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Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#76 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 1:34 AM
I am wondering if maybe the Origin exe is working 'correctly' now and the crashes on community lots are due to EA borkage that Pescado's mods fix? I vaguely recall something about vampires and mrs. Crumplebottom being glitchy? Even after EA paches? So Pescado's fixes are still necessary, right? I never play without them, except now, because I'm trying to test a vanilla game. Commandgo usually has a vampire or Crumple around, although I'm not sure they're present at every crash. Not sure why Brandi getting groceries at Here or Else crashes after hardly any playtime. For Brandi, it's daytime, no vamps, no Crumple, and less sims on the lot, and it's a smaller lot! Why does it crash faster than Commandgo? :/ Don't remember the game being quite that glitchy. Is it? I don't remember anymore if this is 'normal' for Sims without Pescado's fixes.

I could put Pescado's fixes in and see if that fixes it but I'm still trying to rule out graphics driver issues and also, need sleep.

Time to read to and snuggle the kidlet. One day, maybe he will play Sims. Wants to right now but he's four. It's a bit complicated for him.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
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Space Pony
#77 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 2:14 AM
Oh dear me, I am out of ideas

At the time you said you got Dina (or was it Nina) to spend time allmost till next morning, I was wanting to ask could you use the 4GB patch right after and try again. But yes I was at my phone, following this topic and not logged in. But yes most likely would of not helped anyway :/

just a needle in haystack, when you reinstalled, did you clean all possible leftover bits of the game with anykind of registery cleaner ? Well known thing that uninstall is not like bullet proof, it lefts some data behind many times. As I said a neelde in haystack, just popped to my mind. And most likely nothing to do with this.

~~~~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
#78 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 7:26 AM
The vanilla game does not crash all that often - I played it for years before knowing that mods/corruption even existed! I would just get the game working first, and, in your case, the graphics.

Registry cleaners remove some dll files - that would, in my experience, prevent the game from starting at all and can only be fixed by a repair.

The UC comes fully patched. My vanilla hood (which wasn't even patched properly) vanished into space after 4 and a half years - that is when I discovered MTS I don't believe glitchy sims crash the game; they are just annoying.I had my share of those over the years. The problem with Crumplebottom and vampires is that a vampire should apparently not bite Crumplebottom. (Never came close to it in vanilla, there is NO way to interact with Crumplebottom in a vanilla game. She just lectures and hits sims, but they can't talk to her).So I doubt if your game crashing has anything to do with Crumplebottom.

I do use Pescado's mods these days However, I don't think it will do anything to prevent crashing, to be honest. It prevents corruption in the long run.

Question: did the game crash before you made any graphic changes (while still in 800X600 resolution)? Sorry if you have answered this already, I can't seem to find that in the thread.
Scholar
#79 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 4:39 PM
Update here:

http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthre...=41976#pid41976

The TL;DR is that when I reinstalled a slightly older version of Windows 10 Pro (Aug 17ish, version 1703) and blocked it from installing updates, then installed Origin and TS2 UC, the problems all disappeared. (Preliminary conclusion: Windows 10 updates circa Jan 11 2018 are breaking things.)
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#80 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 4:52 PM
@Justpetro - Yes, the game crashed with the Origin sgr files in 800 x 600 resolution (windowed). After adding my sgr files, but still staying in 800 x 600, I did see the config log file said I now have 6052mb texture memory instead of 32mb but the game still crashed. I'm going to try gwynne's fix, see if it works for me. Don't blame you for not remembering, I barely remember! Have to consult my own notes. This darn thread is getting loooong.

@gwynne - Yay! Yay yay yay!!! So happy for you. And maybe me but I never made a restore point before 1709. Am I doomed to staying with 1709 or can I somehow revert to 1703? Will I have to reinstall apps and such? I'm willing to if the game will just work.

I really appreciate everyone who pops in to help or even just commiserate.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#81 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 5:11 PM
I find it interesting that the windows updates don't affect everyone, though - I am perfectly fine with 1709.
