Graphics Card

[IridescentKerry]

Up until I installed NL the sims ran really well on my computer (at the highest settings too). Then I installed NL and I had to turn the settings really low.

I bought an extra gigabyte of RAM (I used to have just 512MB), this made the loading times quicker, but made no difference to the actual gameplay.

I thought I'd buy a new graphics card, at present I have an NVidia GeForce 5200 FX, I bought an ATI Radeon 9250. It was AWFUL!! So I put the 'old' one in.
So my question is what graphics do you recommend (I'm willing to spend up to £100) and what are you thoughts on why the graphics card I bought was so rubbish?

[Venusy]

For those of you in America, that's about $171.89 (source: Google). Just thought I'd point that out.

[katemonster]

Do you mean the higher options are grayed out with NL, or it just runs like crap? If they're grayed out, how much video memory does your card have?

Mine had higher options grayed out because though it's damn well capable of running the game with them all on highest settings, it doesn't have enough video memory for the game to think it can. It has 64mb and the graphics rules want 128mb to be able to turn on smooth edges; I had to change the graphics rules to be able to turn them on. I've been running the game this way since I got this computer in January with no issues and it runs perfectly.

So the point is, it might not be your card at all, it might be some stupid thing they stuck in the graphics rules that you need to kill. I don't know why the Radeon 9250 was crap. I had a 9200 and it was crap. I don't know what the difference is. I have a 9600 now and it's lovely, but I have a laptop so I don't really know how much they cost on their own.

[Ness]

someone here posted the way that nightlife changed the limits for each of the graphics settings - I can't find that post again, but it turned out that the reason my computer went from high to medium was actually because of the processor - not the graphics card, not the RAM, but it needs a faster processor...  if someone can dig that elusive post out, it may help you determine what the exact problem with your machine is.

[IridescentKerry]

The graphics card has 125MB. The higher option settings aren't greyed out, it's just that if I select them the gameplay is INCREDIBLY slow.

[Ancient Sim]

I've never understood all this.  I have an unsupported card (64MB) that the game refuses to let me run cinematics on, even though I can run that sort of thing everywhere else.  It defaults me to the lowest settings, yet I run on highest settings and there's no noticeable difference in gameplay, except perhaps slightly slower on very large, full lots.  It defaulted me to the lowest on the neighbourhood view, but I have it on the highest and that doesn't slow the game down one iota.  With the base game and Uni it set me for 2 visiting Sims, I have it set for 8 and increase it to around 25 when I have parties (I don't slow down until I hit around 35-40 Sims on the lot), yet when I added NL (which was supposed to reduce the number allowed) it told me I could have 6.  I don't think any of the recommendations or whatever are worth a jot, quite frankly.  My processor is only around 1700 (overclocked to 2000) which isn't exactly high and my RAM is 512MB and my combined hard-drives only come to around 45 gig.  Not what you'd call a high-end machine by anyone's standards, yet I don't seem to have half the problems people have with much higher-spec models.

I haven't got smooth edges because they're greyed-out and I don't even know what they are, although my card supports them.  How do I get the game to let me have them, is it in Graphics Rules?  I can't find it.  I'm just curious to find out what they are, because my edges look perfectly smooth to me.  I keep saying I'll get a new card, but it annoys me that I would be forced into doing so just because Maxis doesn't like the one I've got.  My pc can run Civilisation IV with no problems whatsoever and it has higher specs than TS2, so why do Maxis have to be so awkward?  I suspect they're in league with Radeon and GeForce.

[KellyQ]

I'm not sure what kind of problems you're having but I have almost the same specs as you and even with NL, my game runs fine. I have the Nvidia GeForce 5200 FX and 512 MB. My game does lag on some of the bigger lots (ones with lots of trees or fences) but it's not unbearable. When I installed NL, the game defaulted itself to lower settings but I changed those to higher settings and haven't had any problems. I did have to create a userstartup folder so I could use a cheat to have more then two guests at parties though. If I was going to upgrade my graphics card I would stick with a Nvidia since, so far, so good (I've only had this computer for less then a year).

