Game slowdown/skipping and freezing Hi, I hope you guys are more helpful than the EA people seem from their technical help forum: I just bought this and the game loads fine, but in game it is like watching a stop motion film, and it seems to be sluggish/skipping frames, and it slows more and more until it freezes and I have to hard reset. My System: HP pavilion a700y Windows XP Home, SP2 Intel Pentium 4, 2.80 GHz 2.0 GB RAM Nvidia GeForce 6200 OC (256 MB PCI) SIIG Soundwave 7.1 I ran anti-virus/anti-spyware, etc, installed the patch, shut down unnecessary tasks and updated all of my drivers, but the game still slows until it freezes. I read that the PCI Express version of my graphics card is unsupported (6200 turbocache), I am wondering if that means my card is also unsupported (I am not too versed on the differences between cards). Also I am wondering if the minimum requirements are realistic, or if my system just doesn't hack it. Thanks a lot!
I'm not yet up speed with SCS but your system doesn't look to be inadequate. Two things to try: 1. Update your graphics driver http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us 2. If the options are available, go into the game settings menus and under the graphics settings reduce every single setting to the lowest possible. If that brings about an acceptable improvement in frame rate you can then begin to raise the settings, one at a time, one notch at a time until you encounter a slow down ... whereupon you should drop that setting back a notch and then start moving the next one up one notch at a time. It sounds tedious, but it is often the only way to defeat the sort of problem you are having.
I updated the graphics card again, and discovered the 'update' I used previously was copyrighted in 2004... not sure how that happened. I also disabled the visual effects that I could (instead of putting them on low, as I had all effects on low previously). Lastly I changed the graphics card's resolution/refresh rate to the same as my desktop and put it onto 'high performance' insatead of 'high quality'. The slowdown and skipping is gone everywhere except when zoomed out over the densest part of the city, which I think is normal (right?). Thank you very much Mirelly!
New: Computer crashes after 45-60 minutes of play, windows goes through error reporting, says it is a video card problem, and to update drivers... is this that compatibility issue?
Erm ... I would tend to think this would be a graphics card overloading/overheating and generally being a right pain in the arse. I had an nVidia fx 7500 256MB and it was always getting too hot under the collar. It might be time to look at upgrading that card. New ones are quite cheap at the moment ... although the new standard is for PCI-e rather and AGP, so buying AGP is kinda buying into a dead end.
Heh, this graphics card is the replacement card, I was just throwing in a few parts so I wouldn't have to build a new computer outright (as the whole thing is approaching 5 years old) and the solution so far has made the game much better. I think I am going to re-image and look into another cooling fan. Hopefully it will last me a good while before I give in and build a new one. Thanks for your help!
While you inside the case try to make sure that air flow is not impeded with great walls of untidy flat IDE cables. Also graphics cards on older motherboards are too often sat over the cpu fan and so end up trying to themselves with already hot air. Also ram stick and hard disc get pretty hot and these also get first sip at the room air that is drawn in through the front of the case. A couple of strategically placed fans can work wonders. Final thought. Make sure your PC power supply is rated high enough to power that card. Come to think of it, that is a highly likely answer to the problem. PC manufacturers never give you a watt more than you need, so if just added a beefier graphics card it might just be given up cos it is being starved of power. A minimum 250W system power supply is required for that card and if that is all you have then that may be the problem ... :(
