Sims 2 won't start Hello everyone, my first post here. I've been trying to run Sims 2 on my computer for a week, and I cannot. When I start the game, it changes my resolution from 1280x720 to 640x480 and freezes my computer in a black screen. The only way to get out of that is by rebooting, as ctrl+alt+del won't work, nor will alt-tabbing. I've installed Dx 9.0c, latest video drivers, latest Sims2 patch... and still, it doesn't work. My specs are as follows: AMD X2 3600+ (1.91GHz) 512 RAM Motherboard chipset nVidia nForce 400 Video: nVidia 6100 (on-board) screen: Samsung SyncMaster 740NW (widescreen, 16:9 aspect ratio) Win XP SP2 If any of you has any idea of what might be happenning, please, help me. I've tried running other Dx 9.0c games, and none of them have any problems at all, the only one which keeps crashing is this one. I still should check if I can run it without a widescreen screen, but I still don't know if it'll work that way. Thanks!
I might have to put this next bit of advice in the FAQs ... (cos this is the second time I have tried it ) OK. Hi, Gorva. Welcome aboard. I hope we can help and I'll try to kick things off. I shall assume that you have never actually run the game on this particular machine. If you have then you'll need to explain what has changed. So ... look in /My Documents/ >/EA Games/ >>/The Sims 2/ >>>/Logs/ Assuming that the game is crashing/locking up after it has written the config log (let's hope so) there should be a file called: [COMPUTER NAME]-config-log where [COMPUTER NAME] is the name of the computer. Upload that file as an attachment to your next reply. (Use the Post Reply button rather than the quick reply function, so that you can access the Manage Files options ... (that bit is explained in the FAQs )
Thanks, Mirelly... you're right, I've never been able to run the game on this particular system. I found the log file... I hope it'll help. Thanks again, for your time and patience
Your upload removed to protect your privacy. Hmmm ... I was puzzled from the off your inclusion of the word (onboard) after the nVIDIA 6100 in your initial post. Your 6100 has 128 megabytes of its own exclusive video memory. Your computer is shown in the log as having 496 megabytes which leads me to believe that an oboard graphics controller is using 16 megatytes of the 512 installed. Please check out the back of your computer and see where the monitor screen is plugged in. The motherboard panel of input/output sockets is typically mounted nearer the top and always contains the mouse and keyboard ports as well as the USB and printer ports. If you have onboard graphics there is also a socket for plugging in a monitor. Your nVIDIA 6100 should be installed in on of the expansion ports below the motherboard panel and that is where you monitor should be plugged in. *crosses fingers* NOTE Turn off computer before moving plugs around! But know that, huh!
Well, what I meant with "on-board" is that it's an integrated video card, ie., it's not installed in an expansion port. This integrated video card is the nVidia 6100, which comes integrated onto the nForce 400 motherboard chipset. I'll check out on that memory issue, though, because, as this video card is integrated, its memory should be "stolen" from the system RAM, and it shouldn't have its own memory. I included the nVidia 6100 in my first post, because I've read that there were some problems with Sims 2 and some ATi video cards, and maybe there was also a problem with this one... but I don't think so. Well... if there are any other ideas, I'll surely try them. And if I ever find a solution to this, I'll post it here, in case it happens to someone else. Thanks!
LOL I was clutching at straws ... I couldn't see that the card wasn't onboard but I could hope that there was a simple solution. Have you tried running in windowed mode? There's a how to in the FAQ ...
Well... I finally managed to make it work. It didn't work with the "-w" command (to run it in windowed mode), as it'd do the same as always. What happened was that the on-board card had only 16mb of shared memory, and The Sims 2 requires at least a 32-MB video card. So, I only had to change the sharing memory size to 64 MB, and it suddenly worked. I hope this can help anyone who happens to run across this same problem. Thanks for your help!
