help with sims 2 and video card

cooper1303

i put a thread on yesterday about my sims 2 game beacause when i load it up. . . it comes on at the begining then it says "this application has crashed. this will now terminate" . . . . so this woman/man said to me (right click on my computer and click on properties then click on the hardware tab and then go on device manager and onto your driver and right click and go on properties and update your card driver "I think") . . . so i click on it and it said install this software automatically so i clicked next and it started installing and after a while it said "cannot continue the hardware wizard . . . the wizard could not find a better match for your hardware than the software you have currently installed" . . . .

does that mean i have the latest update for my video card already . . .

if not how do i update it better for my sims to work properly . . .

TonyLisaP

Not neccessarily, it cannot find a better driver doesn't mean there isn't one. Can you tell me your operating system and the graphics card you have?
Goto start, settings, control panel, system, hardware and click on display adaptor.

cooper1303

sorry not very good with computers could you do it in a bit more detail because i cant seem to get on to it. . .

thanks:beer: :beer:

TonyLisaP

If you cannot follow the above directions then there isn't much hope is there?
Right Click on your desktop and select properties, goto the advanced tab then click on the adaptor tab.

Maybe this is easier?

cooper1303

I think i found it. . .

ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500

chip type: ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500 AGP (0x4C57)

DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)

Memory size: 32MB

Adapter string: ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500

bios Information: BK5.0.0VR006.009.007.002.001.001.001 i

cooper1303

now what will you be able to help me update it . . .

thanks

john_s_2

Just a quicky to say I've been battling with my daughter's PC for about over a year now. I'm 90% sure it's Sim2 that crashes it (it only seems to be Sims2, and it's only the application that crashes not the whole PC - or at least, it is now).

There are various known problems with Sims2 (as there are with all applications) and some of them are video related. I *think* my daughter's version plays fine if she disables something called shaders before playing. Here's the notes I made about this at the time (just in case this helps):

The easy workaround to this problem is to disable shaders in your game. To do this, bring up the cheat console by pressing the CTRL, SHIFT, and C keys at the same time.

Then into the cheat console, type:

boolProp useShaders false

This will disable the use of shaders in your game, and if you have an nVidia card and have been experiencing the blue screens, it may solve your problem.

Side Effects: Unfortunately, if you remove shaders you also lose certain graphics effects in your game which you may want - the most noticeable effect is that you won't have fish in your fishtank or in ponds (if you have Seasons). All the options will be there, the fish just won't be visible. For more information on graphics effects that are changed by disabling shaders, see: Game Help:Bump Maps and Shaders.

http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:nVidia_Blue_Screen_Issue

TonyLisaP

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeon-prer300-xp.html
Download the catalyst software from here. Once downloaded run the program and follow the prompts.

shimmershelly

Your video card is only the bare minimum for running the game at 32mb (and thats the base game only without expansions). If I was you I would go to the sims resource PC help forum here http://forums.thesimsresource.com/forumdisplay.php?f=582

But first, click on start, run and then type in dxdiag and hit enter, save a copy of the information on the "system" tab and also on the "display" tab, because they will need this information to advise you.

If you want to use the "useshaders false" workaround as detailed earlier you can have it on in your game all the time rather than typing it each time you play, by adding it to a userstartup.cheat file. This is really easy to do, just open up a new notepad file, type the cheat "boolprop useshaders false" (without quotes), then save the file as type .cheat by typing userstartup.cheat in the filename box. You then put this file into mydocuments/eagames/thesims2/config folder

I'm not sure that workaround would work for you anyway, as its for the "bluescreen of death" I wouldn't think your video card would enable the game to use shaders in the first place.

I create custom content for sims 2, and just to give you an idea of the sort of specs your PC could do with to run the game really well, I have 3gb ram, 3.06ghz processor and a nvidia 7600GS 256mb video card.