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Mad Poster
#101 Old 24th Jan 2018 at 8:50 PM
Missing DLLs - in my experience, the game does not even launch. (A repair in Origin will put them missing DLLs back, That may mean redoing all graphic changes again).
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Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#102 Old 24th Jan 2018 at 10:43 PM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 25th Jan 2018 at 2:04 AM.
@Epi7 at leefish had a brilliant idea. I'm going to try it. Trust the newer driver to actually manage its own memory. In the graphics rules sgr file, change this

# never trust the driver to manage its own memory
boolProp enableDriverMemoryManager false


to this!

# do trust the driver to manage its own memory
logSystemInfo "trust the graphics driver to manage its own memory"
boolProp enableDriverMemoryManager true


I'll report what happens. I'm guessing more crashes but maybe I'll be surprised...
[edit] This did not help when using the Origin exe
It did help! NO CRASH! - used noCD exe with 4gb patch

-----------------------------

meanwhile, here's a video about preventing pink flashies (and just not overloading your GPU in general)
you all may have already seen this, I have not, so here it is

https://youtu.be/qLkmxAg7r3Y

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Lab Assistant
#103 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 12:22 AM
@CatOfEvilGenious Just be careful of any tools that clean out the registry. Things like CC cleaner have been known to delete out files that UC needs to run. For some reason they are not protected or marked correctly so those programs consider them trash. I used to run it to clean up my pc, I never realized it was the reason I had to repair game in Origin all the time, until I read about it.
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#104 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 12:33 AM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 25th Jan 2018 at 3:02 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by Jules1111
@CatOfEvilGenious Just be careful of any tools that clean out the registry. Things like CC cleaner have been known to delete out files that UC needs to run. For some reason they are not protected or marked correctly so those programs consider them trash. I used to run it to clean up my pc, I never realized it was the reason I had to repair game in Origin all the time, until I read about it.


I have not let any of the tools change my registry. I don't know enough about the registry to know if I'm about to do something inadvisable. Yes, I saw that CCleaner had marked some Sims 2 UC registry entries as bad, said they had bad executable paths, but I thought they looked fine and probably necessary so I didn't touch them. Only thing I ever did to my registry was take the TM out of the Documents folder name, worked fine, but I have since put it back with repair because I'm trying to minimize what I've changed.

-----------------------------------

edit:
Changing the sgr to let the driver manage its own memory did not help. May have performed worse, taken less time to crash, not sure. With Origin exe.

Edit. With noCD, it DID help! Manage own memory + noCD did not crash!

Changing lighting from high to medium did not help.

*sigh*

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#105 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 1:53 AM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 25th Jan 2018 at 2:57 AM.
Finally got it to work maybe? Huge thanks to @Epi7 from leefish! Her fix worked with the noCD exe and the 4gb patch. It did not help with the Origin exe but it DID help with the noCD exe! OMG I am so happy right now, giddy with glee.

NO CRASH after Nina spent over two days at Commandgo. The best I ever got before was several hours, then crash. Now, no crash, I just exited the game normally after torturing poor Nina with no sleep on a community lot for two days.

OMG I can maybe play the game now? I did have two flashy pink puddles but I can live with that.

What worked for me

* noCD exe instead of Origin exe (the Origin exe still crashes)
* used the 4gb patch (not sure if the 4gb patch is necessary, haven't tested yet with unpatched noCD exe, but 4gb is a good thing)
* Epi7's change to the sgr allowing the driver to manage its own memory
* earlier, I manually uninstalled and cleanly reinstalled the NVidia driver, I suspect this helped

Thank you @Epi7 for making my game playable again! Thank you everyone for reading and commenting and helping, you really kept my spirits up.

OMG OMG OMG so euphoric right now. Needs further testing tomorrow. Sleep now. Read to kidlet then sleep. OMG I can play the game! *squees uncontrollably*

[edit] This was all tested at 800x600 resolution with no cc so squeeing may be premature but I am going to squee anyway. Then read to kiddo, then sleep.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Lab Assistant
#106 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 2:38 AM
@CatOfEvilGenious Hurray! I am glad you found something that is working, at least for now. Hopefully it will keep running well!
Mad Poster
#107 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 3:15 AM
Great news, and good to know that too in case I need to do that in the future - Enjoy the UC then!
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#108 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 3:41 AM
Hooray! Great news. :D

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#109 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 5:14 AM
I will keep trying with the Origin UC. It always worked better than the noCD before. I suspect the 1709 full screen issue is affecting it. I play in windowed mode but it starts up Origin. If I start the game from Origin, not desktop shortcut, it is full screen. So maybe I need -w on Origin too, not just on the Sims2EP9 exe? Maybe I need to disable Windows game mode full screen optimization while in Origin? I think @gwynne mentioned this earlier? Would that, combined with Epi7’s sgr change, and the earlier clean install of drivers, be enough to unbork texture memory for the Origin exe? Will try tomorrow.