[Myth]

I do not have any problems other than general lag on oversized lots.  My specs are as follows:

2.4 GHZ processor
ATI Radeon 9250 256MB RAM
1 GIG RAM
40 HD (slave)
120 HD (master)

The reason I put my specs is to say that I do not think it is your physical RAM or your video card.  The video card by my own self admission could be a lot better but is enough to run the game set with med/high settings as long as I'm not playing an oversized lot.  It could be your processor that needs an upgrade or you could be running out of hard drive memory.  The game is a virtual memory hog.  When you run the game unless you have manually set it otherwise most of your virtual memory is already allotted to other apps.  While playing the game it constantly borrows memory from the hard drive and swaps it into the game.  (virtual memory/swap memory)  Since you already have enough physical RAM and a decent enough video card I can suggests these things.

If you are running low on hard drive space:
Clean up unnessecesary programs and applications from your hard drive
Get an external or internal hard drive and move items to there

General items:
If you have Windows XP set up an administrative bare bones account set up just to run the game mainly and allocate most of your virtual memory to the game 
Close all background tasks prior to running the game
Check your processor and make sure it's above the minimum game specs
Go to the ATI site and download the latest drivers for your video card
Defrag your computer and run ScanDisk regularly
During game play save often to dump the virtual memory
Check for Spyware/Adware and use removal tools to get rid of them Adaware or Spybot Search & Destroy (I use both)

There are other things I am sure that I just can't think of right now.  If I had a link to to a tip I tried to add it.  Anyone please correct me if I may be wrong or feel free to add.

[katemonster]

I haven't got smooth edges because they're greyed-out and I don't even know what they are, although my card supports them.  How do I get the game to let me have them, is it in Graphics Rules?  I can't find it.  I'm just curious to find out what they are, because my edges look perfectly smooth to me.  I keep saying I'll get a new card, but it annoys me that I would be forced into doing so just because Maxis doesn't like the one I've got.  My pc can run Civilisation IV with no problems whatsoever and it has higher specs than TS2, so why do Maxis have to be so awkward?  I suspect they're in league with Radeon and GeForce.

The thing in graphics rules is:

   # not enough texture memory for antialiasing
   if ($textureMemory < 127)
      boolProp enumerateMultisampleLevels false
   endif

When I changed the 127 to 63, the smooth edges was no longer grayed out.  My machine has been running it perfectly that way for 10 months, although I have to put the original graphics rules back in every time there's an EP or a patch, because it complains that the graphics rules don't match what they're supposed to be, and won't install. I also have this changed in the file for every EP though I'm not sure if that's necessary.

My 9200 had 128mb of RAM, so smooth edges wasn't grayed out, but it was unplayable with it on. On this one (9600) I have to cheat to un-gray it, but it runs perfectly. Good job, Maxis.

Though I guess if you don't care, it is all moot. For me, I find the jagged edges totally intolerable and being able to run with smooth edges on was the single best thing about getting this computer.

I also wonder if it's actually turning smooth edges on for you, but still not letting you adjust them because you don't have enough memory, and that is why they look smooth to you. It makes no sense but I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Edit: I wonder if I could just put "boolprop enumerate multisamplelevels true" in the Userstartup.cheat file, and not have to change graphics rules and mess with it every time there's an expansion. Does the cheat file override graphics rules? Perhaps I will find out, when I have time to actually mess with the stupid game instead of just talking about it. Then, I'm always afraid of messing with my graphics rules any further and somehow breaking it--I've got it working and I like it like this!

[idtaminger]

I have an unsupported card (64MB) that the game refuses to let me run cinematics on, even though I can run that sort of thing everywhere else.  It defaults me to the lowest settings, yet I run on highest settings and there's no noticeable difference in gameplay, except perhaps slightly slower on very large, full lots.  It defaulted me to the lowest on the neighbourhood view, but I have it on the highest and that doesn't slow the game down one iota.

Really? Back when I had a Radeon 9200 128mb, I was only able to shoot at most half of the settings to high b4 it'd get annoyingly slow. And on very large lots, it'd run like a slideshow....slooooooooow...

But I did turn anti-aliasing (smooth edges) on...couldn't stand the jaggedy-ness w/out it on. Does anti-aliasing really affect gameplay so much?

[Ancient Sim]

Can someone perhaps post something to show the difference between smooth edges and rough ones (or whatever).  I genuinely haven't a clue what it's all about, all I know is that my graphics card control panel has a switch to turn anti-aliasing on or off but no explanation as to what it being turned on or off.  I would have thought that if the card had it turned-on, the game would follow along with that, not force it to be turned off.  Are we talking about the edges round the screen, or what?  I am so confused! 

