Hi guys, I'm back...
iCad: nope, not running any other sims-related programs, but could running other programs in general (like Chrome) be causing it to say there's less free memory? I've opened the game a few times just to check, and it seems to fluctuate, though based on what I cannot tell

Also, I haven't had a chance to play really since I initially posted, but what I've noticed is that... I am getting graphical flashing/flickering that I was *not* getting before doing any of this... At first I did the graphic rules maker without checking the vsync box since I wasn't having issues with that. Then, noticing I now was having that issue, I tried updating the graphic rules maker with the vsync turned on... no dice, still experiencing the flickering. Any ideas? Should I perhaps just undo all of these attempted fixes (I didn't experience a TON of crashing to begin with...)?

Also just in general, thank you everyone for all your help and tips/tricks!

When you did the standby memory fix did you do it the hidden way with system listed instead? Because if you do the standby memory fix without it being the hidden method, it causes a flickering on screen every 5 minutes.

So I used the 4GB patch recommended in the first post, then scanned the new exe for good measure at virusscan.jotti.org. 15/16 scanners came up clean, but ClamAV listed my new executable as PUA.Win.Packer.Armadillo-65. Should I be worried? I will scan the original exe I backed up for good measure, as this could just be SuckyROM.

Edit: scanned original exe, it had the same PUA.Win.Packer.Armadillo-65. I think it's SuckyROM but not sure.

Obviously it is something included with the game then! Jo went to install University from the disk and her antivirus tried to quarantine her autorun on the disk! So evidently there is something about the game a few antiviruses don't like. Perhaps because of the way they used to package the games

That's a first that I've heard of. The fix making the flashing START not stop... Well, if it is not working for you, then go back to your original .exe - but I'll be buggered at how making more memory available to the game would give you pink flashing.

I'm not sure what would be causing it, really. I don't think it's other general programs because, for me, showing less available memory only happens in the user account on my computer that I use specifically for creating and testing stuff, not for actual playing. In that account, I often have SimPE open when I load the game, so I just assumed that was what was causing it, since they DO access the same files. In my actual-playing user accounts, I have other, unrelated, programs open -- an Internet browser to use a random number generator, Excel to have the neighborhood's tracking spreadsheet open, often Notepad to make random notes in, sometimes a media player if I'm going to just be building in the game, etc. -- and the log always shows 4096MB of available memory when the game loads.

I wonder if Origin might have anything to do with it? Do you have that running when you load the game? I don't have the UC -- and if I did, I wouldn't let it open Origin -- so I can't test that, myself.

Oddly enough, it still didn't generate a new one even when i deleted the file I don't know what is up with that. But i updated the game now (with the Origin update) and i will try out the whole method in the video again ;v;

That is totally odd that it didn't update!

I have never heard of that. wonder if it is a recent origin thing

At first my graphics were fine, but when I exited CAS, all my neighborhood deco was flashing. It shouldn't be doing this because I have an nVidia GeForce GTX 1060. Is that a result of the patch? If so, I'm reverting to my backup exe. The game doesn't crash often enough to justify that.

Fun fact: child me had a crap computer to where every wall would flash red and neighborhood terrain would flash pink. Can't remember what the water flashed. Yet I still played every day because I loved the sims so much. Adult me has gotten too spoiled with computers that can actually handle TS2, it seems.

The game itself has texture memory processing issues, regardless of how good your computer/video card is. Here's a good video that explains the issue and how to fix it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkmxAg7r3Y

...although, unfortunately, fixing it is often only temporary. Because in the end, if you are playing a heavily-decorated and/or densely-populated neighborhood, and you use a lot of high-poly and/or high-res CC, it can still flash pink even if you have the 4GB patch applied because they're actually different things. So the real "fix" is to simply use less of that stuff. You're playing with a 14-year-old game; it doesn't have the texture-memory processing capabilities of newer games, and it was never meant to use high-poly/high-res content. It is, at its heart, a low-poly/low-res game.

I would advise you to use the Graphics Rules Maker to force the game to use all of your graphics card's texture memory, at least. By default, it does not, and changing that can definitely help with the pink flashing issue but, again, only to a certain point because the real issue at hand is simply something at the game's programming core because...Yeah, 14-year-old game. Asking it to eat a crapton of texture memory in a play session is sort of like asking a 70-year-old to run a marathon. Sometimes it'll happen successfully, but often it doesn't.

Just a point here: the graphics rules maker does not work on my pc. I don't know why, because it does not really makes sense, but it does not.

Downloading a graphic card from Leefish solved my issues a looooong time ago - it is the Nvidia Texture fix, here: http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=5446 - close to the bottom of the page. I do use the 4gb patch.

I have no problems with updates (whether it is Windows, Nivida or Origin - I download them all) - at all. I did get some pink flashing once or twice, but deleting the Thumbnails got rid of it both times (and it was also long ago).

I have the UC and Windows 10. My game has only crashed once in the last year and that was due to custom content.