Scholar
#82 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 5:11 PM
Quote: Originally posted by CatOfEvilGenius
@Justpetro - Yes, the game crashed with the Origin sgr files in 800 x 600 resolution (windowed). After adding my sgr files, but still staying in 800 x 600, I did see the config log file said I now have 6052mb texture memory instead of 32mb but the game still crashed. I'm going to try gwynne's fix, see if it works for me. Don't blame you for not remembering, I barely remember! Have to consult my own notes. This darn thread is getting loooong.

@gwynne - Yay! Yay yay yay!!! So happy for you. And maybe me but I never made a restore point before 1709. Am I doomed to staying with 1709 or can I somehow revert to 1703? Will I have to reinstall apps and such? I'm willing to if the game will just work.

I really appreciate everyone who pops in to help or even just commiserate.


There should be ways to reinstall Windows 10 from older media (like people who have a Windows 10 disc just lying around). Then blocking any updates. Unfortunately, it looks like their 'media creation tool' is already updated to the fall update:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sof...nload/windows10

(I happened to have an install disk I'd created using the tools above back in August.)

The problem is, running without Windows updates is a security risk, so for example I can't do that on the PCs at work where I occasionally run a game of Sims in the background during downtime at work. (To phrase it another way, I MUST have my work PCs on 1709.) (In case the whole 'work' thing sounds weird, again, it's just the office environment here, everyone's always playing some video game on their side monitor.)

I'm also really curious to see if the 'order of operations' will matter. Like, now that I have the game functional, I'm letting the test PC update to 1709. Will it work because I did things in a different order? (The first time around I didn't install Origin/UC until Windows was already up to date.)
Scholar
#83 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 5:20 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
I find it interesting that the windows updates don't affect everyone, though - I am perfectly fine with 1709.


Would be curious to know:

*Machine specs (or first chunk of dxdiag if you're willing to paste).
*How did you originally install TS2 UC?
*Are you running Origin's latest UC patch (from a few months ago)?
Scholar
#84 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 6:14 PM
Final update for now unless I think of some work-around or Origin pushes a fix:

I updated the (functional) installation from Windows 1703 to the big update (1709), and TS2 is back to crashing.

Well, I guess I might roll back the update for one more test, if I can.
Scholar
#85 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 6:57 PM
Rolled the test PC BACK to 1703. Game is working again.

Not much else I can try.
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#86 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 8:04 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
I find it interesting that the windows updates don't affect everyone, though - I am perfectly fine with 1709.


I think you said you have Win 10, not Win 10 pro? Is that right? I have Win 10 pro, maybe that makes a difference? It is interesting. I am so very jealous.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#87 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 8:04 PM
@gwynne

Using Windows 10, version 1709.
specs: Intel (R) core (TM) i5-4460 CPU3.20GHz; 3.20GHz
RAM - 8.00GB
64 bit OS; x64processor
Nvidia Card GTX650

Yes, I use the latest update from Origin (and the no CD patch and the 4GB patch)
First installed UC on Windows 7; then on Windows 10 (all steps I took are in the article in my signature).
Scholar
#88 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 8:07 PM
Quote: Originally posted by CatOfEvilGenius
I think you said you have Win 10, not Win 10 pro? Is that right? I have Win 10 pro, maybe that makes a difference? It is interesting. I am so very jealous.


Ah, interesting catch. All my broken test machines have been Windows 10 64bit/Pro.

My desktop at home that has no problems has the following config:

--Installed via UC (I think!) but definitely not updated if so
--Windows 10 Home (not pro)
--NVIDIA GTX 970 (so not 10 series)
--Windows 1709
Mad Poster
#89 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 8:31 PM
Yes - sorry, Windows 10 Home (why should that make a difference? Pro should be better)!
I should add that the article in my signature probably needs some updating; since the repair option does not put back everything any longer and I don't need the black box mod (or to turn shadows off) anymore. Still have the exact same hardware, though.
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#90 Old 22nd Jan 2018 at 9:07 PM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 23rd Jan 2018 at 12:10 AM.
I have Win 10 pro 1709 so we may be on to something!

@Justpetro - So many of my expectations have been confounded in this thread that I've lost count!

