card, the higher it's shader capacity - for example my old Ti4200 had 1.3 or 1.4 shader, while my 6800 has 3.0 shader. There are some newer games that sometimes require cards with bigger shaders - if it's absent, then effects doesn't appear the way they should, or they don't appear at all. Worse, the game doesn't even run. I think in the case of OFB that they modified something with the requirements and to ensure better performance the game turns off little effects, like fishies, on older cards because with the added functions it may cause lag... at least it's just my guess.

Yes for fishies, both on nVidia 6800 and Ti4200

I have an NL phonehack in the original archive, though I'm not sure it's the most updated one, the rtfm says
"Phone & Taxi Hack: NUCLEAR WAR EDITION! (v7.1b) for TS2NL v1.0p1".
If you need it, I can upload it.

The GeForce 7 series is the top of the line right now. The 7900 (I think?) is the newest right now, so the 7600 is not far behind. Just don't buy GS or LE or any downgraded model, and you're set for a few years (GT or GTX models recommended). Hell, I'm set for years with my 6800 (which is a rough equivalent of a 6600GT). I know for example that there are optional next-gen effects in the new Tomb Raider game and the 7 series handled them well.
And although most games are still optimized for nVidia, in the case of mid-high or high-end cards, it doesn't really matter if it's ATI or nVidia. It will run nicely, and that few fps difference won't be noticeable.

If you are interested in card comparison, try here: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

For the file corruption, I'd say faulty harddrive. At least the symptoms you describe is usually from a hdd that is dying and needs replacing, so with the new computer you shouldn't have this problem. Just don't put the old harddrive back

Maybe they went overboard with the vertex/polycount... who knows? Or it's just a big, fat conspiracy to upgrade computers.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the edge smoothing (anti-alising of fsaa) will not make the game un-blurried (look ma', I'm making up words!). It's for, er, smoothing edges that otherwise look jagged. What exactly is blurry? The textures? If so, try fiddling with the texture quality, sometimes when it's set on higher than a card's capability it just magically blurs everything while the option stays the same.

Try to bring up the taskmanager (ctrl-alt-del), and see if there's already a running sims2 process. It's usually two process, one is the exe, in your case thesims2ep1.exe, the other is ~e.5something. If you see them, nuke them, then try to start the game again. Sometimes it can get stuck in the memory without loading, and prevents further attempts at starting the game until a reboot happens. The video card change really shouldn't have killed the game (nor any other hardware upgrade).

I called my first Destruct-o-Mat. Sadly, he hasn't run amok since the activation. One of these days I'll command him to swim a little 

ZoneAlarm+NOD32+Microsoft's Antispyware for me. Nothing ever comes in, guaranteed They can even do they work silently and don't jump into my face for every little thing. Okay, ZoneAlarm used to, but just until I tamed it. I feel like a bad commercial.

Did you try loading the lot with the testingcheats enabled? It sometimes catches errors/objects that leave houses hanging on load, like the corrupted lights in some of the downtown lots.

I don't know about Switzerland, but there's no OFB in Austria. I live in a neighboring country and visit there to pick up my games (it's cheaper than buying them here ._.), and it wasn't in shops at the beginning of this week.

[edit] Corrected typo... [/edit]

I'm not sure if this was addressed before, but it seems the Ask... option no longer causes crushes. I had it happen with the first patch, but now it seems it's gone. Can someone confirm this or I just missed something and this was fixed before?

I thank you too, Sleepycat, I feel stupid for not thinking about cloning them and dumping the exported ones

Try moving out the Saved Sims folder and see if it starts then. I had the same problem and this solved it, a few of the exported sims in the folder went wonky... when I first export them, I can start Body Shop, then some times later it crashes. I'm not sure, why The files of exported sims are always larger than those made in Body Shop, but I always figured it would be because of clothes and whatnot.

In that case, I stand corrected. Now I wish they had these cards in Europe as well...

And some of the games just prefer one of the brands, mostly nVidia from what I've seen. ATI, by specs, is often better than an nVidia in the same range, but since many of the games favor nVidias they can close up their small disadvantage. If I want to use the cliche, then ATI has a better picture, better FSAA, but is generally a little clumsier, while nVidia is fast, but the picture is not as good. I had always had nVidia cards (with an exception of an S3 in the beginnings), and my now late 64MB GeForce4Ti-4200 always did better than a friends computer that was basically the same as mine, but AMD instead of Intel, ATI instead of nVidia. Then came the screeching halt when I got Black&White 2 that supported ATI... nice glitchfest ensued and took a while to make it playable without polygons flickering about every seconds 

Not the card itself, but the memory on it. It may have more, but slower, and the idea is for a game to run faster, so it's generally not recommended.

Actually much depends on the overall performance of the computer. A 128mb card is sufficient most of the time if paired with a fast CPU and fast memory. For example, I can have a 128mb graphics card, but if I have 256mb slower memory and a 1gb or so CPU, then it won't really do much. And there isn't much higher than a 256mb card, only if you want really high-end (both in performance and price) cards   And Sims2 is more of a strain on the bare strenght of the CPU than the videocard itself.

Front Side Bus frequency means basically how fast will be the data transfer between the CPU and the memory. The bigger, the faster computer. 2000Mhz seems huge, maybe someone can confirm what this HyperTransport means to you (I'm don't really now much about AMDs, I'm more for the Intel). If it really runs on 2000Mhz, then it may be worthwhile to consider the trade of FSB for the raw CPU strenght.

Sorry for butting in, but I really don't recomment the 256mb version in a GeForce 6600GT, because the memory on it version is slower than on the 128mb version. A 128mb card is enough for the Sims2, it relies more on the CPU than any other game I know

I think you can check it by running the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (Control Panel -> DirectX -> choosing DxDiag), it should be under Display along with name, manufacturer, etc.

That is certainly not low-end, don't worry  I think the best cards now have 512mb, with no in-between those and 256mb cards, so yours is really good (especially if it allows for smoothing).

Vejitto~

Hi all,

Just a thought. I don't know how good is your video card, but if it's not that high-end (128mb and above), then it might be possible that it just can't "hold" the higher textures and blurs them, and when set back on the quality it can display it again propery.

I can have this problem (my card is 64mb), in the first hours without shadows and reflections the game runs on the highest settings without blurring together, but after turning on reflections/having too many sims on the lot/playing a too big lot it just loses footing and begins showing crappier quality without actually changing the setting. Sometimes setting the lower setting then setting the higher again works, sometimes it only gets better if I restart the game.

Vejitto~