Technical problems with THE HORROR: downloading, installing, and running it

[Simchick]

There seems to be alot of talk about video cards overheating and causing game glitches. And, although I may be wrong in my numbers here, most of those cards with heat issues seem to be from the ATI family.  Am I wrong in assuming this? I am concerned because my computer has a 1950X.  And if this thing starts heating up and causing RAM issues, it's getting replaced. Fast. I really prefer the nVidia series, and if the ATI cards are heating up, I'll switch. In a heartbeat.  Before I purchased this computer I had heard talk about some of the ATI cards having temperature issues. I was reluctant to put an ATI card in the new set up but they gave me a really good price on it and I bit.  Is it now gonna bite me in the ass when I play The Sims 3?

I'm playing with the same card, 512MB, with an intel 920d cpu and 3gb ram. My graphics are set to the highest and they look good. No problems so far. I did update my drivers a few days ago to a 2/25/09 version and I got the driver update from the ATI website. No problems with overheating altho my case has 4 fans.

[snowluv]

There seems to be alot of talk about video cards overheating and causing game glitches. And, although I may be wrong in my numbers here, most of those cards with heat issues seem to be from the ATI family.  Am I wrong in assuming this? I am concerned because my computer has a 1950X.  And if this thing starts heating up and causing RAM issues, it's getting replaced. Fast. I really prefer the nVidia series, and if the ATI cards are heating up, I'll switch. In a heartbeat.  Before I purchased this computer I had heard talk about some of the ATI cards having temperature issues. I was reluctant to put an ATI card in the new set up but they gave me a really good price on it and I bit.  Is it now gonna bite me in the ass when I play The Sims 3?

I'm playing with the same card, 512MB, with an intel 920d cpu and 3gb ram. My graphics are set to the highest and they look good. No problems so far. I did update my drivers a few days ago to a 2/25/09 version and I got the driver update from the ATI website. No problems with overheating altho my case has 4 fans.

Or were you directed to another website?  The last time I was on the ATI website I could not find anything for this card.  That is what made me believe this one is not going to be supported any longer. And I did update with that set of drivers from 2/25/09 in March.

[kennyinbmore]

There seems to be alot of talk about video cards overheating and causing game glitches. And, although I may be wrong in my numbers here, most of those cards with heat issues seem to be from the ATI family.  Am I wrong in assuming this? I am concerned because my computer has a 1950X.  And if this thing starts heating up and causing RAM issues, it's getting replaced. Fast. I really prefer the nVidia series, and if the ATI cards are heating up, I'll switch. In a heartbeat.  Before I purchased this computer I had heard talk about some of the ATI cards having temperature issues. I was reluctant to put an ATI card in the new set up but they gave me a really good price on it and I bit.  Is it now gonna bite me in the ass when I play The Sims 3?

I'm playing with the same card, 512MB, with an intel 920d cpu and 3gb ram. My graphics are set to the highest and they look good. No problems so far. I did update my drivers a few days ago to a 2/25/09 version and I got the driver update from the ATI website. No problems with overheating altho my case has 4 fans.

Or were you directed to another website?  The last time I was on the ATI website I could not find anything for this card.  That is what made me believe this one is not going to be supported any longer. And I did update with that set of drivers from 2/25/09 in March.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

the date on this one is 3/18/09. This is the Vista driver but there's a xp driver too. I couldn't remember your OS

[Mayinca]

    
Today when I opened the game this message appeared: 

"You are playing a non-final, unauthorized copy of The Sims 3. Purchasing and registering an official copy of The Sims 3 will entitle you to benefits including access to an entirely new game town called Riverview, 1000 SimPoints which can be redeemed for game objects in The Sims 3 Store, and access to The Sims 3 Exchange."

Is it true that it is not the final version?

sorry for my google english

[SciBirg]

   
Today when I opened the game this message appeared: 

"You are playing a non-final, unauthorized copy of The Sims 3. Purchasing and registering an official copy of The Sims 3 will entitle you to benefits including access to an entirely new game town called Riverview, 1000 SimPoints which can be redeemed for game objects in The Sims 3 Store, and access to The Sims 3 Exchange."

