Graphical Weirdness in both neighborhood Screen and on lots...

[unicorngurl]

Last night I recently began having a rather odd issue with the graphics in my games. When I enter neighborhood screen or lots, the graphics "flash" in and out for lack of a better term, and also become weirdly pixelated.  In the neighborhood screen they will look ok until I move the camera or the mouse, after that they flicker in and out between being correct and pixelated with evey mouse or camera move. The same thing happens on lots.
Here are some pictures that hopefully clarify what is going on.  I apologize for the size, but any smaller and the issue is hard to see.  In the second picture the glitch is hard to make out, but the whole lot is basically as pixelated and flashy as Pascal's head. 

 
This just started last night totally out of the blue.  I had the issue once before while running a screen capture program at the same time as Sims 2, when I removed it the issue resolved, and it didn't happen every time, only once in a while.  As of now I am not running anything besides Sims 2, and have closed all background tasks before running, even my antivirus program.  I've also tried it with and without Gunmods camera mod, which I've had forever, and with and without his lighting mod.  Have loaded the game with and without all my custom content as well makes no difference.  I thought it may have been an overheating issue, so I tried again this morning, after leaving the computer off all night, still no luck.   

My graphics card is an Nvidia GEforce 7300  ( I know the evil, but the computer was all I could afford, and until now I've had no issues, no bluscreen of doom nothing) I am also running Windows Vista.   Prior to the graphics glitches I had done nothing, hadn't installed any new graphics drivers or expansions.  The only thing I did was restore Strangetown to my neighborhoods from the backup in the game files.  Last night after the graphics weirdness I updated my drivers, but not a thing changed.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.   Sorry the post was longwinded, but I figured the more details the more likely someone would have some idea what went wrong.  Thanks again for reading.

[B]

If you temporarily clear your downloads folder and start a new hood does the corruption still appear?

[unicorngurl]

Update... it's the Strangetown that doing it....    I don't know why or how, but when I copy it in my graphics go broken, but when I take it out they fix.  I've always restarted the original Maxis hoods this way and never had this problem.  I did it by going to Programfiles/EAGames/TheSims2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods, and copying and pasting the N002 from there.  Is there a different way I should go about this from now on, or could it have become corrupted somehow?  Is there somewhere else there is a working clean copy that is awesome and doesn't suck? Now I'm even more confused, but at least I can play my custom neighborhood.
 
Edit:  I also tried it getting a new copy of the N002 file from my husbands computer as he has his own copies of all the games, and I thought maybe he'd have a better working one.  That didn't work either... I guess my graphics card just hates Strangetown?

[B]

I've always restarted the original Maxis hoods this way and never had this problem.  I did it by going to Programfiles/EAGames/TheSims2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods, and copying and pasting the N002 from there.  Is there a different way I should go about this from now on, or could it have become corrupted somehow? 

I generally just delete the neighborhood I wish to restart from my user folder, and the game recreates it the next time I load. 

If you copied the hood properly, and assuming your problem can indeed be traced to Strangetown, something happened to the N002 directory you mention above.  A reinstallation is probably the simplest fix.  For future reference, it's generally a good idea to set all files in the Program Files\EA Games\whatever to "Read Only" so nothing gets screwed up by accident. 

It also occurs to me that you might be able to find the N002 files on your cd.  If not, I would be willing to help you acquire my mint copy of Strangetown. 

[unicorngurl]

Thanks I'll check the CD later tonight, before I try a 2 hour reinstall lol.  I'll let you know if it works out. Thanks for all the help!!

[Zeljka]

um, I never play the default hoods (long deleted) and the only time they regenerate is if I remove the entire EA Games folder from My Documents (I put it on my Desktop) then start the game.
A whole 'fresh' game folder will be generated, (including the default hoods) without reinstalling.

Turn the game off, replace what you need from your Desktop Sims folders and there you are...

