Readme The Sims

VACATION

MAXIS 02/28/2002 Version 1.0 Table of Contents General Performance Tips System Requirements Playing with Windows(r) XP Video Problems Sound Problems Windows(r) 2000 Browser Web Pages Help Serial Numbers INSTALLING VACATION WITH HOT DATE, HOUSE PARTY, AND LIVIN' LARGE Last Resort: Reinstalling Registry Cleaner NEW TO VACATION: -New VACATION ISLAND AREA -New Non-Player Characters -New Catalog Sorts -New Web Features -Neighborhoods General ------For the latest up to date information on The Sims and The Sims Vacation visit: http://www.thesims.com. You can visit fan sites and find message boards, FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questio ns), walk-throughs and hints on the site. Visit the chat area of our site to chat wit h other players. Performance Tips ----------------In general, the system is at full capacity when running the simulation at full speed, all graphics enabled, and sounds and music playing. To improve performance, turn graphics options down or off, turn sounds and/or music off and use lower screen resolution settin gs. These settings are found by clicking the "Options" button in the Control Panel. You can change the graphics options by clicking the "Graphics Options" button that looks like a monitor. NOT E: The option to turn Anti-Alias off is no longer available or needed. You can change the sound options by clicking the "Sound Options" button that looks like a speaker. You can use the shortcut i n the start menu to run at 800x600 rather than 1024x768. -Running the game with the "Roof" option on can affect system performance. We re commend players use the "Walls Cutaway" option located in the Control Panel above the time indicator .

-Saving the game can be sped up by disabling the "Export HTML" function in the " Play Options" menu. We recommend this for players who will not be using the web page features of The Sims. -We recommend that you don't frequently Alt+Tab in and out of the game, especial ly when the game is saving or loading. System Requirements ------------------- Windows(r) 95, 98, XP or higher (Windows(r) NT and Windows(r) 2000 are not sup ported) - The Sims(tm) for Windows installed - 300 Mhz or faster Intel(r) Pentium II(r) processor - 64 MB RAM (128 MB required if using Windows XP or other expansion packs for Th e Sims) - 2MB PCI or AGP video card capable of High Color (16-bit Color), 800x600 resolu tion display. Must have DirectX 7 compatible driver. - 4x CD-ROM drive using 32-bit Windows(r) 95/98 driver - Sound Card - Directx 7 Certified - 700 MB free hard disk space (additional space required for DirectX 7 installat ion and Windows(r) swap file) - DirectX 7.0 compatible sound card - A keyboard, mouse, monitor and some form of power. Playing with Windows(r) XP -------------------------When logged in as a "limited user", you may experience a Dialogue expressing: "Game cannot be started because: There is not enough memory or hard drive space to run. Exit now." Try switching to "administrator" and you should be able to play. We only supoprt one copy of the game running on Windows (r) XP even with multipl e users logged in. Video Problems --------------The Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro, 3DLabs Permedia 2, Symetric Glyder-Max 2 and S3 V irge GX2 video cards did not pass our compatibility tests for Windows(r) 95/98. -The ATI Rage Fury Maxx, Cirrus Logic 5464 Reference Board, Diamond Stealth II G 460, Intel i740, REAL 3D Starfighter, Hercules Terminator Beast, and S3 Savage 3D video cards did not pass our compatibility tests for Window(r) XP. -Although 3D acceleration won't improve game performance, newer 2D/3D video card s tend to have better 2D support than older 2D cards. -If The Sims screen appears fuzzy after switching between applications by pressi ng Alt+Tab, this is likely a result of outdated video drivers. -If you are still experiencing problems, try updating your video card drivers. *Diagnostic tools- If you are still having problems with video, try running the game from a shortcut with