I was only worried because my TS2 had never done the pink flashing before I installed the 4GB patch. So I'm glad it isn't an error with the patch or worse, GPU damage (not that I can see how TS2 could damage a modern, high-end GPU)

So, I think someone thought I meant I had pink flashing (I'm not seeing it now, but I only skimmed to try and find it), but I do not. Just flickering/screen tearing. I got frustrated and tried restoring to a point from a couple weeks ago when everything was working fine (barring the not-*too*-frequent crashing), but it doesn't seem to have undone whatever got messed up with the game. Grr! My partner works with computers/coding/programming/games and stuff, so I am hoping to have him take a look.
On the weird/maybe bright side though, it does seem to be consistently showing 4096 for both memory and free memory. So, uh... that's cool... I guess?

I appreciate all the thoughts and efforts to help! You guys are all so sweet, I wish I could bake stuff for you all! :lovestruc

I think (though I'm not sure because I'm far from an expert on graphics; I'm just remembering what's been said about tearing in the past) that this can be addressed by turning on vsync? It's a cheat, simply "vsync on" or "vsync off" in the cheat box. Since it's just a cheat, you don't risk anything by trying it, at least. And if it works, I imagine you could put it in your userstartup thingy.

Mootilda once said, in a post from about 7 years ago that I just found:



So if looks like if you have vsync on, your framerate might be lower, but tearing should be reduced/eliminated, whereas with it off, you get a higher framerate but more tearing. I have no idea what the default setting for the game is, though! I'm going to guess it's off by default, but I could be wrong.

Thank you, iCad! The weird thing is that I didn't have any issues with screen tearing or crazy flickering before trying to do any of these things to help with crashing (aside from the VERY rare screen tear). Currently I believe I have vsync turned on with the graphics rules maker, but I will try turning it on and off with the cheat to see if that helps!

Hey! So I've been trawling through everything I can think of to get some answers, but I've not been successful yet. I came across this incredible post and I have to thank you so much for the information! The 4gb patch wasn't actually applied correctly, and my standby memory was crazy, and this tutorial was incredibly helpful. However, my current issue that's making my game unplayable still wasn't fixed. I have no idea at this point what is happening, because my best guess was memory related. In all my years playing this game I've never seen a bug/crash like this and I'm a little lost as to what to do.
It crashes *every time* it tries to save. Be it from the lot, or moving to neighborhood view, from CAS. Whatever it is, if it's trying to save, it gets stuck. If I'm going from lot to neighborhood it'll get stuck flickering the middle column, and sometimes eventually 'loads' the neighborhood in the background. To the point where I can click and move things around in the neighborhood while the load screen is still up. Always have to close down from task manager.
And these awesome glitches on the lots where this crash happens.




I've tested my cc, and while most of it is fine (including my massive hacks and global mods) this only occurs when hair, clothing, accessories, or random buy mod categories are in. Though each are fine on their own. Which made me think some kind of conflict somewhere but I'd not gotten any new mods when this all started happening. Though I did remove all my recent ones just in case.
I've repaired my game, reinstalled it (several times), run it completely clean, in new clean hoods, and still the issue persists.
Most recently I have tested my game on an older video card driver (I run on a Radeon R9 390) from before all this happened. Nothing changed. Issue is still there.

I apologize if I should just make a separate thread for this, please let me know if that's the case, but I figured this topic was the closest to this issue so figured I'd try my luck and see if anyone had similar issues, or had an idea of what I could try next. At this point I've come to the conclusion that my computer is simply possessed.

Thank you again, this really was wonderful information.

@Loving-Em Oh my gosh, you have my issue! So far I have found nothing to help and believe you me I have done a lot of things. I am also on a Radeon, a 560 and I believe I got one of the poor ones (aka known lemons they slipped out before they were made to repackage them) What we believe is the graphics card got damaged with a driver update and is not strong enough to save the game with CC. Mine was a brand new computer which played for just a few short days but then this happened after a graphics driver update, we also think having a lower end PSU of 500 watts was also part of it. If you also did an AMD driver update recently this could be it. We don't have actual proof but all the circumstantial evidence points to it. I am going to buy a new graphics card as I can't see any other solution.

Ah! Oh thank god other people are at least aware of this issue. I've only come across one other person, over on the leefish site, and both of us have been flailing trying to figure it out (they have a Radeon 360).
It's so odd that the card doesn't play nice with sims, since whatever update did this, yet can play my other games just fine (all of which are heavily modded too, one game is even just about as old as sims is). And even rolling back the driver won't help? So freakin odd! My PSU isn't high end, certainly, but it's mid-range and a 600 watt, managed pretty decently with the abuse I put it through haha

You think getting a new card would help? I mean my R9 390 is a few years old now, so it wouldn't be a terrible thing to upgrade. It's a shame though, since it really is a decent little video card... seems a waste. At this point however I'm willing to do just about anything to get my game back.

Nah, glitches happen for a reason, no demonic possession required. Computers are tricky things and chaos theory definitely applies to them; their hardware components and software often interact in...interesting...ways.