Will also see if noCD with antialiasing and larger resolution still works. And maybe add cc...

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#110 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 10:46 AM
Cat - I play in full screen (using noCD and have the 1709 update), and normally use windowed mode for taking screenshots. (Both have worked through Origin too the last time I tried them).

Note that some things may well depend on hardware. I bought a new monitor around 3 or so years ago and had to change the way I take screenshots - so perhaps keep that in mind as well. (It did not affect my game running, though).
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#111 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 4:45 PM
Tested current setup with Origin exe and Origin exe patched to use 4gb, both running windowed. Both still crash.
Made some changes to Origin, in Origin's game settings for UC, told Origin to start UC with -w and -CPUCount:1.
I can now start UC from Origin (not desktop shortcut) and have it run in windowed mode but it still crashes.
Trying to change the compatibility mode for UC itself just doesn't stick. I tell it to run in XP sp2 compatibility but
the Origin desktop shortcut keeps reverting to not in compatiblity mode. Makes sense, it's not an old app.
The Origin UC exe is also updated, I assume, to run on Win 10 without compatibility mode. Anyone know?

Only the noCD 4gb exe runs without crashing right now, after Epi7's sgr change. Still haven't tested noCD w/o 4gb patch.
I want the Origin exe to work for me, darn it. It's never had pink flashies. If it would just stop crashing, all would be peachy.




Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#112 Old 25th Jan 2018 at 8:16 PM
I really don't know if the Origin UC exe has been updated to work with Windows 10! Never looked at that at all I would like to know that too.

I am keeping an eye on your progress and your testing results. Do you still have pink flashing when using the noCD exe?
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#113 Old 26th Jan 2018 at 1:39 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
I really don't know if the Origin UC exe has been updated to work with Windows 10! Never looked at that at all I would like to know that too.

I am keeping an eye on your progress and your testing results. Do you still have pink flashing when using the noCD exe?


Haven't been able to test today, but you may want to take a peek at gwynne and Epi7's threads over at leefish in the graphics cards forum. I think they both had some pink flashies sometimes. Epi7 posted in my thread at leefish with some ideas for reducing or eliminating them. To sum up, Epi recommends NOT always removing cache files unless they are corrupt, same with Thumbnails files, and entering CAS at the beginning of game play and rolling some random sims. [edit] And also rebooting your machine between Sims sessions.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Lab Assistant
#114 Old 26th Jan 2018 at 1:54 AM
There is a member on the Sims forums that is having the same issues as @CatOfEvilGenious. Basically her set up is just like mine. The game is NOT updated, on Windows 10 1709, using a NoCD after removing Securom, with the 4GB patch. I don't understand how we have the same set-up, but mine plays and hers crashes now. I just think it is safe to say the problem lies with Windows 10 updated to 1709, and that Origin doesn't have anything to do with it, considering she does not go through Origin to play, and never had the latest update.

I linked her over here so she could see if the change to the graphic rules @CatOfEvilGenious did will work for her also. I guess she is lucky she has another laptop with Windows 8 she can install the game on if need be, but this is getting stranger by the minute. It seems to be so random whether someones game is effected or not.
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#115 Old 26th Jan 2018 at 3:37 AM
@Jules1111 - exactly so, curiouser and curiouser! From what I’ve read, some folks are ill affected by 1709 and others are not. For many different games/apps. I suspect a myriad small differences in hardware and state of Windows. I’ve been checking the Woody on Windows blog for latest news on Win patches.