Is it true that it is not the final version?

sorry for my google english

Try turning off internet before starting the game. Do you get the same result?

[Mayinca]

Try turning off internet before starting the game. Do you get the same result?

forget it, I don't care, I just wonder if is true that it is not the final version... I suppose we'll have to wait until the launch date    ... thanks anyway 

[Chain_Reaction]

Well, I'm playing on a very low end ATI card (X1300 Pro) and it works fine but doesn't like shadows. I tried turning lighting and shadows up to medium, and while there was no lag, the shadows were liquid, literally. They didn't stay still, they had jagged edges that moved like water, from the picnic table to the roofs of buildings... so back down to low that goes. I also noticed sims didn't have shadows on terrain paint but did on sidewalks. It's alright, I can deal. I also have this slight issue where any object with glass in the game flashes. It wasn't doing that till I turned texture detail to medium. I have cars going down the street with the glass randomly appearing and disappearing. As long as there's no lag I will ignore it.

[barachanchan]

   
Today when I opened the game this message appeared: 

"You are playing a non-final, unauthorized copy of The Sims 3. Purchasing and registering an official copy of The Sims 3 will entitle you to benefits including access to an entirely new game town called Riverview, 1000 SimPoints which can be redeemed for game objects in The Sims 3 Store, and access to The Sims 3 Exchange."

Is it true that it is not the final version?

sorry for my google english

What version of the Sims 3 do you have 1.0.615 or 1.0.631? Screenshot would be nice.

[snowluv]

There seems to be alot of talk about video cards overheating and causing game glitches. And, although I may be wrong in my numbers here, most of those cards with heat issues seem to be from the ATI family.  Am I wrong in assuming this? I am concerned because my computer has a 1950X.  And if this thing starts heating up and causing RAM issues, it's getting replaced. Fast. I really prefer the nVidia series, and if the ATI cards are heating up, I'll switch. In a heartbeat.  Before I purchased this computer I had heard talk about some of the ATI cards having temperature issues. I was reluctant to put an ATI card in the new set up but they gave me a really good price on it and I bit.  Is it now gonna bite me in the ass when I play The Sims 3?

I'm playing with the same card, 512MB, with an intel 920d cpu and 3gb ram. My graphics are set to the highest and they look good. No problems so far. I did update my drivers a few days ago to a 2/25/09 version and I got the driver update from the ATI website. No problems with overheating altho my case has 4 fans.

Or were you directed to another website?  The last time I was on the ATI website I could not find anything for this card.  That is what made me believe this one is not going to be supported any longer. And I did update with that set of drivers from 2/25/09 in March.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

the date on this one is 3/18/09. This is the Vista driver but there's a xp driver too. I couldn't remember your OS

I am runnng on XP. I just checked the version on those drivers and they are from February. Thanks for the link. And I really appreciate everyone giving me the info.  I guess I will wait until I have The Sims 3 installed and see if this card goes bonkers on me. I kinda hope it does so I'll have an excuse to upgrade.  There are some new, impressive cards out there that are compatible with my system, and I am itching to see how much of an improvement I'll get with a new one. Once again, thanks for all the input.

[jonsnow]

Hi!
Where did you guys download your game? cause mine it taking FOREVER  I started it a few days ago and I only got 900MB...
If anyone has a link to a good torrent (or some other kind of downloading method) I would be grateful!!!

[cheezwiz]

My antivirus chirped on on the crack .exe in the Razor torrent currently on Demonoid.  I wound up grabbing a Pirate Bay-tracked Reloaded one.  There was a somewhat unusual Sims3Setup.exe in there, but none of this codec.exe/etc stuff inside, just usual file components (and a Verisign certificate, for whatever that's worth).

Also, note that the "official" setup, at least in the clean version, launches out of Autorun.exe.  My guess is that it's made for the ease of computer newbies who don't know how to activate a setup program.  I'm not entirely certain how that relates to the installation of SecureRom, though.  It's possible that if someone did write another installer for the game, they did it to stop it from installing the copy protection.  Or it might just be an unfinished installer the devs were working on.  Or it could just be a virus.  Who knows.

