Hey guys. I’m sorry for the lack of updates. Between buying a condo, packing up, working like mad, and rooting hard for a certain reality show contestant, I haven’t had as much time for my Sims. I do have a Ravelo update in the works, so look for that soon. I’m moving at the end of the month, so things will be crazy until then, but after that, I’ll have MUCH more time to work on my Sims stories. Thanks for hanging in there, and while you’re waiting for me to get off my butt and update already, make sure you check out the Legalos Legacy (“Confessions of an Heiress”) — Amy is posting some awesome stories over there!

Hugs to all!

Some good news and bad news this time. (Big surprise, right?) I’ll get the bad news out of the way first: even though I finally got my game reinstalled, it went back to crashing like it was before. So the uninstall/reinstall didn’t fix that problem. Thanks to this thread at MTS2, however, I’ve determined that it’s probably a glitch with my Nvidia card and Open For Business. Having a ton of downloads doesn’t help, either, but since it crashed even when I removed the downloads, I decided to uninstall OFB. Hopefully when Nvidia releases a driver which is more compatible with OFB, I’ll be able to reinstall it, but for now I’d rather be able to play the game (and have all my downloads, although I am slowly reducing the amount).

Since I had to uninstall Family Fun Stuff and OFB anyway, I decided to uninstall everything and reinstall AGAIN, just to start fresh. Right now I have just the base game installed, and I’m going to keep it that way for a bit while I build some houses. Here’s where the good news comes in — my first house is available for download at Parsimonious! It’s called “Marchbanks”, and it’s a traditional colonial. Check it out, if you’re curious.

Before I reinstall University and Nightlife, I’m going to make a few more base-game-only homes for people who don’t have all the EPs — is there anything you guys would like to see? Starter cottages? Suburban homes? Mediterranean villas? I’m taking requests!

Also good news: I ran into some glitches with the Ravelo update, but I worked it out, so look for it TONIGHT!

I’m truly sorry to keep you all waiting for so long. This game is beyond frustrating sometimes, but I love it and I’m NOT ready to give it up yet! Thanks so much for hanging in there!

1. It’s spring.
2. It’s Friday.
3. I got my Sims back!!!

Yes, that’s right, after a month of tearing my hair out trying to get my game to run, I’ve finally made some progress. I got University and Nightlife to install by using the Disk Images method recommended by EA, which basically means I copied the CD files to folders on my hard drive and ran the installation from there. I had tried that before, but it kept asking for the CD, so I had moved on to other options. Last night I tried it again just for the heck of it, and what do you know? It worked! I was able to reinstall all of the EPs and play the game for a full 45 minutes with no crashing. That’s a very good sign. I have no idea what made it work this time — maybe I just needed to reboot? I don’t know. But it worked!

I’m going to test the game a bit longer before putting all my downloads back in, which means…playing the Ravelos! My goal is to get those girls graduated from college as soon as possible, so you might see an update on them as early as this weekend. They don’t have their usual hairstyles and stuff, but I’m just happy to be playing them again.

Anyway, just wanted to share the good news! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Hey all, thanks again for all of the encouraging comments and technical advice. I’ve tried a few more things but am sadly no farther along than I was before. :-/ I even bought new University disks, but I’m running into the same problem during installation as I was with my other disks. If you want a full update, read on! There is some good news at the end, too.

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Hey guys. Just wanted to give you an update on my Sims issues. In my continuing endeavor to get the game to run without crashing, I’ve tried a number of things — testing for conflicting downloads, updating or rolling back my graphics drivers, throwing my computer out the window — OK, so I didn’t try that last, but I came pretty darned close. When none of those things fixed the problem, I decided to uninstall my game and reinstall it, in hopes that a clean slate would do the trick.

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Hey guys. I’m still having trouble with my Sims. I am THIS close to trashing everything — EVERYTHING! — and reinstalling the game. I am so frustrated. Anyway. I’ll probably come up with a less drastic solution, but until then, I’m giving my computer very threatening looks. I thought I had figured out the problem, but it went back to crashing, and spending 20+ hours of my life just sitting here waiting for my game to load so I can play for 15 minutes before it crashes, over and over and over again, has been annoying, to say the least. This game is supposed to be FUN, right? Anyway. Sorry to gripe. I hope I can get a story posted SOON.

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I’m zeroing in on the problem with my game crashing — I removed my Downloads folder last night and played the Ravelo college kids for a full 45 minutes with no crashing. Before, it was crashing after about 20 minutes pretty consistently. So it must be a conflict with some custom content. Now comes the hard (that is, time consuming) part — trying to figure out which download is causing the problem. I have something like 17,500 downloads, so that could take awhile, even if I do it in groups.

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