some of these command line options: -nodx6 (It disables DirectX 6-and-later support, falling back to DX3. S ome graphics, like roofs, won't work, but it fixes problems on laptops and certain European machin es in 800x600 mode.) -w (forces game into windowed mode) -r1024x768 (forces 1024x768 screen size) -skip_intro (skips the intro movie) -skip_verify (use this if the game will not start at all. Possible solut ion for some laptop and audio/video workstation problems. Make sure you run 800x600 mode and use 16 bit col or or higher with this setting.) This skips verification for OS, DirectX version, a compatible graphics card, the game already running, not enough memory/hard disk, a Pentium processor or better, and it will try to set 16-bit color in windowed mode if not 16-bit color. To create a shortcut, right click on Sims.exe and choose "Create Shortcut". To e dit the shortcut, right click on the shortcut and select "Properties." At the end of the line called "Target", ad d a space after the existing text and enter your command line option (such as -skip_intro). When running the game with video cards using 2MB of RAM, the buy/build mode menu in the lower left hand corner flickers as you pan around the screen. Sound Problems -------------Diagnostic tools- If you are having problems with sound try running the game fro m a shortcut with the command line option "-nosound". This will run the game with no sound or music. T ry this only if you need to determine if your sound card is causing problems with the game. Turning the sound effects, voice and music all the way down in the game will eff ectively turn all the sound off. These options are located in the Control Panel under "Options" and then "Sound O ptions". Music only works from mapped drives (e.g., g:\), not "universal naming conventio n (UNC)" devices (e.g.,\\myserver). No Sound with USB Speakers. DirectSound does not work properly on some systems with USB speakers. If you have USB speakers and are not getting any sound then you need to turn off sound acceleration on the Multimedia control panel. Windows(r) 2000: From the start button, go to "Settings", then "Control Panel" and then click on the "Sounds and Multimedia" control panel. Click on the Audio tab. Under "Sound Playback" click "Advanced" . This opens the "Advanced Audio Properties" dialog. Click the "Performance" tab. Now drag the "Hardware acceleration" slider all the way to the left ("None"). Click okay in both dialogs. You shoul d now be able to play with sound.

Windows(r) 98 From the start button, go to "Settings" and then click on "Control Panel". Open the "Multimedia" control panel. Click on the Audio tab. Then click the "Advanced Properties" button to open the "Advanced Audio Properties" dialog. Click the "Performance" tab. Now drag the "Hardware acceleration" slider all th e way to the left ("None"). Click okay in both dialogs. You should now be able to play with sound. Windows(r) 2000 -----------The Sims Vacation does not support Windows(r) 2000. However, it does run on many Windows(r) 2000 systems. One way to avoid some of the compatibility issues is to install and play the game (and any expans ion packs) as an Administrator. Both the installer and the game set registry entries under the LOCAL_MACHINE tre e. This registry tree is protected in Windows(r) 2000 so that only Administrators can modify it. Some game features ex pect to see certain registry entries there in order to detect what game version you have, what expansion packs are installe d and other important details. If you do not install The Sims or any of its expansion packs as an Administrator under Windows(r) 2000, you may get unsatisfactory results. Regardless of your results, The Sims Vacation does not support Windows(r) 2000. EA tech support cannot solve Windows(r) 2000 problems with The Sims Vacation. Browser ------Internet Explorer 4.01 or higher or version 4.61 or higher of Netscape Navigator /Communicator is required for players who wish to take advantage of the web page features of The Sims. Web Pages Help -------------For instructions on how to create your own web page templates, please refer to t he Web Page Template README.html file located in the Readme directory of The Sims Vacation CD-ROM. Serial Numbers -------------A valid serial number is required for installation of The Sims Vacation and for registration at www.thesims.com. The serial number is located on the CD jewel case. If you encounter problems wi th your serial number, please contact Electronic Arts Technical Support. Refer to your printed documen tation for Technical Support contact information. INSTALLING VACATION WITH HOT DATE, HOUSE PARTY, AND LIVIN' LARGE ---------------------------------------We strongly recommend that if you own Livin' Large, House Party, AND Hot Date yo u should install them before you install Vacation.

If you do install Livin' Large, House Party and/or Hot Date after Vacation, the Vacation installer will ask you to insert the CD for the latest Sims game that you have on your system so that it can copy the mu sic files to your hard drive. After this is complete, the installer will ask you to put the Vacation CD back in and will continue to install the game. A few things you should be aware of: - Once you install Vacation, you will always need the Vacation CD in your drive to play the game. Even if you install Livin' Large, House Party, and/or Hot Date or see game scree ns that say "Livin' Large" or "House Party" or "Hot Date," the game requires the Vacation CD to play. - If you have installed Livin' Large, House Party, and/or Hot Date after Vacatio n, you will get a dialog that says " It has come to our attention that you have installed another Sims expansion pack after The Sims Vacation. For this to work properly, the The Sims Vacation installer will now update your installation. Select OK to proceed" Please click OK. The game will run the Vacation installer to update the game files as needed. Last Resort: Reinstalling ------------------------If everything above fails, and you're still having problems with the game, here' s what you do: 1) Move ALL your UserData directories (your neighborhoods) somewhere safe, like your desktop. 2) In the Start menu, under The Sims, choose Uninstall The Sims. 3) When the uninstall process is complete, delete all remaining files and folder s in the location where you had previously installed The Sims (by default, this is C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Si ms\). 4) Install The Sims. 5) Install Livin' Large if applicable. 6) Install House Party if applicable. 7) Install Hot Date if applicable. 8) Install Vacation. 9) Move your backed-up neighborhood directories from Step 1 back into your "The Sims" folder. Click yes to overwrite if Windows(r) asks to overwrite a file. 10) Play! You've earned it. Registry Cleaner ---------------On occasion, when uninstalling users have experienced errors. When this happens, some of the registry will be left behind and will not enable the user to re-install. We have created a tool that will help clean the registry to allow The Sims and i ts' expansion packs to be re-installed. You can find this tool on The Sims Vacation CD ROM under the Eraser folder. It i s called SimsEraser.exe. NOTE: only use this tool if you have tried to uninstall and you can not re-insta ll successfully. NEW TO VACATION ---------------

