Vita - 4 gb patch not working.

@BoilingOil

In no way, should you have to replace a SSD every year. You're right. Right now, 1tb Samsung 860 EVO is going for $139. Still, It's not cheap. I consider ANY drive, SSD, or otherwise, that's over $100 USD, to be expensive. I've had all four of my EVO drives for two years, I paid $220 each for them, and they've certainly went down in price. They're STILL at 100% health. Still, I prefer having a $40 M.2 drive to do most of the grunt work, as it saves my EVO's for "speedy" stuff.

@Kunder

Of course, in no way should I ever have to replace an SSD every year. I was just saying that IF I hypothetically had to, being full well aware that it is way more expensive than a conventional HDD, I would still gladly pay that price for an SSD. But a cheap HDD for the temporary stuff is a good idea.

It's telling for our respective ecconomies, how you consider $139 for that drive to be more expensive than I see the €150 (equivalent to $169) that I would have to pay.
But then, in the US, living off a €1000 monthly income ($1120) would be all but impossible, whereas from my perspective, it's a rather generous income, even though it's just basic welfare level.

@BoilingOil

Nah, it's not that expensive, I guess, I'm just really cheap. I'm so tight, when I blink, my kneecaps jump.

Hi. I'm just seeing this after clicking on the star icon (Alerts). Thank you for mentioning me. I checked my computer and have 8GB of RAM. I notice it the config file shows more Free Memory when my browsers are closed, and open or closed, it ranges from 2800 to 3800. I suppose either one is enough since I haven't had a game crash yet, but I haven't played for hours at a time yet on this computer. So far the longest has been under an hour and that's only to create another neighborhood, a couple of Sims, and put one of my favorite odd houses on a lot for them to buy later. My strategy to not run out of free memory is to save often and exit the game after a couple of hours.

I'm sorry I don't know much about computing and had never heard of a Swap File or a SSD. I suppose I'll have to learn about it or hire a tech guy if I run into problems. I did learn long ago, however, how to make a few cool things; more on that later after I actually play the game!

Hi @Vita,

8GB, huh? Let me give you a little bit of advice for the next time you're going to play the game.

• Shut down all the programs you can. No SimPE, no browsers, no text- or photo-editing programs, NOTHING.
  (If you just started the computer up to go play some TS2, you can forget the above step.)
• Let the machine rest for 2 minutes, doing absolutely nothing, even when you've just started it up. Let it settle down from doing all the Windows-related administrative tasks. Go make a sanitary stop, pour yourself a cup-a-joe, or eat a sandwich. Just let the computer do nothing for a while.
• After two or thee minutes of rest, double-click the M&G icon to start the game.

Now, your plan to save regularly and to shut down the game every few hours is a very good one. Most avid sims players have learned long ago, that this is the best way to stay out of trouble. I save my game about every 10 to 15 minutes, and I hardly ever play longer than 2 hours in a row before shutting down, giving my computer a little rest, and then restarting the game.
After shutting down the game for the first time, just check what the config-log says about free memory. I'm interested in what it says if you started the game with a 'clean' system.


And here is some background stuff related to the terms you said you didn't know. You do NOT need to read it in order to enjoy your sims game.

Swapfile... I guess it is a somewhat older term. It's a Windows file that in modern parlance is usually called 'virtual memory'. Windows just makes a large empty file on your harddisk, where it can temporarily store stuff when it needs to make some room in memory. After it has used the memory, it will reload the stuff from the harddisk to go on as if nothing happened. TS2 is notorious for using that swapfile a LOT, especially if you have much less than 16GB of RAM. Have you ever noticed those times when, suddenly, the game stops for a few seconds? Especially when a witch comes to visit a comm lot? That's when the game needs to swap a lot of memory into the swapfile (see why that name was used?) for a little while.
Experienced users with a LOT of memory learn to turn this feature off. Still, my game stutters for half a second when a witch shows up, and I have a *fast* system.

SSD is shorthand for a 'Solid State Drive'. It is a modern day type of 'harddisk' with not really a disk inside (Solid State means that there are no moving parts). Such a disk is made up of a special type of memory cells. This memory is slower than the RAM in your computer, but MUCH faster for reading and writing than the spinning platter in an old-fashioned harddisk. Most modern laptops now have those SSDs now, because they're not only faster, but also much smaller than normal old-fashioned HDD-drives. They also use less energy AND produce less heat.
Now the experienced computer users are not going to leave these super-fast drives limited to laptops and notebooks, but put them in their desktops and towers PCs as well, just because they are faster, make less noise, and require less cooling.

That's it. You've just learned something new about computers

Enjoy your game, Vita!

@BoilingOil @Vita

Outstanding post!! EXCELLENT advice, BoilingOil! Bravo! However, I'm just curious..... Why do you feel the need to shut down your computer every two hours, to let it "rest". Your computer should be able to deal with a marathon session. It's plenty powerful enough, and 16gb/RAM is more than enough, unless you have some hellacious programs running in the background.

You are CERTAINLY correct. Shut down any outside programs when you're playing, unless you have more than 12gb/RAM. I frequently duck out of the game via Windows key, to surf the web, like right now. I'm playing Sims (doing some experiments), but ducked out to write this (Sims, still running in the background), and I'm also working in BodyShop, and playing Mass Effect 3. All running in the background. I jump between applications. I'm doing this on a laptop, connected to a 32" gaming monitor.

I also have 32gb/RAM. I wouldn't be able to do this with less than 32gb. I've tried with 16, and crashed my computer. That's why I added another 16gb. Right now, I just checked my Ram usage. I'm using about 22gb/RAM, out of 32. I have plenty of room. I ALWAYS recommend installing as much ram, as your computer can use, if you have the money. Ram, is cheap. At LEAST, you should have a little more than TWICE the ram, Sims 2 requires. Most computers that are newer than 8 years old, and are Sandy bridge or better, have the ability to run 16gb/RAM, if it has two memory slots.

Sims 2 may only recognize up to 4gb/RAM, but you need anything over that, for your computer to have "breathing room", to do it's operations, and if you want to multi-task, while playing Sims. A Quad Core processor also helps..... a LOT.

@Kunder

Woah! Sorry bro, I never said anything about shutting down the computer!! All I said was to shut down the GAME! TS2 is very leaky; it uses blocks of memory, and cleans them up poorly, leaving stuff behind that can later cause trouble. And Windows is not a true master of memory management either. At some point, it looks like all memory is in use, ony because old blocks have not been properly returned to the pool. That is when the game starts to act up, and it crashes "MEMORY ACCESS VIOLATION".

That's why I say "shut down the GAME after two hours" and let the system rest for two minutes before restarting the game again!

Yeah, with 32GB you have more freedom. But I, with my 16GB, am not completely free to do anything I want. Especially BECAUSE I do not have the swapfile. Sure, occasionally I can press the Windows key and check some text-file in UltraEdit, or open a page in Firefox for a moment. But I do that only for stuff that is related to the game!
Extended sessions of browsing, playing videos and music files, and doing Svarogg knows what, however, is out of the question! If I do that, then as soon as I return to the game an hour or so later, it crashes on me in minutes.

@BoilingOil

Oops! Sorry, I misunderstood. Part of getting old.