1681

According to the MTS compatibility/recommendation chart, the GTS 240 should be fine. On the same wiki page, they also say that TS3 is very CPU reliant and that if you have an older single core CPU, even good cards may not perform as well as they would otherwise. I can’t vouch for any of that info but it sounds reasonable enough to me.

1682

<<edit>>
Kael,

What are the other system specs? CPU, MOBO, RAM, OS

1683

Minimum System Requirements:[ul]
[li]XP SP2: 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent, 1 GB RAM, 128 MB video card (must support Pixel Shader 2.0)[/li][li]Vista SP1: 2.4 GHz P4 or equivalent, 1.5 GB RAM, 128 MB video card (must support Pixel Shader 2.0)[/li][/ul]

1684

Sorry, I was asking Kael of his wife’s system specs. Trying to determine if it’s a 2+ Gig memory 64x OS issue vs. video card overheating.

1685

You might need the frame limiter thing that I have seen people talking about. It stops the game overheating your card. Unfortunately as I haven’t needed it so far, I can’t tell you any more about it. Probably a search at MATY will bring up more info.

1686

How do you “min/max” having kids? I just keep calling the babysitter 24/7. Two babies are hell.

I never tried gaming the sims but maxing Charisma quickly pushed my Sim into Leader of the Free World with plenty of time and money extremely quickly.

1687

Childhood development books: http://wiki.thesimsresource.com/index.php?title=Books_Guide#Childhood_Development

1688

Keep the mother happy while pregnant (if you have lots of money, just send her to the spa for the most expensive package, for a week-long +75). Buy and use a birthday cake the moment the baby arrives at home. Have children and teens start their school day with “work on late homework”. That makes four traits you can choose. A serious min/maxer would just use birthday cakes for the toddler stage and gamble on the one random trait.

But when my sims surprised me by having triplets, I just went all in. Bought xylophones for music skill, blocks for logic skill, a toy chest for fun, a teddy for emergency socializing, and had both parents in a three-day marathon to teach the toddlers how to walk, talk and pee, while trying to keep everybody rested, fed, and empty-bladdered. It was hell, but I survived. After that: birthday cakes and a legen-dary birthday party.

Oh, and once you’ve bought that high chair they wished for, store it in your family inventory. Feeding on the floor is much faster and prevents the little brats from crying because they’re stuck up there.

1689

Windows 7 64bit, i7 quad processor 2.67GHz, 6GB Ram

1690

Try this:

  • Download and install Explorer Suite.
    http://www.ntcore.com/files/ExplorerSuite.exe

  • Go to the executable for Sims 3 Late Night

  • Right click & opened with CFF explorer.

  • Under “NT Headers”, go to the “File Header” tab and then click the “click here” button.

  • In the chacteristics box check the option “App can handle >2gb Address space”

  • OK.

The Sims has a known issue on 64-bit systems with more than 2 Gig of RAM. If this doens’t fix it, let me know and I’ll have the next troubleshooting steps ready for you. But this could do it (did for me). Make sure you edit the executable and not the shortcut.

1691

Wowza, nice one JP.

1692

No luck. Same crash. When it happens the monitor shows no signal. I have the exact same computer as my wife except that I have a high end ATI video card and she has the nVidia GeForce GTS 240.

1693

Hope this shows up, I seem to be stuck on the last page. Weird forum behavior.

So you have one of 3 problems. Memory, CPU, or Video card. Just because you have the exact same system doesn’t mean the memory is perfect. So…

Download & run realtemp
Download and run Prime95

In Prime95 - go to options >>> torture test >>> in place large FFT’s. Run for an hour and make sure the CPU isn’t overheating.

Second test should be the Blend test in the same tab. Let this run for 3 hours and see if it stops due to an error. Of you get an error then you have a bad memory chip. This could have been bad all along and not become evident til you had something that hit the registers that aren’t good or stressed the system enough.

If these both come back clear, then you know it’s the video card. if it is the VC, chances are the heat-sink separated from a memory chip and it’s overheating. So make sure real-temp is running and the GPU temp is visible, then run Sims3 in a window so you can watch the temperature. I’d also suggest downloading and running an alternate program to isolate the issue from one being a Sims 3 critical error. Download one of the 3dMark tests and run the first graphical test in a loop for 30 minutes. You probably want to know if the video card is defective ASAP so you can get it exchanged while it’s still under warranty.

1694

I will post this as a “bump” to let others get to this page.

1695

And the latest patch has bedbugs.

Or rather, bed bugs that can drive sim moods too far up or down if you play through too many in-game sleep cycles without a save & reload.

I’ve not had any of the other problems reported with the patch though.

1696

My wife has recently gotten into Sims 3 (finally) and is having a great time. So far we have the main game, World Adventures, and High End Loft Stuff. Which of the remaining expansions are the best (top 1 or 2) - thinking of getting her some for Xmas.

1697

Well, they’re quite different. If she’s a social butterfly and into soap operas then Late Night, if you want an excellent extension of the main game I’d go with Ambitions.

Also, you can gift her some money so she can buy some extra stuff in the Sims Store. If you gave her like $20 she would spend HOURS combing through all the store options to find what the best value would be for her and what she wants to play with. Remember the store is different than the exchange.
My favorite set is the Fairy Folk Life set. It’s awesome! http://store.thesims3.com/setsProductDetails.html?categoryId=11488&scategoryId=12517&pcategoryId=12409&index=0&productId=OFB-SIM3:21400

I also picked up flippers somewhere, and I love having my nerds run around with bright green flippers and swimmies around their midsection.

1698

Kael, you get your problem sorter out yet? I know my list looks daunting, but it’s really quite easy to manage.

1699

I bought Late Night for my wife and she thinks it’s the best expansion so far. I agree since it now means I have a lot less competition for 360 time!

1700

Also, you don’t need parents to read the book to a toddler anymore. You can just put them down on the floor and make sure there’s no annoying maid that will pick them all up.