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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Jan 2021 at 8:18 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Sims 2 video memory errors not solved by increasing textureMemory
Within the last few days of playing, my game has started crashing more and more. Currently it will not run a house (at full speed) for more than a few seconds without crashing apparantly due to being out of video memory. Before it would only crash when I changed a sim's appearance or bought clothes, now it's happening just while I'm teaching a toddler to speak and a maid is cleaning the house. It seems like the crashes increased after I heavily expanded the Specter home, though they also started increasing on the very small home I built for the Singles.

I've tried to fix this both with graphicsrulesmaker and editing the graphicsrules file manually, but it doesn't seem to be working. I also tried looking at the exception logs but I'm not quite sure what to look for, or if those are even the right files to look at. They all said ACCESS_VIOLATION so I tried a few fixes related to that, didn't seem to do anything.

My video card has 8gb of video memory, I tried setting the texture memory to 8096mb and then 4096 mb (to see if maybe it was going over somehow?) neither of which seemed to work. I actually didn't start getting crashes during normal play, only due to change appearance, until after I started messing around with it, so maybe I edited it wrong?

Here are my computer specs:
OS: Win 10 Pro
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600
RAM: 16gb
GPU: Radeon RX 570 8gb
I've also attached my graphicsrules but let me know if I need to share a different file or something.

I would really appreciate help fixing this, at this point in time I can't even play anymore. I'm going to mess around later and see if it crashes in a test neighborhood/with no cc or mods, but past that I'm not sure what to do
Attached files:
File Type: txt  Graphics Rules.txt (34.2 KB, 6 downloads)
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 12th Jan 2021 at 9:58 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 12th Jan 2021 at 10:22 PM.
Have you done the 4GB patch? You need to do that in addition to editing the texture memory. It enables the game to use 4GB RAM instead of the 2GB limit it has out of the box.

Texture memory is technically vRAM/virtual RAM from the harddrive, so not quite the same as the RAM you want the game to use from the graphic card and/or the computer RAM, but still helpful. TS2 is a bit too old to be able to use all the resources of newer computers effectively, but you have to work with what you've got accessible.

Patch:
https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371 (and explanation of what it does)

If you're having problems, there's an explanation on how to use it here: https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=610641 (skip the memory allocation parts, there's better methods to make the game work), and run the game when you're done. Check the "config-log" after, and make sure the "memory" line says 4096, which indicates it's applied properly.

If you're having problems getting the patch to "stick", as in when you check the "config-log" file and the "memory" line says 2048 or anything else than 4096 after applying the patch, try copying the "sims2ep9.exe" file to the desktop, apply the patch, and then copy over and let the new file overwrite the old one. Make sure you're doing it to the EXE file and not the shortcut.

You can also apply the patch to Bodyshop. I tried with Homecrafter too, and it works (not sure if it needs the patch, though).
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 13th Jan 2021 at 7:42 PM
I believe the 4gb patch has worked, but I'm not 100% sure. I was able to get through the day that was causing crashes before so all is looking good so far, and it says the texture memory is 4096MB in the graphics device info section of my config log - however it says 1024MB of memory and free memory in the machine info section, is this okay/correct? The patch definitely modified the EXE, it says the file was modified today, but maybe it didn't "stick" like you said.
I'm still playing the game at the moment so if anything happens I'll edit this post, lol.
Field Researcher
#4 Old 13th Jan 2021 at 9:17 PM
Memory (under Machine Info) should say 4096. Try moving your game's .exe to desktop and applying the patch there, then put it back in TSBin.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 13th Jan 2021 at 9:18 PM
Mine says
Memory: 4096MB
Free memory: 4096MB

- I think that's correct for the Free Memory, at least as long as you have 8+ GB of RAM, but it could potentially depend on the RAM and graphic card.

The "Texture memory" line should say whatever the GraphicsRules input was.

If you use Bodyshop, keep in mind it uses the info from the GraphicsRules file in the CSconfig folder, so you may want to make sure the two files are identical (you can copy over the one from Config to CSConfig). If the files are different, you'll see varying info in the Config-Log if you run Bodyshop (the log file shows info from the last program run, including TS2, Bodyshop and Homecrafter).
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#6 Old 13th Jan 2021 at 9:57 PM Last edited by butler-pate : 13th Jan 2021 at 9:57 PM. Reason: spacing
Quote: Originally posted by mate54
Memory (under Machine Info) should say 4096. Try moving your game's .exe to desktop and applying the patch there, then put it back in TSBin.

Ah, I did this after it didn't work the first time, it still shows 1024 in my config log

Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
If you use Bodyshop, keep in mind it uses the info from the GraphicsRules file in the CSconfig folder, so you may want to make sure the two files are identical (you can copy over the one from Config to CSConfig). If the files are different, you'll see varying info in the Config-Log if you run Bodyshop

I patched the bodyshop exe and then checked the config log, and it actually showed 4096 in memory and free memory! So I copied the GraphicsRules over from CSconfig over into config but when I run TS2 it still shows 1024.

As I was writing this I tried googling around some more and read a reddit post where it was suggested to make sure you didn't have any compatibility modes on I had one set to try to fix this problem in the first place, and as soon as I removed it the config log showed 4096! So everything should be good for me now, thanks very much for the help!
Mad Poster
#7 Old 13th Jan 2021 at 10:53 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 13th Jan 2021 at 11:05 PM.
^ Yeah, that too.

(Always easy to forget to NOT use compatibility mode, because we kind of always did that to run programs some 5-8 years back, and those things tend to stick around, and when you finally unlearn the thing, you forget everyone else had to unlearn it, too - and forget to even mention it... ).

I don't know how many guides there are for running TS2 now, but I've come across at least 10 different, and there has been some stray old info in some of them. Depending on how old or new the info is, you can find both very helpful and some more or less unhelpful tips. Some of the older guides have info that could conflict with tips in newer guides, just so you're aware.

Anyway, happy to help
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