Sims 2 - Game has ground to a virtual hault (my household only) Following is a copy of a message I just sent to EA technical support. I'll probably have better luck from other members of the Sim's community so following is an explanation of my problem. I can no longer continue to play the one and only family that I have created and taken great pains to properly raise so this is very frustrating. ***** Please read this carefully and do not chalk this up to a system performance issue because that's simply not the case. The problem is solely with my family (NOT my house as you will read further on), and does not occur with any of the other families or houses in Pleasantville, the only neighborhood I've played. I've been playing the Sims 2 uneventfully with no problems almost non-stop for a few days since I purchased it. I'm running it on a P4 3.2 GHz system (533 MHz FSB) with 1GB of RAM, 120GB hard drive, and a 128MB ATI graphics card running under Windows XP. I do not run any active anti-virus or spyware prevention software that would reduce the performance of my system, but I do run a daily spyware scan (using Microsoft's AntiSpyware software) and do a manual virus scan as needed. The performance has been FINE, not spectacular since I'm not running a high end 3D graphics card, but certainly satisfactory. I have all of the graphics options set to their lowest setting since that was what they defaulted to when I installed the game. My family has 4 members, 2 adults and two babies that have grown to teenagers quite successfully with no performance issues at any time. Suddenly, while all 4 members of my family were engaged in various menial tasks such as reading and playing chess, the game ground to a virtual halt. Normally one game-time minute would take roughly 1 second in real-time, but when the problem began it would take as much as 20 seconds or more for one game-time minute to pass. I assumed that a scheduled background task such as a spyware scanner had activated because the performance fell absolutely through the floor. I exited the game but no tasks were being performed and my available system resources were nearly 100%. I re-launched the game but the results were the same so I once again exited and this time restarted my computer. Again, the results were the same when I entered the game. Attempting to troubleshoot the source of the problem I did a number of things. First I tried to stop all of the tasks that the family members were engaged in and force them to come to a central spot in the house. It took about 30 minutes to make that happen, normally it would take about 10-15 seconds. The performance did not change whatsoever when all of the family members were standing around each other totally inactive. Note that there was nothing happening outside or elsewhere in the house either, no vehicles coming or going, no neighbors visiting or standing outside, no deliveries being made, etc.. Next I tried deleting some of the items in the house to see if some particular object was causing the problem. I deleted EVERYTHING inside and oustide the house, including all of the walls and doors. Nothing was left but the foundation. This had no effect on the in-game performance whatsoever, further reinforcing that this was not a system performance issue. Again keep in mind that everything had been working FINE every time I've played the game and nothing whatsoever had changed in the house immediately prior to the problem occurring. Next I tried assuming control of one of the other families in the neighborhood, the Pleasants, which were right across the street. That family also had 4 members and the house was roughly twice the size of mine (it was 2 stories and mine was only 1 story) and was loaded to the gills with objects. The performance was FINE with this family and this household, basically the same as my family's was prior to the problem occurring. I subsequently tried a third family, I don't remember which, and again the performance was just fine. So the bottom line is the family that I've spent roughly 80 of the last 96 hours nurturing is no longer functionally playable. If you read this thoroughly you'll see that this is absolutely not related to the performance or capabilities of my system. I will be happy to try any reasonable suggestions you have to troubleshoot this, but something like re-installing the game would be rediculous since the problem is limited to the only family that I've created and none of the others. There are no resource hogging background tasks running, and again, the problem is limited to one family only so the suggestion that it's related to a background task or anything related to my system's performance is simply not credible. P.S. I have also tried running the game in a window (-w) and with the sound turned off (-nosound). Not surprisingly these had no bearing on the problem at all since it's not an issue with my system's performance. ***** Something I didn't mention in that message to tech support is that the game performance is fine when the game is paused. I can pan and zoom the camera at will and use all of the build functions and other interface options with no problems whatsoever the moment I pause the game. It is only the performance when the clock is ticking that's fallen through the floor. Also, I installed the most recent patch immediately after installing the game a few days ago so my version is up to date and the family was created with the patch installed. I have installed no 3rd party add-ons or mods whatsoever, only the clean install with the patch. Thanks in advance for any help...
Please read the post in its entirety. As I stated... "I exited the game but no tasks were being performed and my available system resources were nearly 100%. I re-launched the game but the results were the same so I once again exited and this time restarted my computer. Again, the results were the same when I entered the game."
Have you tried moving the family to a new lot, often the lot itself becomes bugged. Then bulldoze the old lot so you don't accidently forget and move someone else into it later.
I've moved the whole house to a different lot but I haven't moved the family out of the house and bulldozed it. If I do so it's my understanding I will lose all of the hard earned relationships with my neighbors so I haven't done that yet (correct me if I'm wrong about the relationships). Not to mention I have to rebuild a new house and buy all new items which cost far more than what I get for selling them. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the problem went away if I pulled the family out of the house and placed them in a new one, but I've been waiting until I got some feedback from other users about this glitch before doing something drastic like that. Since a reasonable amount of time has passed however and apparently nobody has experienced the same problem, combined with the fact that I spent hours trying various ways to uncover the source of the problem last night, I'm probably going to do this shortly so I can get on with raising my family (hopefully).
Your family won't lose relationships, but they will lose aspiration and career rewards unless you have nightlife and place those objects in the inventory. Moving the whole house to a different lot is not possible. You're just moving the entire lot to a different location, therefore keeping any bugs that may be affecting your lot.
