I have an nVidia GeForce 5700 and I've been using the 77.77 driver for about a year.  My system specs (wait for it) are P4 1.7 gHz with 1.5 GB of RAM -- yes, my game really does load quickly and run properly, with one exception (video, and the details follow).  I have not experienced the "Endless Hourglass of Ennui"™ that others have reported, and I've never had the system lock up or crash when I scroll the neighbourhood.

The problems are the weird animations and artifacts.  The animation problems are always outstretched arms and disconnected heads; the artifacts are white and yellow areas on the screen and usually with no ability to interact with the game controls (not even via the keyboard).  Once the animation problems start they don't continue:  I see them for a short time, then they'll go away for several minutes.  Sometimes within a single lot they won't occur again, and sometimes on other lots they never occur.  The same holds true for the artifacts.  This happened very rarely with NL (perhaps 3 sessions in the last 8 months), and at least once in every session with OFB.

There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to when and where this occurs:  large houses with lots of objects; small houses with fewer objects; 5 family members; 1 family member; whatever.  They can occur after playing a lot for only 2 or 3 minutes, or after 15 minutes, or not at all.  They don't necessarily occur on the same lots during different play sessions, either:  one smaller house had big problems with both issues the other day, but yesterday I played this lot for about an hour (real time, of course) and had no problems.   

I have a short list of possible causes, but even before reading the threads here and at MTS2 my drivers were at the top.  Oddly, what fixes the problem temporarily is to Alt+Tab to desktop, wait for the game to minimise, then maximise the game again.  That allows me at least to save the game, and often the problems don't return.  I will try another driver from the recommendations above and report back.

I would have said she was Cassandra, but if she's a nanny then I'm lost.  Kendall Lawson, perhaps?

I re-read "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" a few weeks ago, and so my nannies now have Roman first names:  Drusilla Despret, Agrippina Gast, and Messalina Lawson.  I declined to change their surname as I rather enjoy the cognitive dissonance that results from reading their full names.

Or moving all of them to the lawn . . .

I think the NL patch did something as well.  No, I don't know what, exactly, but life in the dorms is definitely not as disorganised as it was before.

In the two dorms I've played since patch installation I've had some of the same dormies as before.  Those who were very hygiene-averse are now using the shower regularly, and those who always had trouble remembering where the toilet was are managing to find it now.  I've had "bathroom uses you" in the game for weeks, long before installing the NL patch, so it's not causing the change in behaviour.  I've had a few pass out in the hallways, but neither as many times nor as many different dormies as previously.

So far the most interesting behaviour concerns one dormie I checked with the mind-control mirror:  she had seriously low motives, especially hunger, fun, bladder, and energy. She exited the lot for about 30 sim-minutes, so she wasn't in class, and she came back totally and mysteriously refreshed.  The icon in her queue said "Hide".  If the patch changed things so they shower, pee, and eat like normal sims that's not so bad, but if their motives get so low the game drags them off the lot briefly for a magical restorative regimen of some kind that's a bit much for me.  I don't know yet if that will happen consistently, but I'll keep watching for it. 

I've tried re-setting the dorms by moving things around and by forcing errors with the FFS Debugger, but no changes so far.  One thing I haven't tried yet is playing a fresh dorm from the lot bin; I'll do that this weekend to see what happens.

I like it too; I think it's the best of the supplied houses.  I did make several changes, including relocating the bathroom and finishing the attic properly.  I don't like the bathroom slot in the living area either:  it's a home with some aspirations to graciousness, not bachelor apartment.

Speaking of violas, how do you tell if one is out of tune?  The bow is moving (har-de-har).

I've remodelled the Maxis houses so much that they're hardly recognisable, and for similar reasons:  unpleasing layouts.  The Craftsman house that came with the original game might be the one Renatus is talking about; the stairs to the attic were built with the moveobjects cheat.  At least, that was the only way I could place the stairs I wanted to use. 

I didn't know about the cheat for enabling the rest of the build mode tools in dorms; that will come in handy. 

I've had dorm stairs become corrupted once before, and it was every staircase in the dorm except the modular stairs leading into the dorm itself.  All other staircases were the single-unit kind, and the second flight was outside the dorm.  Nevertheless, they were all unusable in one direction only:  sims could go up them, but not down.  I've no idea what caused it; I had used the dorm before and was trying to move a new batch of sims in, and I've re-used dorms many times without this problem.  There was nothing blocking the base of any of the stairs.  I moved my sims out, bulldozed the dorm, and replaced it with an identical one from the bin.

