Ask A Geek

Q: I have a computer running Windows Vista home 32bit. I have a extra hard drive in my computer I would like to use for my gaming and pictures/music. I have downloaded a program to F: drive and adjusted the software to only save its music to F: Drive. It all worked great.

Now I want to know how to get my games to play on it. I have tried to download my “sims” game to F: drive, but the game always stores a folder in “my documents” on C: drive. I understand that is a default folder for installations etc. That prevents me from being able to get required downloads etc.

How can I get my game to properly install on F: Drive without it creating a folder on C: drive. I have heard of moving the entire documents folder to F drive, but I am intimidated about that out of fear I’ll screw up my computer. I really would like to just download my games to F: drive, and leave c: drive for windows software.

Q: I am having issues with my brand new NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT AGP 256ram memory card. I am trying to play The Sims 2 (my game has all expansions and all stuff packs) and the game simply crashes to a black screen after 20 minutes. If playing in a windowed mode, it crashes to a blue screen and the game can be heard still playing though the graphics are gone and no actions are available. My previous card, an NVIDIA 5600 LE played the game without need for driver updates or any issues. This one has been a nightmare. How do I fix it?

A: Let’s begin with a possible explanation for why the 5600 works but the 7600 does not. By looking at the Minimum System Requirements for The Sims 2, you can see that the 5600 is officially supported while the 7600 is not supported. But due to the fact that help articles for The Sims 2 are undated, it is difficult to know if the current capabilities of the game are actually listed in the system requirements article or not.

Don’t despair! There are still a few ideas worth exploring. First, you should visit The Sims 2 Update Page and install all of the updates pertaining to you. Then navigate to the NVIDIA Driver Downloads page an install the latest 7600 drivers. As of this writing the latest set of official drivers for the 7600 on Windows XP appears to be 163.71 (September 28, 2007). Additionally, you might want to consider installing optional NVIDIA GeForce software, which will give you greater control over you graphics card.

If none of the above fix your problems, it might help to uninstall the Open for Business Expansion Pack and the Family Fun Stuff Pack, due to a known issue listed in The Sims 2 support documentation entitled Crashing or graphical corruption, using an NVIDIA graphics chipset, after installing Open for Business or Family Fun Stuff. You may also wish to contact The Sims 2 Technical Support for more ideas.