Most of the CAS music in Sims 2 sounds like it has snippets from something else in it actually . . .  Whether it be old Sim music or something else.

Amazing Facsimilie's beginning kinda sounds like a U2 song, too.

I wonder why you can't preview your custom music though?  That's kind of annoying.

I always liked the music they came up with the Sims games.  Not necessarily the theme music but the other music.  I discovered Lemon Jelly through Sims 2 and haven't looked back.  They're one of my favorite electronica duos.

But I dunno, the new CAS music definitely reminds me of Röyksopp's newest album for some reason.  But he definitely got his inspiration from a lot of different sources, this Steve Jablonsky person.  Verisimilitude is the one that most reminds me of the sound from Junior, maybe not a specific song per sae.

I haven't listened to the Build/Buy music much yet, but I like the CAS music and the new theme though I could do without the "Hallelulujah" the voices seem to be chanting.  No, Sims 3 is definitely not heaven sent.  :^P

Also, is there a reason why you keep writing "Thodd" instead of "Todd", Fikcija?  Just sayin'.

X^D  It's only one song in CAS that reminded me of a song on Röyksopp's new album.  I'd have to go find out which one.

Which song reminded you of Sweeney Todd???  I love Sweeney Todd's soundtrack.

I deleted the Launcher cache from there so maybe that's why it worked?  I also had CCleaner clean out all my Internet files and temp. files as well like phyllis_p mentioned, though so it might have been that over what I deleted in the Registry but I don't think so. For some reason it didn't delete the Launcher cache as I was still able to find it in the registry after running CCleaner and had to delete it manually. 

More specifically this:  Cachepath c:\ProgramData\Electronic Arts\EADM\cache 

CCleaner did not delete those files that I had to go in the registry to delete them manually . . .  Which made me hella nervous to be honest. 

Delete everything that says The Sims 3, EAL (where I found the cache registry) and EA Core if you have that.  Just be careful; you might want to back up your registry beforehand before attempting this . . .  I'm not responsible for any borkination of your PC or game!

I had this problem too at first until I completely uninstalled, used CCleaner and deleted a few things in the registry.  Then I reinstalled it and it was happy.

There seems to be an issue where the music suddenly stops playing for no reason . . .  I had this happen and did what someone on another forum recommended and it helped for a little while and then it stopped working again.  It may have something to do with the "Mute on Defocus" option, but I'm not sure entirely.

*Edit:  Oddly enough, after it stopped this time, I went and turned off "Mute on Defocus" and after about 20 seconds it came back on . . . 

Upon shut down of my PC as I was having the "no music" problem the launcher updated itself.  Fun.  I'm wondering if the "needs to be updated" problem is hindering other people's games . . .  You wouldn't know it until you shut down your PC completely as there was no indication it needed updating that I saw.  Weird.

Edited:  Meant launcher not EADM

I did play around a bit in the registry before uninstalling it for the second time, but to no avail.  I'm going to try this CCleaner.  Thanks, Fubuki.

I am having the above problem.  And no I didn't shout it from the rooftops.  I uninstalled everything and installed from the disk and it's telling me I don't have a legit copy.  It's no wonder why people arr.

Okay, so I uninstalled the arr'd copy and installed the real thing that my husband bought me and EADM is telling me my copy isn't the final release.  WTF?  What did I do wrong?  I uninstalled everything.  Did I miss something?

I actually like the music . . .  Sounds like Röyksopp's new album to me.  :^)  It's one of the few things I actually do like about TS3.  Stupid they didn't give an option to turn it off.  I must have missed that.

I do love the thumb drive!!!  X^D  If nothing else, that was worth it.

I misunderstood and thought it game with the Prima Guide . . .  Damn it.  :^( 

About to install it myself and weep over the fact it is indeed, the same.  *sigh.*  I will play it once in a blue moon until I'm bored and then go back to fixing and eventually hopefully playing TS2 again.

It seems damn near impossible to give someone else my $10 points since it all relies on your registration.  Has anyone figured that one out?

I used the crack that came with it . . .  I was under the impression the launcher spontaneously installs it.  The crack didn't bypass the launcher in other words, or at least mine didn't.  I'm running the utility that detects it on my PC currently so maybe I don't have it after all.  So far it's come up clean.

Ah, crap.  That's the one I have.  Oh, well.  Guess I'll have to remove it again.  Thanks, Marhis.

Which version is the one that has it?  Reloaded?

