Recognising Newer Graphics Cards for Sims2

You mean you cant patch it, not using the disc patch, but the patches from the old EA site? I had some problems installing NightLife on Win 7, I "fixed" it by installing base game, then AL and then all the rest. As AL was already patched I only had to install the earlier games and then drop the AL patch from EA in over the top.

Yes I always install Mansion and Garden right after the base game to prevent a lot of patching. It wouldn't update at all, no matter what I tried. Been a while since I last used it though, so things may be different.

To be honest with SimCity4 its not working optimally, just works enough. The Graphics Rules and Video Card changes that I did for Sims, works for it. I also limited the texture memory back to something small (256) to keep rendering to something that SC4 can cope with. It still flickers a little but not enough for me to care.

I've been able to patch my game on Win 7, although I found that what I did have to do was swap to a NoCD version of the game to get it to behave. Originally when I was first installing it onto my Windows7 it refused completely. Because of some hardware issues, I had to reformat and re-install the Win7 O/S and discovered that it would install then. I'm of the opinion that the Computer shop that originally formatted made a dog's breakfast of it. After that, The game wouldn't play from NightLife or OFB onwards, but I found that using the NoCD version, it was fine. I installed and patched after every pack. (I have all expansions, all stuff packs).

Sims 2 runs like a charm on Windows 7 with a few tweaks. I also found last night Alt-Tab after first launching the games gets rid of flickering in Simcity 4. Of course you need to uninstall that Windows 7 update and apply your video card fix, but it is still a decent solution. Alt-Tab after first launching can be annoying, but alt-tab a lot with other games, and they load quickly for the most part, as does Simcity 4. Windows 8 isn't as bad as most people say overall, but I still prefer Windows 7 for personal reasons.

The one update (KB2670838) that limits texture memory to 32MB MUST be installed for IE10 to be present on your system. If it is not then Microsoft will install it alongside IE10. So if you want to play the Sims 2, don't use IE10.

Or reset the texture memory as specified above.

Well, I am baffled. I thought my game looked ok, I have IE10 installed and I use win7. I have an NVidia card though and use AGS as my game folder.

Lee - not all cards are affected by the texture memory problem. If you have anti-alias, then you're ok.

Manually setting texture memory didn't seem to work for me, and you must remember that all cards have different amounts of VRAM. This would actually explain why your fix was working for awhile then all of a sudden stopped. It is easiest not to have IE10 installed on your system and use one of the multiple other browsers available.

Montosaurus - that's because you probably had a different problem as well as the texture problem. Yes, I'm aware that different cards have different amounts of VRAM, that's why I suggest that you find out from a backed up game with the config-log.txt what your texture memory was.

It's not always a choice you can make to get rid of IE10. I work from home as a programmer and have to use IE as well as play Sims for my recreation.

What I think Lee is saying, and also what I'm saying - is you can have IE10, the KB change and the sims working in Windows 7. It's not an either or.