bellringr Posted May 1, 2004 Posted May 1, 2004 OK, I posted this once and it never showed up, so forgive me if I'm making a duplicate post. I purchased the rest of the expansion packs for The Sims today, got them all installed, game is working fine (although it takes longer than EQ to load!), but my graphics are less than stellar. The edges are poorly defined, especially on the people themselves. The faces are so out of focus as to give me a headache, the bodies look awful, and I can see the lines of color load when they move. I have a Radeon 9200 video card, DirectX 9, latest drivers I can find, and I've searched their help database. I tried a few things, but none of them worked. Has anyone experienced this problem or have any suggestions? Kristi Quote
TCH-Rob Posted May 1, 2004 Posted May 1, 2004 The wife has all of them but I have not seen that before. Quote
bellringr Posted May 1, 2004 Author Posted May 1, 2004 More woes. The game is crashing to desktop if I try to bulldoze a house or move in a family. Sent my diag to their help guys a few minutes ago. Hopefully they'll find something useful. Otherwise I just wasted $150 bucks. Some days I really hate computers. Think I'll go drown my sorrows in a cider and some pizza. heh Quote
TCH-Dick Posted May 1, 2004 Posted May 1, 2004 make sure you have the newest drivers for sound and video latest ATI drivers are Catalyst 4.4 www.ati.com Also, make sure your monitor is installed correctly, in device manager if it says "default monitor" it isnt instaslled correctly and that could be part of the problem to. Quote
bellringr Posted May 1, 2004 Author Posted May 1, 2004 Sound and vid card drivers are as current as they come for Win 98. Under monitor it says both default and Plug and Play. I assume that's ok? Quote
TCH-Dick Posted May 2, 2004 Posted May 2, 2004 that means it has just the generic windows drivers installed for it, you should install the drivers for your specific monitor Quote
bellringr Posted May 2, 2004 Author Posted May 2, 2004 There are no specific ones for this monitor (nice generic one). Anyway, if this thing can handle EQ with no problems, it SURE ought to handle the Sims. Help desk asked me to call them, so I guess I'll start my week of vacation by troubleshooting. :/ Quote
DarqFlare Posted May 2, 2004 Posted May 2, 2004 Can't say I've had problems with any of The Sims packs... Sounds like a video card problem to me. Quote
bellringr Posted May 2, 2004 Author Posted May 2, 2004 I have to wonder if it's another glitch with how Radeon cards work with DirectX 9. Unfortunately I can't remove 9, but perhaps if/when my hubby gets around to upgrading me to XP, it will not be an issue. Quote
TCH-Sales Posted May 2, 2004 Posted May 2, 2004 I have had problems with The Sims and the expansion packs on again, off again since they first came out. Other than the steps mentioned here, if you keep having problems, might do a clean reinstall of all of 'em. Also, be forwarned that EA's support isn't really top notch either.. well it's okay, lets just say it's no TotalChoice Hosting. Haha.. Quote
bellringr Posted May 2, 2004 Author Posted May 2, 2004 NO support is as good as TCH. But remember - I'm used to dealing with Sony EverQuest's support (or complete lack thereof) so EA really can't be much worse. At least they responded to me within a day. I was thinking I might have to take ALL Sims stuff off (I only had the original and Livin' Large before this weekend) and install one at a time, trying it out each time to see which one is crashing me. That's going to be fun. Quote
DarqFlare Posted May 2, 2004 Posted May 2, 2004 A fresh install of everything might help. Something could have gotten corrupted along the way before you installed the new ones. Quote
cmuskett Posted May 2, 2004 Posted May 2, 2004 I found this forum that gives you step by step for a reinstall of the sims and expansion packs.. Sims.co.uk I hope it helps Quote
kaseytraeger Posted May 3, 2004 Posted May 3, 2004 bellringr, I've got all the Sims packs on my computer and I can tell you that I've had problems with the games from day one. My most recent install (several months ago) was Makin' Magic. Imagine my surprise when I tried to visit Magic Town and wasn't able to land the freakin' Zeppelin because there were no buildings! Turns out the install glitched on me. I had to remove ALL Sims games, do a defrag, system cleanup, then another defrag. Then I began reinstalling each game. I tested the game between installs by playing it with Bob and Betty Newbie for about 10-15 minutes. This process took me all day. The game still crashes on me occasionally, but not nearly as much as it used to. I just try to save my game every several minutes so I don't lose too much of my character's history. The weird graphics problems you're experiencing are new to me. Even with all the problems I had with my games, I never had a graphics or sound problem ... *yet*. Just make sure you back up your User Data files before you scrub the Sims from your computer. Otherwise you'll lose all your characters and their cummulative lives. Good luck! Quote
bellringr Posted May 3, 2004 Author Posted May 3, 2004 Thanks so much! Kasey, I am going to try that. I have a ton of walls, floors, and other objects I've downloaded, but they all check out clean on File Cop so I'll back them up and start over. I THINK I loaded everything in the right order last time, but I'll make double sure this time. I'll do the defrag while I'm out shopping - it's going to take that long! I'm just sad to hear that EA puts out such unstable products. :/ I never had any problems with the original game and Livin' Large. Quote
kaseytraeger Posted May 3, 2004 Posted May 3, 2004 I didn't have any trouble with just The Deluxe Edition. But once I installed HD, and with every expansion pack since, the game has been unstable. The instability really kicked into gear with the release of SuperStar. I hope Sims 2 is a more robustly-developed game. Although I'm really looking forward to it's release later this summer, I hesitate to buy it until others have "beta tested" it for me. Considering the game costs $50, I'm hard pressed to spend that kind of dough if it's going to crash on me twice an hour. Quote
bellringr Posted May 3, 2004 Author Posted May 3, 2004 Kasey - I'm going to be upgrading (soon I hope!) to XP. The original game and older expansions will still work on XP, correct? Quote
kaseytraeger Posted May 3, 2004 Posted May 3, 2004 Yes, everything is compatible with Windows XP. You should have no problems by upgrading your OS. I say "should" because we know that in reality, and based on the little glitches that are inherent in the Sims expansion packs, you may come across a fumble or two. But my changeover from Windows 98 to Windows XP went very smoothly. Just to be on the safe side, however, I'd suggest doing a backup of your User Data files and any objects you've downloaded! Quote
bellringr Posted May 4, 2004 Author Posted May 4, 2004 Got everything up and running - thanks Kasey! Cleaned up my drive, got XP installed without a hitch (knock on wood), and slowly but surely installed all the expansions in the order they recommend. I did notice a difference this time - it asked me to go back and insert the Deluxe CDs again for two of the expansions so it could update something. Makin Magic also loads a TON faster than it was before. No crashes yet! Unfortunately instead of spending hours in front of the puter tonight I have to (gasp) clean! Company coming tomorrow. Darn RL interfering with my computer time! hehe Quote
kaseytraeger Posted May 5, 2004 Posted May 5, 2004 Glad to hear everything went smoothly and without a hitch for you! It sounds like you've got a much more stable installation this time around, which is a very good thing! Have fun with your company, then, when they're gone, get back to Simming! Quote
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