What the heck? I built a house in Pleasantview, played it for a couple of hours, and returned to Neighborhood View. When I did, geez! There was a gigantic white pixellated square, roughly centered over the house I'd built and the neighboring lot. I haven't installed any new custom content recently, nor did I fiddle with any game settings. Any ideas? I'm at a loss. Both lots load normally and look fine when playing individually, but that is sure one ugly neighborhood view.

Edit: OK! It's not only in neighborhood view, as it turns out. I have uploaded an additional screenshot, showing exactly what it looks like when I enter the neighboring lot, one I built a few days ago. I think the lot I just built today may be corrupt somehow, because when I'm in the neighboring lot and I turn off Neighbor View during play, the huge white square vanishes. Meanwhile, the lot that seems to be "corrupt" has no white square at all during gameplay--it looks just fine. Heeeeeeeeeeeelp!!

I don't want to scare you, but the last time I saw such a thing it was my video card which said "Bye-bye". Or the drivers of your card need to be updated. Can't think of any other reason for the "blizzard", since you excluded downloads or modified game files.

Well, my video card is only 1 month old so it better darn well not be fizzling out on me already. Granted, it's only an ATI Radeon 9200 SE, not the best card by any means, but it should still last more than a month. This is very irritating. There is a new driver available at ATI.com and I intend to download it right now. I was really hoping it was just a corrupt lot--I don't mind so much parting with a house, especially as it'll be easy to move its only resident back in with her parents for a bit.

Oops! I misunderstood you there. I thought it would affect the whole neighborhood, not just one single house. At least that's what I read from your edited part. Sorry for my bad knowledge of the english language.

I too have a Radeon 9200, now nearly 2 years old, and without any problems. So there surely is something wrong with the lot, yes. Guess your idea of moving the resident back and deleting the lot is the best one. Sorry again.

Try creating a new lot. Does it happen to that lot too?

I was wondering if boolprop was behind it..
btw, how do you turn on the neighborhood view. I've been looking for months now for that. I can't find it.
Hope you get your problem worked out. Maybe just a bad file/option.. I hope it's a simple one!

xts

I'd just bulldoze the affected lots and try see what happens when you build a new lot on the same space..

This option comes with NL. You will find it under game options

since i istalled NL, i get a similar thing, only my lots show a pale blue
i have found it happens when the terrain is dug into like for graves or ponds, and to a certain extent when they are raised. swimming pools are fine
accompanying this i get a large green triangular blob over the affected lot
in game play everything is fine till it comes to basements. they appear flooded, but they aren't really
i can only assume it is asomething to do with my laptop graphics card which is now an unsupported one since NL

my solution is to bulldoze the lot as jonesi suggests. i no longer build or download any lot with a basement, pond, lowered terrain. the green blob i can live with. it tends to disappear when rotating the screen, so will raise terrain and d/load raised terrained lots
updating your driver may help you. if i could do that with mine, or replace the one i have i would (i do update BIOS when new ones are available)

ctfg, Thank you very much. I feel like.. well, you know. lol.
I've been simmin' for years now, I should have known. I even read the pamphlets that come with the ep's! I must admit, I must be absorbing only half of what I read but that one I should've seen somewhere. I'll check first thing when I start game. Thank you so much! :D
xts

anelca, didn't the patch fix the flooded basements? I thought I'd read that somewhere when I found a thread at ea for flooded basements. I also saw somewhere for sure that you can remove water from lot (ponds) and wonder if that would work with the flooded basements.

I've not had that problem just yet.. Object problem right now and it's my own object :o lol
I've had a long day ..
Best to y'all..
xts

I have a similar thing on mine. All my new lots have mostly green over them, like a messed up ground texture.

Hi all...I updated to the latest driver on ATI's website and that didn't do it, so I moved the residents out of the seemingly effected lot (the one I built today, not the one next door), and bulldozed the house. Sure enough, the huge expanse of white fog disappeared. No clue what must have been corrupted on the lot. I turned on boolProp briefly during gameplay, but only to shift-click the mailbox so my Sim would Know Everyone, and then turned it back off. Also used the allow45DegreeAngle cheat (and accidentally saved once during building before remembering to turn it off), and snapObjectstoGrid cheat (turned off properly after use).
Luckily I packaged this lot to a file early in the building process, when it was still a bare-bones affair with no paint, carpet, or objects. I'm going to experiment with the lot by reinstalling it in my game in its bare-bones state and trying to re-create the situation. If I narrow it down to a particular object or cheat, I'll let you know.

