I am so frustrated right now I might snap. Thank God someone set this up.
I have no idea what's going on. I have the Intel Graphics Controller, and I guess according to your list, a supported version. Every time I boot up the game, it loads fine and quick and all pretty-looking. Around fifteen minutes later, my screen goes black and to the lowest display settings, with the message that "Display driver (can't remember, but I can look it up if needed) has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore display functionallity." So I do, it'll show that it's recovered from a serious error. I think, okay... so I send the error report for the heck of it, and this is what it says: http://wer.microsoft.com/responses/Respo...19-074771482f73
So I go and download DirectX 9.0. Nothing changes. I even tried lowering my graphics settings and deleting some custom content that might have tampered with the functionallity. No change. I am a storyteller type, and I heavily rely on th imagery(and the fact that I need the game RUNNING). I use cheats and I have custom content. But here's the thing: ever since I got this computer, I've been playing the base game with no problem. I even installed Holiday Stuff, Pets, and OFB and again, no issue. Now, around the time of last Christmas the pictures I took stopped showing up in my Storytelling folder. That was at the exact same time as I had renamed a file in there, so I guessed it was that. Just within the past month, I've uninstalled and reinstalled everything to try and get it working again. Guess what wasn't showing up in my Storytelling folder? I had saved all of my downloads and all of my BodyShop projects(I'm not an expert modder, I just recolor a few things and make eyes). Well, all my downloads worked fine, none of my projects showed up. I thought I had needed to go back in BodyShop and reimport them. Well, turns out this time around, I didn't get BodyShop, so I downloaded a copy from The Sims Resource. When I installed it, it asked me if I wanted to continue, telling me I already had a newer version of it on my computer. I went ahead anyway, since I had searched EVERYWHERE for the darned program and nothing. And since I couldn't open those projects in that BodyShop, I decided to let the clothes go and only remake my Powerpuff Girls Style eyes that I can adjust the eye size to make it look right. (I had gotten so used to using those big eyes that looking at normal ones seemed so off it would have driven me to insanity.) So in I go, works fine. One off thing about the BodyShop is that when it came to building sims, it only gave me one hairstyle, top, bottom, full outfit, eyebrow, and skin option. Also only gave me those exact options when I wanted to mod anything other than eyes. So I just shrugged and made my eyes. A week or two went by, no problem. Then up starts this display problem and it's been plauging me ever since. Like I said I deleted some stuff, removed unneeded programs from my computer, and lowered my graphics options a tad. Nothing changed. I even uninstalled that BodyShop copy. Nothing. I do have my special, beloved eyes saved as package files now in my downloads, so if I need to uninstall and reinstall again, I've got everything I need. I'm sorry for rambling on, but I'm trying to give as much as I can to find out this problem. And I'm sorry if someone's already mentioned this, I've only skimmed. I can't buy a new video/graphics/whatever card that some people with more DirectX problems have had to do. Do I just need to download new drivers from up there? Is there an underlying problem? I've ran defrag and checkdisk just yesterday and it showed no problems. I know this is the Sims 2 causing this, because if I do anything else on this computer nothing bad happens. I'm so confused, I've tried everything.
Here's my system summary:
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name OWNER-183935006
System Manufacturer Dell Computer Corporation
System Model OptiPlex GX270
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~2793 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Dell Computer Corporation A07, 6/26/2006
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name OWNER-183935006\Administrator
Time Zone Eastern Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 256.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 88.87 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 624.96 MB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
I have the same "What's This?" right-click thing as well.
Thanks in advance! Any word you say, even "I can't help you", will be greatly appreciated!
