I'm playing on Windows 8. I've had TS2 deluxe edition for a while now. Previously, when I opened it and went to a town, the screen would be black, and I would have to alt tab to two different programs (e.g. internet then desktop) and then go back to the game and it would work fine. However, if I only alt tabbed to one, the screen would no longer be black, but would turn black when I clicked.
I started playing again after a month or so of not playing, and now when I alt tab out of the game, my desktop/ anything else I switch to is black, and when I switch back to the game, it turns black when I click once. I've tried disabling CC, using a different neighborhood, everything, but the problem keeps happening. I don't know why it would work fine for a while and then suddenly stop working like this. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!

The screen going black is a normal part of loading, or are you saying it doesn't show the town even after sitting black for a minute?

I left it for around five minutes and it didn't change. Whenever I load a town, I can't watch the part where it zooms around and gives a tour, because it's black even while the game is running.

Have your drivers recently updated at all?

And what graphics card or chip do you have?

I'm not sure. I did a quick Google of how to look at driver update history and didn't find anything; do you know how I could check?
I have AMD A8-5550M APU with Radeon HD.

AMD A8-5550M is your CPU/APU and not your video card/on-board graphics card.



It sounds like your video card/on-board graphics card is not able to handle Sims 2 but with out having the make and model we can not tell.

AMD Radeon HD 8550G

Ok the next question is how much ram do you have.




You may want to go read through this thread http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=500523

I have 8 GB. The game used to run fine, so I don't think it's my specs.

Also, while you're reading that thread, you might want to try playing in windowed mode to see if that fixes the problem.

I'll load the neighborhood and have the internet up, and as soon as the neighborhood loads, the screen goes black; the only things that aren't are the bar at the bottom and apps like Xbox music.