Sims 2
While I was in the USA back in September I treated myself to a copy of the much anticipated Sims2 that had just been released.
On arriving home to the UK, there were a couple of new things that I knew that I needed to get so that I could play my new purchase. Firstly my PC had no DVD drive - a minor point in that I had opted for the DVD Special Edition of the game!
I had wanted to buy a DVD-writer for a while but was waiting for the prices to come down a bit more. Now that I had a load of video footage from America to transfer as well as Sims 2 to play - this was the ideal time to buy one, so off I go to PC World.
They had a special offer on a new Sony dual-layer writer for £70 - Sorted. While I was there, I thought that I’d better invest in a brand new graphics card, as the on-board graphics on my Aria PC was not up too much.
For some reason PC World appeared to have had a bit of a rush on with graphics cards, and instead of the usual shelves of choice there was only 1 PNY GeForce FX 5500 AGP card available. This seemed adequate, and so off I went with my new purchases.
The DVD drive installed with ease, shame that the same could not be said about the graphics card.
To cut a very, very long story short; after installing, reinstalling drivers, rolling-back, updating the BIOS twice, EVEN taking the drastic action of re-installing XP - do you think I could get this darn card to work properly? NO!! After MANY MANY hours of frustration over a period of 2-3 weeks I took it back to PC World in the hope of getting a PCI card. Can I change this for a PCI card I ask; “I’m sorry we dont have ANY graphics cards in stock!”. I had my money back.
Well, its been some 2 months later - and I was Xmas shopping in Exeter the weekend and popped into their local Comet - and low and behold I found a GeForce 5200 PCI Card… I took it home and after an initial bout of it not working properly - probably a driver issue from all the faffing around with the last card - it now finally works!!
I can now play Sims2! And what a cracking good game it is too - A vast improvement on the already enjoyable Sims.
All-in-all it only cost me about £160 to play!
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