Stupid Person needs assistance with Very Easy Video Card question

[stephbass]

Hello everyone,

I have been playing Sims 2 on my craptop for about a year and a half, and I'm sick of crap graphics due to an on-board card, so I am looking to reinstall it on the family PC, which handled it pretty well when I first got the game. These are my specs:


AMD Sempron Processor 3300+
2 GHz
512 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440
20+ GB free space


After reading some threads in many places I figured that I should probably update the video card or something, so that it plays much better. I went to the NVIDIA website and did a search for new drivers, and it's led me to some page about a ForceWare Release 90 thing. Does anyone know much about this driver? Would it be a good idea for me to install this? It doesn't say anything about ForceWare stuff on this page either, which rouses my suspicions.


I am a very stupid person when it comes to computers (I can barely burn a CD, let alone update important components), and I am not looking to blow my PC up, so any help is greatly appreciated. I had a read of a few threads here about drivers and such but it's all in technobabble and I don't understand it.

[Kazoona]

New drivers won't help there. Old video card is old. There should be at least a 7 or an 8 instead of the 4 nowadays.

[stephbass]

Yeah but can I get away with playing with the old card and updating this new ForceWare driver, given that the Minimum System Requirements listed on TS2.com covers the MX 440 already, and it played well in the past? Buying new stuff obviously costs money & I am unwilling to shell out hard-earned bucks for a game I'd only play once a week at best.

[Kazoona]

Given that I had the same card before updating to a GeForce 7600 (my rig can't handle much more), I can speak from experience. For the base game alone, it might be ok. If you want to play with one or even more expansion packs, the game starts choking, the odd visual artifacts appear. The game won't even let you use the higher texture and sim detail settings and the like. Also, the video card will be under such a load that you might experience overheating.

Even if you only play once a week, I could imagine a more enjoyable experience than the above.

Drivers won't help here. Update your card.

[Sigmund]

Given that I had the same card before updating to a GeForce 7600 (my rig can't handle much more), I can speak from experience. For the base game alone, it might be ok. If you want to play with one or even more expansion packs, the game starts choking, the odd visual artifacts appear.

Not to mention that, if you do decide to add even one expansion pack, you'll probably want to add some memory too. I'm not sure how well 512 mb of RAM would run the base game+ EP(s).

[J. M. Pescado]

[stephbass]

Oh well, I guess it was a nice try. Thanks everyone for your help.

[hedgekat]

For what it's worth, I have the GeForce MX 420 and run base game with all expansion packs.  I don't get great texture detail in close up but it's good enough on a small lot to make my upload pics acceptable.  Even on big lots sim detail is clear most of the time, just blurring on occasion. I play with shadows and reflections off and can't view cinematics.

I do have 1Gb of RAM but need more.  Sim movement is a bit jerky at times and if I want to change viewpoint I have to pause the game to do so.  But all in all it has been a great videocard. I frequently have considered upgrading but have not heard of a card that someone has not had problems with and I can't afford to buy one and then have it not work as well as what I already have.

I have had the card overheat in hot weather. At such times I take the side off and direct a table fan into the case.

If anyone can recommend a card that has worked for everyone I've love to hear of it.  My system is a Pentium 4 -2800 Ghz

[Ayana]

From my personal experience, it'll run, even up to Seasons. Played on a different setup by BV. But you'll be on all the lowest settings, and have everything special disabled. After upgrading to my new computer last month, I saw an event scene for the first time. I'd forgotten they were even supposed to exist.

Oh, and it'll lag like a laggy lagging thing. Ewe definitely needs moar ramz.