I have acquired some 1703 install media. Not sure yet if I can just rollback and how much I would lose. My understanding is a rollback would lose any apps, data, registry entries made after the restore point, yes? And an OS reinstall from media would reformat my drive, so says the helpful man from the computer store whose media I'm borrowing. Before I go doing such drastic things, I think I'll experiment with older versions of the nvidia driver, like the one before 390.65 and also the oldest one I can still get from nvidia, 37x something, and some in between.

@gwynne - I think you already experimented with older nvidia drivers on Win 10 pro 1709, yes? I can't remember where that was in the threads now, long threads are long.

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

I found old nvidia drivers at guru3d, the makers of DDU, the driver uninstaller. You can't get these from the official nvidia site anymore.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-categor...ista-%7C-7.html

Going to try some of the old ones and see if that helps before I try rolling back Windows.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Lab Assistant
#91 Old 23rd Jan 2018 at 1:23 PM Last edited by Jules1111 : 23rd Jan 2018 at 1:54 PM.
I find it odd that it will work on Windows 10 home, but not on pro. I thought pro just gave you extra features, I couldn't imagine the program would be that different. Which means it is either a Windows thing, or a Origin thing. EA didn't do that much with the update. Removed Securom, tied it to Origin, and I think they fixed the black boxes because a lot of people that updated said they no longer need the mod for it. Of course their patch notes say absolutely nothing, so they are of no help.

Edit: Could it be Windows 10 pro drivers that didn't install correctly?
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#92 Old 23rd Jan 2018 at 2:45 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Jules1111
I find it odd that it will work on Windows 10 home, but not on pro. I thought pro just gave you extra features, I couldn't imagine the program would be that different. Which means it is either a Windows thing, or a Origin thing. EA didn't do that much with the update. Removed Securom, tied it to Origin, and I think they fixed the black boxes because a lot of people that updated said they no longer need the mod for it. Of course their patch notes say absolutely nothing, so they are of no help.

Edit: Could it be Windows 10 pro drivers that didn't install correctly?


Kiri said something about Windows messing with the drivers. I did get better performance (took much longer to crash) when I did a manual clean install of the graphics driver. Did not change driver versions, just uninstalled with DDU, reinstalled it myself (custom, clean install). Maybe the patches for home and pro were different and the pro patch borked things more? I have no idea.

Going to try a driver from a year ago, got it from guru3d's archives since it is no longer on the nvidia site. It is probably a Win or Origin issue so I'm not optimistic but trying for science!

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#93 Old 23rd Jan 2018 at 3:14 PM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 23rd Jan 2018 at 3:56 PM.
Tried an nvidia driver from a year ago, 376.60. Did not help, same behavior, game crashes after playing for a few minutes on a community lot. No difference between driver 390.65 (current) and the one from a year ago.

I have submitted a report to Origin, 0d48e1e9a000c5e7, making a note for myself in case they get back to me. Will also go poke Microsoft. Where in the EA forums would I submit an error report? Do they even read the Sims 2 forums anymore? Maybe I'll go bother nvidia too. *sigh*

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

I talked with an EA tech support guy on the phone. He said always launch the game from Origin, not from a desktop shortcut. It actually crashes faster when I do it that way. He also said to change the Origin desktop shortcut, make it run in compatibility mode for XP sp 2 and as admin. Ok, did that. Same thing I had done for the Sims2EP9.exe shortcut earlier but whatevs. He said they don't recommend making desktop shortcuts directly to the game executables, ok. Launching directly from Origin does not help.

Next, he wants me to try making a brand new admin account, installing Origin and UC on that account, and trying there. He thinks maybe some registry keys got mucked up. I don't understand why I can't just uninstall and reinstall Origin on the account I'm already using. He says I would lose game progress or something. That's fine, I didn't have any progress I care about keeping anyway.

I told him we tested UC on Win 10 1709 and Win 10 1703 but he seems convinced that reinstalling it on another account will help. I'll try it, for science. I want it to work on *my* account but let's try, for science.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Mad Poster
#94 Old 23rd Jan 2018 at 3:51 PM
Hi, Cat, (tips hat to you for working so hard )

You said that the vanilla game (while in that 800X600 stuck resolution) also loads and then crashes. So imo the crashing is not caused by the graphic settings (because it should run in 800X600 without crashing) and if you spend the rest of the year changing graphics and graphic drivers, it will probably still crash. (If the graphic settings are wrong, the game should look weird imo, not crash).

