What the?!

[Nihale]

A BFBVFS in the making? This is a brand new (relatively) neigbourhood - with your standard complement of Pleasantview townies and NPCs, Academie Le Tour and the default Downtown. I'm hoping it's not, and that it's just 'cause my computer is crappy.

[Emma]

OMG! What the heck have you done.....

[Bangelnuts]

 I would Probably delete the neighborhood and start over

[Nihale]

OMG! What the heck have you done.....

I don't know! It just does it by itself... Deleting the groups.cache and removing all hacks/mods worked for about two minutes before it went crazy again... It seems to be using half of my system (at least) to decide where the little cars will go.

[Hairfish]

Did you by any chance unlock the Maxis street & crosswalk tiles, and use any of them to cover a lot? Just a wild guess...

[Issy]

That doesn't look healthy  

Have you checked you're other nieghbourhoods to see if the same thing happens?

[Nihale]

Did you by any chance unlock the Maxis street & crosswalk tiles, and use any of them to cover a lot?

No. At least, I don't think so.

Have you checked you're other nieghbourhoods to see if the same thing happens?

I have, and it does. In all four - Old Town, Enderby and t'other one. Sometimes, it will happen. Other times, everything seems fine. If I go into a house and back into the neighbourhood, it may go back to normal, depending on how it's feeling.

[Myth]

Edit:  You answered my question when I stepped away.

Since it's all four that are affected and it's dragging your system when it happens it makes me think that your video card may be heading for the community memorial park.  Try updating your drivers from the manufacturer web site first.  (I know I have rolled back my drivers and not realized it when I did a system restore.)  If that doesn't help you may want to look into a new card.  They really are reasonable as long as you aren't looking for the dramatic bomb of a card.  I have a Radeon 9250 with 256 MB that I bought for $100 a little over a year ago.  I could definitely do better but it runs my game fine.  www.newegg.com is a great site for reasonable cards and they are really simple to install.

[Nihale]

Is it that neighborhood only or are all your neighborhoods now showing the same way?

It's not permanent - all of them do it from time to time, such as this event in Enderby:

  - but it's still irritating.



Quite interesingly, it only started to happen since the NL patch...

[Emma]

Try and create a new neighbourhood, and see how it turns out Is that the concrete terrain?

[Nihale]

Is that the concrete terrain?

Nope, it's grass. All my neighbourhoods are in the theme of "Little English Village" rather than concreted metropoli.

[Myth]

I'm at work and can't respond as fast I would like.  But I modified my post.  Up a few hidden behind your latest picture.   

(Just in case you didn't re-read it.)

[TheCheat]

Check to make sure you don't have Post Processing enabled (boolprop enablePostProcessing true) and especially make sure that you do not have this cheat inserted in your userStartup.cheat config file. Starting up The Sims 2 and loading a neighborhood with Post Processing enabled originally corrupts your graphics and the game must be restarted with the cheat off in order to correct the problem.

Entering a neighborhood and then enabling Post Processing, however, does not produce any ill effects (that I've come across, anyways.)

[Nihale]

I'm at work and can't respond as fast I would like.  But I modified my post.  Up a few hidden behind your latest picture.

Re-read. My graphics card is something like a GeForce 2 MX 200, which ran Uni quite well... I swear They are secretly bumping up system specs..

Check to make sure you don't have Post Processing enabled (boolprop enablePostProcessing true) and especially make sure that you do not have this cheat inserted in your userStartup.cheat config file.

I don't have a UserStartup.cheat file. I think. Unless there's one hidden somewhere. And I never, ever use PostProcessing. The only thing that the guides say it's good for is movies, and I don't make any.

The plan of "try a blank neighbourhood" seemed to work.



I didn't test it for very long because I'm tired right now and/or I just couldn't be bothered.

[Hairfish]

Re-read. My graphics card is something like a GeForce 2 MX 200, which ran Uni quite well... I swear They are secretly bumping up system specs..

It's not secret. They have increased the system specs for Nightlife. It's a more demanding expansion, period. Somewhere around here, there's a post where MaxoidTom says that.

The box says you need a "GeForce2 GTS or greater." I have no idea whether an MX 200 is above or below that.

[baratron]

OK. The shot with the Watch Clouds box is pretty much what Superstar looked like on my old PC. That's why I stopped playing The Sims .

Methinks you need a more powerful graphics card and/or an updated driver for it .

[Nihale]

Methinks you need a more powerful graphics card and/or an updated driver for it.

Drivers are up to date. Will irritate the elders for new graphics card in time for Christmas. Bet they'll say no.

[rma]

Oh, wow. Nihale. It really does look like you graphics card is done for. I know this is probably moot, but have you tried changing the graphical setting to the lowest they will go.

I'd also try dxdiag if I were you. Run the test just to see if Direct X is working.

[Bangelnuts]

Oh, wow. Nihale. It really does look like you graphics card is done for. I know this is probably moot, but have you tried changing the graphical setting to the lowest they will go.

I'd also try dxdiag if I were you. Run the test just to see if Direct X is working.

it might also help tochange the screen resolution to 800x600

[Nihale]

It really does look like you graphics card is done for. I know this is probably moot, but have you tried changing the graphical setting to the lowest they will go.

I've tried it, and it works. But it just looks totally crap. (Edit: And I can live with it. Everything was on medium to begin with anyways.)

I'd also try dxdiag if I were you. Run the test just to see if Direct X is working.

It says everything is fine. Emphasis on "says."

It might also help to change the screen resolution to 800x600

I can see what you mean, but this monitor isn't really suited for 800x600. (Edit: Really, it isn't. I tried it and it looked terrible.)