Troubleshooting Resolution In Game

Resolution In Game

Hi Everyone Im new here but im by no means a computer noob.
right here is my problem, my pc is more than powerfull enough to run sims 2 with all the ep's, i have every ep including night life, open for business, university, pets, seasons and bon voyage, i also have celebreation stuff, glamour life stuff and family fun stuff, the only pack i do not have is h&m fasion. my computer pec is as follows.
AMD Athlon XP 3200 @ 2.2Ghz
1GB of Ram (Corsir 400Mhz running at 2/2/5/2 timmings) its 2 sticks of 512 running in dual channel mode.
2x 80GB maxtor 9's with 8mb cache each running in raid 0 (split)
ATI Radeon 9800Pro All In Wonder 128MB
Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 Motherboard
Windows XP Pro with all updates downloaded and installed. all of my drivers are up to date.
my processor, motherboard and graphics card are watercooled

right now to the problem. sims used to run fine with everything set to maximum settings at a screen res of 1280x1024 which is the default for my 19inch lcd monitor (not wide screen)
now i have installed bon voyage i canset everything to max settings apart from the screen res. if i put it to 1280x1024 it blue screens and reboots my pc, but if i run the game at 1024x768 with all settings on full the game will run fine. if i change the screen res to 1280x1024 and set all the garphics to minumum it still crashes.
now when i said all of mydrivers where up to date, they are apart from my graphics card. if i install the latest drives from ati sims 2 wont run at all, it says it cant find any direct x 9.0c compatible hardware. so i have tried catalyst 6.2 and 6.8 (these are usualy the best for me) and the game runs but will reboot my pc if i put the res up.
has anyone else had this problem? sorry about the long post but i like being specific so i can get the best help, thanks.
ps i have looked at loads of threads on many sites and none of them refer to my problem.

 

Hi mushymarlin, I'm not very technical but just wanted to ask if there's a reason why you don't want to run the game at 1024x768? I run my Sims 2 game on 1024x768 with 2 Gb RAM and it's fine. You only have 1 GB RAM - maybe your computer just can't handle the higher resolution with yet another Expansion Pack.

I'm sorry I don't have anything to suggest for your problem but hopefully one of the more technical people here at WorldSims can help.

 

lol i see where you are coming from, and at present i am running the game at 1024x768. but my system can play the game at 1280x1024 as my fiance is running it at 1400x900 on a worse spec'd pc. on the lower res with all settings on high the game is ok but i would prefer to put the res up aswell. im trying to work out why my system crashes when i put the resolution up. its more than capable of handleing it, my pc can run c&c 3 tiberiumw wars on 1280x1024 with settings on medium and that game is twice as demanding as sims 2.
i have been doing lot of research into it and i can see only a few options at the moment

1, there is a problem with sims 2 bon voyage causing it, even with all the settings at minimum and the res at 1280x1024 the crash still happens, leading me to think its not my cards fault.

2,my card is deterierating and cant handle the strain anymore, cant see this as being the problem because my card can still play other graphicaly intense games like c&c3, halo, C&C generals, counter strike, b1942, far cry and doom 3 all of which i run at 1280x1024 with maximum or just under settings.

3, there is a glitch in the game that wont allow people to run the game at 1280x1024, i cant see how it is anything to do with my system as i can still do everything as normaly with no errors

just to clarify i am running win xp sp2 with all updates installed and there is no custom content or hacks in my game, all of the games and ep's are official games paid for and posted to me by play.com
there are no cd's patches or no intro video patches just the games and nothing else. my pc is virus and spyware free according to norton and ad-aware.
there has been no changes made to my sytem apart from installing bon voyge. and from what ive been reading loads of people have been having problems with this game

 

I'd be interested to see your PC specs, mushy.

BV is putting massive demands on systems. I'm sitting amid a heap of expensive bits and only the thought of reinstalling Windows is making me both tremulous and crochety. Sigh ... all that reactivation and updating and rebooting and that doesn't count all the hassle of reinstalling (with multiple reboots and updates) of NIS ... which I now hate with a passion but still have 5 months subscription to use up. It'll probably be Monday -- in October knowing my luck -- before I even get around to installing my sims. :(

 

Hi.
When you put your catalyst drivers in did you completely uninstall the previous drivers. Windows has a bad habit of putting in its own drivers back.
did you manually clear the registry of all ati ? I had a similar problem until I completely cleared all ati before installing the latest drivers.
Also 1gb of ram is a fine line between pleasure or pain. especially with all those expansions and Bon voyage.

