Table of Contents

1. General
2. Performance Tips
3. System Requirements
4. Video Problems
5. Sound Problems
6. Windows 2000
7. Browser
8. Web Pages Help
9. Serial Numbers
10. (Popular) My Computer Crashes or Locks During Gameplay

General

For the latest-up-to-date information on The Sims, all its expansion packs, Sims-related games, and more visit the following site sections:
-Our Forums.
-FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions). (More coming soon)
-Tutorials (coming soon). 
-The Chat, so you can chat with other players and ask our staff about anything. Note: SimMasters are to be asked about The Sims, Roller Coaster, or other Sims-related games, and Mayors are to be asked about SimCity and it's many games.
-The Homepage, where you'll find SimNews in case there are any.
If you encounter any problem or question not listed in this FAQ, then e-mail the Support Team or ask one of our staff members by e-mailing them, asking in the chat, or posting your issue in "HelpDesk" at our Forums.
If you ind any broken links here or throughout SimStage, please notify our Links Team, which is in charge of all linking.
Check back soon, for we'll soon have the FAQ for SimCity players.

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Performance Tips

-In general, the system is at full capacity when running the simulation at full speed, all graphics enabled, and sounds and music playing. To improve
performance, turn graphics options down or off, turn sounds and/or music off and use lower screen resolution settings. These settings are found by clicking the "Options" button in the Control Panel. You can change the graphics options by clicking the "Graphics Options" button that looks like a monitor. You can change the sound options by clicking the "Sound Options" button that looks like a speaker. You can use the shortcut in the start menu to run at 800x600 rather than 1024x768.
-Running the game with the "Roof" option on can affect system performance (it makes the game slower and dumb to react). We recommend players use the "Walls Cutaway" option (or "No Walls") located in the Control Panel above the time indicator.
-Saving the game can be sped up by disabling the "Export HTML" function in the "Play Options" menu. We recommend this for players who will not be using the web page features of The Sims.
-We recommend that you don't frequently Alt+Tab in and out of the game, especially when the game is saving or loading.
 

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System Requirements

- Windows 95, 98 or higher (Windows NT and Windows 2000 are not supported).
- 300 Mhz or faster Intel Pentium processor.
- 64MB RAM (128 MB RAM is recommended if you have all expansion packs.)
- 2MB PCI or AGP video card capable of High Color (16-bit Color), 800x600 resolution display. Must have DirectX 7
compatible driver.
- 4x CD-ROM drive using 32-bit Windows 95/98 driver
- Sound Card - Directx 7 Certified
- 600 MB free hard disk space (additional space required for DirectX 7 installation and Windows swap file).
- A keyboard, mouse, monitor and some form of power :-)

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Video Problems

-The REAL 3D Starfighter, Symetric Glyder-Max 2 and S3 Virge GX2 video cards did not pass our compatibility tests.
-Although 3D acceleration won't improve game performance, newer 2D/3D video cards tend to have better 2D support than older 2D cards.
-If The Sims screen appears fuzzy after switching between applications by pressing Alt+Tab, this is likely a result of
outdated video drivers.
-If you are still experiencing problems, try updating your video card drivers. Links to video card manufacturer support pages may be found at the Electronic Arts Customer Support page here.
*Diagnostic tools- If you are still having problems with video, try running the game from a shortcut with some of these
command line options:
-nodx6 (It disables DirectX 6-and-later support, falling back to DX3. Some graphics, like roofs, won't work,
but it fixes problems on laptops and certain European machines in 800x600 mode.)
-w (forces game into windowed mode)
-r1024x768 (forces 1024x768 screen size)
-skip_intro (skips the intro movie)
-skip_verify (use this if the game will not start at all. Possible solution for some laptop and audio/video workstation problems. Make sure you run 800x600 mode and use 16 bit color or higher with this setting.) This skips verification for OS, DirectX version, a compatible graphics card, the game already running, not enough memory/hard disk, a Pentium processor or better, and it will try to set 16-bit color in windowed mode if not 16-bit color.
To create a shortcut, right click on TheSims.exe and choose "Create Shortcut". To edit the shortcut, right click on the shortcut and select "Properties." At the end of the line called "Target", add a space after the existing text and enter your command line option (such as -skip_intro).
When running the game with video cards using 2MB of RAM, the buy/build mode menu in the lower left hand corner flickers as you pan around the screen.