I know this is going off on another tangent but is getting rid of Securom and EADM going to be the same as it was for Sims 2 or more complicated considering the launcher seems more integrated with EADM?

I've only seen mention that Securom is back, but not anything about how to get rid of it with TS3.  Or did I miss something?

I'm definitely regretting my decision to let my husband go ahead and order the collector's edition for me . . .  But I am a Sims whore so I gotta have it all—but that doesn't mean I won't arr when necessary.  This is the first time I've ever arr'd a complete game in the Sims franchise but it's because my gut wasn't too happy when the first pics came out and I discovered the fugly Sims.  I'm usually pretty good about buying a game to give the company their due.  I'm seriously only looking forward to the thumb drive and fucking over the store; I was pissed when it came around for TS2 and now even more so considering their lack of objects in this base game. 

In the meantime I keep pounding away at TS2 hoping it will eventually go back to the way it was.  Yes, I'm still working on it for those of you who remembered my rambling plea . . .  Hell, fixing TS2 is more fun than I've had playing TS3 so far.  Hell, waiting 2 hours for TS2 to load is more fun than I've had playing TS3!  It's fun for like five minutes before your Sim has to head off to 7 hours of work or goes to sleep then forget it.  I was warming up to it and then got promptly bored again when I got sick of waiting for my Sims to come home from work, etc. Simday after Simday.  I'd rather spend the $250 or so to get another ATI Radeon 9800 which ran my game a lot better than my current card than to spend $60 for TS3.  So I'm taking it as a collector's item and not much else. I'll probably play it once in a blue moon but get annoyed by something in it and stop for ages unless some good hacks/mods come out.  So far that's how it's been.  So until it becomes more playable thanks to you guys and other modders, it'll probably just sit on my hard drive collecting dust.

I'll volunteer to share!  I preordered the collector's edition and it should be arriving on the 2cd.  What they're doing with the Sims Store is just not right; it was bad before but now it's just unbelievable.  How greedy can one company be?  Granted, all I can promise is to hand it over.  I have no modding knowledge and would have no clue how to make unsharable content sharable.

Now to back up a bit . . .


Yeah, I agree.  I find this fact really sexist and presumptive.  I'm glad you let me know the "Dislikes Children" trait didn't make a difference . . .  *sigh.*  This is totally not the way I play.  My Sims are mostly gay/lesbian and adopt rarely and the straight couples don't have kids.  The only time I play with babies, toddlers & kids is if they're already at Maxis created characters lots or on the rare occasion it makes sense for the story I'm creating.  You can imagine my horror when I left my SelfSim for one Simday while I played a bit with another family and returned to find her preggers.  Ugh!  Do not want!  What was EAxis thinking???  Can't wait for some sort of birth control hack or something if the final cut is anywhere near this one regarding pregnancy.

I am slightly warming up to the game, but the Sims are more or less still fugly though I managed to create a half-way decent Draco Sim.  I like the moodlets and the expanded traits as well as the variety of food and books.  I don't like the overuse of the rabbit hole buildings and how long it takes for Sims to be at work or sleep.  It's pretty boring to watch nothing basically when both of your Sims are at work for 7 or 8 Simhours.  :^\  I definitely don't like the aforementioned magical happy pregnancy shit.  No thank you!  Also don't like the forced Legacy style play.  That's totally NOT how I play my game.  I usually play each family in a neighborhood for a SimWeek at a time before I switch.

I haven't had any of the weird glitches yet . . .  worst thing that happened was my game 'sploded spontaneously to nothing.  It just blinked out, not even typical crash style.  Only happened once, though.  I believe like a lot of you here now that this definitely can't be the final cut, more like a leaked preview.  Dear god, I hope so!

Sorry, was too distracted being horrified by the BUTT UGLY SIMS to look further into the nuances of the game! 

I never read about the "rabbit hole buildings".  I only read it was going to be a "seamless neighborhood" and one would assume that means being able to actually GO INTO every freakin' lot.  So I would say the "rabbit hole buildings" fall into the broken promises category simply from that reason.  "Rabbit hole buildings" do not equal seamless gameplay.

