I know I know, Yet again another "can't load my family" Problem. I've looked through all these posts & even the ones on the theSims2.ea.com site. I have tried all they and you wonderful folks here have suggested. I have read in a few post that the lot could be corrupted. This is actually my hubby's game. This is the 2nd time it has happened to his 2nd family. He is very upset. He makes a sim, builds a home, meets other sims(npc), gets married, has children, Makes house bigger, has affairs with other sims(npc).. :naughty: LOL and so and so. He plays for awhile (2-3weeks) then suddenly when he goes to play again CRASH!! (app has crashed will terminate) 1st time he didn't have ANY downloads in his folder & No Mods or Hacks. BBS suggested that we move the fam out and bulldoze lot. :mad: (he was pissed) He just uninstalled the game & re-installed starting a new family and house. (after he got over the whole thing) I installed some (well alot) of custom content & recolors. Everything went fine for about 2 weeks, Then today CRASH! I removed the download folder and still CRASH! I scan them with Clean Installer and everything is fine. (it still crashes w/ or w/o the DL folder.) Basicly we can load all the way up until he loads his family, it will get to the 4th load bar & CRASH! He DOES NOT want to bulldoze the lot!! He says he worked so hard building his house and Aspirations(that's his main goal in playing)He doesn't want to lose any of that. He wants to know what causes this to happen so he can atleast prevent it from happening next time. He's at the point of not playing the game anymore if this is going to be an on going thing. "what's the point of playing if I have to delete the stuff I built and work so hard on to start all over again every 2-3 weeks" I totally agree. :nod:

My point is (finally) How can he save his house & Keep his family's relationships, rewards, house setup(layout) etc.. without having to start all over again every few weeks. Please help us. We love this game & when I play he(on my desktop, he plays on his laptop) kinda gets fustrated. :insane: Please can anyone help us???

His laptop specs are...
HP Pavilion zv5000 Laptop
512mb (upgradeable to 1gig of MB)
100gig Hard Drive
Pentium 4~ 3200 Mhz
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 IGP
:haha: Funny thing my desktop has half his specs and only problem I have is that it runs slow after long time game play.

btw: We only have TS2, No EPs

I've had similar problems myself too. Sometimes it seems the game just feels like crashing on certain lots. I've had one family who crashed three lots already. I would suggest that you do move the family out of the house. You will lose the furniture and rewards, but you can replace them using the boolprop testingcheatsenable true cheat and clicking the newspaper/career rewards. You could possibly try moving the family out, packaging the house and then reloading it, but if that doesn't work you will have to rebuild the house from scratch. What I suggest is build the house without any family in it, furnish it,package it somewhere safe, and then if the family ever crashes again just move them out, load the house, and you won't have to rebulid/furnish it. Let me know if any of this helps.

One major problem is your graphics card. That being said you could still play but keep a few things in mind. 1) you can move your family from lot to another with out losing anything. Do not put in family bin, move straight to another lot. 2) keep your lot size small. Try 2x3 lot. 3) keep your house size reasonable. No mansions, just basics. 4) Keep family size small, try perhaps 4 sims total in family. Your processor is excellent, you should have enough ram, but you should turn background programs off, such as anti-virus, spam blockers, messenger, etc. If you follow these suggestions you may be able to play. The limitng factor of integrated graphics limits what you will be able to do. Hope this helps.

*EDIT* I did say one thing wrong. If you already have rewards from aspiration points, or job rewards, unless you have night life, you will not be able to move them with you. And yes you do lose furrniture and other belongings at move out. The game pays you "fair value" for them in simoleans. This is a price to pay for problems. If you think it's unfair just use kaching a few times to compensate for it. If you have night life you can put what you want to move in to your personal inventory.

The main house-crasher is deleted terrain paints. Unless you have Nighlife and the patch you are pretty much stuck with keeping any terrain paints that have ever been used on that lot, even some that haven't been used! If you DO have Nightlife you can hold down the ctrl key and spray the yard to remove all paints and it won't crash your houses again upon entering. Hopefully you have a back up that contains previously used terrains. If thats not what causes your husband's problems, then I don't know what else to suggest other than removing the downloads folder and see if he can get in. Be very careful using user-created object and hair meshes! They can cause problems too.

Hm. Saw this ages ago on TSR, may or may not be related.
Obviously as the sims gain more memories, more skills, and more lovers...
The file size increases. A bigger file means more work for the computer, and with laptops this CAN cause them to overheat, at which point they usually terminate the biggest program - TS2 of course.

Get him to package his lot and family and try them on your PC, if they don't work, they're corrupted. If they do work, you need to buy a laptop cooler fan thingy. You can probably find one yourself, if not do a search for laptop crashes on www.thesimsresource.com forums. But CHECK whether or not they're corrupted first: otherwise you could be wasting your money!!

Of course you could always let him play on your PC once in a while

to be honest even if you find a problem a laptop cooler wouldn't, in my opinion, be a waste of money if you are going to play on a laptop.
since getting one my game has never crashed unexpectedly, other than for reasons of me fiddling with some settings or what not. overheating is a real issue with laptop gaming
you can construct something to raise your laptop up away from the surface i sits on of course, but coolers are reasonably priced and moreover, work :D

In that case I suggest you buy one, never having played on a laptop I don't really know much about the performance, but I do know that overheating can cause big problems (especially if you haven't saved you latest mansion recently :D)

I agree with anelca, I play on a laptop also. My game used to crash all the time, and this sometimes corrupted my houses and such. I bought a cooling pad and this solved my problem. You can get one for about 30 dollars. I also tend to play smaller lots.(3x3) If the laptop is overheating, you can usually feel the difference in the heat coming from the side. It will feel warmer. This is not good for the laptop. Good luck with your problem.

Teresa

Make sure video drivers are up to date also.

WOW! :nod: You guys are great! Well While I waited for your responses I reinstall the game keeping his family intact. The Family worked fine for 1 week! :haha: LOL! Just today it crashed yet again! :mad: After Reading a few of your posts. I really think it's the laptop overheating. :nod: 1) he does play on the bed & we noticed the laptop extremely hot. :naughty: 2) I noticed when he starts to play, he starts off with one sim and a very small (room like) house. Gradually he starts building his house and now basicly its like a building complex with like 4 floors and using one of the larger lot sizes. :naughty: 3) He plays for hours at a time. So I agree with you guys. I believe he can try to play this huge house but keep the laptop cool. If it does crash even though the laptop is not overheating he might have to keep the house size reasonable.

He isn't too happy about this since it limits his game play plus the suggestion to play on my PC isn't a great one (but thanks) he hates my PC since it is slow and he is spoiled with the Speed and comfort of the laptop. Oh well!
Thanks again for all of your help!! You have answered alot of questions!! THANK YOU!!

Babygurl97, I do not have a gamming laptop, but I keep a nice smooth piece of wood beside the bed for when I am laz..busy and need to use my laptop in bed. It dissipates heat as well as a desk would. Its about 5\8" thick. Just a suggestion.

Thank you! I will tell him to try that. All have been a great help!! :salute: