When I play WoW, the game takes over my main monitor, and the second monitor continues to function normally, so I can use it to access chat, websearch, etc while I play. However, when I play The Sims 3, the the game not only talkes over my entire monitor, but also makes the second monitor go blank. I suspect the difference lies in the ability within WoW to play "full-screen windowed." Is there any way to make The Sims 3 release control of that second monitor? It is annoying.

Mac, running Mountain Lion, Sims 3 plus Ambitions, latest patch according to the launcher. My iMac has the recent Radeon HD 6970M with 2 gig video ram. When I build a portion of a house with a hexagonal shape I get see-through vertical "holes" in the wall where the wall sections meet at an angle. No problem observed with right angles. This glitch persists when I reduce my resolution from 2560x1440 to 1920x1080 and even lower. Is this a problem of this specific video card (which is only available on the 27" iMac) or is it found on more Macs? Sure will make it hard to take a photo of my house to upload here!

Can we stick to one thread please? Saves time going back and forth and missing information.

It is a problem of getting the most updated driver for the card. And since Apple controls releases of that with its OSX updates, you have to wait on Apple.

Are you already on 10.8.1?

Problem solved. It was being caused by the CC windows centered on 2 tiles. Off to mention it in the comments to the creator.

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Well, it is two completely separate issues, discovered at two completely separate times. I fixed the wall gap issue, sort of, by using a different window. The lack of display on the second monitor is still an issue.

Yes, I am on 10.8.1. How is it a graphics card driver issue when this card and driver does it perfectly well in another game? And the Windows version of Sims 3 does it as well, from what I read on the EA forum. The problem seems to be the lack of ability to have the Sims 3 run in a "windowed full-screen" mode for Macs.

We have a more of "one user per thread" policy than a "one issue per thread" policy. Because each computer almost always have one user-operator, and thus have commonalities.

Imagine if a user has graphical glitches + crashing issue + freezing issue, and then when they solve that, they found that they have an incompatible CC issue. This scenario is very common. So, there's 4 or 5 threads we keep bouncing back and forth over to give suggestions and to see if the suggestions were followed and if one glitch is also connected to the others. And then things get missed or the OP gets frustrated because the suggestions are the same for all issues and they get angry at being told repeatedly to do the same things and yet it don't work, because nobody has the bigger picture.

And then you multiply that by the dozens of threads we see here everyday. Would you want to post in Help and keep helping others if that is the case? You not only have to keep chasing down information, but you have to keep a running tally in your head on who has what issues in what thread.

It was never mentioned the diagonal windows were from CC windows, or I would have linked you to the Game Problem FAQ. We cannot help if we also don't have full information or only have bits of information. and so may give the wrong suggestions.
And what does "windowed full-screen" mean? Dragging the window edge can't set it to take up the fullscreen real estate after pressing Cmd+Return? With multi-monitor setups and how you split the monitors and screen real estate depends on the OSX settings and graphics drivers, which like I mentioned is heavily dependable on graphics driver versions, especially if the GPU is fairly new. And coincidentally, after having upgraded to a HD 78xx GPU myself recently, I found that this card is not even recognized by Sims 3 and set me to a low-graphic settings by default.

And you want to compare Sims 3 to other games, on how it handles split-screen-multi-monitor setups? Each game handles the computer resources differently because they were coded differently by different programmers using different technologies under different companies who have different policies, budgets and priorities.

And, if you look at the GPU drivers' release notes, most times Sims 3 is not even mentioned as having had any enhanced coding added into the drivers.
All the updates are specifically for the newest and latest games. But Sims 3 still benefit from it, because the rendering engine uses the same coding up to a point, but not on specifics on how multi-monitors may be used, (maybe) as Sims 3 is not even programmed to take advantage of multiple-core processors overmuch.

"Windowed full screen" means that the game uses the full monitor display, like the Sims 3 does, but that to the operating system it is running in a window. Visually there is no obvious difference between full screen and windowed full screen. It really only matters when you have a second monitor. In full screen the second monitor is blanked out and will display nothing. In windowed full screen you still have a useable desktop with whatever windows you dragged from the main monitor onto the second monitor before starting the game. Like having MTS open to a question you hope to answer while you test the advice before you post it. By moving the mouse to the second monitor and clicking you change the focus on the main monitor from the game to the desktop, so the dock appears overlaid on the game. Clicking on the game display puts the focus back on the game and the dock disappears again. I am sure you can see how handy this could be for following tutorials, or making tutorials, or making sure you don't download the same shiny CC you already downloaded.

Sims 3 *has* this capability in Windows. I have thoroughly gone through all the Sims 3 graphics options on my Mac and the checkbox the Windows users mention is simply not there. It is not that my graphics card is incapable of it, or that the game is incapable of it, but that some developer decided Mac users do not need that option.

I resent having my options limited by somebody who thinks Mac users don't deserve the same experience as Windows users. This is why I am so late coming to Sims 3; I was determined not to buy EA's crappy non-native Mac game versions that run through an emulator. I still have not bought any expansion packs, and I may not ever since EA thinks so little of Mac users - and I recall reading someplace that they are reverting to PC only for the download versions of the expansions. I can see the same thing that happened with Sims 2 reoccurring, where we never get all the releases for Macs that the PC users get.

So thanks for the warm welcome.

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Oh, and I guess I ought to mention that my previous iMac, a very early 2009 model, also managed to provide a dual display with only 512 meg of video RAM. Whether a given game can only be run in full screen mode or also in a windowed full screen or in a window is NOT a function of the video card but of the game. New drivers for my graphics card will not make that checkbox for windowed full screen mode magically appear in the Sims 3 graphics options.

I think your relatively new policy of one user per thread rather than one issue is odd. It is a stark contrast to the accepted policies of every other forum I know, and even this forum a few years ago when I was the main person providing assistance to other Mac users.

The policy is neither new nor mine.
Main person providing assistance to Mac users? I found only 3 threads where you have posted in All of Help section and that includes this thread. I've always thought plasticbox was the main Mac person providing OSX help, and whiterider; with simsample and HP occasionally helping, (plus others) if it is not too Mac-specific. Now, their names are everywhere in Help section, in hundreds of Help threads.

For The Sims 3 or another program? And what OSX version and GPU does that iMac model has?