But oh, well.  I'll probably return the game if I confirm this version is indeed THE final cut of Sims 3 and continue working on Sims 2 until it's back to it's old glory.  :^P

Is everyone 100% sure that this leaked copy isn't a beta?  Because I may just send my purchased copy back if I find out this is indeed the final cut.  However, I'm keeping the plumbbob flash drive.  X^DDD

I've played the game about an hour and am less impressed than I was originally.  I still can't get over how ugly the Sims themselves are as many others have said.  They look better in CAS then the do in the game, but still not a huge improvement . . .  To me what they look like is big chunk of the game.  Not only that but this game is not catered to the story & movie makers AT ALL . . .  I believe it's going to be super difficult to do either in this game.  And it's hard to care about your characters when they're fugly as hell anyways, so how can you create a good story around them???  X^D  To me the toony Sims from Sims 2 seem more realistic facially than these Playdoh looking Sims from Sims 3.  :^\

What really annoyed me though was the fact some of the comm lots weren't visible . . .  as in your Sims disappeared when they went inside a building.  That just doesn't seem right.  That's why I'm wondering if this is really a beta or something . . .  The animations of the Sims are very wonky too, very stiff . . .  A lot less fluid and natural than Sims 2, even though you'd think the reverse would be true.  They are definitely more toony than they were in Sims 2, though you'd think the opposite would be true.

I turned off indexing and hopefully that may fix that error issue . . .  not sure if that was affecting how my computer was running or the game, but sure it didn't help.  I know my PC is probably slowly dying . . .  My floppy disk drive doesn't read disks anymore (hasn't for a long while), and my PS/2 port doesn't work so I had to buy a USB keyboard.  So it's probably just a matter of time.  So it wouldn't surprise me if something else on it is messed up . . .

I'm currently finishing the rest of my CC off with the binary method so we'll see how that goes.  I've already halved it once because it crashed on load with all of the remaining in there.  I managed to get to the neighborhood bin with half of it . . .  So it seems that CC may just be the culprit afterall.  Maybe the way it was set up before was fine, but now that I moved things around, I messed up some flimsy balance so it now won't work.  X^D  Thing is, when I installed those NGO drivers, I hadn't installed anything new that I could recall, and moving out the most recent stuff didn't help any.  So I don't understand why that upset some balance . . .  I thought maybe I broke my card or something.  :^\  It could be however that my old neighborhoods just got so badly corrupted as I've done many VBTs like deleting Sims from the bin, moving occupied lots to the bin and back before I know those were VBTs.  I haven't since learning that obviously.  Is there a list of VBTs you shouldn't do in Sims that the game allows you to do?  X^D  I need to educate myself if there are any others!

The big issue is definitely due to my CC, or so it seems.  However, the secondary issue of the nVidia BSOD may or may not have been resolved by uninstalling Norton (which I did last night) . . .  Too early to tell.

I have Delphy's Download Organizer and I used it a few times, but I prefer Clean Installer.  It's quicker to load especially with my large amount of CC, and I like the way it is set up better.  I use both though, and the EA made Content Manager one too, though that one doesn't like to work most of the time.

Thanks for all your help, everyone!  :^D  Will update again if I run into any new issues!  I think I just have to continue my long slow road of moving CC back and forth . . .

snowbawl:  I just took a look at the Event Viewer and noticed this very weird application error  The Source is Ci and the Category is Ci Service.  I have no idea what that is . . .  But my computer just spontaneously rebooted on me while the game was loading . . .  I came back up and it was gone and appeared to have restarted.  :^\  I have many of these "Ci Service" errors in the log and I wonder if they correspond with crashes of the game . . .  Too early to tell right now.  Right before the error is also shows Info that CI starts cataloging c:\system volume information\catalog.wci and then the error must be that it can't do that. 

Looking at the link Microsoft's Help & Support center provided I got this:  CI stands for Catalog Indexing.  Something is wrong with the this function in the OS apparently . . .  Is there a way I can turn this off or change when it does this?  Any ideas why this would be happening or what could be causing it?  If what I suspect is correct, it only seems to be doing this when the game is on.  I'm looking at the error help message and it says that the reason this happens is that the files in the listed directory might be missing from the index and I should do a manual scan.  WTF?  Why should I need to do this at all while my game is running?

I don't know if it was LiveUpdate or what also that also interfered . . .  I have changed the settings on many occasions for Windows not to automatically install updates but yet it keeps doing it.  :^[  It just updated and rebooted last night for example.