Am going to alter my file and take a look at the game, see if anything looks different.  As for which file to alter, as far as I know you just need to alter the one that relates to the most recent expansion installed, that's what I did before they fixed the problem of the neigbourhood view not staying at what it was set to stay at.  I vaguely remember Maxoid Tom saying you only needed to alter the NL graphics rules file.

[Motoki]

but I did turn anti-aliasing (smooth edges) on...couldn't stand the jaggedy-ness w/out it on. Does anti-aliasing really affect gameplay so much?

Do NOT turn anti-aliasing on from in the game with ATI cards. I've found it slows even the fastest ATI card to a crawl for some reason. Instead, I run the game at 1600x1200 which runs quite well on my 9500 and is such a high resolution you really don't need anti-aliasing. Also, I leave the settings in the ATI Catalyst Control Panel at their defaults. When I've tried to up them I had issues with TS2.

The game works pretty well for me if I avoid upping the anti-aliasing bar in the game and leave it at the default setting. All the other options are at their highest and as I said I run at 1600x1200 which does make the menus small, but looks really nice. If I have a really huge lot with a lot of junk on it and invite a whole bunch of sims over for a party it will start to slow down some, but for most regular play it works just fine.

[Hegelian]

Let's see if we can sort some of this out. . . .

The ATi 9200-series cards are several generations old--roughly concurrent with the Pentium III (remember those?). Without getting into technical details, they are by current standards short on on-board memory (although there is a 256-MB option for the 9250), have only four pixel pipelines (compared to 8 or 12 with current designs), and support only DirectX 8 in hardware. If the card has only 64 MB of memory, it is possible that manually forcing some game settings may simply be ignored (although I don't know if this is true or not).

Also, it is important to recognize that it is not just the quantity of memory, but the type. The 9200 cards use single-channel DDR memory, while current cards typically use dual-channel or quad-channel DDR3, which (again not getting into the technical aspects) is considerably faster for a given quantity--in other words, 128 MB of dual-channel DDR3 will significantly out-perform 128 MB of DDR.

A year ago, the bare minimum if you were to buy a new card would be a Radeon 9550, which at least gets you to DirectX 9 in hardware (I won't discuss nVidia here because I'm not familiar with their models, having avoided their products because of the company's long history of having brutally bad image quality when you're not gaming, although this may no longer be the case). But prices for the 9600 XT have dropped dramatically, so that now you can find one with 256 MB memory for less than 100 USD.  For ~170 USD, I would have thought I'd be looking for a 9800 Pro with 256 MB of memory, but I see that at this very moment, I can get an AGP version of the Radeon X800GT with 256 MB of DDR3 memory for $169 plus $5 shipping (in the U.S.) made by Sapphire (one of ATi's principle 3rd-party builders). 

I was making the same decision myself some months back, between the 9600 XT and the 9800 Pro, and ended up with the 9800 with 128 MB memory, since at the time the 9800 was the better value given the relatively small price difference. The 9800 is a more advanced design all around, for this particular use it is especially notable for having a 256-bit memory interface compared to 128-bit for the 9600 cards (however, watch out for budget OEM versions of the 9800--SE versions, for example--which also have the 128-bit interface). That said, the source I'm looking at (newegg) lists the Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro with 256 MB DDR2 at exactly the same price as the considerably newer X800GT with 256 MB DDR3--in fact, at that price I may just order the X800GT myself.

This version of the X800 is near the bottom of the model line, at least as far as AGP versions go (be careful not to get a PCI-Express version if you need AGP!), so except for faster GPU and memory-clock speeds, and the DDR3 (quad-channel?), this card doesn't seem much different from the 9800 Pro, as both have 8 pixel pipelines, but I suspect the X800 is considerably more capable in real-life applications (i.e., TS2). And for just $20 more, the same source has "refurbished" units of the next-higher model, with 12 pixel pipelines. Let's see, I get paid tomorrow. . . .

So there you have it:  On a tight budget, a Radeon 9600 XT with 256 MB RAM (again, watch out for those handicapped OEM versions) is probably the minumum. Any lesser card (that is, one of even older technology) is not a good value for the money with the 9600 XT selling for less than 100 USD. If you can hit the 170 USD range, the sweet spot for 256-MB AGP cards is going to be the Radeon X800GT, at least here in the U.S., or the Radeon Pro if the X800 cards are premium-priced in your market.

