Tips to run Sims 2 better?

a dreams forever

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... anyways..

I have a 1.3 amd athlon, 384mb sdram, windows xp media center with service pack 2, and a geforce 5200fx.. anyways. i was just wondering what all i can do to tweak my system for it will run sims 2 better. i know i need a better computer but just wondering if theres ANYTHING i can do to help it run just a little. maybe going to admin tools and turning off some things that dont need to be on.. any programs i can download to "optimize" gaming.. if them things even work.. or what...
 
Re: Don't know what forum this will go under but...

Well the minimum system requirements are

* 800 MHz processor
* 256 MB RAM if Windows XP
* 128 MB RAM if Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000
* At least 3.5 gigs of free hard drive space

and the recommended are

* 2.0 GHz processor
* 256 MB RAM if Windows XP
* 128 MB RAM if Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000
* At least 3.5 gigs of free hard drive space

You're slightly over the minimum requirements, your limitation is more or less hardware. More RAM may help as XP should have at least (I think) 512MB, this is when it really starts to run better. Also since you have Media Center edition it will have a bunch of extras that MAY cause a slowdown, I don't have or haven't used Media Center Ed. so I'm not sure 100%.

Another suggestion is to try to cut down on the programs that boot with windows.

You can disable some by going Start>Run, typing msconfig and clicking OK. Next click Startup tab and disable a few by unchecking them. If it causes problems simply go back and recheck them.


EDIT: And you only waited an hour. At least wait a day before bumping or thinking no one has any ideas.
 
Re: Don't know what forum this will go under but...

Yea, if you ask me, only way to really run it better is upgrade..
 
Re: Don't know what forum this will go under but...

Scale some of the effects and features in-game down a little.

That and upgrading are your only options.
 
Re: Don't know what forum this will go under but...

with that setup, scaling down settings wont make much difference, plus then it sucks when your playing the game
 
Re: Don't know what forum this will go under but...

Proc and memory are definitely holding the system back, plus the gfx to a degree, but w/o spending more money, thats the best I can suggest :)

I am all for saving cash :smoker:
 
I've never heard of anything like that before, looks very dodgy to me. It's a bit like trying to upgrade the speed of a car without improving the engine. Maybe it's worth using the free trial of the gamegain thing but I personally wouldn't bother. If you don't have the money to upgrade at the moment I don't really know what else you could do other than keep tweaking stuff. Good luck anyway, let us know if you manage to get any significant improvements.

PS I'm assuming you've tried all the obvious things like lowering the screen resolution on the game, and also turning down the options on your graphics card. If not, then lower the resolution as much as you can bear, and tweak your graphics card settings to be on 'Best performance' and ensure that there is no anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, and vertical sync is set to off. Also make sure you're running recent drivers.
 
gamegain sucks :p

Sims 2 is CPU and RAM hungry - gfx doenst make much difference as long as the hardware supports the required d3d caps.
 

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