Running very slowly since Seasons?

[twisterzzz]

Hi! Okay, I hope I don't screw this up. xD But I checked the FAQs and all that good stuff beforehand and nothing seems to be, um, applicable. So here's my dilemma.

I have The Sims 2 + Uni, NL, OFB, Pets, and, as of last month, Seasons. I've been running all these on the same computer for over a year now and things have gone swimmingly - custom content always shows up, game runs quickly, smoothly, and efficiently, you know. Yeah.
But after I installed Seasons, things changed.

The problem is basically that the game is SO laggy that I just get impatient and give up. Eeeeverything moves slowly during in-game (things like loading screens, CAS, etc seem to run just fine however), like things are in slow motion or something. The sound bytes play at normal speed, but the corresponding actions on-screen are. Slow.
Things get REALLY atrocious when it snows/when there's snow on the ground in-game, or when it rains, or when there's any kind of seasonal paraphenelia going on. But even in the middle of summertime when nothing noticeably seasonal is happening, it's still very slow.

I tried minimalizing, you know, playing on a very small lot with only one sim, no pets, not a lot of stuff going on, that kind of thing. It was the same. Still very laggy, and almost unbareably so during winter - with the snow - and spring - with the rain.
I tried turning the seasons like, off, so that it was summer all the time and therefore no snow or much rain or anything, and that didn't help either. Everything I could think to do in-game to make things less lagadocious did not help, so I assumed it had to be a technical problem.


First thing I did was check the back of the booklet that came with the expansion to see what it suggested. I did ctrl+alt+del and stopped all processes except for the ones that need to be running (and do this every time before playing). I weeded out my custom content folder and removed anything extra that I didn't need, to free up space. I even removed some programs from my computer that I didn't use anymore (things like games and whatnot) to free up some space. None of that helps.
My computer is hardly over a year old, and I think of it as a masterpiece. xD Using the MTS2 FAQs I used dxdiag to get my specs:

==System==

* Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600)
* Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.0GHz
* Memory: 958MB RAM
* Page File: 318MB used, 1995MB available
* DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
* Dell Model Number: Dimension E521

==Display==

* Name: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE
* Manufacturer: NVIDIA
* Chip Type: GeForce 6150 LE
* Approx. Total Memory: 256.0 MB

* Main Driver: nv4_disp.dll
* Version: 6.14.0010.9148 (English)

==Sound==

* Name: SigmaTel Audio


...Hopefully something there will be of help. But I don't see how it could be; apparently not only do I have enough to run the game, I have more than enough. But. Maybe I'm wrong.

I really like the new things Seasons has to offer and would rather not have to remove it from my computer, but... I really don't know what to do now and I can't seem to find anyone else with this problem who can help me. xD So hopefully someone here can give me some pointers.

Thanks!

~Ryo

[Canoodle]

Same thing has happened to a lot of people. Sim2 does not recognize dual core processors..so the game is trying to run on a 2 GHZ processor. And honestly, it's really hard to run the game with just a gig of RAM. :/ Have you tried going into game options and turning down all your settings? Reflections, snow,smooth edges etc.

[HystericalParoxysm]

That graphics card is also a little low powered, which I think may be quite a bit of the problem - I have a 7300 GS which is some better than the one you have and I still have some lag during weather effects myself. Honestly, I'd say that's pretty normal to experience a sudden drop in performance with Seasons, even during no weather - there's some additional lighting effects and stuff Seasons adds, and the weather effects are -very- high strain on graphics... You think what you've had is bad... try building a big greenhouse, filling it with sprinklers, and watch what happens when they turn on all at once.

It's just... laggy, honestly - but Canoodle's suggestion is a good one - if you can run on a lower resolution and sacrifice some graphics settings (especially smooth edges) do so as that should smooth things out for you.

[twisterzzz]

Ah, I see. Haha, I had always thought my computer's specs were infallible~ but of course they're not, that'd be silly xD

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, I'll give it a shot and see how that works for me.

[whiterider]

Actually, your graphics card isn't even a graphics card.. it's an integrated chip, which means it's unsupported, and is sucking up your RAM. If at any point you start to notice blurriness/fuzziness/crunchiness, or get big multicoloured crashes to a warped looking desktop, take a look at this FAQ (www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Onboard_Graphics).

[twisterzzz]

Wow really? o__o That's horrible. But no, I've never had that problem before. Most of the time the game runs beautifully, aside from this recent lag--

which I'm happy to say has been fixed, at least for now :o I did as Canoodle and HystericalParoxysm said and turned the smooth edges all the way down, and now everything is just fine; no lag, no spazzing.
Although it was a little ehhh during winter (haven't gotten to see it rain yet), it was still considerably better than before. I'm thinking I'll turn off snow in general just to see how that changes things now too. xD

But yeah, thanks a lot! n__n