The only time I've had this problem is when there have been out-of-date hacks in my game.  Removing your hacks is a good place to start.

Is the bingo game "It's Myshuno!", or something like that?  It's useless, all right.  Quite a while back after my first graduation party bombed big-time, I thought I'd try this game to help avoid having another disaster.  Hah.  They stood there, stock still -- probably bored stiff -- and the party bombed again.  They enjoy that enormous fruit punch dispenser more.

Mine do, but only because I searched actively for the vile smut, and eagerly downloaded it from the co-conspirators working at sites that were peddling it.  Fortunately for me, though, I have not been a minor for many more years than I was a minor.  Obviously something else along the way corrupted me to the point where I find such disgraceful game content enjoyable, nay, necessary. 

One never knows, God save us all.

I too don't know how I did without the memory editor plug-in mentioned by Rainbow.  I was moving along pretty well with the manual process, but there were many memories I didn't delete because I wasn't sure.  The new plug-in found over 2600 invalid memories and removed them.

I parked two sims at university before installing the patch, but I haven't played them yet.  I had no problems with final exams before the patch, and I've made no additions to my hacks since then, so the only change to the game would be the patch.  I can I can post back about how the first semester goes later today or tomorrow.

I installed the patch yesterday, first unsetting "read-only" on all the objects.package files, and removing my hacks folder to desktop.  The installation was trouble-free, and I moved the hacks folder back into the game.

So far I've logged about 3 hours of game play on three different lots, and no problems.  I haven't tried to package a lot yet as I will have to build new:  all the others (occupied or unoccupied) use a Maxis terrain which was applied before the patch.

I didn't start actual game play until after installing NL, and I had loads of A+ spam.  I still have the hack in my game.

Cassandra behaved with reasonable propriety in my game until just recently.  She and Darren are now elders, and their son Michael asked his boyfriend to move in.  Well, now in addition to Michael farting hearts for his squeeze and Darren farting hearts for Cassandra, I have her farting hearts for the boyfriend, and the boyfriend is farting hearts not only for Michael but for Darren.  Michael, apparently, is oblivious to all this chemistry brewing like some noxious industrial soup. 

In addition, while she was always careful to get herself to the toilet in plenty of time before, now she hangs about and whines about having to pee until it's far too late, and pisses herself where she stands.  This has happened three times now, and she's been an elder for only three days.  Even though I always locate bathrooms conveniently, I may just have to remodel their home to include some toilet rooms -- one off each main room, by the look of things -- until some modder invents SimDepends.

It is.  When I first read about it, before the Lot Debugger had been updated, I set the majors of what I thought was all my upgraded sims in SimPE.  I missed two of them, as I discovered yesterday, because the option showed on the debugger even though the six slots were visible, and the menu for majors showed when I clicked the option.

This has been true in my game; there has always been an improvement in the appearance.  It's all relative of course:  in a couple of cases the progression has been from horrifyingly ugly toddlers -> disturbingly ugly children -> really ugly teens -> ugly adults. 

Once they're adults I've had to "fix" noses and chins most frequently.  In the most extreme case I have the two parents are attractive and don't have radically different facial structures, but their children -- all four of them -- have chins that look like they used them to break several falls by hitting the counter, and noses that look like the sim-stork used its beak to pull them out.    There is no space between the children's lower lips and their chins, and their noses (like Cyrano's) announce their presence 15 minutes ahead of their actual arrival.

I've had no problems placing cars in inventory, but before I do so I set the ownership to <nobody>.  I haven't always had trouble with beds and dressers, but the first time I did I tried the moveobjects cheat, and they became unusable.  I haven't bothered putting them into inventory for a while because of that, but I'll try moving it onto the lot, then back, etc. the next time a sim moves house.

For ages there was no other sim besides Mortimer who barged in and poked the peeping Tom.  Once Mortimer died I wondered what would happen . . . like father, like daughter.  She suddenly appeared in a dorm, and walked up to one of the dormies and poked her.  I thought something had gone very seriously wrong, but she left the lot normally and the game seemed fine.  The next time she barged in was back in Pleasantview, and I made the connection:  the dorm lot and the neighbourhood lot both had telescopes.

In SimPE, the list that populates when I click "Sim Description" is in Instance order, and now that Mort's dead, Cassandra is the next playable sim on my list.  It looks like the game is moving down this list, so once Cassandra dies the barger-in should become Alexander, then Dan Pleasant (not likely, as he's older than Cassandra and I'm playing the lots in rotation), Mary-Sue (not likely for the same reason) then Angela. 