 

hi thanks for your reply's yeah i used driverclean to get rid of all old ati drivers before i installed new ones. im going to try my spare nvidia 5900xt that i have in another pc and see if it works with that. or if im getting the same problems.
as for my pc specs:
amd athlon 2800 (166x12.5) is now overclocked to amd athlon 3200 speed (200*11) i have tested it fully and its 100% stable and has been running like it for about 9 months, its also watercooled and runs at about 45deg c load

ATI 9800 Pro All In Wonder 128Mb with ram sinks and the core is water cooled and runs at about 40deg c load

2x 512mb corsair pc3200 in dual channel with 2/2/5/2 timmings with a 1:1 divider

2x 80GB maxtor 9 hard drives ata133 7200 rpm 8mb cache each both on seperate ide cables and both on different channels on the board. they are running raid 0 (split) giving me one drive 160GB with 266MB/s transfer rate

gigabyte ga-7n400 pro 2 motherboard with nforce 2 chipset, its watercooled also.

the case has 4x 80mm fans and the radiator has 2x 120mm fans with 2 pumps in a push pull configuation, i also have 1 dvd-rw drive and 1 cd-rw drive, 1 floppy drive, 1 fan controller and 1 460watt psu that has 1x 120mm fan in.

if you want any more specs just let me know

i know the sims 2 is very demanding on the cpu power and ram but from seeing what other people are running mine should be more than up to the job dont you agree? especially seeing as my pc can handle alot more graphically and cpu intensive games, and still churn out respectable frame rates. i only seem to get this problem when i added bon voyage, and i can play the game perfectly well with all settings on max including view distance and shadows the lot but only at 1024x768. if i put the settings down to there lowest settings i still cant get the screen res to 1280x1024 with out crashing.

other people are reporting really long load times, mine are quick probably because of my raid setup, but i still get the jogging music during loading. i have no custom content or hacks the game works flawlessly at 1024x768 but i want to put the res up as my system can handle it and it makes things look better. can anyone remember what i put at the end of the target line to force the game into 1280x1024? was it "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSBin\Sims2Launcher.exe" r1280-h1024 or something like that?

 

ok just a little update. i grabbed a graphics card from another one of my systems (nvidia geforce fx5900xt 128mb) i picked this card as it is the nearest thing i can find performance wise to my ati radeon 9800pro aiw, i cleared the ati drivers tok out the card and put the nvidia card in, installed drivers and ran sims 2, put the settings up to 1280x1024 with all settings on maximum and it works perfectly for about an hour or so then i came off to write this....
BUT.... one thing i have noticed it that my ati radeon 9800pro seems to have much better image quality even when at lower resolutions

if i run my ati 9800pro at 1024x768 with all settings on max the image quality seems better and even less pixalated than the nvidia fx5900xt on 1280x1024 with all things on max, now this seems strange to me, mainly because there is such a huge visual difference between the two. my fiance has an ati x1300 and that seems better visual quality aswell i also have another system with an nvidia fx 5200 and that seems to be worse image quality than ati cards aswell. has anyone else found that sims 2 on ati looks better than nvidia?

im thinking that maybe wiin systems with ati cards present they might have aa or af turned on by the game but not manualy changable by visable selection by the user?? i have never noticed a difference this huge between the two video card manufacturers.

im going to leave the 5900xt in this system untill i get an ati x850xt pe for this system and then put the 5900xt back into its home in my secondary gaming system/server.
ps i can upload some screen shots of the two cards if you dont get what i mean?

 

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<AnyString key="activeDeviceDisplayMode" type="0x0b8bea18">1280x1024x32x75</AnyString>
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everything seems ok, and the game works perfectly with my nvidia 5900xt, its my ati 9800pro aiw thats giving me problems, i can run c&c 3 tiberium wars, doom 3, farcry all on high settings, and i used to be able to play sims 2 pets on my ati 9800pro at 1280x1024 with all settings on max, but now installed bon voyage i can only play my ati 9800 pro at 1024x768 with all settings on max, but my nvidia 5900xt will play at 1280x1024 with all settings on max, all the settings in game are exactly the same but the ati card gave me better quality even at the lower resolution, i have got an ati x850xt pe on the way and im gonna install that and see what it looks like, if it works fine then im just gonnna leave my 9800pro aiw to retire, thanks for all the reply's and sugestions. reguards mushy