The GeForce GO video controller indicates this is a laptop. Therefore, your display is an LCD. Unlike CRTs, LCDs have only one optimal resolution, because the screen is made up of discrete physical elements—an LCD with a "native" resolution of 1024x768 is composed of a grid of 768 rows in 1024 columns. Going to a lower resolution (larger image size) requires the monitor's circuitry to modify the display image sent from the video controller in order to make it fit the 1024x768 array. The upshot is that LCDs set to non-native resolutions always look like crap, and you lose the LCD's inherent sharpness advantage.

In other words, if your LCD is designed for 1024x768, that's what you should run it at. If it's designed for 1280x1024, that's what you should run it at, even if everything looks too small at first.

We're assuming you have on-board video, but you may not. The idea is to be sure to disable it if you have it. It should be labeled something like "on-board graphics" or "integrated graphics". I don't have a motherboard here with integrated graphics so I don't have any documentation handy to use as an example. If you tell us the model number of your PC, perhaps we can look in the user manual.

Without getting technical, suffice it to say that your motherboard will want to know whether your video card goes in a PCI slot on an AGP slot. It sounds like you need to change the setting to AGP if you have an AGP board installed. Selecting a current HP model with integrated graphics, I found this screen capture:



Here you can see the entry where you select the type of graphics controller you have. In this example, we know the machine has on-board video because of the entry for Onboard Video Memory Size. The first thing to try would be to change the Primary Video Adapter type to AGP to see if the memory settings go gray (for disabled). If not, we would then check for sections or tabs with labels such as PCI, PCI Devices, or I/O Devices to see if there is a setting specifically for disabling the on-board video.

In this screen we also see the entry for the AC97 on-board audio. If you do not have a separate, plug-in sound card like a Sound Blaster, then you need to keep this enabled, otherwise you can disable it. The Auto setting causes the motherboard to disable the on-board audio automatically if a sound card is detected, but it doesn't hurt to be extra-safe.

If the rest of the PC is fairly old (more than 12-18 months) you may have some difficulty finding a PSU that has the proper connector for your motherboard. For some years the standard was a 20-pin connector, but now all the new motherboards and PSUs come with a 24-pin connector (in addition the 4-pin connector that powers the CPU). So you may need to shop around to find a suitable unit (I'm in the same position myself, actually).

As someone mentioned, it isn't just watts; the amps are important also. I've read recently that you need an absolute minimum of 17 amps on the +3.3v rail, and realistically you should be looking for a minimum of 25~30 amps on the +3.3v line and 30~40 amps on the +5v and +12v lines (excuse me if my EE terminology isn't correct).

Also, try to get something with an efficiency rating of at least 70% at 100% load, and with voltage regulation no worse than 5% on the +3.3v, +5v, and +12v rails, and no worse than 10% on -5v and -12v—3% and 5% would be preferable. In essence, you're looking for something like this or better:

Efficiency:   74%
Output:
+5V @ 32A
+12V @ 26A
-12V @ 0.8A
+3.3V @ 28A
+5VSB @ 2A
continuous = 470W / peak = 520W
Regulation:    5% (+3.3, +5, +12) / 10% (-12)
Ripple:    1% (p-p)
Hold Time:    16ms
PG Delay:    300ms
Silencer 470 ATX

Companies that have been putting out good-quality units recently include, Cooler Master, Silverstone, and PC Power & Cooling. The Antec units are popular but have disappointing specs and some users report premature failure, so I would look elsewhere. You can compare specifications and user experiences at Newegg.com.

NOTE:  If this is a Dell PC, there is a good possibility you won't be able to use an off-the-shelf replacement power supply, because Dell motherboards often have non-standard pin-outs on the motherboard connector. PC Power & Cooling offers PSUs specifically for Dell PCs.

Spontaneous reboots are usually (although not always) the result of power-supply problems. If your PC is four years old and came with a standard no-name low grade power supply, it may be that you're not getting enough clean power to your components. It would surprise me some if the new hard drive alone was drawing so much more power to make this manifest, but odder things have happened.

At the least, I would open up the case and make sure all the power connections are tight, including the ones to the motherboard.

