Why is Sim2 Seasons running so slow?

[mooncancook]

Bought Sims2 Seasons for wife yesterday to play in our htpc (see sig). Before the game plays very smoothly at 1366x768. With the expansion it started to stutter a lot so I lower res to 1280x720. It's better but when it snows it gets pretty bad. Is my 1950Pro reaching its limit? Or the games needs 2GB of ram? any insight?

 

[Matt2]

Sims2 and its expansions are the worst coded games I have ever come across.

Sims2 and all the exapnsion packs my GF just HAD to install on my PC run like complete ass on my rig in sig.

Please tell me how is it that I can obliterate every game I throw at this PC with max settings, but the freakin Sims brings it to its knees.

Boycott EA!

 

[aka1nas]

The game isn't that system intensive. Did you install all of the dual-core hotfixes? Try setting the affinity for the game exe to run on one core and see if it fixes your stuttering.

 

[mooncancook]

I already had the dula-core hotfix installed. Nightlife runs very well in the system, just for some reason Seasons runs terribly. Knowing that Matt2 is having problem running Sim2 in his system maybe there really not much I can do but set details lower. I'll try set affinity and see if it helps.

 

[Crafty35a]

Originally posted by: Matt2
Sims2 and its expansions are the worst coded games I have ever come across.

Sims2 and all the exapnsion packs my GF just HAD to install on my PC run like complete ass on my rig in sig.

Please tell me how is it that I can obliterate every game I throw at this PC with max settings, but the freakin Sims brings it to its knees.

Boycott EA!

QFT - I installed the Sims 2 and a couple expansions for my gf to play, and I can't believe how piss-poor it runs on my X1900XT.

 

[Matt2]

I dont know what you guys are doing to make this game run correctly, but no matter what resolution, whether I turn it up or down, change any settings, the game is still a chop fest.

My GF doesnt care and neither should I since I dont play that garbage, but just watching her play through the chop fest makes me cringe at the site of my comp struggling so badly.

If you search around the net, you'll find thousands of threads describing the same problem you're having.

aka1nas:

could you shed some light on this mystery?

 

[mooncancook]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I dont know what you guys are doing to make this game run correctly, but no matter what resolution, whether I turn it up or down, change any settings, the game is still a chop fest.

My GF doesnt care and neither should I since I dont play that garbage, but just watching her play through the chop fest makes me cringe at the site of my comp struggling so badly.

If you search around the net, you'll find thousands of threads describing the same problem you're having.

aka1nas:

could you shed some light on this mystery?

I have University and Night Life installed in my PC, it runs quite smoothly at 1680x1050 with high settings except when there are lots ppl around like in community lot. I guess the more expansions you install the worst it gets. I tried running it in our laptop with geForce Go 6400, and if I apply any smooth setting in the game object starts diappearing (probably unable to draw to screen fast enough). I think it's just bad coding, but I'm still amazed at the AIs.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I dont know what you guys are doing to make this game run correctly, but no matter what resolution, whether I turn it up or down, change any settings, the game is still a chop fest.

My GF doesnt care and neither should I since I dont play that garbage, but just watching her play through the chop fest makes me cringe at the site of my comp struggling so badly.

If you search around the net, you'll find thousands of threads describing the same problem you're having.

aka1nas:

could you shed some light on this mystery?

I've only messed around with University and the business expansion for my wife to play around with. The game is definately CPU-bound with all the crap being simulated. My wife was getting by with my old Geforce 3 ti200 before I stuck an AGP 6200 in her machine. It plays acceptably on her old AthlonXP rig with 1.5GB of DDR. Obviously with no AA and some settings reduced.

The stuttering you mentioned sounded like an affinity issue with games that handle dual-core chips poorly. We've had lots of posts on this forum with people having similar issues with dual-core K8s and other games, so I thought it might be worth a shot. Other than that, it might just be poor programming on the latest expansion. Sorry if that isn't very helpful.

 

[coldpower27]

I dunno it feels all right running it on my Geforce 4 Ti and Celeron D 347 at 12x10, though I turn off the lighting and shadows, as well as autonmous AI for the Sims in my house.

I have all the expansions running by the way with the No-CD patch.