Good job juno! Thanks for the update too, preparing myself for the possibility.. I'll be sure to turn off boolprop often! And no saving during.. Only before, maybe after. lol.
Glad it worked for ya!
Happy Simmin'!
xts

no the patch didn't fix it and its not real flooding. its just the effect it gives the colour is a lighter brighter blue than the water in the game. it seems to be like NL has a thinner veneer....ummmm very difficult to describe what i am on about here....like stretching the surface graphic as in making holes or pulling it up breaks it somehow

also bear in mind i have an unsupported graphics card, now NL has come out and Maxis changed the supported list. so i run the risks i suppose, of dodgy graphics

I just tried it with the testing cheats disabled (I have them in my start up file) and it didn't help. Same strange green texture.

Guess what we all seem to have in common?! NIGHTLIFE! :o
Nightlife comes with a few new options for textures, too. I'm searching the web. Doubt I"ll find anything but you guys seem to be trying everything and no one here really seems to know. Maybe I'll find someone who fixed theirs?
xts

I did find this information:
There are a few very common errors that crop up often. These are explained below:

* Red water.
Symptons: Pool and hot tub water is red
Details: The drivers being used are quite old and somewhere between the game code and your monitor, water is being shown as the wrong colour.
Solution: Update drivers.

If it does it to water, maybe it also does it to land? Maybe there are more than one possibility? Just incase, I wanted to post this since I've found nothing else. Nightlife apparently resets all your graphics ingame to prevent severe lag on older systems with the new ep.. Then you can readjust it to your liking.

Still looking. Can't look much longer, head killing me.
What I do find, I'll try to bring back here.
xts

I'm also thinking NL. I'll look at allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation next.

i always turn off my boolprop cheats after using them so i doubt its those causing these things. also my daughter plays on a different laptop, but the same make, specs etc and she has the same thing and wouldn't know a boolprop if it hit her in the face.

i have just been to the UK EA site....remind me never to go there again
i don't dare try the US one
anyway came up with nothing except how to spell very, very badly

I just noticed mine is slightly different. While juno13 has it floating above the 'ground,' mine IS the ground.

Any screenshots jax?

LMBO anelca! boolprop lol.

I read that there is a cheat where you can change the ground texture. Numenor had a post somewhere about it I think, but don't quote me. I'll try to find it..
xts

I found this and that's what I was talking about.. A cheat for the ground texture..
Less usefull cheats
CheatCode Result

boolprop renderOpaqueUI [true/false] True=Removes transparency on control panel
boolprop lotTerrainCanvas [true/false] Not really sure. Grass turns blue?
boolprop displayLookAtBoxes [true/false] True=blocks appear on sims faces and on parts where sims look at
boolprop allObjectLightsOn [true/false] True= Lights up objects continously instead of only when used, like fridges/tv's, etc.
floatprop particleDensity 1.000000 Raise number to increase green damping on spoiled food
boolprop lotInfoAdvancedMode [true/false] True=In neighbourhood shows the lotinfo. Can also just click on the 'info' button on the lotinfo screen
boolprop unevenTilesFloorable [true/false] False=No floortiles visible when placing them on sloped ground
Autopatch on/off Toggles notification of available game patches
Help Lists some, but not all cheats


See the 2nd one? That one .. When I saw the problem, I remembered this cheat.. but no details about it.. I found it all here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=53963
It was shameless_wedgie, not numenor. Don't tell him that lolol. He'd die. :o
Don't ask how I got them mixed up, I don't know. lol

Anyway. Maybe that helps? I don't have the problem myself but I'll offer all I can.

xts

I don't use that command.

To explain the screenshot, I have six lots showing:

• An empty lot I placed and didn't enter
• A lot I entered, saved and left
• A lot I placed a tree on
• A lot I placed a foundation on
• A lot I aplied a Maxis ground texture to
• A premade lot from the bin without the problem

Wow, you're fast! ! I'm going to try to get my game to mess up somehow. If I can. (regarding these issues here). The tree was also maxis made, right? Is the lot with the foundation the start of the issue?

I'm going to test one of my problem objects and I'll stay in game a bit to try to mess around with the texture. I have nightlife but not the problem (yet).
Wish me luck.
xts