The reasons for crashing in my case is normally either custom content (I am stupid sometimes and put meshes in that should not be there, and there was a cc kitchen counter once) - or - more likely in my case - the game runs out of memory (before I got 8 RAM and before I got the 4GB patch I have never had the game crashed due to anything else (not starting at all, yes, a (vanilla) hood vanishing due to corruption, yes, pink flashing once in a while which needs the thumbnails to be deleted, yes, me forgetting to add the Smarter EP Check and the sims can't fish, yes). But not crashing.

So I have to wonder if the drivers/updates contribute to the crashing at all. Perhaps there is another setting that needs to be changed.
Lab Assistant
#95 Old 23rd Jan 2018 at 4:53 PM
@CatOfEvilGenious Ya the moderators still read the Sims 2 section. Trust me. I saw your post and tagged a moderator asking if they could get someone to look into the issue. Also I would take whatever EA help said with a grain of salt. They know NOTHING about Sims 2, and usually have people go through hoops doing some of the most ridiculous things to get there game to work. When they fail they tell them to check the forums. I actually saw one person on there with this giant laundry list of things they did that EA help requested. All they needed to do was delete their cache files..

I meant the Windows drivers themselves, not the graphic card files. I read the Windows drivers can sometimes become corrupted when downloading and installing. There is a repair tool here: http://www.pcanswers.org/pcfixer/lp...00509280d298531 Note I have never used it, never had a need.
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#96 Old 23rd Jan 2018 at 5:15 PM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 24th Jan 2018 at 8:46 PM.
Before I try making a new admin account, which I seriously doubt will help, here's more stuff I'm trying in my account

* do NOT install nvidia audio drivers - did DDU uninstall, clean install of nvidia drivers 390.65, but without GeForce Experience and no HD audio driver
RESULT: sound works fine, game sound works fine, game still CRASHES on community lots, maybe faster than before? I'll probably reinstall the sound drivers later.

* will try step 5: disable Windows driver verification, from the page below (usually a bad idea but they broke my game)
https://www.drivethelife.com/window...ors-update.html
RESULT - ***NOT*** going to do this. Don't need it to manually install nvidia drivers, they are properly signed. Don't want/need any drivers that are not properly signed. Seems like a needless unnecessary risk.

* will try step 6: fix driver issues with driver talent, again from the page linked above
RESULT - Tried DriverTalent, SpeedyFixer, CCleaner. All require money to fix stuff (scan for free). They mostly recommend 'updating' with old drivers that are a few versions behind. I can update my drivers myself for free, just go to nvidia or realtek or wherever, or turn Windows driver update back on once Windows unborks whatever they borked in update 1709. I currently have Windows auto driver update OFF since driver installation is borked in 1709.

* will try the tool Jules1111 suggested - SpeedyFixer
http://www.pcanswers.org/pcfixer/lp...00509280d298531
RESULT - Got SpeedyFixer. Kind of wary of it. Costs money to get it to fix things and it's a yearly subscription (I'm canceling it).
Hung while doing Windows updates which I can do for free. Seems powerful and does a lot of things but also ate some of my desktop icons,
claiming they were unused, the English is misspelled, and the driver updates it recommended looked out of date compared to ones I have.
Going to try CCleaner instead.

Here's Microsoft admitting they borked lots of games with update 1709
https://www.neowin.net/news/microso...creators-update

And here's instructions for rolling back to Windows 10 update 1703 like gwynne did (but I can't)
This is drastic, you will lose some files you made after the update. It is temporary because Windows will eventually force an update back to 1709
https://www.drivethelife.com/window...windows-10.html

@Jules1111 - thanks for tagging! :D

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#97 Old 24th Jan 2018 at 1:12 AM
@Jules1111 - Did you mean SpeedyFixer? I tried that. Did the scan and fix, then thought might as well look for Windows updates, which I can do from Edge but the tool's open so I go for it. Now that tool appears to be hung and I don't know if it's in the middle of an update or what. :/ Was worth a look but I'm not recommending it right now. Costs money too.