In any case, I agree with Jo (What a shock! ) that your issue might very well be driver-related. I find that when I allow my graphics card driver to be updated, something tends to go nuts in TS2, and the Graphics Rules Maker and similar tinkering didn't fix it. So, since I do nothing but Sim-related stuff and internet browsing on this particular machine, I have disabled automatic driver updates for my graphics card, and it's got one all the way from 6 years ago. It works for both TS2 and for TS3 (which I poke at occasionally), and I ain't changin' it! So, you might try rolling back or trying an older driver for your video card. (They're often archived on the manufacturer's website or, if not there, then AMD's/NVIDIA's website.) When it comes to getting TS2 to run properly as technology "advances," sometimes older is better. Of course, if you play different/newer games on your computer, this might not be an option for you, but if you don't? It might be worth a try.

@Loving-Em I know! While I don't wish this on anyone, it's good to know I am not the only person with this issue since Googling hasn't got me anywhere. There was this one person on Tumblr with it, but they never replied back. Who on Leefish has it and did it start after a driver update?

I not only rolled back, but uninstalled and reinstalled drivers from the card that came with my computer-didn't help. However, it is certainly worth a try if you haven't.

The only other game I am playing at present is Skyrim with very few mods, I simply don't trust the card.

( @iCad really, do we disagree a lot? or are you meaning the opposite? lol. *Takes confused brain away for some relaxation* I have been troubleshooting until my brain is inside out.)

Yes Jo and I have spent weeks working on things (literally weeks now, hours a day!) working on this. We tried rolling back drivers, didn't work, uninstalling driver and putting on original that came on computer, didnt work, 4 gb patch fix as that had been borked too, (didn't work but it helped) standby memory fix (didn't work but helped) uninstalled mansions and gardens (it didn't have proper icon in control panel any more so thought something was wrong) Didn't work. Uninstalled and reinstalled game and then moved to different hard drive as well. Same problem. Disabled antivirus, stopped it from trying to quarantine autorun but otherwise nothing. Got a better PSU, which helped but didn't totally solve it. Computer ran better tho. It runs fine till you get to a certain level of cc (doesn't matter what kind of cc either generally but it does seem particularly vulnerable to cas stuff as in it takes less of it.) It will load 12 gb and play it but won't save correctly if there is more than 2.5 or so. We did get rid of the black screen and it will load more in general now. We have run memory tests, monitored framerates and temperature, loaded in custom content in small amounts, making sure to go through and click thumbnails, as thumbnails seems to be an issue, tried doing things in bodyshop and in game, letting it sit paused before saving, saving immediately, playing then saving, lowered texture memory, raised texture memory (in graphics rules) grahics rules maker tweaks, manual graphics rules changes, no graphics rules changes, changing to high priority, getting out of everything extra in background, and rebooting frequently. We also tried compatibility and it didn't work and run as administrator, which at least got the game to run after reinstall, and reinstalling the directx files, which didn't solve the issue but did get rid of the intermittent direct x error. And is still there.

@joandsarah77 I meant the opposite, that we don't often disagree.

But yeah, if rolling drivers back doesn't help, and the same thing happens with no CC loaded, then it's gotta be a game and/or a hardware issue somewhere. Loving-Em said they'd reinstalled the game, so the obvious suspect would be the graphics card, but Loving-Em also said they'd tried different cards, though, so I don't know. Weird. Maybe it's an AMD issue. I've read that people have had problems with Nvidia cards and TS2, but I only use Nvidia cards (after having trouble with AMD cards and the CAD program I use) and I've never had issues other than, as I said, newer drivers screwing things up.

No it doesn't happen with no CC, then it will save just fine. As you load in bits of cc you can see it straining to save then when it reaches about 2 Gigs it totally freezes on saving and if I add in, even more, say to 3Gigs I get houses looking like sims on the ground, just like shown there. It does seem extra sensitive to CAS CC and BodyShop also freezes. But what CC doesn't matter, I have tried one of Gina's download folders as well, as well as downloading fresh items. It's the amount of CC, something is causing the game to really strain while saving (yes the game is constipated ) The only other strange issue is doing TAb and trying to take a screenshot with fraps, that also freezes it.

Weird. I wonder if it might be software that you and Loving-Em have in common, maybe something that runs in the background but is completely unrelated to Simming, but that seems really far-fetched. I was going to wonder if it could possibly be a bizarre hard drive issue, but gdayars said you tried a different drive. Have you tried installing on a completely different machine, if you have one? Maybe it's a motherboard-communicating-with-the-hard-drive problem. Or even a processor problem.

Well I tested both hard drives with speed fan last night and they came up as excellent, also did the memory test that Windows 7 has (type memory in start search and it restarts and runs a memory scan) Turned off every program that I thought could be turned off. Added sims 2 folders on C and D drive to my antivirus exception list and turned off antivirus and firewall when playing. If we can check the motherboard than we will, but I will still take it back since it's under warranty and go for the Nvidea 1050 Ti.