This is a very interesting and helpful thread. 

I have a four-year-old system with a P4 1.7 processor.  It shipped with 256 MB RAM and a 32 MB nVidia GeForce -- I'm not sure which one now.  The original game ran poorly; so much so that I stopped playing.

Last spring I replaced the video card with a GeForce 5500 256MB, and increased my RAM to 1 GB (which also meant a new 400 watt power source).  This made a huge difference, and I started playing again.  However, my CPU remains the last bottleneck, as I cannot invite more than 2 sims (using the cheat has no effect), and on large lots with lots o' stuff or lots with more than six sims the game can chug along.  The next step for me is a new motherboard, with the fastest processor I can afford.

All this for a game :: laughs insanely and fails to put money into savings once again ::  Every other program I've got on this bucket of bolts runs at lightning speed.

I was a relentless and unrepentant murderer of irritating sims in TS1, but I've done far less of that in this game partly because of the generational/genetic aspects.  I don't find Sims2 sims as irritating, either -- dormies not included.  However, the dormies are quite adept at taking care of their own deaths through self-neglect.

I'm going to have to start mapping the family trees now, before things get out of hand.  I'm at the third generation in some families (Dustin and Beau have children), and so far only the Goths and Dreamers are connected by blood.  The Brokes and Pleasants are connected by marriage (Brandi and Mary-Sue), but there is no issue.  I'd rather not have anyone become his own gran'paw, if only to save my own sanity. 

One of my Pleasantview sims liked what he saw when Blair Zhang (one of the streakers) ran through the dorm, then stopped to watch two dormies whomp the crap out of each other.  He chatted up the streaker, fell in love, and when he got home he invited Blair to move in.

Blair has been going to work without issues, and he doesn't run around the neighbourhood in his university "costume", at least not that I've seen so far.  The only thing I've noticed is his tendency to forget to get dressed after a shower or bath.  I've left him for a few seconds so he could "be used" in the bathroom while queueing tasks for the others, only to go back and find him buff-dancing in the living room, his three-piece set swaying. 

I have other sims with maxed outgoing points that still manage to put their clothes on after washing, so that's not all of it.  However, if that's the biggest problem I have with him, then I won't bother editing his data in SimPE.  I won't, that is, until he reaches elderhood.  Some things just shouldn't be seen by anyone.

By far the best thing is to get Brandi married off after stripping the house of anything saleable that wasn't strictly necessary.  After Dustin had grown up and moved out, I realised that if I got Brandi a job she still wouldn't earn enough to pay the taxes or a nanny.  Then she popped a belly, which was a disagreeable surprise.

Since Dan and Mary-Sue had broken up long before, I introduced Brandi and Mary-Sue when the latter did a walk-by.   That went well, and Brandi moved into the Pleasant house with Beau.  She married Mary-Sue, had her male clone, and became attentive to her children even without my assistance.  Beau and Stone are long gone now, and in homes of their own. 

After the break-up, Mary-Sue and Dan were able to make friends again, and when Dan's new family (with Richard) was mostly grown I had Mary-Sue invite them to move in.  She and Dan still have all their memories concerning each other, but there's been no drama.  Dan and Richard won't leave each other alone; Mary-Sue and Brandi aren't far behind, and no one minds.   They're all one big happy, and surprisingly functional, family.

I did much the same as Rainbow with Angela and Lilith, but I admit also to a dirty bit of cheating by flipping the "enemy" bit in SimPE.  With that set, it was impossible to get them to build a calmer relationship.  Once it was off things were still pretty bouncy but it was easier.  By the time they were ready to go to university they were getting along well enough for me to risk having them rent a house together.  That worked out just fine, surprisingly.  Perhaps their shared hatred for Jasmine Bui helped.

Lilith married John Burb, with whom she's had the ugliest sprog (a toddler still) I've seen yet, and that's saying something.  Angela is destined to become a future crazy cat lady, assuming that all the clamouring for pets results in that sort of expansion package.

This university graduate had pretty much bugger-all to live on after graduation, so that part is certainly realistic.  Absolutely no one in his or her right mind would ever pay me to strip.  They might have paid me not to, but unfortunately for my quality of life in those days I didn't think of that.

I didn't send any sims to university until after NL installation.  I'm playing three dorms; one gets bills, but other two don't.     I've not downloaded any dorms either; they're all Maxis-made and all have Myne doors.  In the two without bills, the mailman shows up on schedule, looks at the mailbox, then wanders off.  So far I've sent three sims through in one of the bill-free dumps, and nothing's blown up.