I had the same problem prior to BV. My sim had catbeds in the living room, every time she tried to watch tv, it woke the cats up. I ended up moving the catbeds to another room. Apparently EAxis never saw a cat sleep through the sound of a tv or stereo...or like a few my cats, actually watch tv.

I use the shortcut as well to bypass the launcher and disable my DSL connection, it still freezes while loading neighborhoods and has little moments of lag that as I said, I assumed meant the game was trying to phone home.  Oddly enough I had installed Zone Alarm to throw up a firewall to stop it but after I had it installed, TS2 wouldn't load at all so I had to remove it in order to play the game.

Hmmm....I had thought the few seconds lag was due to the new "phone home feature" with BV. It's almost enough to make me uninstall it and I just may, after the "newness" of vacations wears off.

Actually this started happening before I installed BV, so I do not think it has anything to do with the newest EP.

Well I replaced the sound file with the original from the cd and I downloaded and installed the drivers that ZZ is using. While I don'thave glitchy sound now, my monitor is still going to sleep at inopportune moments.

I am considering doing an RMA with the card but in all honesty, I don't think it is the card. I think it is something to do with TS2 because that is the only time it happens. I am out of ideas though. 

Already did that, less then a week after installing the new card.

I don't have a dell, I have an HP. I've already updated the motherboard, the BIOS, chipset, etc., etc.,

ZZ, I am using the newest drivers from Nvidia's website. What version are you using?

edited to add: I can tun the monitor off but when I turn it back on, it remains "asleep"  (I guess)  because it remains black until I restart the whole damned computer

It's just the monitor, the computer continues to run but the monitor shuts off and will not come back on. I end up having to manually turn the pc off because nothing will make the monitor resume.

I have a XFX Nvidia Geforce 7600. B and Hegelian(sorry if I am misspelling that) have been quite helpful with suggestions and ideas and I really thought it had been squared away. The only other thing I could think of was to check the error logs and hence my post regarding the sound.

Thanks for the suggestion, ZZ, but my computer isn't set to hibernate. This only started happening after I installed a new video card last month. After weeks of battle and very helpful suggestions from people on MATY, I thought I had it all sorted out until last night.

I am just totally perplexed about why would it run fine for almost two weeks, multi-hours of gameplay and then just suddenly start doing it again. The only error files I can find are the audio ones so I have no other ideas.

I've been playing for weeks now without any problems when suddenly last night I got the Wonderful Return of the Black Screen followed by the announcement my monitor was going to sleep during the middle of playing .

Looking through the Log files this morning, I see that the "AppErrors" and "AudioErrors" files have been modified at the exact same time as when my game crashed. They are all audio errors, such as "ERROR TSAudio: Failed to initialize sound" and "ERROR,TSAudio,Failed to GetSoundDefinition for sound".

I have noticed for months that the sound in my game can be "glitchy". So, as per my subject line, can sound errors cause the game to crash? And if that is the case, can I simply replace the sound file without having to uninstall and reinstall?

I have all EPS and stuff packs.

Not to hijack your thread but I'm getting the same exact message when I try using my legally bought copy of Game Jackal with my legally bought copy of BV. The only difference is the error code (it's 1000 or 1200, don't remember exactly which). Game Jackal has always worked with every game I've owned up until now. 

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I will confess I did not install the card or the PSU myself. I figured I could handle replacing the card but the PSU, not so much. So I took it to a tech who did both for me. I am ass-u-m-ing that he did it correctly.

I think I must be insane that a video card is causing me this much stress.

So I thought that using the userstartup.cheat file with useshaders set to false had solved my problem but, no. So I looked around in the BIOS again and set the video settings to AGP/Board instead of PCI.

Game seemed to be running fine for the last few days, only problems being that when a walkby/NPC/carpool showed up, there was a momentary freeze. Fairly annoying because even my old FX5200 didn't do that but I could live with it since the game doesn't slow up at all when it rains or snows (very much unlike my old card).

Then last night when saving from a lot to the neighborhood screen, the monitor went blank and announced it was going to sleep. I rebooted the computer, started the game, went back to the lot and found I had lost all the gameplay I had for that lot.

This is my computer: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?lc=en&cc=us&docname=bph05529&dlc=en&product=447041&rule=1949&

I've looked through the manuals and FAQ but I'm not finding anything that is useful for me.

Any other ideas or do you think I should return the card and get some kind of ATI card instead?

Well this seems to have done the trick (crossing fingers).  I played for 2 hours last night after adding a userstartup.cheat file to my game with the above command in it and the game didn't freeze or dissolve into a black screen. Just to be on the safe side, I saved every 20 minutes or so because I was tired of Groundhog's Day gameplay.

Lorelei, it's an HP desktop and I am using the latest drivers from Nvidia's site. I wouldn't have a clue on how to even open my laptop and tinker around.

I do have a few more questions though. I followed Hegelian's directions and poked around in the BIOS last night; what I found was puzzling to me. The graphics card is in an AGP slot but the BIOS was marked PCI instead of AGP/Board...I'm guessing had it been marked AGP/Board, then that's what I would have needed to disable? I guess I am confused as to why since it's an AGP slot would it be marked as PCI? That may be a stupid question but I would really like to understand.

Also, when I quit the game, there is quite a bit of time where the screen goes black and it takes several minutes before it slowly starts booting up my regular desktop. Is that normal? It didn't do that with my old card.

I had one more question, regarding disabling the onboard audio as Hegelian suggested, but I'll be darned if I can remember what it was right now. Something to do with the BIOS being set to auto and if that's what I need to disable....I may have to edit this post if I can remember exactly what it was I wanted to ask. 

I am using the newest drivers from Nvidia's site (ver. 162.18). The cd that came with the card wouldn't even complete installation and I knew enough to know those wouldn't be the latest drivers anyway.

Strangel, I hate to sound like an idiot but could you give me instructions on how to disable the onboard graphics setup?

I found a good deal on a Nvidia 7600 GT so I ordered it, installed it this past Saturday along with a beefed up PSU and downloaded the newest drivers from the Nvidia site.

Now instead of the BSOD I was getting with my old card (FX5200), my game is alternately freezing up the entire computer or the monitor fades to black and announces it's going to sleep. Either way I have to do a hard reboot and lose all the gameplay I had.

Anyone know what may be causing this and how I might be able to fix it? It is seriously, seriously making me cranky.

Okay, I figured it out, I must have needed to sleep on it. I was using Simpe lite...apparently that version must not work for something like this. I uninstalled it and installed the full version of Simpe this morning and it worked on the very first try.

I've been trying this for awhile with no luck. I immediately run into a brick wall with the step I bolded. When I right click the ID Number, Simpe does nothing, no option to extract or anything else. Any ideas? Suggestions?

I did that too and it doesn't show up in my downloads folder either. I don't know where it went since it said it installed.

But...but...I want it NOW! *Stomps foot*

I'm not sure if I should post this here or not but anyway......I've been trying to download windkeeper's collection of OFB buyable craftables on MTS2 and have not been able to (internet explorer cannot find page crap).

I was wondering if anyone here would have that or a similar collection that they would be willing share with me, please?

He and Brandi Broke almost always hit 3 bolts for each other, so I generally marry them off.

Can you tell I restart Pleasantview frequently?

I'm hoping to actually play long enough this time to see how their babies turn out.

New version got rid of the problem.

I bow before your Awesomeness.

Well that's what I was trying to find out, if it means my game is borked. Besides it annoys me.

Downloaded the latest version of the FFSdebugger and installed it. Still having the option to "upgrade pre-uni sim".

Any ideas?