Okay, so let's talk about swap files, also known as the paging file. In the old days when your typical PC had 64 or 128 MB of RAM, the common wisdom was to set your swap file for 2.5 times your physical memory. This was necessary because both applications and Windows itself would quickly swamp your onboard memory, so it was necessary to page out idle data to the hard drive in order to make things work. These days, with PCs typically having 512 MB or more of RAM, this advice is no longer pertinent. If anything, the best course of action is to reduce your paging file as much as is practical, in order to minimize the amount of disk-churning Windows can do, and maximize the use of your physical memory.

Despite improvements, WinXP is still rather dumb when it comes to managing memory. If you let it configure itself, it will keep the page file almost full while using well less than half the available physical memory, especially if you have more than 512 MB installed. To compound the problem, WinXP has two data-management "features" that work at cross-purposes. On the one hand, it sets up a disk cache, which moves data on disk into RAM on a predictive basis, in order to speed up access to that data when it's needed. On the other hand, it is constantly moving idle data in RAM to the paging file on your hard drive to free up RAM--you can see the problem here. In addition, with 512 MB or more of RAM, most of that data doesn't need to be swapped out to the paging file to free up physical memory, because you're probably nowhere close to using it up. As I write this, my paging file is currently at 55 MB (it's about 7 MB when I first start WinXP), and I have 541 MB of free RAM (out of 1024 MB). If I let WinXP do its thing, these numbers might be reversed!

Secrets of the paging file:  With all versions of Windows, it is best if you have two physical hard drives, and the swap file configured to be on the second drive--that is, the one that does not contain Windows (which is usually drive C). With older versions, it was sufficient to simply set the swap file to drive D (or whatever), but with XP (and possibly Win2K??), the paging file process works best if there is a small paging file on the Windows drive as well as the main paging file on the other drive (of course, if you have only one physical hard drive, this is irrelevant, but you can still reduce the size of your paging file). I currently have the C drive paging file set to 2-50 MB (min-max) and the drive E paging file set to 100-800--this is a bit different that what I have on a Win98SE system, where the paging file is set to a fixed amount of (I believe) around 128 MB. There is a way to determine an optimum setting for your particular use by using the Performance Logs feature of XP to test different settings while producing the most memory-intensive loads you can manage (like loading a really big TIF into Photoshop while editing a long document in Word and loading up a big Excel worksheet), but if you poke around the more reliable tweaking Web sites I think you'll come up with settings similar to mine, for WinXP. The settings I use produce a minimum of disk thrashing (data being sent out to the paging file) while taking advantage of the RAM I've bought. The bottom line is that if you have 512 MB or more of RAM and Windows spends a lot of time sending data to and from your hard drive, you should seriously consider reducing the size of your swap file (aka paging file).

There are a lot of junk utilities and performance "enhancers" out there on the Web. One that actually works and does not hose your PC is Cacheman (cache manager--get it?), which may be found here:  http://www.outertech.com/

Edge smoothing and anti-aliasing: 

Can someone perhaps post something to show the difference between smooth edges and rough ones (or whatever).  I genuinely haven't a clue what it's all about, all I know is that my graphics card control panel has a switch to turn anti-aliasing on or off but no explanation as to what it being turned on or off.  I would have thought that if the card had it turned-on, the game would follow along with that, not force it to be turned off.  Are we talking about the edges round the screen, or what?  I am so confused!

Without getting into a long discussion, suffice it to say that edge smoothing reduces the "jaggies" along the straight edges of surfaces (or lines) when they are viewed/displayed at an angle. For example, you are looking at a table in your game. If your point of view is square to the table, the edges of the table top will appear smooth and straight. If you rotate your view 45 degrees, you will see that the edges of the table top are no longer smooth and straight, but take on something of a stairstep appearance. Anti-aliasing or edge-smoothing will reduce this effect, which some people find more objectionable than do others.

Modern video cards with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering in hardware allow you to set or force these settings in their driver software. Forcing these settings is popular with hardware junkies, "extreme" gamers, and reviewers, but is often not a good idea. The ATi control panel gives you the choice (using Custom settings) of setting the display driver to Application Preference for these functions for both Direct 3D and Open GL, and this is usually a good safe choice. Games which can benefit from having these functions turned on, or set to particular values, are often able to set the settings themselves.

