Speed and HDD issues.. Hi all, I was wondering if you guys could help me as to how I can sort my pickle of a situation out... Basically my first problem is once I quit the Sims, hard drive activity hits the roof, and the computer slows down for ages. It takes an age just to bring up the desktop and respond to simple commands once I've quit the game. I don't quite understand why! Once the game has quit, surely that should be it? The computer spends about 2-3 minutes just being "busy". Does anyone else have this issue and have they found a fix? Second of all, the loading times on my copy of the sims is just insane, it takes at least 1 minute to load a property/family, and to go between environments. I played the game on my friends Centrino 1.7GHz laptop, and it ran really smooth and loading times were comparatively small. Is the only solution to this situation is to format the hard drive? Also, I need to upgrade my computer's graphics card. I'm not quite up to speed in terms of graphics cards, but I do know the built in X300TC graphics on this computer are dog slow. What would be the best upgrade for around 50-70? My specs are: Dell Dimension 5150 - 3GHz P4 EMT64/HT, 1GB RAM, 160GB SATA HDD, DVD+/-RW, ATI R300 gfx, Windows MCE
I've found that if you have a big downloads folder or have played for a long session (even if you've saved frequently), but especially if both are true, that it's not unusual for it to take time to "unload" the game when you exit. I once clocked mine, after a really long session playing, at taking 15 minutes to quit using the system. Even after the game appeared to be gone, I couldn't start Bodyshop or Homecrafter because the system was still processing the game. As to your computer's graphics card, in the US a Radeon runs between about $165 for an X800 with 256mb and today Newegg was running a special on the X1950 for $100 (although they regularly are closer to $400.) That is probably in the 110-130 range, but I've also seen some X800 for less than that by quite a bit. Sapphire is a reasonable brand for less expensive, but Colorpower is right out as they really strip the cards down to the minimum that they can still call by that number. You'd be better off with the same graphics card you have. Sometimes with Dell you need to get your computer parts through Dell, as they have "proprietory fittings" so regular parts may not work. I'm not as familiar with exactly which pieces are truly "you have to use Dells".
I have a Radeon X300 graphics card and 3.4 Ghz Pentium 4 processor supposedly with HyperThreading (according to the box, though I don't fully understand about HT), and 2 GB RAM with a 250GB SATA hard disk with another 160 GB SATA hard disk. I have the same problem when I exit games Sims 2 or Maplestory (MMORPG). The fan also goes nuts on my computer on a regular basis while playing games, sometimes every few minutes. I guess that the Downloads folder on Sims 2 might have something to do with your problem, as I also have the same problem loading/exiting BodyShop and my Downloads folder is over 2 GB in size. Too many downloads. It takes a while to load certain houses in the game, possibly as they have lots of custom content (furniture) with high poly counts. You're running with only 1 GB of RAM but I am running with 2 GB and still have slowness. How big is your downloads folder? As Kat said, it's probably the reason why it takes a long time to 'unload'. As you're in the UK (like me ), maybe check out this site: www.overclockers.co.uk (they are near to me and have a good reputation). On the list of graphics cards, some are expensive but if you search through the list you will find lots in your price range. Give them a call, describe your system specs and they might point you in the right direction with a compatible card. Again though, as Kat said, check first with Dell as I am not familiar with Dell systems.
Thanks for the replies guys. I've not actually got any downloads in my sims folder at all - all I have is the expansion packs. hugzncuddles - yeah, the fan on my dell spazzes out and makes a small wind tunnell out of my computer! I'm actually stumped as to why the computer is so slow, both in-game and when quitting the game, the only thing I can think of that may be holding it back is the graphics card, which only has 128MB of onboard memory and shares the rest with the system memory. I've defragged, done disc cleanups etc... all I can think of as a last ditch attempt is invest in a better graphics card and reformat my hard drive. :( ManagerJosh - I'd like to think I'm quite experienced in computers, I've built my own machines a few times... bought a dell because i didnt have to spend time building and stuff, works out cheaper to get a dell lol
Aaaahhhh I think that might be an issue because it was explained to me that you should always have a graphics card that's NOT onboard/shared, if you're playing games on the computer. The sharing is what reduces the processor performance, thus your computer appears sluggish.
To me it sounds like the process isn't being stopped by windows and is reloading something over and over until it finally gets the boot. Open task manager before you start the game and have it set to the processes tab. When you quit TS2 I am guessing it will be stuck there. See if you can see how much memory and CPU it is taking up while playing the game and when you quit the game.
I have always read that the game works better without hyperthreading. On my HT P4 I always had it turned off.
It depends on which type of card it is. The T&L enabled onboard ones generally don't truly share the RAM any more than any installed 128mb card will do. However, none of the Intel cards are T&L and nothing basically before Radeon 7000 or its Geforce 2 cards (which you can't get any more), or discontinued ones like Sis, etc. which you can find onboard in older machines are T&L enabled. Those are the ones which *really* share the resources of the computer (both RAM and CPU).
