Hello PChelpforum, I've been having a real problem with my sims games, The Sims 2, and Sim City 4 since I installed a new graphics card. This christmas I switched my old ASUS Nvidia 7600gs, which supported both games flawlesly, for an ati 1950-pro. Since the switch, both games suffer real slowdown, usually about 4fps, even on blank lots/cities.
I'm pretty sure it's not a performance issue, as my machine'll run call of duty 4 on it's highest settings, and crysis on about medium. My PC's fully de-fragged and virus-free, with about 400GB free disk space.

I've got the latest display drivers/cat-con centre all downloaded, but it doesn't make any difference. The graphics card is the only new hardware I installed before the games went all jittery, and I noticed this a few nights after I first fitted it.

Any help'd be really appreciated!

"SimCity 4" System Requirements

Supported 3D Chipsets

• NVIDIA Geforce4, Geforce3, Geforce 2, Geforce 256
• NVIDIA TNT2, TNT
• ATI Radeon 9700, 9000, 8500, 7500, 7200, 7000
• Matrox Parhelia
• Matrox G550, G450, G400

"The Sims 2" System Requirements

If you have a non-T&L capable video card (such as TNT2, Intel, or Rage for example) then you need at least:

• 2.0 GHz processor
• 256 MB RAM if Windows XP
• 128 MB RAM if Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000
• At least 3.5 gigs of free hard drive space

Recommened video cards (and the more video memory the better):

• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
• Nvidia Geforce 4
• Visit "The Sims 2" official website for a more detailed list.

You can also download the system requirements test from ServoPro to see if your computer is ready for "The Sims 2."

I don't think it's anything to do with hardware. By rights, my PC should be able to run it flawlessly, it exceeds all the requirements by a long way. Thanks anyway though