Since you mentioned your monitor I too wonder if that makes a difference. Mine is... post when at desk. Am on phone.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#116 Old 26th Jan 2018 at 11:03 PM
so here's another thing I tried that did not help me, DEP changes
(how to change Data Execution Prevention on Win 10)

So I just tried DEP with the Origin UC exe. Tried enabling DEP for everything but Sims 2. Someone else discussed this somewhere, can't remember where. Weird because Sims 2 is usually NOT DEP'd anyway. DEP is usually set to 'essential only' and Sims is not essential so not DEP'd. Anyhoo, that made Sims 2 crash earlier and harder, no error message, just poof, no more Sims window. Sims 2 was not DEP'd before, still not DEP'd now. Origin is 64 bit so always DEP'd on 64 bit Windows. So maybe something that Sims 2 uses got DEP'd that wasn't DEP'd before because it is not essential? And DEP'ing that whatever broke it? So now Sims 2 breaks? So I went and changed DEP back to 'essential only'.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#117 Old 27th Jan 2018 at 12:46 AM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 27th Jan 2018 at 1:53 AM.
NVidia Settings - tried changing from quality to performance
ran Origin UC patched to 4gb, no apparent change, still crashes after some time on community lot
the unpatched Origin UC is just crashing while loading neighborhood now, not sure why, going to repair it...

will try Balanced nvidia setting next, but not expecing it to help :/



-------------------------------------------------------

Somewhere, my Origin UC, the original one, started behaving worse, I think.
It now consistently crashes while loading the neighborhood, refuses to load the neighborhood, but only when I start it from within Origin.
Did it do this before? I can't remember.

If I start Origin UC from the desktop shortcut that I put in compatibility mode for XP sp2, it loads the neighborhood. I am so confused. There
seems no way within Origin to set compatibility mode. I can set command line args to use at startup, but not compatibility.
Can't set compatibility on Origin itself, tried, always gets unset. Origin was made after XP came out.

(noCD patched to 4gb still works but I really want the Origin UC to work)

---------------------------------------



Balanced seems to help... The Origin UC patched to 4gb, run from the desktop shortcut in compatibility for XP sp2, ran longer before crashing.
Nina spent all night at the community lot before the game crashed instead of crashing sometime in the night.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#118 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 12:35 AM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 28th Jan 2018 at 1:05 AM.
stuff to try next, nuke Game Mode from orbit and same for Game DVR

Maybe disabling or entirely removing Windows Game DVR might help? I'm wondering if that's what's eating up texture memory and when does it get turned on. Supposedly only for fullscreen whitelisted games but do I believe Microsoft? I'm curious if anyone here has tried this already. I'm going to but with such variance in hardware and software, I'm curious if it works for other folks.
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-...creators-update

In addition to disabling or even removing Game DVR, has anyone tried disabling Game Mode? Can't turn it off in settings anymore because Microsoft is #*!&@ arrogant and thinks they know better than us what features we want to be able to turn off. You can turn it off supposedly in some games with Game Bar (Windows key + G) and here's how to turn it off in the registry. I should not have to try to kill stupid features in the registry. Haven't tried this myself yet. *fumes*
https://www.addictivetips.com/windo...ate-windows-10/

[edit] Yet another place to get rid of Win 10 1709 'optimization' is Sims2EP2.exe or its shortcut.
Right click, properties, compatibility, check the checkbox that says 'disable fullscreen optimization'
Maybe that only gets used when playing in fullscreen mode but I'm going to test it anyway. *fumes more*

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#119 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 2:03 AM
Windows Game Bar thinks Origin UC is a game but the noCD exe is not. Maybe that's why noCD doesn't crash for me? Gory details below.

more stuff I tried/am trying

* On the shortcuts to my four versions of Sims2EP9.exe, I checked 'disable fullscreen optimization' in the compatibility tab.
result: I don't play in fullscreen, but just in case, thought it couldn't hurt. Didn't seem to help either.
(the four version are Origin UC, Origin UC 4gb patch, noCD, and noCD 4gb patch)

* In Windows Settings, Gaming, turned off DVR. Could not turn off Game Mode because Microsoft removed that toggle. *fumes*
I left Game Bar on but turned off every other 'optimizing' and 'improved game experience' thing I could find.
Then I checked to see if Game Bar thought Sims is a game. It thinks ORIGIN Sims is a game but NOT the noCD Sims. Interesting!
Maybe that explains why noCD is not crashing but Origin UC is?

game bar in Origin Sims (recognized as a game by Windows)
game bar is shown by pressing the Windows key + G and hidden the same way



game bar in noCD Sims (not recognized as a game by Windows, maybe that's why it doesn't crash?)



* I also tried disabling Game Bar in Windows Settings, Gaming, so you could NOT show it by pressing Windows key + G
I wonder if it's still running somewhere, just you can't show it, so it is still borking things in some sneaky way.
result: Disabling Game Bar in Settings did not help. This is probably why some gamers suggest more drastic measures...

* I made a system restore point because I'm going to poke around in the registry. Drastic measures ahead!

* next up, nuke Game Bar, edit the registry, remove stuff in PowerShell, not looking forward to this
results: haven't tried this yet...