If your motherboard has an on-board graphics controller, you need to disable it in the BIOS. You do this by entering Setup as soon as the machine powers up (if Windows begins to load, you've gone too far). Each motherboard vendor uses a different key to get into the BIOS setup, but the common ones are F1, F2, and DEL. The text that appears on the screen when you you first power up tells you what key it is, but on newer machines this can go by pretty fast. (If you are quick, you can use the Pause key to freeze the start-up screen. Press any key to resume.) The user manual for your motherboard should tell you the key, and also show a screen capture of the Setup page where you disable on-board devices like graphics controllers and sound devices. If you don't have the manual, you should be able to download one from the manufacturer's Web site. If you don't know the manufacturer, you can find out using a free tool like CPU-Z.

Typically, the on-board graphics controller is disabled in the BIOS section called Integrated Peripherals or something similar, but you will need to look around your particular BIOS to find the video settings. You navigate the selections with the Up and Down arrow keys, and make your selection with the enter key. To change a value you use the arrow or Page UP/Page Down keys (but you may need to experiment to see how to change setting in your particular BIOS). Escape moves back up through the screens to the top level. After making your changes, be sure to Save Changes and Exit.

If you are using an plug-in sound card like a Sound Blaster, you can disable the onboard audio while you're in there (look for AC97 audio).

You can tell if your motherboard has on-board graphics by looking at the I/O cluster at the back of the case. If there's a video connector there along with the parallel, audio, and USB ports, then you have on-board video that needs to be disabled.

Also, it may be that you need to completely remove the driver files for the FX5200 before installing the drivers for the 7600. The last I checked, nVidia didn't offer a driver-removal tool, but you can get one here. Stray driver files can cause video problems.

Just to provide some perspective, there probably isn't an IDE or SATA drive on the market as loud as your typical SCSI server drive, and I've got three 10K RPM SCSI drives in my PC. They run warm (I have a drive-bay fan) and they are comparatively loud, even at idle, but they are fast, faster than any IDE drive and, even though they are older models, faster than most if not all SATA drives. The speed advantage is more clear when more than one drive is being accessed at the same time, as the SCSI bus was designed for concurrent I/O, which the IDE/ATA bus was not.

That said, the next machine will use SATA drives, which eliminate most of the deficiencies of IDE and incorporate most of the advantages of SCSI but with lower power consumption, heat, and noise, and significantly lower prices per gigabyte. I built the core of this current machine in 1999, but while there is not a single original part other than the IBM keyboard, its transformation over time was such that sticking with the SCSI was the most cost-effective solution at those points where decisions had to be made.

For what it's worth, if I were building a new machine today, I would still opt for three hard drives. Assuming money wasn't an issue, I would choose a 10K Raptor for the boot drive and a couple mid-sized (~200-300 gig) 7200-RPM drives for apps and storage. This has to do with my particular needs. I like to keep the Windows paging file on a physical drive different from the boot drive for the small performance gain this provides. I also like to keep my applications on a separate drive from the OS for housekeeping purposes, and so that nuking the boot drive doesn't wipe all the app data (even though the apps need to be reinstalled after a clean OS install); also, there may be a slight (if imperceptible) performance gain by loading apps from a separate drive, because most apps also access files on the Windows drive when starting up. Finally, Photoshop prefers its "scratch file" to be on a physical drive different from the one that holds the Windows paging file.

I generally use the D: drive for apps and the Photoshop scratch file, and the E: drive for the paging file and file storage (docs, images, email and temp directories, download archives, etc.). I wouldn't fool around with RAID configurations—the real-world performance gains provided by some configurations aren't significant enough to offset the potential downsides (i.e., a single drive failure takes out your installation and all your data).

For most everything you may want to know about hard drives, check out The Storage Review.

 

Perhaps this is not the most efficient way to do this (shhh - don't tell Reggikko!), but this afternoon I cloned all the Maxis beds with the Object Workshop, then extracted all the BCONs for each bed (how convenient that when you extract them as a group, Object Workshop places them in their own folder, which can be renamed to indicate the bed—I named mine according to size and cost). I then opened each custom object I wanted to modify and replaced the BCONs one by one. I don't know if you can replace them all at once the way you can extract them, but I didn't want to take the risk. This should work, right??

