Sims 2 Double Deluxe plus Pets expansion, crashing on startup Hi all, another newbie with an aggravating problem here. I recently installed Sims 2 Double Deluxe, tinkered around with it a bit, went through the tutorial and created a test family to make sure everything worked - no problems. Then I installed the Pets expansion, and now when I try to start the game, it gets through the intro video but then crashes in the splash screen. I've installed the Pets patch from the EA site, but it wouldn't let me install the Nightlife patch since it says I don't have that expansion (I assume because it's part of Double Deluxe, not a separate disc?). I've updated my audio and video drivers but it made no difference. I've tried running the game in compatibility mode with Windows 2000/ME, but that just caused it to not recognize the CD in the drive. I've tried uninstalling Pets and starting over, but still no difference. Oh, also, I never installed the Sims 2 Download Manager that came with Double Deluxe... does that possibly matter? Here are my specs... Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3800+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.4GHz System Memory RAM: 446MB RAM Windows Version: XP Free Hard Disk Space: 20.4GB Total Hard Disk Space: 119GB DirectX Version: 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) Display Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Display Driver Name and Version Number & date: nv4_disp.dll 6.14.0011.9562 11/20/2009 Approximate Total Video Memory: 256MB Game Detail: Sims 2 Double Deluxe + Pets expansion (DD worked fine until Pets was installed) Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Try reverting back to an earlier driver and see if it helps. The graphics chip you have isn't very good at all and may be the reason why it's crashing. Is this on a laptop by chance? You'll want to find a driver where the number for it is 190.something (not 191 or the 195 like what you have) or less. The 191 and above have been causing some issues with the game and also the Sims 3. The base game will probably play fairly good but once you throw Pets at it well then it can't handle that . Try a different driver and make sure you completely uninstall the old driver before you install the new one and see if it helps. If it doesn't uninstall the game and then just install the base game and try it out for awhile and see how it plays. Turn all the graphic options to their lowest settings and try installing Pets again. If it crashes on you again then you can pretty much guess it can't handle Pets. You may need to go into the program files and delete the Electronic Arts folder after you uninstall it as it may not completely remove everything.
Ah, the graphics chip didn't even occur to me since the brand name and video memory were within the game's system requirements, but I suppose that must be it. And no, it's not a laptop... just a three year old desktop that apparently wasn't made for a lot of gaming. Tried reverting back to an older driver (190.38, I believe), and that didn't work... so no Pets for me, I guess. Thanks for your help, anyhow!
