Why is my Sims 2 Glitching and stalling? Help! Hi, When I build on Sims 2 it works great, no glitches. But when I attempt to play the game it becomes slow, glitchy and stalls. I don't understand why. I have ran spyware and removed, I turn off the antivirus software and any other programs running in the background. My drivers are updated. So I don't understand what the deal is. Could Someone help!! Windows XP Intel Celeron 2.93 GHz processor 720 MB RAM DirectX 9 Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Card w/ 64 MB RAM. Thanks gjdragons
OK the Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Card is an integrated doo-hickey (means it's part of the main Celeron processor. It's also a non T&L thing. It is using 64MB of your computer's 720MB of RAM leaving Windows and the game the difference (720 is darn funny number ... RAM comes in 128, 256 and 512 sized chunks ... I can't make 720 however I try!) Anyway. Help is what you wanted. It's not all bad news. Your processor isn't too bad but your graphics handler sucks. Hopefully you can probably save up and make your puter much better by getting a brand new graphics card with oodles of its own hi-speed memory chips all to itself! The game will Lurrrrv that!! ) Meanwhile, you can do the following to improve things because, as it is, your computer is just meeting the minimum system requirements and this will limit what you can do. Keep your families and houses small and compact and the game shouldn't lag too much, especially if you crank down the worst of the graphics hogging goodies ... but that involves trial and error ... read on. Lower all you graphics settings (click the [...] options button then the Computer Screen button) Make all settings to the lowest possible levels. Then try playing a small family, say 2,3 or 4 sims in a smallish house on a smallish lot (say 3x3 or 3x4). It should kick along a lot faster but probably look terrible :( So ... go back to graphics settings and tweak one setting up a notch and try the family again. Eventually you will find the settings that give you best compromise of performance over appearance. Whatever ... you'll be saving up for a new graphics card. When you have a 1 or 2 hundred bucks you'll be ready to start looking. Folks here will be happy to advise you, if you need help in choosing. Re Directx9 Please make sure that you do have 9c very important, that!
The 720 RAM is what I quoted from the system info page. I actually have 1 stick of 256 RAM and a Stick of 512. I have no idea why the sys. info states 720. I did notice that too but thought I might throw it on my message since thats what the sys info said.Thanks for you advice. I will look for another graphics card! Do you have any reccomendations? gjdragons
Ah. I thought as much. Is possible that that one of your RAM chips is defective. Be cool if its the 256 cos then you can replace it with a 512. Graphics cards. Assuming that you have an 8x AGP slot ... the GeForce fx5200 is pretty nifty and this one at Amazon is $70 and comes with a stonking 256MB of mem ... I'd get a bit more advice tho. You might need a bigger power supply for your case (almost certainly actually!) that's another 30-60 bucks depending on how much noise you can put up with. Graphics card also get very hot and you might need extra cooling (more noise and more bucks 20-30++ sad to say) Just make sure that you have an 8x AGP port or the card won't be worth diddly. (You might have a PCIe slot instead of an AGP (PCI express ... is almost as good as AGP and the NVIDIA geForce designation is PCX (for PCIe ) as opposed to FX (for AGP)) You'll need to consult your computer's manual or the maker's website to find out for sure.) If you want a much better card than that you might be better off going for a complete new tower case with a proper matched set of bits inside it. [Edit note After a sleep I checked again ... that Amazon deal isn't what it seemed when I scanned it last night -- I must've been over tired Best advice is to scour the market place for the NVIDIA chipsets in FX/PCX 5000/6000 series. And remember 2 things. 1 = Extra letters and words like Ultra indicate some sort of snow job/cheapo cobble and 2 = Maxis insist that the more memory the better.) In the end its "buyer beware" anyway. ]
Before I re-formatted my C: Drive I used to have to do what was said in the back of the Sims 2 Manual.
The Intel card will steal some of that, but usually it just drops like from 768 to 760 or something like that. Down to 720 is a bigger drop than it will usually cause. (Mirelly's right that you may have a defective Ram chip. You should probably check out which one is the problem using Memtest: Memtest86 - Memory Diagnostic Page) As far as new graphics/video cards, assuming that you don't have a notebook/laptop (which can't use new cards), here are some rough guides: If you are lucky enough to have an AGP slot (which many of the Motherboards which also have the Intel 82845g/gl graphics card don't have), then try for something at least Radeon 9600 or above or FX5600 or above. (Avoid anything that says "LE" or "SE" or the Powercolor brand. All are cheaper because they drop out a lot of the things you want to have for playing the game. That's why they are less expensive.) If you only have PCI slots (as opposed to the newer PC Express slots which you wouldn't generally see using the older Intel cards like the 82845), then the best you can get will be the PCI Radeon 9200 or the PCI FX5200. (Again, avoid anything which says LE, SE or is a Powercolor brand.) Until you get the upgrades, as others have said, you'll need to lower your graphics settings and make sure that you aren't running any background tasks. (Generally they set themselves lower when they detect a card like the 82845, but sometimes you need to go lower yet.) Also, avoid using any big lots, especially those with big houses on them.
