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The Sims 2 Under Windows 98. Freezes during startup


egbertjan

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I have installed the CD version of The Sims 2 on my old Windows 98 Se PC. If I want to start it, it immediately gets stuck on a black screen. At that black screen, it should start with the intro video of ea. Under Windows XP he does it on the same PC. The System Requirements also state that he must be able to do it under Windows 98 SE

This is in my PC

Pentium 3 1400mhz
Video card: Geforce ti 4600 128mb
Memory: 512 MB Memory
Motherboard: Shuttle AV18
Adaptec 29160N SCIS
HDD: ST373455LC
Sound card: Creative soundblaster live 1024

I have Nvidia driver version 45.23 on it. Newer versions unfortunately did not help either. if I put a newer version on it then Anno 1602 and road rash no longer work.

I would like to be able to play this under Windows 98se, because I play more old games on it that do not work well on newer Windows versions than Windows 98 SE. Who knows what goes wrong here?

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If I install Unofficially: Windows 98 SE Service Pack 2.0.3 NL, the Sims 2 will work under Windows 98 SE. I think there is something in that update that is not standard in Windows 98SE or something needs to be updated, but what? I want it Unofficially: Windows 98 SE Service Pack 2.0.3 NL does not have it. It makes my PC unstable and does not let some things work properly

Edited by egbertjan
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Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything related to your hardware/OS. But you can try these:

PROBLEM: Interface panels and buttons may disappear or turn a solid blue color.
CARDS: GeForce 4 series
This is a known bug in some older drivers (before version 6177). Upgrading to the latest manufacturer's drivers will resolve this.

FORCED ANTI-ALIASING: Sims 2 will have graphical problems if anti-aliasing is
  forced on in display properties.  To fix this:
   * Right click on your windows desktop and select Properties.
   * Choose the Settings tab and press the Advanced button.
   * Select the GeForce tab.
   * Select Performance and Quality settings from the left menu.
   * Switch Anti-aliasing settings to Application Controlled.

PROBLEM: Game crashes soon after starting.
Some recent NVIDIA drivers have problems when running when Hyperthreading is enabled on your processor. Try updating your driver first. If this doesn't help, turning off Hyperthreading in your BIOS will workaround this issue. If you have no idea what Hyperthreading or BIOS is, it's probably not worth messing around with this stuff. Contact your video card manufacturer for assistance.

 

Have you tried running it in windowed mode? To do so, create a shortcut of The Sims 2 and add -w at the end of the Target.

You can also try to run it at "generic" resolution such as 640x480 or 800x600, so add -r800x600 or -r640x480 to the end of Target of Shortcut.

I can also recommend RivaTuner to tweak the graphics card's settings to trying to fix the problem.


I've used a system with Pentium 4 2.66 GHz and FX 5500 with Windows XP to run this game, and it ran perfectly. So sorry for not providing more help to you.

Edited by DragonSC7601
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Try starting the game up with Dependency Walker with the profile tab. If it works with SP2 then like you said there is something missing or needs updating. Try updating certain files that Dependency Walker profile is showing like msvcrt.dll from SP2. Does SP2 alter system.ini settings it would be worth checking. The settings changes in the service pack could be to blame for instability. Try profiling with SP2 and see what is different and update files. Alt + tab key to get back to DW once game starts. What are the lead-in video formats. See if you can play them in external player. It could be that you need a WMP update. Could be installation from some infs causing instability of SP2. Does your 29160N log on to your drive at half the set speed. I have not bought a good 2nd hand one of these. If half speed I would remove it as it can be stopping the PCI bus from working fully. If half speed I found that I could only operate up to 40MB/s setting in the cards bios. If I tried to drive the disk at 26MB/s then system errors started to happen, if not showing at 26MB/s then they certainly show at 32MB/s.

Edited by Goodmaneuver
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20 hours ago, Goodmaneuver said:

Does SP2 alter system.ini settings it would be worth checking. The settings changes in the service pack could be to blame for instability.

SESP2.03NL changes SYSTEM.INI (SPUPDATE.INF). MaxFileCache is set to 393216 (384MB). This can be a high setting with 512MB memory. Try lower values, like MaxFileCache=131072. Use MSConfig or (better) SysEdit.

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On 8/20/2019 at 9:30 PM, egbertjan said:

I have Nvidia driver version 45.23 on it. Newer versions unfortunately did not help either. if I put a newer version on it then Anno 1602 and road rash no longer work.

The latest video drivers aren't always the best. Try downgrading incrementally to earlier versions.

I once installed the latest Dell recomended nVidia drivers on an Inspiron 8600 and the laptop started crashing 1 out of every 3 boot ups. Presumably they would have been tested by Dell I thought.

So I looked for the most recent Dell recommended drivers among other Dell laptops that had the same video card. Sure enough I found drivers that were only a little older than the buggy ones, but not specifically recommended for the 8600. All was good.

A couple years later I found myself reinstalling XP on that laptop for unrelated reasons and gave the buggy drivers another try on a clean system. Same problem, the laptop crashed on about 1 out of every 3 boot ups. For some reason my laptop doesn't like those drivers.

Another thing. Those GeForce 4 video cards were manufactured during the capacitor plague. Check your card (and motherboard) for swollen capacitors. It can work for a while with swollen caps but eventually they would have to be replaced.

 

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On 8/21/2019 at 11:36 PM, deomsh said:

SESP2.03NL changes SYSTEM.INI (SPUPDATE.INF). MaxFileCache is set to 393216 (384MB). This can be a high setting with 512MB memory. Try lower values, like MaxFileCache=131072. Use MSConfig or (better) SysEdit.

This has worked for me thank you for your help

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