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Sound Problems

Diagnostic tools- If you are having problems with sound try running the game from a shortcut with the command line option "-nosound". This will run the game with no sound or music. Try this only if you need to determine if your sound card is causing problems with the game. Turning the sound effects, voice and music all the way down in the game will effectively turn all the sound off. These options are located in the Control Panel under "Options" and then "Sound Options". Music only works from mapped drives (e.g., g:\), not "universal naming convention (UNC)" devices (e.g.,\\myserver).
No Sound with USB Speakers. DirectSound does not work properly on some systems with USB speakers. If you have USB speakers and are not getting any sound then you need to turn off sound acceleration on the Multimedia control panel.
Windows 2000:
From the start button, go to "Settings", then "Control Panel" and then click on the "Sounds and Multimedia" control panel. Click on the Audio tab. Under "Sound Playback" click "Advanced". This opens the "Advanced Audio Properties" dialog. Click the "Performance" tab. Now drag the "Hardware acceleration" slider all the way to the left ("None"). Click okay in both dialogs. You should now be able to play with sound.
Windows 98:
From the start button, go to "Settings" and then click on "Control Panel". Open the "Multimedia" control panel. Click on the Audio tab. Then click the "Advanced Properties" button to open the "Advanced Audio Properties" dialog. Click the "Performance" tab. Now drag the "Hardware acceleration" slider all the way to the left ("None"). Click okay in both dialogs. You should now be able to play with sound.

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Windows 2000

Games such as The Sims Hot Date do not support Windows 2000. However, it does run on many Windows 2000 systems. One way to avoid
some of the compatibility issues is to install and play the game (and any expansion packs) as an Administrator. Both the installer and the game set registry entries under the LOCAL_MACHINE tree. This registry tree is protected in Windows 2000 so that only Administrators can modify it. Some game features expect to see certain registry entries there in order to detect what game version you have, what expansion packs are installed and other important details.
If you do not install The Sims or any of its expansion packs as an Administrator under Windows 2000, you may get unsatisfactory results.
Regardless of your results, games like The Sims Hot Date do not support Windows 2000. EA tech support cannot solve Windows 2000
problems with The Sims Hot Date, nor can the SimStage staff.

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Browser

Internet Explorer 4.01 or higher or version 4.61 or higher of Netscape Navigator/Communicator is required for players who wish to take advantage of the web page features of The Sims. Mozilla/Netscape 5.0 is NOT supported at this time.

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Web Pages help

For instructions on how to create your own web page templates, please click here. By the way, word says that the Exchange at The Sims site is screwed up, but that they're working to fix it. We're working to have our own Exchange and we have some tests already, however, we don't promise anything yet. Please don't ask to test these Exchanges as only Admins can access them.

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Serial Numbers

The following are my Serial Numbers. Please don't tell anyone I gave them to you:
Just kidding....it is illegal to give out Serial Numbers or even to ask for them, and SimStage will definitely not be the place for people to do it (which is why our PM system is reserved only for staff and why we looked everywhere to give our staff as much power over bad people as possible).
As you know, a valid serial number is required for installation of The Sims games and for registration at The Sims site. The serial number is located on the CD jewel case. If you encounter problems with your serial number, please contact Electronic Arts Technical Support. Refer to your printed documentation for Technical Support contact information.
SimStage recommends you to visit SimsPlus, for they have a program that may help you retreive your game's serial numbers. Also, if you have registered your games at The Sims site, then they're there. We also recommend you to place your CD jewel cases in a place they wont get lost, and before you do anything else, open a WordPad document or something like that, and write the code down.

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(Popular) My Computer Crashes or Locks During Gameplay

A game that experiences difficulties, such as locking or crashing during gameplay, can be suffering from a number of occurrences. The first most obvious, is that something is conflicting in memory with a game. Many new systems have plenty of memory and beyond what is needed to play out games. However, this does not mean that there may be other items running in memory that may cause havoc with our games. These items should be closed down before the game is started.
Although our games do have a set hard disk requirement for installing, it is also necessary to have additional drive space set aside for virtual memory. A lack of hard drive space can cause the game to lock or crash.
It is important to make sure that your hardware has the latest DirectX compatible drivers to insure that you are taking full advantage of all your computer has to offer. Lack of the latest drivers may also cause the game to lock or crash.

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Written by Bryan and Jorddy McGuire,  who thank Maxis for the huge help with the readmes :-)
Copyright � 2003  SimStage.
Last edit: September 4, 2003.