It would probably be faster to edit the values directly, but I am not confident I know the values to insert to get the result I want. However, importing the BCONs from the Maxis objects limits the variety I can have in the custom objects, for which in some cases I would like to have values slightly different from the Maxis values for that particular price level. I did try getting individual replacement BCONs from Maxis beds in a different price category, but it seems that at best this would affect the environment score (assuming this is related to Room Impact) since energy and comfort are both in the Sleep BCON. Then there is the separate Environment BCON that some beds have, for which I could not find any explanation. I tried adding this to a couple of the custom beds, but was wary of the -10 decimal value (I don't want to have a lower score!) so I ended up deleting that entry. 

Thanks to the automatic backup feature in SimPE, it was easy to locate all the files that needed to be changed by searching my Downloads folder for *.bak files, copying them to a central location, and giving them back their .package extension en masse from the command line.   

UPDATE:

I finished updating all the chairs and sofas I wanted to change. In the process I noticed a spelling error in the Tuning - Lounge BCON for the Studio Bakonmi Deluxe Loveseat (Sofa - Modern - Loft):  Lounge is spelled Lounte. I don't know how the game references these BCONs internally, but if it does so using the text string that appears in SimPE, I imagine this error could cause a problem. However, I'm guessing that the game references BCON values in some other manner.   

WAH!   

Last night I spent several hours "fixing" a large number of custom beds, chairs, and sofas.   

You can start with the Grand Trianon set at MTS2. Everything seems maxed out, at bargain-basement prices.

To me, it's easier to just open the object in SimPE and change the values in the Object Data section. Properties like Energy are in the Motives section, and cost in in the Money(?) section.Be sure to change the value display to decimal before changing any numbers. Make your changes, Commit, Save, and you're done.

The screen capture looks like crap because Photobucket resizes images, but you can see what you need.

Hey, thanks. It probably is a version-compatibility problem with Pets (which I do not have).

UPDATE:

My game loads with no problems with this new version, and the object appears as it should. Although there are the usual audio errors in the error logs, those "listed twice in category property set" entries have not reappeared since I removed the original Pets version of the  jukebox.



The Xvid would be needed for the video for the custom games. Xvid is an open-source alternative to DivX.

Oh, cool!   

Ah! Doh!!   

Do we know if anyone has made actual face replacements yet with with templates?

When I remove the jukebox, the game loads without a problem. The attached file shows all error-log entries up to the point where the game load fails. I'm pretty sure the last error is part of this, although it may be from the next time I loaded the game (I deleted all the stuff that came after that, since it wasn't part of the original report). It would be nice if the logging routine inserted date and time breaks when it appends new errors to an existing file.

Also appended is the corresponding AudioErrors log, which is time-stamped.

[attachment deleted by admin]

Just a note to mention that this object causes my game to hang on loading. I have EPs through OFB, no crap packs.

The error log indicates the problem occurs in the Music Manager:

.\source\TSAudioResourceManager.cpp(933)
ERROR TSAudioMusic     : Music category (Buy) listed twice in category property set.

.\source\TSAudioMusicManager.cpp(1649)
ERROR TSAudioMusic     : Music category (Build) listed twice in category property set.
.\source\TSAudioMusicManager.cpp(1649)
ERROR TSAudioMusic     : Music category (CAS) listed twice in category property set.
etcetera.

I know that audio-error reports are standard for the game, but these are the last entries in the log file before the game hangs.

Okay, this is potentially a "doh!"-type question, but—are the adult facefile files in this set intended to replace the ones for the same templates made by AllenABQ or anyone else (AllenABQ_facefile_adultfemale21-cper.package, etc.)? I ask this because his facefile files are three times larger than these, and the (for example) amArchCper_tslocator_gdmc contains a lot of data in the Model Section in Allen's version, whereas this version has nothing in that section.

Maybe I'm way off base here, but then, that's what questions are for!   

I've made a small addition to my original post.   

No. But a defective motherboard could lead to the premature failure of other components. So could a defective or failing power supply, or one that is really cheap and so has very poor voltage regulation.

Hey, thanks for all the suggestions. I've found more than enough for my purposes . . . in fact, I found enough interesting stuff that I may need to recast my "project."