In the case of TS2, in the Read Me file that comes with the game (you did read this, right??!), Maxis explicity states not to turn on anti-aliasing for ATi cards:

FORCED ANTI-ALIASING: The Sims 2 will have graphical problems if anti-aliasing is forced on in display properties. To fix this:
   * Right click on your windows desktop and select Properties.
   * Choose the Settings tab and press the Advanced button.
   * Select the 3D tab and make sure SmoothVision is set to Application Preference.
   * If not, press the Custom... button and change the anti-aliasing setting to Application Preference.

If you want edge smoothing in TS2, turn it on using the game options. If you have the horsepower, you shouldn't have a problem, but if you have it enabled and your game seems sluggish, try turning it off. Again, according to the Read Me file:

Reflections, Screen Size, and Smooth Edges are the options that will affect your frame rate the most, followed by Shadows and Lighting.


With my system (P4 2.8 Northwood, 1024 MB RAM, MSI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB), the game installation defaults to Reflections off and some other settings set to medium. I run with Reflections on and most Details settings set to high, and don't really have a problem except for large lots with lots of objects and sims--for example, 8 sims in the Capp mansion with a third storey added, or busy Downtown lots. But I live with it because I like reflections and some game features and/or objects require details set to high in order to work properly (or be seen)--although I don't recall which ones at the moment. 

The Read Me file also lists known problems with older ATi cards, most of which are due to old drivers. (Not to worry, there are GForce problems too.)   

Hope this helps. . . .

[idtaminger]

Do NOT turn anti-aliasing on from in the game with ATI cards. I've found it slows even the fastest ATI card to a crawl for some reason. Instead, I run the game at 1600x1200 which runs quite well on my 9500 and is such a high resolution you really don't need anti-aliasing. Also, I leave the settings in the ATI Catalyst Control Panel at their defaults. When I've tried to up them I had issues with TS2.

So...it's not okay to turn it on ingame...But according from Hegelian's loooong post, it's okay to turn anti-aliasing on for ATI cards if you can do it ingame?  I'm confused.

I've been running w/ it on high for a while now, on my new comp, w/ a Rad X850XT. And so far its going alright, although on the really big, jam-packed lots there's a noticeable lag when you first load up a lot, which is annoying sometimes. I'm avoiding turning up the resolution, b/c w/ a high res, my menu bars turn really tiny, which is annoying, but if anti-aliasing is somehow screwing up my performance, I guess I could do w/ a small menu bar...

[Motoki]

Well all I can say is for me personally having played the game on an ATI Radeon 9500, 9700 and X300 if I turn on anti-aliasing in the game, even at a fairly low resolution and with all the other settings turned down, the game runs like ass. If I leave it off in the game, even if I run at a high resolution and/or turn all the other settings up, the game runs pretty well. YMMV (and before anyone asks that stands for Your Mileage May Vary)

[Hegelian]

So...it's not okay to turn it on ingame...But according from Hegelian's loooong post, it's okay to turn anti-aliasing on for ATI cards if you can do it ingame?  I'm confused.

I've been running w/ it on high for a while now, on my new comp, w/ a Rad X850XT. And so far its going alright, although on the really big, jam-packed lots there's a noticeable lag when you first load up a lot, which is annoying sometimes. I'm avoiding turning up the resolution, b/c w/ a high res, my menu bars turn really tiny, which is annoying, but if anti-aliasing is somehow screwing up my performance, I guess I could do w/ a small menu bar...

It's actually pretty straight-forward. First, in the ATi Control Panel, make sure that for Direct 3D Anti-Aliasing is set for Application Preference--regardless of whether you want to use edge smoothing in game or not. You do this by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Properties from the menu. In the Display Properties window that appears, the 3D settings are accessed by pressing the Advanced button on the Settings tab. For an example of reliable settings, see the attached image.

Whether you choose to use Edge Smoothing (anti-aliasing) in your game is up to you. It all comes down to how smoothly the game runs--more specifically, how smoothly does the "camera" move when you change your angle of view. In other words, it's all about frame rates. Your X850XT should have enough horsepower to run with all--or nearly all--the game settings maxed, but whether any loss of performance that does occur is acceptable to you, only you can decide. You will not hurt anything by turning on Edge Smoothing in-game, but if you feel it reduces the performance of the game, you can always turn it off. The important part is to be sure that anti-aliasing for your video card is not forced on, by setting it to Application Preference in Display Properties.

