oh ok.
9with added emphasis on waaayyyy) But the main problem that I want to fix is the create a Sim black screen. We can worry about the rest later.

Yes.

(he heh, Reboot. )

That's the nice thing about new people, they laugh at that joke. All the rest here are tired of it after 10 years.

In regards to your problem, I'm kind of at a loss then if everything is up to date and the machine is fast enough. The effects you're getting are similar to if I'm processing video like in Toast and doing something else that is processor intensive is why I asked.

Or it's a bug in the program specific to your hardware/software setup. Is their Support any help? They may have seen this.

No. They won't help. They keep saying send the game back but I KNOW it's not that!

There HAS to be something! Shutting down processes?

Possibly, but is your machine right on the edge of specs, what machine is it exactly, what are the specs. RAM, processor, graphics card, Vista or XP, HD space left.

Look in Task Manager, anything taking a lot of CPU?

Virus sucking down CPU cycles?

I Don't know! I don't know enough about windoze! I just know how to use it and preform basic maintinence tasks. all I know is that you CAN shut them down, not HOW! and All I really know about this Dell is that it's an Inspiron 6000 Has XP, and it looks like this.

You don't meet the specs for Sims 3 in a lot of ways.

Needed;

FOR WINDOWS XP
2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
1 GB RAM
At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

Yours;

1.6 GHz Intel Pentium M 730 (Sonoma), 533MHz FSB and PCIe x16 chipset
512 MB DDR2 400 MHz ram
64 MB ATi Mobility Radeon X300 video

Your Pentium M is a P4 made low power for a laptop, and runs a bit slower than a P4 at the same speed, and your video is lacking. I don't know about the Pixel Shader 2.0 thing but it's still too small in video RAM.

That is probably why they said to send the gane back if you told them which machine you have.

Sorry about that.

It's a centrino! It was a BTO PC! it's different! and those specs don't really count because it's been proven that it works in PCs with lower specs.

Go to Control Panel/System. The first window will give you processor speed and RAM. The Hardware tab/Device Manager will get you to the Display adapter properties.

The Sims 2 had much lower specs so it probably ran fine.

If Sims 3 has been proven to work on lower specs then you need to go to where it was proven and ask around as to what they did to get it working because it's beyond me. Sorry.