[sanmonroe]

   
Today when I opened the game this message appeared: 

"You are playing a non-final, unauthorized copy of The Sims 3. Purchasing and registering an official copy of The Sims 3 will entitle you to benefits including access to an entirely new game town called Riverview, 1000 SimPoints which can be redeemed for game objects in The Sims 3 Store, and access to The Sims 3 Exchange."

Is it true that it is not the final version?

sorry for my google english

Depends, are you playing reloaded, razor, or razor plus final patch?

And they can say you are not playing the final version every time they make a patch. The game is only final when all work stops on it.

[sanmonroe]

Hi!
Where did you guys download your game? cause mine it taking FOREVER  I started it a few days ago and I only got 900MB...
If anyone has a link to a good torrent (or some other kind of downloading method) I would be grateful!!!

Pirate bay had the reloaded version with thousands of seeeders. DL that. Then DL the razor patch that was under 1 gig. It will update your game.

I DLed both in a total of about 4-5 hours.

[sibanti]

Ok, so I'm new to arr-ing and I'm pretty sure I downloaded the Sims 3 RELOADED from Pirate Bay, but it's taking a really long time. I left it on all night and it's still at 45%. The ETA keeps jumping from 22 hrs. to 3 days depending on how many KB/s is going down or up. I have all the expansions installed. Should I uninstall a few of them? Would that make it go faster? Oh and the entire package I'm downloading (with utorrent) is 4.93 GB. Is that too much?

[sanmonroe]

Ok, so I'm new to arr-ing and I'm pretty sure I downloaded the Sims 3 RELOADED from Pirate Bay, but it's taking a really long time. I left it on all night and it's still at 45%. The ETA keeps jumping from 22 hrs. to 3 days depending on how many KB/s is going down or up. I have all the expansions installed. Should I uninstall a few of them? Would that make it go faster? Oh and the entire package I'm downloading (with utorrent) is 4.93 GB. Is that too much?

You may have to optimize your connections and decrease your upload rate based on your connection speed.

There are torrent wikis that will tell you how to set them. Personally I prefer azureus because the DHT system seems to grab more people, but thats just me.

[Salomon]

I have all the expansions installed. Should I uninstall a few of them? Would that make it go faster?

Since these are unrelated things, no.

[Millikat]

Just a heads up, my virus scanner detected (and luckily blocked) backdoor.graybird in the key gen exe of the razor1911 version. The rest of the download comes up clean

[ItchyNScratchy]

I've read and read threads here till my head hurts, and I can't make out what on earth I need to do, so I'm throwing myself out hoping I can get some help. I've attempted phyllis' aid, but I think I've thoroughly confused her and managed to embarrass myself in the process. (Thanks for bearing with me, phyllis.) If someone can help a newb pirate, I'd be so grateful.

I've been downloading files from here for two days now: http://www.rlstalk.net/topic/3897-the-sims-3-razor1911/ <-- the hotfile version. I've got all of them downloaded, including the crack. I opened WinRAR, extracted all 26 files AND the crack file and was left with what looks like this:

Inside the CrackFix file is pretty much the same:


It was suggested that I download an NFO reader (have never heard of that in my life), and when I googled I saw several different versions, but since I don't really know what it IS, I'm not sure what versions are trusted. Scratch that. I've got GetDiz and now see the keygen stuff, but still don't have a clue what to do to get the .iso files.

Basically, at this point I've got a bunch of files that I can't open, no .iso files that I can SEE, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to extract files rzr-sims3.001 through rzr-sims3.054. Also, I've got 2 NFO files called "revolver.nfo" and "rzr-sims3.nfo"--do I extract those?

Inside the Crack folder I've got 4 files: 0.bin, rzr-sc3f.001, rzr-sc3f.nfo, and rzr-sc3f.svf. No clue what they're for or what to do with them. UPDATE: I've "verified" the sfv files, but I don't know why I needed to do that. It didn't teach me anything or get me any closer to my end goal, which is to find the .iso files and figure out what to do next.

