Recently, I found my game boxes for The Sims 2, so I decided I might as well install them on my new laptop. I got through the base game installation, but was too excited to continue, so I loaded up my base game right then. It loaded very fast, however in the main loading screen only the first two loading messages appeared, and then it was just blank. I didn't think much of it, so I got into the game, opened up Pleasantview and clicked on Create a Sim. I named my family, and my first sim, I proceeded into headshots - this is what I saw:


When clicking on them, nothing much really happens inside the game or with the Sims themselves.

Then proceeding:


The icons above don't represent everything, there are different stuff messed up for different skin tones, ages, genders etc... Sometimes, when putting on one of the clothes that has become messed up, textures on the actual CAS screen also mess up, such as the floor becoming black or the wall becoming pink, the stand with the other sims also sometimes becomes blue. Also, this only happened once for me, but when I once put on a sleepwear that is extremely messed up for the adult males, the Sim in the CAS screen became messed up, I couldn't get these to happen right now, but if I could, I would have captured them.

I've tried a lot of things, patching my game (already patched, it tells me), installing later expansions, uninstalling and reinstalling, replacing stuff like objects.package files from my actual disc, yet nothing works, it still happens. Changing in-game quality/screen size doesn't change anything either, they're as messed up, no matter if low or high settings.

Also, as a notice, this does not happen with any pre-made families that I play, only my CAS families. Also, no one can go clothes shopping, because whenever they do, the game crashes with a completely weird screen, that I'm not able to capture right now, but it has all kinds of coloured spots everywhere around it, etc, with only the cancel button appearing.

My system specs are:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
4 GB or RAM (3.88 GB Usable)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2520M CPU @ 2,50 GHz 2,50 GHz
Intel HD Graphics 3000

Would really appreciate some help!

Do you have dual graphics, by any chance? The chip you're currently playing on is not designed to handle TS2 well.

You can also read these articles if you want to be more informed about your situation:
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?tit...r_is_Like_a_Car
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?tit...nboard_Graphics

In short, by continuing to play TS2 on your laptop, you'll just wear it out much faster. Some people are able to play for long before they start seeing consequences (blurry textures, lag even on Windows, etc.), but since you've already started seeing some severe artifacts, it'd be good if you either tried to find if you have switchable graphics, or (if you don't) stopped playing TS2 completely. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but new doesn't always equal to eligible to play. And in your case, unfortunately, it doesn't.

I don't think it's a problem with my chip, honestly - I have another computer with a lower chip that I installed Sims 2 on a while ago (2012), I haven't used the computer in a pretty long time, but now when I loaded it up, TS2 still runs without problems, obviously on low settings and with a little bit of lag, but yes. Also, I forgot to mention this laptop runs into no problems running The Sims 2 by itself, I'm running it on high graphics and gameplay works as well as it should, no lag anywhere. The Sims 2 is an old game and most graphics engines, be them cards or chips, should be able to run it well. I can also run many other games on medium to high settings without troubles anywhere, I literally don't see why a 10 year old game should have problems running while a game only 2 years old can run well.
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On another note, the CAS icons don't seem to be affecting gameplay as much, I created a family and moved them in and they work just fine, the only trouble is still the clothing racks, when walking up to them and trying to buy something. I updated my graphics driver (it was very outdated) and my game doesn't crash at this moment anymore, nor does it get any artifacts on it, yet only a cancel button shows up and nothing else.

EDIT: Also, while the clothing racks don't work, changing your Sim's appearance in a mirror does.

Regardless of what you think is true, that shattering is a sign of the graphics struggling with the images. You are damaging your computer if you run a program it's not equipped to handle on it.

The missing, rather than shattered, items might be the result of an imperfect installation.

I was thinking that too, my base game disc is very old, from when the DVD version came out. University clothes didn't have this issue, so when I first loaded up CAS with University I thought it had been fixed. I did uninstall all my games afterwards and reinstall just the base game. But yeah, as I was saying, there is no sign of issue in game, except for the clothing racks.

Still, I don't get how a chip that's even worse than the Intel HD 3000 could run it with no issues.

It could be either a corrupted installation or a graphics issue - I don't know which, although if it's only affecting basegame stuff, the former seems more likely. However, it's perfectly possible for the crapper of two crap graphics chips to actually work better: computer components don't stay the same over time, they wear out and get weaker. If you start with two identical Intel HD 3000 chips, use one to play Sims 2 and Sims 3 and use the other for web browsing and tetris, then the first one will very quickly become damaged and start having lots of issues, while the second one will be absolutely fine. In the same way, a better chip can end up worse than the "worse" one - especially if they're in two different models of laptop, with different internal layouts, different heat dissipation, used in different environments, dropped different numbers of times etc.

Have you tried following the clean disk etc. instructions in Game Help:Install^wiki?