Yes, this is pretty interesting, especially for someone with my background. It is particularly sobering to be reminded in such a graphic way of what life was like for people who had to work. But I know you like the site because of the Flying Cat:




 

Strictly speaking, the video card or video board is a "graphics controller" or "display adapter." It can be a separate component—an actual video board you plug into a slot on the motherboard—or it can be incorporated in the motherboard's chipset, which controls the functions of the devices on the motherboard, including the CPU, RAM, PCI and AGP slots, and I/O ports (serial, parallel, IDE, SATA, etc.). "Integrated graphics" refers to a graphics controller integrated into the chipset.

Regardless of the way graphics is implemented on your computer, you need to have driver software installed to see anything on your screen. The driver passes instructions from your software to your graphics controller. In Windows, if you don't install the manufacturer's driver, Windows will use its built-in generic VGA driver, so you will have a display image. However, your control over the display will be limited, and the advanced features of your graphics controller will not be available. When you install the specific drivers for your graphics controller, most of its features will now be available to applications, and some of its user-adjustable driver settings will be available under the Advanced button on the Settings tab of the Display Properties dialogue box (this is for Windows). However, in order to have full access to the controller's features, you need to install the control software from the manufacturer in addition to the bare drivers. ATi calls their control software either the Control Panel (for driver releases through 5.11) or Catalyst Control Center (CCC - for versions since 5.1).

CCC requires .NET Framework to be installed, and runs in the background, needlessly using system resources. Early versions were reported to be buggy, but that no longer seems to be a problem. Nonetheless, for most people, having CCC installed and running is needless overkill when they make few if any changes to their driver settings once their controller is installed and configured. Although ATi states that the old Control Panel is not supported in Catalyst versions after 5.11, I continue to use the 5.11 version of Control Panel with more recent versions of the ATi drivers with no problems (currently I'm on Catalyst 7.1, from January 2007). Note that if you have a recent ATi board (X1xxx series or newer) that supports overclocking from within ATi's driver, you need to use CCC instead of the Control Panel if you want to overclock your ATi display adapter (they call it a "graphics accelerator"). I suspect the Control Panel will not work under Vista.

Catalyst 7.2 includes an overhauled version of CCC which offers "significant performance gains," a substantial reduction in start-up time, and improved "overall responsiveness"; "reduced system resource usage"; "new 3D preview which significantly improves the ability for users to understand the benefits of enabling" the various features available in the driver; and "increased stability." Note that subsequent releases fixed many of the problems introduced in this version.   

Catalyst 7.4 improves OpenGL performance for X1xxx boards.

Catalyst 7.5:  More OpenGL improvements, and DirectX 10 support for ATi's new HD line.

Catalyst 7.6:  Assorted fixes.

Catalyst 7.7:  Current. New AVIVO features, some performance improvements for the HD boards, and the usual fixes.

ATi releases a new driver set every month. It isn't necessary to upgrade to each new release—while these often fix existing problems, they can introduce new ones. Also, the improvements are usually only for some graphics boards and may not apply to the one you own. Finally, current drivers support ATi boards only as far back as the 9500 series, so if you have an older board you can't use these anyway.

In all cases, be sure to read the release notes before installing any new driver set, especially the "known issues" for your operating system.

ATi seems to no longer have driver sets earlier than Catalyst 6.1 on its Web site, but you can get earlier versions here. This site does not have a separate download for the Control Panel, but this other site has recent official driver sets incorporating the Control Panel (selected releases only)—look for those releases that show CP instead of CCC.

If you happen to have the driver CD for an older ATi board, you can probably get the Control Panel from that.

EDIT:  ATi generally offers files that combine the drivers and the control application, and also separate files for each (in other words, you can get just the drivers or just the control application). The driver-only files are usually in this format:

7-1_xp_dd_40211.exe

where 7-1 is the the release version and xp_dd_ indicates the display drivers for WinXP. The stand-alone Control Panel file is 5-11_xp-2k_cp_27345.exe — note the _cp_ which indicates Control Panel (the stand-alone Catalyst Control Center file has _ccc_ in that position).

nVidia has similar unified-driver packages for its products, with a control-panel app which appears to be called nView. The same cautions remain in effect:  Read the release notes before installing any new driver set. nVidia's release notes are much more slick than are ATi's (nVidia has always been much stronger at marketing), but I was amused to see that the list of problems, fixes, and limitations runs to 42 pages for the current release (162.18, 26 July), compared to ATi's single HTML page. Some of this is due to formatting, but still. . . .   