Help is appreciated in advance. I'm overwhelmed.

[Blaise]

Basically, at this point I've got a bunch of files that I can't open, no .iso files that I can SEE, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to extract files rzr-sims3.001 through rzr-sims3.054. Also, I've got 2 NFO files called "revolver.nfo" and "rzr-sims3.nfo"--do I extract those?

Inside the Crack folder I've got 4 files: 0.bin, rzr-sc3f.001, rzr-sc3f.nfo, and rzr-sc3f.svf. No clue what they're for or what to do with them. UPDATE: I've "verified" the sfv files, but I don't know why I needed to do that. It didn't teach me anything or get me any closer to my end goal, which is to find the .iso files and figure out what to do next.

Help is appreciated in advance. I'm overwhelmed.

No worries. I was mighty confused at that point, too. Download 7-zip, or use WinRAR if you have it. I find that 7-zip does everything that I would have needed from WinRar and it is FREE. I like free. Whichever method you use, click on the FIRST .001 file That is a rar file that has been broken up into many parts. .001 is the first part. Unless you have a file called rzr-sims3.rar, then THAT is the first one. If you are using 7-zip, RIGHT click on the first file. Choose EXTRACT HERE. 7-zip will quietly go about extracting every file in order. You will be left with an .iso file.

NFO file is simply an INFO file. Open it with Notepad. Should have text in it.

Also, googling really does help you learn. Typing in ".001 file" in google gives you this page as the first link:

http://www.binaries4all.com/001/

And that taught me what I am now teaching you. I also google NFO file to learn what that meant, too. Most folks have struggled before you have, asked and you can just google to learn what they learned!

So use GoogleU (Google University) to learn.

[ItchyNScratchy]

Trust me, I've done my share of google, MATY, PMBD, and other outlets to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do. It's not that I don't understand what things ARE now--I've read what these files are. My problem NOW is I just need to figure out what to DO with all of it! I see all of these files in one spot and my brain just goes into shut-down mode.

Google is my friend, and I know how to use it. I simply have just never ARR'd anything before, have no idea how to get this game extracted/setup, so that's my problem--not that I'm a retard that doesn't know how to google.

And since I don't have anyone offering to take me step-by-step, I'm having to go through blindly with the hope that I don't blow something up.

[Blaise]

I just gave you step by step. Here it is again:

1. Click on the first file. That file will be named .rar or .001 (I did not DL the RZR release.)

2. RIGHT CLICK. Choose EXTRACT HERE.

3. Let 7-zip or WinRAR do it's thing.

4. You will have an .iso file.

As to the NFO:

1. Right Click the .nfo

2. Choose OPEN WITH...then choose notepad.


Does that help? Also, read the link I gave you, you may find that helpful.

[ItchyNScratchy]

Yes, I saw already. Didn't have to repeat. Thank you for the help. I'm hoping now that I'm not too stupid to figure out what to do next.

[Zanahoria]

Hi guys. I can run the pirated game on my laptop (though, not quite as fast or smoothly as I'd like), but when I installed it on my other computer (admittedly better), and following the exact same steps, I always get the same error whenever I try to run the exe file. I get the following message: "Sims3Launcher has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." I googled it, but to no avail so far. Yes, I installed it correctly. Yes, I cracked it. I don't get it.

So, should I download Razor1911's release and try that one instead, or chances are it won't work either...?

[rufio]

Itchy, you need Daemon Tools Lite.  You can use that to mount the .iso, which will then show up like a CD that you put into your drive.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Out of curiosity, those playing the game with ATI Radeon HD cards, are you able to turn every graphical option to the highest?  I can turn up every option except for edge smoothing.  I'm getting smooth lines, obviously, but it's also giving me sims with no hair...or bald tops, in any case.  Just curious, because Sims 2 was able to handle all of the options turned up, and I never got any weird effects to go with it.

It also seems that those of us with HD audio cards are having sound issues, somewhat.