The following section includes new features in The Sims Vacation. New Vacation Island Area --------------Each Neighborhood can have its own Vacation Island. Just pick up the phone and c all a cab. When you get to the island, visit one of the lots that Maxis has made for you. If you want to get creative w ith all of the new objects, hit the Vacation Island button from the neighborhood screen and build your own i sland lot. When building your lot, it is best to place 3 tiles worth of sidewalk next to the street. We recommend t hat you limit the number of animated objects you place on your lot. The more you have, the slower the perfor mance will be. New Non-Player Characters (NPC's) --------------There are two sets of NPC's that are in Vacation. There are the "worker-bees", l ike the Vacation Director, Front Desk Clerks and store clerks and there are the "tourist" NPC's. These "tourists" are Sims you ca n meet on Vacation and strike up a relationship with. You can also take "dates" to Vacation Island. Just pick up the phone and tab thr ough the list of friends and pick someone to call. You will get the option to invite on Vacation. Once you and your date are on Vac ation Island, your date will follow you everywhere and will not leave until your Sim decides t o go home. Families on Vacation Island can be saved. However, Sims that are on dates on the island, can not be saved. New Catalog Sorts --------------Each catalog sort now has a subsort in order to better organize the objects that are available. If you double click on the buy mode icon, you will notice that at home you have both a room an d a functional sort. In Vacation buy mode you have a Place and a functional sort. If you choose to place skill objects on Vacation Island, your Sim will not gain skill. Skills are only gained in your Sim's house. If you have previously downloaded objects from www.thesims.com, you will need to go to the website and download the updated versions so that they function correctly with V acation. New Web Features --------------There is now a new exchange available to you on www.thesims.com. The Vacation Is land Exchange is where you can post your new island lots that you have worked so hard on. You also have the opp ortunity to download lots that other Sim fans have created. Neighborhoods ------------------------The Sims Livin' Large and The Sims House Party support multiple neighborhoods. T he Sims Hot Date allows you to have a different downtown area with each one of these neighborhoods. The Sims Vacation allows

you to have a different island area with each one of these neighborhoods. You ca n select new neighborhoods by using the arrow buttons in the upper left portion of the neighborhood view sc reen. There are five neighborhoods to start with, the first of which is reserved for t he existing neighborhood players have created. Neighborhoods 2,3,4 and 5 are not created by House Party. This is to allow for L ivin' Large to install its neighborhoods in these spaces. Neighborhoods 6, 7, and 8 have been created for your House Party houses. It is possible for users to have even more neighborhoods in The Sims House Party . Here's how: - Make a copy of the TemplateUserData folder. Place it in the same directory as the other UserData folders. - Rename this copy to UserDataXX, where XX is an unused number (check the existi ng UserData folder numbers) up to 99. We do not recommend you use neighborhoods 2-5 until after you have ins talled Livin' Large. See the "House Party and Livin' Large" section for more details. - You can do this before you run the game, or while you are alt-tabbed away from the game. Either way, the game should pick up the fact that you added a new neighborhood. Here's an example: - You're running the game, and you decide you want to add a new neighborhood to hold some imported houses you just found on www.thesims.com. - You alt-tab to the windows(r) desktop, find the installation folder for The Si ms House Party, and make a copy of TemplateUserData. Rename this folder to UserData23. - Alt-tab back to the game. As you scroll through the different neighborhoods, "23" will show up. This refers to your new UserData23 directory. ***WARNING*** Do NOT rename the original UserData folder either while the game in running or w hen the game is not in use. HAVE A GREAT VACATION!!!!