Zazazu:  If my method is taking longer and there's no advantage, then I'll just do the half method only for the rest of the content.  I'll have to throw it all in one folder first though before I go moving it in.  Folders shouldn't be interfering with anything right?  I know at one point certain CC couldn't be put in folders but I think that changed after Pets so that everything can be put in folders

I am doing a binary search as I originally halved my beginning 60k.  I broke up the 60k worth of CC after I took out all the mods/hacks I could fine into 10k sections and then 5k sections and started adding them back in 5k chunks at a time.  Most of the time I have to half the 5k chunks because there's something still borked in there.  It's easier for me to scroll down 5k's worth of CC rather than say 30k at a time in order to find a possible culprit, so that's why I've done it this way.  It's just a little change to the binary search, but I originally halved them so I guess it still technically is as I continue halving when I find a problem.  I also started with the oldest CC first.  I've taken out about 300 possibly corrupt/broken files and put them in their own folder.  I have about 15k worth of CC left to put back in, so I have 1/3rd left to go.

I don't want to chuck all the CC and start over again.  Most of my SavedSims won't work if I do that and I'll spend hours downloading it all again.  I have removed a lot of the weird number files and other suspicious looking ones and so far have made it this far by doing that.  It's just frustrating and time consuming.

I know I have too much CC.  I want to get rid of a lot of it, but I need to know what it is first.  I don't want to accidentally delete something I really wanted or what not.

I am upset about the card . . .  I had forgotten about all the woes concerning nVidia and Sims 2.  It's my own stupid mistake and I'll probably have to buy another ATI card and just save up for it.  Maybe the card itself could be ruined, I don't know.  Cards can go bad even though they're rather new.  Some are bad out of the box.

Chain_Reaction:  I think you're right . . .  It's already been what, 3 months now that I've been working on this?  I want to start culling my CC but I don't know what all of it is so I sort of need to make note of it from the game (especially CAS stuff).  I know there's really no way to do that with objects and build stuff. 

I could compress it possibly once I get to a certain point but that gets sketchy if you need to update something that got compressed; sometimes objects get updated if they're messed up or what not.  I wouldn't use the Compressorizer on any hacks or anything obviously.  Anyways, that's for the future anyways. 

I'm still probably going to get another ATI card, the best my system can handle.  I only have PCI and AGP standard slots.  I think the best it can currently handle is either the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro or GTX.  All the other cards I've looked at need PCI-Express, it seems. 

The game has become pretty horrible in the terms of memory leaks and whatnot and it was always bad to begin with so . . .  I guess I'm sadly used to that fact.  Also the hour long full load time (from beginning to when a lot is loaded.)  :^\

phyllis_p:  I've BEEN doing a binary search.  I didn't know the 50/50 method was also called a "binary search".  I've read the FAQ, just not after 2007 when that bit about a binary search was added.  I've been lurking a long time but never really wanted to post that much here (and I still don't).  I guess it's time to refresh myself with it. 

I just wanted to know if anything else could be done in case CC isn't the problem because doing a binary search with over 13 gigs of CC is a bit painful as you can imagine.  Plus if that ends up to not be the problem in the end, what a massive waste of time.  You're still free to point and laugh.  :^P

Thanks, phyllis_p.  How would I go about doing a binary search?  As of now I've run the Download Organizer, HCDU, Clean Installer and just doing a visual search to weed out suspected bad content and to seperate hacks and mods from regular CC.  Is this something I can do in SimsPE?


I may do that . . .  I had thought to uninstall Norton but was hesitant to because I have 240 days left on the subscription so it seems like a waste of money.  I may just do it anyways and see what happens. 

I have edited the original post everyone into what I hope are more coherent paragraphs.  *kisses?*  X^D  I'm sorry.  My usual style of writing is very William S. Burroughs-like.  I apologize again . . .  *begs for forgiveness!*

I'm generally a lurker here . . .  made a few posts but they've all been ignored.  X^D  Hopefully this one does not though because I am at a loss now . . .

Anyways, my game has been borked since the end of January.  I have a Dell Dimension 8300 PC with a pretty new nVidia 7600 GS card which I got over the summer.  I forgot all about the nVidia problems with the BSODs and whatnot and bought that after my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro died on me in July (right before we moved, which wasn't very nice of it).  My PC is rather old, but it still runs well:

OS:  XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600), running SP3
BIOS:  Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A07<-This is as updated as I can get it
Processor:  Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz (DirectX Diagnostic says I have 2 CPUs, but I don't believe that's the case but maybe it is considering I bought this PC in 2003 . . . Device Manager says it's a ACPI Multiprocessor PC)
Memory:  4 gigs (only 3.25 gigs recognized by OS)
DirectX:  DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Video:  Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS with 256 MB RAM, AGP Driver:  6.14.0011.8122 from 1/15/2009
Sound:  SB Audigy

I've had the nVidia BSOD issue since I installed FT back in September.  Before that I got it once in a while, but not so often it was unbearable.  I've updated the drivers on many occasions to no avail. 