* and then, if that's not sufficeint, turn off Game Mode in the registry
results: haven't tried this yet...

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Space Pony
#120 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 2:22 AM
I may be stupid, most stupid of the year, but if you have the nocd one working why in earth you so need the origin one to work? :D

It does not make any difference about your creations is it done by origin exe or not Just a exe what launces the game from your Programfiles

~~~~Call me Ellu ~~~

My love, my love, my fearless love, I will not say goodbye..
Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
Mad Poster
#121 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 5:56 AM
Quote: Originally posted by CatOfEvilGenius
* I also tried disabling Game Bar in Windows Settings, Gaming, so you could NOT show it by pressing Windows key + G
I wonder if it's still running somewhere, just you can't show it, so it is still borking things in some sneaky way.


I wonder if you are aware of the Sysinternals tools for Windows? I thought you might be interested in Process Explorer to show you exactly what's running on your system. It's like a more advanced Task Manager and keeps track of many more things. I can not only watch what processes are running, but RAM, CPU and GPU usage and an awful lot of other things (most of which I don't understand anyway )

At the very least, you might be able to see sneaky Windows features that you didn't know were running.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sy...tem-information
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#122 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 7:19 PM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 28th Jan 2018 at 8:22 PM.
@Kukamuukaanmuka - I spoke too soon about noCD working. After more testing, it now works some of the time, and crashes at other times, just takes longer to crash than Origin. I would prefer to use the Origin exe because in the past, it worked better for me than the noCD exe. The noCD exe has pink flashes, the Origin one does not, for me. Also, some folks would rather not use noCD, so I'm trying to make the Origin UC exe work.

@RoxEllen1965 - Thank you! Sysinternals sounds very handy.

-------------------------------------------------

test results from 1/28/2018

The noCD has stopped working well for me, or I did not test it enough times earlier. It sometimes crashes now too, just takes longer to do so than the Origin UC exe. I think a burglar on my testing home lot may have broken things, so I wiped that whole Neighborhoods folder, as I do periodically, and am testing with a fresh hood again. I now have more pink flashies in the noCD than ever before. *sigh* All I changed is turn off fullscreen optimization in shortcuts and turn off Game Bar and Game DVR in Windows Settings. I doubt it was fullscreen optimization but I turned it back on, doesn't seem to help whether it's on or off. I play windowed so shouldn't matter. I could try turning Game Bar and Game DVR back on and use Sysinternals to maybe see if/when they're running? And maybe try reinstalling my graphics driver for the fourth or fifth time. I wonder if maybe Windows is corrupting it? Will report later. I have some testing and slogging left in me yet. Slog slog slog...

[edit] noCD works okay again, can play on a community lot for days of game time
problem was my lighting setting got set to high again instead of medium

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#123 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 7:43 PM
Cat - I actually believe that players prefer the noCD exe above the Origin one - that, at least, is my impression from talking a lot about UC and Windows 10 here on MTS since I wrote the article in my signature.

(I have no idea how to help you anymore, since I never had to go to any extremes and my game is still working).
Lab Assistant
#124 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 8:18 PM
Awe, sorry your game is acting up again, even with the NoCD. I have no idea what to do either, I have never had to go through all this and my game is working fine also.

I think @Justpetro is right, most prefer the NoCD. Mainly because no one wants their game tied to Origin. Those others that use it like me never updated the game and had to so Securom didn't reinstall itself after we removed it. I didn't want to update because I don't want to be tied to Origin. Quite frankly I don't trust EA as far as I could throw them. I see no reason to change that, especially now. I don't want to mess with anything! I really do hope you find a fix, or at least EA gets off their collective behinds and figures out what went wrong with the latest Windows update and fix it. Actually make it compatible with 10 instead of just saying..it runs.

This doesn't happen with all older games, I played a ton of games made years ago, so there is something in Sims 2 that is conflicting. Though I think you have a better chance at winning the lottery then getting a patch to fix it.
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#125 Old 28th Jan 2018 at 8:26 PM
noCD works fine (mostly) again, same as before. Problem was the in game lighting setting, I had medium, it got set to high, changed it back to medium and noCD is fine again.

Jules, I'm with you on EA and Origin. Sounds right what you said about most players. I'm just stubborn and I want it to work, darn it! In most of my earlier tests, even though I had to go through Origin, the Origin UC worked better and never flashed pink (before crashing). If I could get it to not crash, I want to see if it would continue to never flash pink. For me, that would be worth putting up with Origin although I don't blame anyone who would rather not run Origin at all.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
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