Baby's First Driver Upgrade & associated migraines...HELP?!

I'm struggling with the same blue screen of perpetual game lag as many other Sims 2 players.

I have a 17" Sony Vaio VGN-A190 Laptop Notebook Computer (PCG-8V1L)
(XP Media Center ver 2002 serpack2,
Intel CPU T2500 @ 2GHz,
2GHz, 1GHz RAM,
200G drive)
which was bundled with an NVidia GeForce Go 7600 GT (256MB, Bios ver 5.73.22.25.05,driver ver 8.4.5.7). I mention the dimension because it's capable of running 1920x1200, far higher res-wise and width-wise than Sims 2 offers as an in-game res choice.

I have received two different suggestions re: drivers that may help keep my game from black screening, having video artifacts on screen (UI menus layer atop each other), suddenly hanging and going into the aforementioned turquoise screen with spinning hourglass (sound working fine in the background), spamming up "application has suddenly terminated" messages, and so on.

When the game is functioning, the graphics look fine. Better than fine. The "boolprop useshaders false" trick offered by Maxis / EA to address some game component issues (invisible fish in fish tanks and lakes, weather handling, etc.) isn't necessary, I have mine set to true and still see fish and other effects.

Yet it isn't a game issue, either, because I've started it "vanilla" and with custom content and it looks the same and hangs the same regardless, albeit it takes a little longer on a smaller and/or "plain vanilla" lot.

On a good day I can play for about forty minutes before getting an error, a blue screen, a black screen, a crash, a hang, artifacts, or a crash message blaming the video card / driver.

I only have taskmgr, rundll32, and explorer running in addition to the game.

I got CacheMan in hopes that it would help track down errors, and Sims 2 is a huge memory hog, but there doesn't seem to be a correlation between high/low RAM usage and when the game chooses to crash.

It does crash or hang a lot when using rotating arrow navigation (circular spin around vertical axis). This implies that the card / driver is struggling to keep up with the changing visuals and borking.

I'm open to suggestions!

The first is the Forceware 94.20 driver, but I looked at the read-me, and maybe I'm just too raw a n00b to spot my driver on the list, but I didn't see it. Do you?

Adapters supported
------------------
NVIDIA RIVA TNT
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Pro
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Ultra
NVIDIA Vanta
NVIDIA Vanta LT
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 Pro
NVIDIA Aladdin TNT2
NVIDIA GeForce 256
NVIDIA GeForce DDR
NVIDIA Quadro
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400
NVIDIA Quadro2 MXR
NVIDIA Quadro2 EX
NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS
NVIDIA GeForce2 Pro
NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti
NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra
NVIDIA GeForce2 Integrated GPU
NVIDIA Quadro2 Pro
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440-SE
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 460
NVIDIA Quadro NVS
NVIDIA Quadro4 500 XGL
NVIDIA Quadro4 550 XGL
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 with AGP8X
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440SE with AGP8X
NVIDIA Quadro4 NVS with AGP8X
NVIDIA Quadro4 380 XGL
NVIDIA Quadro4 580 XGL
NVIDIA GeForce3
NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200
NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500
NVIDIA Quadro DCC
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4800
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE
NVIDIA Quadro4 700 XGL
NVIDIA Quadro4 750 XGL
NVIDIA Quadro4 900 XGL
NVIDIA Quadro4 780 XGL
NVIDIA Quadro4 980 XGL
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1000
NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000


Am I just missing it? Is this compatible with my system?

I was also directed towards XTreme-G 97.92, which will take me a while to acquire on dial-up, if at all, but I'll do it if the experts think it will help.

I also have DriverCleaner 3.3 but have received conflicting advice on what to do. One school of thought says "try to install new driver, then if it doesn't work, you can roll back to the old driver" and the other says "completely clean your system of the old driver, then try to install the new one". Of course, if I choose #2, I better have an .exe version of the old driver, because my machine won't access the internet using the basic laptop video driver / safe mode driver. I haven't found a backup .exe of my current driver yet.

