Video Card incompatibility

[purenergy]

After receiving a "serious system error" when loading my neighborhood, I was informed by tech support that my video card is incompatible with the game requirements, yet I have been playing it successfully since Xmas. She told me that was possible, huh? Does anyone understand how that could be? and does anyone know if saving backups will help in the future. I can still load and play Sims 3, I just have to start over and lose all my sims and stuff. I would start over if I could be assured that I could save my work. Otherwise. I will have to return the game. I am on a laptop and can't change out the hardware.

[Pam]

I had a "serious error" very recently, too.  I definitely have the right video card because I bought it especially for this game.  Have you shut down your computer and restarted everything?  Once I did that, it was back working like normal.  Also, it wouldn't hurt to do some routine maintenance on your computer, like disk cleanup and defrag.

[purenergy]

First, let me say you have a great site here. There is so much information here, I love it.

I did do all the routine things and it hasn't helped. I figure I have lost the neighborhood I was working on  

The tech support person said I had an incompatible video card and that I would be able to play the game, but things like this would happen. Of course that was after she told me I would NOT be able to play the game at all, huh?? I couldn't really get good information out of her. I think I knew more about computers than she did.

Do you think backing up the files in the directory will save this from happening again? I love the game, so I really want to keep playing. I read another post about backing up the game in the file folder and I tried that, but it reverted it back to the virgin game state since I had never backed it up. I thought I was doing that when I saved the game. Which I did frequently. Some lessons are the hardest to learn. Meanwhile I am rebuilding my neighborhood and mourning the loss of my 17 sims, 6 of which I raised from infancy, boo hoo. One positive is that all my custom build furniture etc is still there. Silver linings everywhere, right? THX

[Draigh]

That lady of tech support probably didnt know much about it, or at least it sounds that way.
Can you tell which video card you have? It might not even be a problem with the video card btw. It might as well be a problem with your memory or harddisk.
Defragmentation and scandisk might help with those problems though. I would suggest to first defragment, then scandisk and finally again a defragment (to clear the last bits).
For the rest I agree with Pam. A reboot of the system does miracles sometimes. ;-)

[purenergy]

I did reboot and defraged just before the error.

What I want to know now is ...will backing up my neighborhood in the directory  save my work if this happens again?

[Saltypaws]

I know there has been alot of glitches and error codes, I am now getting the error code 14 and 12 and lost a whole days worth of work, my bad for not saving.  If anyone else is having refresh problems where everything is grayed out for short period of time when they go from upstairs to downstairs or going to the neighborhood and it sometimes takes forever, so I decided to upgrade my memory to 4 gigs and boy did that solve the problem, the objects just pop right up and it has really helped 99%.  Still a second or two lag but not at all like it was before.  I have the biggest video card so I knew it was not that.  I can't say for sure if that will help everyone, but thought I would pass along this info.  If it can help in any way for someone else's playing, then I am glad it helps.  We have to understand, the bigger the game gets the more memory it is trying to process and bits and pieces go everywhere, if it has no where to go, then it is going to hang.  We all have spent tons of money on our games and if some little thing helps, then I am all for it.  I, like a lot of people have played sims since day one with every expansion and stuff pack, in spite of all of the problems with WA, it is an awesome game and I do not regret purchasing it all.  So if this helps someone else, let me know.  

[Swede1992]

I'm happy that you got rid of your save errors Saltypaws. I have heard of people who has upgraded the RAM the game accepts to 4 GB and have had successes with that. Unfortunately, I'm not good at this and unsure about how to do that. My computer is extremely powerful and I'm beyond doubt certain that it would handle that.

However, a simple way of minimising the effect of SE 12 is to set High Detailed Lots to as low as possible, and as I mentioned in a nearby thread, it doesn't affect your game noticeably, but the game runs much more smoothly!

[Saltypaws]

When I had a slower video card, I always set my graphics lower, but when I upgraded my card I set everything on high and so far it still runs smooth and graphics are awesome, I guess the more games you save the slower it will probably run.  I love this game and so far have enjoyed many hours from it.  I just hope that the future EP will be more thought out and not have the problems.  Unfortunately, some of the problems that I am reading about is probably from video cards and at least they are not quite as expensive as they use to be, but nothing is worse than getting excited about a game and putting it in and it has nothing but problems.  I hope that EA starts fixing some more of the glitches that are left and that we can all enjoy our games.  Happy Simming!!!!!!!!!!!

[Swede1992]

High Detailed Lots option don't really have to do with the graphics at all. It is the number of houses rendered at full quality at a given time, i.e. full graphics, the computer follows their every movement, controls them exactly as they would have been controlled in your home lot or when you visit them, etc.

However, directly when you view that house, the computer automatically renders that at "perfect quality" (in lack of better words), with maybe half a second of waiting. Setting this on a low value does therefore little negative, sure you can count on not being able to view into the house the microsecond you come down from map view, but it keeps the game from being flooded with information (save error 12), since the game only uses 2 GB RAM even though you could have much more. Even if you don't have that problem, setting this on a low value makes the game run much more smoothly.

[TheLostGirls]

I know there has been alot of glitches and error codes, I am now getting the error code 14 and 12 and lost a whole days worth of work, my bad for not saving.  If anyone else is having refresh problems where everything is grayed out for short period of time when they go from upstairs to downstairs or going to the neighborhood and it sometimes takes forever, so I decided to upgrade my memory to 4 gigs and boy did that solve the problem, the objects just pop right up and it has really helped 99%.  Still a second or two lag but not at all like it was before.  I have the biggest video card so I knew it was not that.  I can't say for sure if that will help everyone, but thought I would pass along this info.  If it can help in any way for someone else's playing, then I am glad it helps.  We have to understand, the bigger the game gets the more memory it is trying to process and bits and pieces go everywhere, if it has no where to go, then it is going to hang.  We all have spent tons of money on our games and if some little thing helps, then I am all for it.  I, like a lot of people have played sims since day one with every expansion and stuff pack, in spite of all of the problems with WA, it is an awesome game and I do not regret purchasing it all.  So if this helps someone else, let me know.  

I had this temporary thing in Sunset Valley where the ground was black and spotted, then turned gray, it scared me.