[flowerchile]

I had the exact same problem with my game after installing seasons, but I was using the Riverblossom Hills hood.  I have an Nvidia GEFORCE GO 7400 graphics card, which seemed to be on the doomed list.  I reinstalled my game and also started another user account.  So I had 2 vanilla games.  I deleted my entire downloads folder, (a bit drastic), and played the vanilla game for a while.  No problems.  I then started over with the CC, and slowly added things, playing every so often to see if I could pinpoint any particular item, which I couldn't.  Since then (aside from totally fucking up my game a couple of weeks back), I've had no problems, whatsoever.  Pretty well along the lines of what others have advised, so I hope that something helped 

[unicorngurl]

Well I tried it with my Strangetown neighborhood folder which is the original one that was added when he installed the sims.  It works fine in his game and hasn't even been played except when I tested.  And that also broke my graphics.  I also remembered when i was setting up my Victorian hood I couldn't use certain custom neighborhood terrains, because they made my graphics card go nuts, not in this same way, but still odd all the same.  So I've decided since I'd rather not pull my generations in neighborhood to my desktop and my CC as well and reinstall, since it works perfectly right now and who knows what issues my crappy card will have on next install that might break that.  I found bodyshop memoryless clones of all the strange town sims, so I think I'll just make a new neighborhood for them, fix them with SimPE to some semblance of their old relationships, and have a pseudo Strangetown.  Of course I am going to back up my current custom hood before I do this, just in case.  And if I ever do reinstall I'll make sure to mark all the files I need to read only. Just in case they did get corrupted somehow.  Thanks everyone for your advice, especially Flowerchile, for confirming what I thought which is that no matter what Nvidia card you get it seems to make your game do all sorts of odd random weirdness, so I know I'm not crazy.

[B]

Thanks everyone for your advice, especially Flowerchile, for confirming what I thought which is that no matter what Nvidia card you get it seems to make your game do all sorts of odd random weirdness, so I know I'm not crazy.

Not entirely true.  My 8800 has been fine running S2 under Vista with current drivers, although most people will correctly point out that an 8800 is a bit much. 

[unicorngurl]

Ok lol maybe I overgeneralized.     Both this one and my old one did it though and I've seen lots of posts about them messing up oddly, as well as people here not recomending you get one if you build a computer for sims.  Maybe they are finally fixing some of the issues with the newer ones.  That would be nice, as they seem to be all thats ever in the lowwer end premade computers available in my area, so I always end up without much of a choice in my price range.   So maybe they aren't bad but at least I still feel less crazy of like my game is having comre critical meltdown lol.

[B]

Oh don't get me wrong, low end Nvidia GPUs are generally crappy, whereas ATI tends to make fairly decent cheap cards.  The higher end cards are generally alright, although I'm having some issues getting SLI working in Vista. 

Just some unsolicited advice, next time you are buying a premade computer, select the integrated graphics option and install a decent midrange (or even high end) card after you receive it.  Dell, HP and the rest make a killing charging consumers hundreds of dollars extra for bargain cards.  Plus, the manufacturer warrenty you get from a company like XFX, EVGA or Saphire is much better than the standard system builder deal.

[phyllis_p]

I have an Nvidia card in the 6000-series (sorry, I forget the number) and was experiencing occasional graphical corruption (not like yours -- more of a shredding or pixelating of the images) and BSOD (blue screen of death).  Been running the new beta drivers for a little over a week and have had zero problems during that time -- a nice change.

Unfortunately, the beta drivers are for XP only.  I think I read somewhere that they're still working on new drivers for cards on Vista machines.  (The new drivers also don't work for laptops).

Thought I'd share that in case it would help anyone following this thread.

[B]

Unfortunately, the beta drivers are for XP only.  I think I read somewhere that they're still working on new drivers for cards on Vista machines.  (The new drivers also don't work for laptops).

The Vista drivers (both 32 bit and 64 bit) came out a few days after the XP drivers.  They are available for download on this page.  I've been running them since they were published without issue.

[phyllis_p]

Unfortunately, the beta drivers are for XP only.  I think I read somewhere that they're still working on new drivers for cards on Vista machines.  (The new drivers also don't work for laptops).

The Vista drivers (both 32 bit and 64 bit) came out a few days after the XP drivers.  They are available for download on this page.  I've been running them since they were published without issue.

Oh!  I didn't know that.  Last time I'd visited MaxoidSam's thread about it on the BBS, the Vista drivers weren't out yet.  Thanks for putting a new wrinkle in my brain