Please spay or neuter your pets. --- Cat Music Video! --- my meshes
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#98 Old 24th Jan 2018 at 1:56 AM
Yeah, EA tech support are about as useful as a glass door on a dunny.

This tech stuff is beyond me but I am keeping a close eye on the thread as I will be getting a big upgrade myself soon. *worried twitch*

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Lab Assistant
#99 Old 24th Jan 2018 at 4:41 AM
Quote: Originally posted by CatOfEvilGenius
@Jules1111 - Did you mean SpeedyFixer? I tried that. Did the scan and fix, then thought might as well look for Windows updates, which I can do from Edge but the tool's open so I go for it. Now that tool appears to be hung and I don't know if it's in the middle of an update or what. :/ Was worth a look but I'm not recommending it right now. Costs money too.


Ah sorry, that just came up when I searched when I heard about driver errors. If I knew it cost money I would have never have linked it. Sorry about that. I hope it didn't mess anything up for you.
Not actually evil.
Original Poster
#100 Old 24th Jan 2018 at 8:03 PM Last edited by CatOfEvilGenius : 24th Jan 2018 at 9:33 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Jules1111
Ah sorry, that just came up when I searched when I heard about driver errors. If I knew it cost money I would have never have linked it. Sorry about that. I hope it didn't mess anything up for you.
No worries, I'm glad you found it and linked, just irked at them for charging money and the poor English translation. I don't think it broke anything but I suspect it hasn't been thoroughly updated for the latest Windows 10. Or the latest Windows 10 broke it, who knows. I have had more luck with CCleaner. I don't think CCleaner helped the game any but it also didn't hang. I think you all are right that it's not a driver issue (1709 borks drivers but we can reinstall them). It's something else in 1709 that we can't undo or get around, maybe? I'll keep banging my head on this wall for now, I'm stubborn like that. Will let you know what else fails to fix the game.

[edit] Not recommending either CCleaner nor SpeedyFixer. They claim to do driver updates but they are telling me to get old drivers. Both their recommendations for my Realtek audio driver and my NVidia driver a several versions behind the current release.
[edit2] Not recommending DriverTalent either, its driver recommendations are old. Maybe that's deliberate but maybe they're just out of date.

Best for me has been manually uninstalling drivers (graphics driver using guru3d DDU to uninstall), then manually installing them myself.

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

Tech folks, double check me here. If the problem were missing DLLs (I don't think it is), the game wouldn't even launch and I would get an error message about missing DLLs, right? If it were a missing redistributable, like .net or msvc++, again I'd get an error about a missing dll. I'm not getting any errors about missing dynamic link libraries. Game runs, just crashes after several minutes of play in a community lot. Trying to rule out stuff. Some web pages recommend using DriverTalent or other multitools to get missing dlls but I don't think that's the issue for Sims UC.

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

@gwynne - As an IT person, what do you think of utilities like CCleaner, EaseUS, DriverTalent, SpeedyFixer, etc.? They're for checking drivers, 'fixing' the registry, cleaning up junk files (stuff in temp, old browser chaches), downloading missing dll's, etc. Are they worth the money or not? Are some of them shady? DriverTalent seemed maybe shady to me. I think it's Chinese and it recommends using their tool to install unsigned drivers. Yes, they say that's risky and such drivers can contain malware, that warning doesn't make them look any less shady to me. Also, all these tools claim to be free, then only do scans for free. At least SpeedyFixer admits as much. I get paying for convenience, that's fine. But then it turns out to be old drivers from their driver libraries (which may or may not have malware in them). They have options for installing MSVC redist files, .net redist files, old versions which you may need for old games, but if you get the games from GoG, Steam, or Origin, they should already have come with whatever redistributables are needed. I'm digressing here since I don't think missing redist files are the problem with UC. I'm just curious if I made my machine vulnerable getting some of these tools. I plan to uninstall them.

Next up, mess with NVidia panel and lower graphics settings. Maybe turn off shaders? Turn down quality?

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