Please help me with this. I'm not particularly technical, but I am capable of following instructions.

Other uses of computer include Painter, Photoshop, Illustrator, (need to handle files averaging around a G sometime), Flash, interactive graphic/web design projects. No conflicting 3D games, just Sims2.

Are either of these drivers "better" for my needs? Is there a better choice?

Where can I find my old driver (8.4.5.7? 84.57?), just in case I make an error? Better to play a game for only 40 minutes rather than not being able to do ANYTHING at all.

I went to Song VAIO site and they do not have my model type (PCG-8V1L) listed, so that's unhelpful. I went to NVidia site and they don't have my current driver (or so it seems). I could have sworn that this is whe4re a Geek Squad tech looked while helping me transfer my old laptop contents and programs and computer defense tools from a 98 laptop to my current XP Media Center one.

Should I use DriverCleaner beforehand, and risk not being able to rollback, or after running the new driver's install .exe?

I tried to find a way to make a backup copy of my current driver and haven't found a way to do that. Is that something system restore would do?

If I set a restore point on my computer before futzing with ANY drivers, will that be an adequate safety net if the driver install goes awry?

Please forgive me if these questions seem silly. I'm new to all of this.

Thanks in advance for your help!

ETA: My current driver is not available at Tweaks'r'Us (closest is 84.56, apparently untweaked) and I haven't found it elsewhere, so my question about how to roll back is all the more vital. Anyone? Bueller?

Options I have:
Xtreme-G 97.92 exe
Xtreme-G 94.20 exe
Forceware 94.20 folder with exe and components

All found at Tweaks'R'Us.

Also have nHancer 2.1.1 if anyone is familiar with it.

System / laptop stats as noted above.

Sims 2 stats: every SP and EP except FFS.

Seriously, advice is welcome. I'd jump right into it if I had some reassurance that I would be able to restore my old driver if necessary. If I use Driver Cleaner, I doubt I'll be able to. I haven't found a replacement online, so even a link to a replacement for my driver (untweaked 84.57) would help. I've looked since late January. Maybe you know a site I haven't been able to find.

I'd try and get the prepackaged driver from Sony, but the reason the Geek Squadder DL'ed the current driver is because the default one was even more buggy.

HELP!! Please?

 

Good post, enough info for some suggestions!
1) be sure heat is not a problem, hit your cooling ports with canned air to clean them and be sure they are not blocked while gaming.
2) Clean the registry before installing new drivers.
3) http://www.omegadrivers.net/ might be a better place for drivers, they have solved problems for me in the past.
4) Drop everything down in Sims, no add ons, 1024 x 768 - or what ever resolution is around that you can use.

Later drivers usually work best.
I would not worry a lot about going back, this is usually a one way street requiring a few steps and you may wind up having no idea of which step fixed it.
SOOOO..
clean the ports, reset SIMS to minimums with no add ons and test
If that fails:
1) download all the driver packages you want to try
2) burn drivers to CD or put in a folder on your desktop
3) uninstall your old drivers
4) clean the registry
5) reboot to Windows default and cancel "new hardware found"
6) install new driver and test - repeat until you win or all the drivers fail

 

First of all, a thousand thank yous!

Apparently the drivers I mentioned are not going to help me (bugger! Almost a G of downloads! On dial-up!) because the NVidia GeForce 7600 GT requires specific laptop drivers.

The latest found is now Forceware 84.63. Downloading. Nearly 50M. Via dial-up. See you in a few days!

It's also known that Sims 2 and NVidia don't like each other and that, ironically, my card may be too good for the game. Supposedly EA & NVidia are working in tandem on the issue. Right. rolleyes Some users have had to go back to older drivers. There is no consensus on what the optimum driver is, so I anticipate this one not working. Hence the concern about going back to the current one if problems get worse.

Also tempted to add another G of RAM, but this apparently has little impact on the video card, it just helps with accumulating and processing larger custom content files. And don't have a spare $150 just burning a hole in my pocket, to be honest.