So, no, you do not need the manufacturer's control application, but having it installed and configuring your display adapter properly will greatly improve your computer's graphics performance. You can find out pretty much anything you need to know about configuring your display adapter here. Just choose Ati Catalyst or nVidia Forceware from the list Quick Links, as appropriate.

I have been looking for clothing that would be appropriate for a period spanning (roughly) the 1920s through the 1940s, in the U.S. I am not necessarily looking for formal or business clothes, but rather the sort of thing folks would wear as everyday "casual" wear (an anachronism for the period in question, I know), in a town or small city—in other words, I'm not looking for flapper dresses or gangster suits, or New York fashion; nor am I looking for Happy Days kitsch. I'm thinking more along the lines of a small-town lawyer, the woman who runs the local grocery, or Flem Snopes.

I have found a few things, but unfortunately the people who have the most talent for clothing meshes and recolors are focused on contemporary fashion and glitz, and I need something more mundane—the sort of thing average, working- and middle-class people would wear on a daily basis. Some things I have found that would be suitable are too clumsily done, or one-dimensional. So any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!   

Glad you like it! I do too.   


Since this was a Maxification of an existing design, I wanted to do as little reconstruction as possible. In the original, in-game design, the upper-level front uses Numenor's window-walls and sliding glass door, so from the street you can't actually see the lateral offset of the lower and upper doors. In that design, the gable would just break up the clean line of the roof, which I prefer to added non-functional appendages (although as I noted in Twooflower's thread, this has been the trend in recent upscale house design in the U.S.). This isn't a Greek Revival design, and, personally, I don't think the gable adds anything, plus you lose a window. Glass and light was one of the primary goals for the original design.

This is one of the best designs in the contest, although the exterior needs a more unified architectural theme (I realize that mixing styles has been a trend in architecture over the past couple decades, but that doesn't mean the results don't look bad).

Unlike a lot of the designs here, you could take this one to an architect and end up with an actual house that was both buildable and livable. However, for gameplay purposes many of the rooms are way too big, especially the bedrooms. If you've ever played the Capp house, you know what a drag it is to have to schedule every sim activity well in advance to allow for the trek from one part of the lot to another. Heh—I had a homeless CAS family in Veronaville (they didn't have enough money to finish construction of their own house) so I moved them in with the Capps, and used the Capp fortune to add a third floor to the mansion. That made for some interesting game play, especially when it was time for work or school.   

Nocollegeobsession. Doesn't quash college-related wants entirely, but makes them more reasonable.

Don't really see the need for business at Uni. I only knew one person myself who ran a (legitimate) business from his dorm room . . . and he never graduated. If they need money, have them perform music for tips, as a group. It's not much different from having a job, except they get fun points for it (which of course is way different from having a job). After all, the point of going to college is to avoid having to get a job.   

In any event, I've been playing in an "almost clean"  neighborhood (the only hacks are actual bug fixes and TJs teen and YA lazy walk fix), and I'm not having any problems with excessive college wants.   

If you mean me, the double wall is actually what happens when you use constrainFloorElevation false and flatten the floor above the basement to cause the foundation to stretch to wall height at the back of your house. They are the inner and outer "walls" of the foundation tiles. I just use wall coverings on the inner surfaces so they look better in the game. And yes, this is where you want the slanted ground tiles to be when you level the basement floor.

Once you have everything leveled and the terrain as you like it, turn constrainFloorElevation back on and take out the foundation tiles where they are exposed and replace them with walls. This lets you install windows and doors (You can see this in the lower left of picture 4). You can only do this a limited number of tiles into the slope of the hill because at a certain point you won't be able to place windows, and if you force them with the move objects cheat, you won't be able to see out anyway (again, see picture 4 for an example).

I am afraid I don't have any more pictures. The neighborhood was the first custom one I made, back in August 2005, and I nuked it a couple weeks ago. I happened to have the pictures I took in the neighborhood stashed in an archive, so I was able to post them.

Here is another house built on similar principles. I chose the other one as an example because the back yard is relatively flat, whereas this lot continues to slope away from the street. This house has been through several versions, so some pics are from a Maxis-only version, and some are from the in-game version.