Difference between revisions of "Game Help:Dual Core Issues"

Revision as of 23:54, 23 September 2008

Dual Core Issues

Problem(s)

• The game is quite jerky, even at high frame rates, and may intermittently crash.
• Things seem to run slow and fast randomly.

Having a Dual Core processor is not the only cause for the above problems! Among other things, having an underpowered computer is one of the most common causes for performance and stability problems. Make sure that your computer meets recommendations to play TS2 and all expansions.

Cause

This is because the game may have compatibility issues with some dual core CPUs. TS2 can not make use of dual core technology, so not only is there no performance boost with dual core CPUs, but there may be issues which require the following steps to be resolved...

Solution

To fix this problem, you must set your processor affinity manually. Note that setting processor affinity automatically is not possible without 3rd party software (in other words, it's not inbuilt into XP or Vista and this process, without extra tools, must be performed each time you run the game).

Setting Processor Affinity Manually:

1. Launch the game.
2. As soon as the game appears to begin loading, or after it has loaded up, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager.
3. Under the Processes tab, find the nameofthegame.exe process (Sims2EP5.exe, for example), right-click on it, select 'Set Affinity'
4. In the box which appears, keep 'CPU 0' ticked but untick all other boxes.

Related Links

• Toms Hardware guide on Processor Affinity
• Microsoft's article on Dual core processors

Credits

Thanks to Echo for originally sharing this information.