I installed AL and M&G in January and the BSOD really started to happen all the time.  I tried some drivers a friend suggested NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver v1.16218 and that seemed to be when my system really got borked.  So I got rid of those drivers, and installed the original drivers that came with the card which didn't work any better, so I tried many different nVidia drivers but it hasn't been right since. 

I thought maybe some bad CC was to blame so started moving out all 13 gigs worth of CC (over 60k of stuff . . .  *sighs*).  But it worked before I tried those weird drivers despite the fact it would still crash randomly due to the BSOD even with shaders off.  I took out all my mods and hacks out of my CC to minimize any conflicts moving it back in so it's basically just CAS, Build & Buy stuff.  Thing is I know none of the CC is responsible because it worked fine (exept for the nVidia BSOD) until I messed with the driver that initial time.  But moving it back in chunks seems to be causing some weird disruption.  :^\ 

These are all the things I've tried to fix it to no avail so far:  I've tested the memory.  I've tested the hard drive.  I've increased the paging file.  I've deleted my Sims folder for a fresh start of the game.  I got rid of Securom and am playing with a No-CD hack currently.  I even uninstalled SetPoint which is a Logitech program for the mouse and keyboard thinking that was in conflict with the game as the BSOD usually occurs when moving the view around a lot.  I increased the refresh rate.  I've made sure I play with Norton disabled and no screen savers on.

But as soon as I start putting my downloads back it starts being wonky.  It'll crash when I click on the screen with the mouse and there's no rhyme or reason to it.  I gave up on trying to reinstate my backup hoods because I'm sure they are borked anyways.  Sometimes it'll crash loading the neighborhood which is a clean hood from here or when loading a lot.  Sometimes it does it just crashes moving the view around or clicking on the screen.  Usually now it's not the nVidia BSOD crash, but the message about the driver being borked comes up.  Granted, I realize that there may be some bad content in there that now that it's been moved around a bit doesn't work anymore.

I'm about to do a complete reinstall of all the games because there are some scripting changes that have been made to it which I didn't change back to do with invisible walls and custom stairs and apparently I didn't install some stuff packs in the correct order (I installed IKEA and K&B before FT).  I think I'm also about to throw the card out and go back to ATI considering the game plays better on my laptop with the ATI card then it does on my PC with the nVidia. 

Maybe those third party drivers messed it up?  I don't know.  I'm running out of ideas.  I suppose it could be a motherboard or power supply issue, neither of which I know how to test; also could be an overheating issue:  used to have that in the summer with the Radeon card. 

I also play at 1024 x 780 windowed when my normal screen resolution is 1280 x 1024 32-bit color though that's never been a problem in the past; I just tried playing on the same resolution windowed and it didn't seem to make a difference and I got the nVidia BSOD. 

I have no clue which one is the best for this card and this game . . .  I've tried Googling it, but this is an old card so the drivers suggested are long gone and aren't even in the archive now.  I've used Driver Cleaner Pro to get rid of the ATI drivers even though I uninstalled it there seemed to be residual stuff that didn't get deleted.  I always run it now when changing drivers, too.  I know that can mess up your system supposedly.  I don't know if that's what happened? 

Did I mess it up with Driver Cleaner Pro?  I didn't always run it in Safe Mode, so not sure if it would have messed something up because of that.  It may also be because I didn't install the later Stuff Packs and EPs in order . . . 

Any ideas what it could be other than what I suggested? 

Any way I can test if the PC is overheating or the motherboard isn't functioning right?  I can't test the power supply because I don't have one of those meters . . .  Though I have a friend who knows how to do it so he's going to at some point (not the same who suggested the drivers). 

And if anyone can point me to best drivers for the card, please let me know.  The newest nVidia one doesn't seem to work well for me but neither do any of the other ones I've tried.

EDIT:  I tried to make it more legible!  Hope that helps a bit. . .  :^\

The problem is the crashing.

What I want to know is what could be causing these driver crashes?  With all that I've tried so far, what am I missing?

I also need to know the most stable driver for this game I can use for the nVidia GeForce 7600 GS card.  I may just end up buying another ATI Radeon card if this problem persists, however.