Motoki is correct:  As Maxis poiints out, enabling Smooth Edges can have a major affect on game performance. If you have an older video card or a budget card, you may find the performance hit to not be worth the improved appearance of game objects. OTOH, with a current mid- or upper-range card like the X850XT, this should not be a problem. YMMV? Absolutely!

Load times are a different issue, involving the speed of your hard drive system, the amount of data a particular lot contains (i.e., large lots take longer to load), and to some extent the speed or your CPU. The display settings in the game won't affect load time one way or the other. They only affect how smoothly the game runs once the lot is loaded.

Setting a high display resolution can have an affect on game performance, but it is an issue independent of anti-aliasing (although there is some interaction in terms of how the display image looks). The choice of resolution is a compromise between apparent image sharpness, readability (everything gets small!) and game performance. The highest setting isn't necessarily the best. Pick the resolution that looks best to you, on your hardware. Keep in mind that if you are using an LCD monitor, it has only one "correct" resolution, called its native resolution. 17- and 19-inch monitors typically have a native resolution of 1280x1024 pixels, and any other setting will require the monitor to either invent pixels ("interpolation") for lower resolutions, because the monitor needs to fill in the missing pixels--or discard pixels for higher resolutions, because the monitor doesn't have as many pixels as it is being asked to display. Unfortunately for me, TS2 doesn't offer 1280x1024 as an option, but it looks surprisingly good at whatever the next lower resolution is--1150x???--I don't have the game open at the moment and I don't remember the exact resolution options. In any event, this isn't issue with CRT monitors.

According to the Read Me file, it is possible to force a resolution with a command-line switch, -r(w)x(h) [run at (w) x (h) resolution]. I haven't tried it but it might be worth an experiment. You would use this by opening the Properties window of your game shortcut and adding the line to the end of the existing Target line. In my case, I would add -r1280x1024 to the end of the line, "D:\Games\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSBin\Sims2EP2.exe", like so:
"D:\Games\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSBin\Sims2EP2.exe" -r1280x1024
In truth, I don't remember at the moment whether the switch goes inside the quotation marks, but I think it does not.

Of course, if your game is installed in C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2 Nightlife, then your Target line would be different from mine.




 

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[simmiecal]

Let's see if we can sort some of this out. . . .


Hope this helps. . . .

All I can say is...wow!  Glad we have some people here with technical expertise and willing to write such detailed explanations so dummies like me can understand! 
* goes off to change some settings on my ATI card

[idtaminger]

Wow. Quite the talker, eh? 

But good to know that antialiasing's okay.

I haven't really fooled around w/ the Display settings, cuz I didn't see a need to. The game automatically puts evrything on high anyways. But what I said about the large lots, what I meant was that immediately after load up, the framerate on uber-large lots would suffer a bit. The lag disappears after the camera has gone in a full circle. This is after NL, I think, and I'll bet it has something to do w/ the lot view, which I have set on extra-large. But boy does it improve the view, so I'm not doing away with that so soon.

But a question about the load itself - besides CPU speed, do you think extra RAM would help it any? I already have a gig, but sometimes the slowness of the large lots kinda p me off. I have very limited patience, and sometimes I just don't feel like waiting. 

[Pegasys]

My game runs pretty well on my setup, I have all settings maxed except smooth edges, which I have set halfway. On a couple of times I've set smooth edges all the way and it mostly effects the rate at which I can scroll around. I have an nVidia GeForce 6600, which works quite well, although I've heard the 6600GT is even better. (I didn't feel like upgrading my power supply so I went with the 6600 which works with my 300W power supply.)  I've had no problems and it runs beautifully (except that one-time glitch of the "rainbow lot" which disappeared as soon as I exited the lot).

Now when I installed Nightlife I did notice a definite slowdown on larger community lots, such as Sims Gone Wired, which perplexed me, because everyone else was talking about how much faster their games ran, and some said their community lots ran as quickly as residential.  But then I also made a few tweaks to the applications that start up and were hogging CPU  and that seemed to make a big difference. You know what the biggest hog of CPU turned out to be? Some stuff related to Photoshop Elements. I turned these off (see http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/03/30/PE3forWindows.html) and now my CPU stays at around 0-4% when I'm not running anything. Before it would spike up to 20-35% even when completely idle. I think that affected Sims2 gameplay.

[Motoki]

But what I said about the large lots, what I meant was that immediately after load up, the framerate on uber-large lots would suffer a bit. The lag disappears after the camera has gone in a full circle. This is after NL, I think, and I'll bet it has something to do w/ the lot view, which I have set on extra-large. But boy does it improve the view, so I'm not doing away with that so soon.

