Grief, woe, despair and hideous black screens

[Aldebaran]

And The Sims 2 is supposed to be a "nVidia game"

Though I'd just like to say that problems like these are 90% not the fault simply of the videocard, but a combination of things. Like the general state of the OS, video card drivers (the newest is not always the best), god forbid, virii in the system, overheating (those high-end videocards need a damn powerhouse to work correctly), the overall compatibility in computer parts, I could go on. I had overall performance problems before because dustbunnies were piling up in the CPU fan and I was too lazy to vacuum it It could have been anything, from CPU to faulty memory or just fragmented system disc.

But this aside, I'd advice finding someone who knows about computers and is willing to look over and diagnose things in the computer. Adding a new shiny hardware can and will problems, and it can freak those people out who don't even know where to begin the troubleshooting. It's always the best to test with other games first (overheating problems are most likely to come after half to one hour of playtime) or just watching a movie on it and seeing how it responds. It's also good to have a diagnostic software handy (Everest has a free version for home PCs). Also, check the power supply, for that kind of card at least 400W should be the minimum and it must be connected separately to the card.

It's hard to say much from the distance, but the solution most of the time is not the change of the hardware. PC configurations these days are so layered and complex that manufacturers simply can't do anything with reports that say "so and so don't work", because the issue is most probably not with the card itself. Also, making the advice to "get another card" won't help that person if s/he runs into the problem again, either with Sims 2 or another game. What, then s/he should get another one until the problem goes away? Personally, to me, the problem seems overheating / not sufficient power supply. And to go against the nVidia-hating a bit, I went through six years without touching my videocard, and it always gave me perfect performance. The only reason I had to change is because it was a "bit" behind on pixelshaders. Both cards are nVidia (GF4Ti4200 and GF6800), both run games flawlessly and glitch-free, including post-OFB Sims 2. Either I got the only non-faulty videocard from nVidia or the problem is not just that easy it might seem first.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm up to 4 1/2 gigs of CC, thanks to PMBD . Guess I better buy more RAM, it's easier than deleting all the stuff I hate.

WinXP doesn't handle more than 4 GBs of RAM. You'd need 9 GBs of RAM to run that crap. You need to start cutting.

And The Sims 2 is supposed to be a "nVidia game"

Where'd you hear that from? TS2 is clearly an ATI game.

And to go against the nVidia-hating a bit, I went through six years without touching my videocard, and it always gave me perfect performance. The only reason I had to change is because it was a "bit" behind on pixelshaders. Both cards are nVidia (GF4Ti4200 and GF6800), both run games flawlessly and glitch-free, including post-OFB Sims 2. Either I got the only non-faulty videocard from nVidia or the problem is not just that easy it might seem first.

6 years ago was back during the dominion of NVidia, when Nvidia had the good drivers and cards, and ATI was unreliable and dodgy. Now the tables have turned, apparently.

[MrsH]

Gosh - well this is very interesting.  It's not actually resolved the problem, but I've got a few more ideas to play with at least - for which many thanks.

It's definitely Sims2 only that's causing my black screen crisis.  At least based on the programmes I use.  I can play DVDs, point and clicks, and run everything else for as long as needed without any trouble at all.  Highly computer literate husband reckons it's a memory leak problem, which may be so.  I'm most reluctant to cough up any more money for another graphics card, so at the moment I'm just nagging EA to sort it out for me.  To be fair they are trying, but so far without success.  I'm hoping that if I keep bleating at them long enough (along with I'm sure thousands of others), they may feel they have to take steps.  It's not a great hope, but it's a hope.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Though I'd just like to say that problems like these are 90% not the fault simply of the videocard, but a combination of things.

Yeah, one of them possibly being that people don't read the fine print before purchasing/installing a new video card.  For example, the ATI Radeon X1950 Pro card specs state:  Minimum Power Supply Required:   450 W    Most systems don't come with such a PSU.

Some systems may require adding another card fan to cool a high wattage fan, but you can't know until you read the computer documentation. 

MrsH, if you think you have a memory leak, download and install Cacheman; it has an automatic memory recovery function.  http://www.outertech.com/  There's a free version available.

[MrsH]

Ah, thank you!

I'll try it.

[Scratch]

If you do a have a fairly literate computer person around, ask them to create a different "Hardware Profile", it's kind of like another user account but more powerful, and you'll need to create a different user too.

Go into the control panel and depending on your view get to "system properties", then choose the "Hardware" button, then choose "Hardware Profiles", choose your current profile and then choose copy, then rename the copy you made to "Games" or whatever, so you can see the difference when you choose it later. Also choose what happens when you start, if you want it to boot the default after 30 secs or to wait for you to make a choice.

After you've done that u should also make a another user account. I've made a new user account called "Simmer".

Now, this is where you need the computer literate person, open "services.msc" and start choosing which services you need for that NEW "hardware profile". Choose a component, right click and choose "properties", choose the "Log on" tab, then in the profile window choose the new profile and then click the "disable" button to stop that service from starting under that profile.

I don't use the internet on my games profile so i turn off most of my network services and my firewall and i only open files that i've downloaded for my games so i turn off my antivirus. I only install things on my default profile under my normal user account. I don't burn CD's with that profile so I disable the Imapi CD thingy. No internet access means the Autoupdate thing won't work so i disable that and the antivirus autoupdate.... so on and so on

And yes, get cacheman. I have 784 (?) megs of memory and cacheman reports i have 485 free on the default profile on my default desktop, but it reports 610 free on the games profile with the "simmer" user, and i have the simmer desktop set at 800x600 so i can tell the difference between the 2 different log on screens.

"CAUTION"!!!! User account changes don't affect hardware profiles, so don't use your default user account on your modified hardware profile or things might not work right when you boot into your default hardware profile with your default user account.

So for me, "Simmer" only logs in on "Games" profile and "Default" only logs in on "Loaded" profile.

There is quite a bit of info around the internet about services that run with windows and which ones are neccesary, so get your helper to look for info if your unsure about something...

Good Luck and PM me if you have questions or need any help 

[MrsH]

Greatly helpful, many thanks.  I shall nail him to the floor and get him to give me a hand with this and see how it goes.

[Sleepycat]

apparently there is a big memory leak problem for some people with Pets
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=29590