Video card?? Can someone help a really dumb girl?

Just thought I'd let you know what you're in for before you even start to answer my questions. I need a new video card so that I can play Sims 2. The game was a Christmas present and I was able to play it on the start, then it started crashing, showing little "pixelie" looking things, and my whole computer would lock up. I'm not sure why it let me start playing it in the beginning. Anyway, so I go to Best Buy and purchase a video card at the recommendation of this really knowledgeable sounding techie girl, I think it was a GeForce 6200 OC, she assured me that it would work with my game and my computer, and like I said she was so convincing that I bought it on the spot, spur of the moment. When I get home and do some further research, I see that it is not listed under the min system requirements for Sims 2. So I returned it, after not finding anything else at the store that was supported by the game. I have done more research and have to say that I am thoroughly confused now. I don't know what kind of card I can buy that will work with my machine, I read all sorts of things about inadequate power supply, blah blah, and I'm scared to get anything that may or may not work, or even worse, something that my damage or kill my machine. And again, if I sound stupid about this computer stuff, it's because I am. Please feel free to talk to me like a 1st grader, I just want to play my game! So here are my specs. Please, please, any help will be greatly appreciated. Oh, and I bought my computer in the summer of 2003...

Dell Dimension DIM 4600 Pentium R (4) CPU 2.40 GHZ
2.39 GHZ, 512 MB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X
40.0 GB Free Space

Let me know if I didn't cover everything. Thanks in advance!

 

Hi and welcome to MajorGeeks.

You used the magic word "girl".


In order to play Sims2, your computer must meet certain requirements.

Easiest way is to download THIS tool which will tell you what is OK and not.

Do not try to run it from it's zip container. You must unzip the files for it to run.

 

Sounds like you need to install the latest drivers for your video card. Maybe even update you motherboards drivers. I'm going to take a guess and say you are using windows XP? Yes? If not you'll need to tell us what operating system you are using. You need to install THESE drivers. You can use THIS tutorial.

If that guide is too much you can just follow these steps:
1-goto start>control panel>add/remove programs
2-locate your video drivers should say something like "nvidia graphics drivers" or similar
3-click remove and follow the instructions to uninstall the drivers
4-if you have a new card you have to shut down your system and install the new card -- if you don't, reboot the system and when it detects new hardware(your current graphics card) cancel that out
5-double click the nvidia drivers that you downloaded in the previous link and reboot
6-play the sims 2

You may also want to use Driver Cleaner Pro to fully uninstall your outdated drivers. Be sure to read the readme and instructions.

The card you have should run the game, but not very well. You might get a 6600GT as they are usually a pretty good deal.

 

When I ran the program to check my system requirements, there was a green checkmark placed by all of my specs, except for the graphics card-there was a red "x" beside of it. I ran a similar program last week (can't remember where) that gave me pretty much the same results, so this is how I knew there was a problem with my card.

Pyrate, your instructions were simple enough, but of course I'm going to have to be difficult, lol. I tried to download a new driver a few days ago, of course I didn't know about the step where you actually uninstall your old driver (for the graphics card) duh right? So I don't think it ever really installed. So now when I go in and try to remove my old driver and reboot my computer, there is a little icon in my tray that says "new hardware found" and it's a NVIDIA display driver, I can't remember the exact name-I'm hurriedly typing this, I have to go to work in a few. I have tried to go back and remove this 2 times more and it keeps popping up in my tray saying new hardware found. Is this a problem? Should I keep it the way it is and proceed or do I need to get rid of it?

 

You first uninstall the video card drivers, reboot, and when Windows says Found New Hardware, click cancel. (don't worry about any error)

Then install the new driver and reboot.

 

Is that card even powerful enough to run Sims 2? I thought it was a spreadsheet card.

 

Look up the system requirements.http://sims2.servopro.com/sysreq.phtml

So yes, its powerful enough.

 

you shouldn't have to uninstall your old drivers in order to update them, usually the nvidia installer app will do that for you, just run the new installer, and reboot when told to, then you should be ok. and you might want to check dell's support site for the correct drivers for your system...all you need is your service tag # and it will tell you under drivers/downloads which drivers you need.

 

Its better to uninstall them. I know I'm not the only one who trusts autoamtic uninstallers.

 

Yes it's better to uninstall, I've seen so many problems from people just updating.

nVidia even tell you on their site to uninstall via Add/Remove before updating.

They know their product better than anyone.

 

After trying at least a dozen times to try and remove the old drivers and not being really sure whether or not they were actually "gone" I went ahead and installed the new ones. Everytime I would go into the control panel to remove the old drivers and restarted my computer, the same thing happened, it showed "new hardware found" but it didn't give me the option to cancel this out. After about 30 seconds of me trying to click on the new hardware found icon in the tray, the screen went completely black for about 4-5 seconds and then when it came back on, the icon was gone. I digress. So then I went to the nVIDIA site to download the new drivers, since I have dial-up, it took only about 3 hours to accomplish this. Finally, I installed the new drivers, and at your advice, went ahead and installed the driver cleaner program and maybe this is where I went wrong, but I clicked on nVIDIA under the cleaning section, then clicked start. (Maybe it's just me but there wasn't a lot of direction with this program for a novice such as I) I noticed that when I rebooted, that the new nVIDIA icon that was in the tray prior to using the driver cleaner program is now gone. Maybe you're familliar with what I'm talking about? It gave you options on different display settings etc. I didn't really get to play with it much since I ran the DCP program shortly after installing the new drivers. But now I'm thinking maybe the DCP got rid of my new drivers??? I can't believe that I have ran into so many complications just to run a freaking game. I appreciate all the help so far. You all are so knowledgeable! I would never know what to do on my own.

 

If you want a really powerful card this should handle everything just fine

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=195

 

Mate, that doesn't help, are you on the right thread?

She has AGP to begin with, not to mention she doesn't need any new hardware.