WTF? Graphical corruption and black shadows - FIXED

[HomeschooledByTards]

I'm having problems with the pudding rendering sims and shadows properly. A picture is worth a thousand words, so have two pictures. I'm fully patched to 1.24/2.14/4.7/6.2/8.0, no CC/mods, this is happening in all neighborhoods. The game seems to be running normally, just shadows are black and sims are fucked up.  

I have all expansions and no stuff packs installed.

[BaronElectricPhase]

My first guess would be that your graphics card is hurting in some way. Test it with a different 3D (heavy/intense) graphics program, such as a first person shooter or driving game. If that shows continued problems, don't condemn your graphics card immediately... it may simply be that the driver for it needs to be re-installed. Other possibilities are that it is over-heating or needs to be re-seated.

[HomeschooledByTards]

I'm updating the graphics card drivers right now. My other 3D games (LOTRO and Minecraft, I don't have any shooters or racing games) are rendering perfectly, just the sims are screwed up.

Between updating drivers, rebooting, and a chkdsk that fixed a couple errors on my hard drive, my game is fixed.

Plz to laff at me nao after failing to do the simplest of windows troubleshooting (A REBOOT FIXES EVERYTHING).

[jezzer]

Plz to laff at me nao after failing to do the simplest of windows troubleshooting (A REBOOT FIXES EVERYTHING).

'kay.

*jezzer P&L at former AIDE

[soozelwoozel]

Plz to laff at me nao after failing to do the simplest of windows troubleshooting (A REBOOT FIXES EVERYTHING).

'kay.

*jezzer P&L at sooze and SK's former AIDE

Fix'd it for ya.

[jezzer]

LIES.

[witch]

Between updating drivers, rebooting, and a chkdsk that fixed a couple errors on my hard drive, my game is fixed.

Jesslla, if your HDD had a couple of errors that needed to be fixed, be aware that although Windoze normally fences off bad clusters/areas, it may be the beginning of a cascade of errors with the end result of a HDD fail. Sometimes you can get away with a fix for months or even years, other times it's like a domino effect. Make sure your data is backed up regularly to another drive.

[HomeschooledByTards]

Between updating drivers, rebooting, and a chkdsk that fixed a couple errors on my hard drive, my game is fixed.

Jesslla, if your HDD had a couple of errors that needed to be fixed, be aware that although Windoze normally fences off bad clusters/areas, it may be the beginning of a cascade of errors with the end result of a HDD fail. Sometimes you can get away with a fix for months or even years, other times it's like a domino effect. Make sure your data is backed up regularly to another drive.

All of my important data gets saved to our fileserver, but I'll do a resync and so forth today just to be sure I've got it all.

[BaronElectricPhase]

...it may be the beginning of a cascade of errors with the end result of a HDD fail.

I was about to recommend purchasing a copy of "Spinrite", but with today's HD prices, buying a new one may be more cost effective for you. The only(?) seemingly viable alternative ("HDD Regenerator") is not incredibly cheap either.

BUT, the two of them will literally beat the crap out of a HD and determine if it is reliably worth continuing to take a chance on.

The question you have to ask is:  How many HDs do/will I have? If many, then test the shit out of them... if few, just replace the sucker. (probably)

BUT... yet again... remember that an isolated "incident" is not reason to "panic". (buy software or hardware?) There are many reasons for data corruption and surprisingly few actually can be blamed on an ailing Hard Drive. (CTDs, power fluctuations, cosmic rays, sunspots, gravity waves, Murphy's Wrath) Back up your data often and look for a pattern. *Chances* are your HD is just fine.

Pay attention, play "scientist".