That's normal, at least in my game. I get it even if I turn the viewing of other lots off. I'll usually just use the mouse wheel to scroll in and out a few times on the lot and let it get it out of its system and then it runs fine.

[Lion]

Hi everyone.

I didn't post on this thread because I think my v-card is totally capable. But I couldn't turn on the neighbor view after the NL patch.  Here is how it happened:

First the patch did not install. So I uninstalled the NL as instructed. Everything installed smoothly. But I can't enable neighbors, you know, to see your neighbor's houses when in a sim's house, and click to directly switch to another house to play. The choices in the option section are all greyed out, including the view distance. Before the patch, none is greyed out. But since I could only invite 2 guests, I changed the graphic rules to recognize 2000 as high, 1800 as medium, and 1000 as low, as somebody suggested somewhere.  That three numbers are the only things I change in that file. After the patch, no matter how low I change the numbers to, all the choices to see your neighbors' houses are still greyed out.

I have AMD 2.1 GHz, ATI9800Pro, and 512 ram. plenty hard drive. I can also set smooth edges with no problem.

I have to check the whole antialiasing thing, but I'm 99.9% sure I didn't do any thing there. And plus, it was working befor the patch. I definitely didn't change anything before and after installing the patch.

Anybody has any idea?

[LynnMar]

okay I have a gig of ram and I have my paging file set to 1534.   Is that too high and what should I put it on?   thanks

[Hegelian]

Wow. Quite the talker, eh?  \

Lol! Isn't that what these forums (fora?) are for? Plus, there's no one here to talk to. . . .

I haven't really fooled around w/ the Display settings, cuz I didn't see a need to. The game automatically puts evrything on high anyways.

This is what we would expect if you've got a current mid- to upper-level video card.

But a question about the load itself - besides CPU speed, do you think extra RAM would help it any? I already have a gig, but sometimes the slowness of the large lots kinda p me off.

Well, that's all I have myself, so I really can't say. Generally speaking, some apps can use more memory that others. Assuming you're running WinXP, you could probably go to 2gig and see what happens (if you ever run Photoshop, it will be happy to use the extra RAM even if TS2 won't). Older versions of Windows are reported to run into problems with large amounts of RAM--I think 512 MB was the limit for Win98.

What kind of hard drive(s) do you have? If you have an older 7200-rpm ATA drive with a small onboard buffer (2 MB or less), you could probably gain some loading speed by upgrading to a new model, either a 7200-rpm drive with an 8- or 16-MB buffer, or a 10K-rpm drive. If your motherboard has a serial ATA controller, upgrading from an old parallel ATA (IDE) drive to a new SATA drive could also improve load times. One other thing to check is whether your hard drive(s) and optical drives are connected to the same IDE (ATA) channel, which can slow down the hard drive's performance (although you can run two drives on each channel, IDE is still a one-drive interface, so with two drives connected, one has to wait if the other is transferring data--and having a CD drive on the same cable as a hard drive can really be a drag on performance).

Ideally, you would have your hard drive by itself on one IDE channel, and the optical drive(s) on the second channel (if you have two IDE hard drive connectors on your motherboard, each is one channel, to which you can attach two drives in parallel, for a total of four drives). If you have two hard drives, it is best to have each on its own channel if at all possible. Some more recent motherboards have three or four IDE connectors, so you can give two hard  drives their own channel each, and connect the optical drives to the third and/or fourth connector.

[Hegelian]

okay I have a gig of ram and I have my paging file set to 1534.   Is that too high and what should I put it on?   thanks

Well, this is certainly not the only solution, but I use a setting of 100 MB minimum and 800 MB maximum, and it works well for me (also with 1 gig RAM). I don't remember how I came to use these settings, although they may have been recommended by the Cacheman program I mentioned earlier.These settings should work well in conjunction with a reduced disk cache (data from your hard drive stored in RAM for fast access) in order to minimize the amount of data-swapping WinXP does (this can be set using a registered version of Cacheman, which I don't have--the feature-limited version is free to use without registering). Also, I turn off my anti-virus program before running the game, which significantly increases the game's performance.

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[Hegelian]

Here are a couple screen shots to indicate the results of my paging file settings. As you can see, 130 MB of the used RAM is the disk cache.


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