Re: The sims castaway stories windows 10

Hi, I am having a similar issue. Can't get it to run. changing the Autorun.exe option to compatibility mode XP SP3. No luck.

Do you know if there are any other option I would need to change as well.

Thanks

This seems to have worked for me. Thank you for the suggestion. I am attempting to finally play again right now! it has been yearrrrs! THanks so much

@kaylapopowski , did you try what Hollenina suggested? Just asking so we can see if there is another solution for you.

Please post back here to keep me updated.

@Elmari23 , did you try the solution that Hollenina suggested?

Here is the quote:

"Hey I know this is an old thread but what I did was locate the file then go to TSbin there I ran the game as administrator then I raised the game's priority from the task manager. I just had to wait about 2-3 minutes before it popped open."

Please keep us updated if this works we will mark it as the solution.

I also realy would love to play this version of The Sims again, but unfortunately I have the same problem as the rest of the people here.
I can open autorun.exe and I can even enter the installation code, but after that nothing happens. I have tried to open autorun.exe in diverse versions of windows with the compatibility mode, but the result remains the same. 

@simsalabimmy , are you trying to install or play the game?

It did, works with XP service pack2/3 and Vista, takes it times to load tho ... like extremely long and try not to skip the intro movie or it crashes and stays unresponsable after the Intro it again takes long to load but it works.

@janoschnr1 , thanks for confirming for us and adding additional information. 🙂

@EA_Mai I know this is a super old thread but I have recently successfully installed the sims castaway stories and have tried all the advice given but the game just will not open

it gives a message to say that the game will not terminate because it has crashed even when on compatibility mode and running as administrator and setting high priority in task manager

If it helps I have a dell Inspiron laptop with AMD ryzen 5 and AMD Radeon vega graphics?

Thanks

@mate54 ah no i haven’t… could you tell me how to do this if that’s okay?

@15blythm You can download Graphics Rules Maker (version 2.0.0) from SimsNetwork, and use it to tweak some game files related to your graphics. When you install it, just make sure that you enable the Castaway Stories plugin because that's the game you need.

Once it's installed, run it as Administrator (right-click on the program icon and select this option) and you should see a screen with some checkboxes and options.

Make sure that the game drop-down menu lists Castaway Stories instead of The Sims 2 or some other game.

For Force Texture Memory, set it to 1024MB. Also enable these two settings:

• Disable texture memory estimate adjustment
• Enable driver's memory manager

Lastly, change the default and maximum resolution to your screen resolution so that the game can use it. When you click on Save Files you might get a prompt about adding your graphics card to the game database. Click yes.

You might encounter "black box" shadows under Sims when you play; you can fix this by lowering shadow quality to Medium in game options, or by downloading the Sim Shadow Fix mod from Mod the Sims.

Let me know if this works or, if it doesn't, which errors appear.

@mate54 thank you very much!! i will try this

@mate54 hi again.. this has not worked I'm afraid :/ I've linked a screenshot of the error message that popped up

@mate54 i haven't done that actually.. i thought it was needed to run the game full stop? ill try without it 🙂

didn't work... came up with same message :/ is there anything else you could think of that I could try?

@15blythm Yes, there's a couple other things that might work.

Please go to Documents\Electronic Arts and move The Sims Castaway Stories folder to your desktop and try to launch the game again. You can also delete the folder if it's a new game without any saves that you might want to keep.

Then, press the Windows key + X and run Windows Powershell (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin), whichever appears on the list.

Enter this and press Enter: dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth

If it reports any corruption, then also enter dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /Restorehealth

After that, type in sfc /scannow and press Enter, then wait until it ends.

Check if the game still crashes.

If all this fails, I can also give you instructions to install dxvk, which is usually what fixes it in the end, but is used as a last resort for Sims 2 games.

@mate54 hi i tried both of these 

moving the folder didn't seem to make a difference and my laptop detected no corruption in the scan

my game still crashed before even opening - I've only just installed and it won't even open the game at all 

any further guidance would be much obliged!!

@15blythm Alright, these are the instructions to install d3d9.dll which has been helpful to many players who couldn't fix The Sims 2 any other way. I'm not sure if I can post any direct links here, but I'll try my best to describe where you need to look to find this. Make sure that you have WinRar or another program that can open and extract archives.

Do a Google search for doitsujin/dxvk, the first result should lead you to its GitHub page. On the right, under the about section, look for and click on Releases.

The page that opens should list all updates that have been released to this. Look for Version 1.7 (released on May 16, 2020). Other versions might work too, but I can only really vouch for this one because I remember 1.7.1 having some graphical glitches in The Sims 2 and I'm not sure when they were fixed.

Download version 1.7 from the Assets drop-down menu (dxvk-1.7.tar.gz). You should be able to open it with WinRar.

Inside, go to dxvk-1.7 > x32 folder (not x64, because Castaway is not a 64-bit application).

You should see a file d3d9.dll, extract it to the TSBin folder in your Sims Castaway Stories installation folder. 

Try to launch the game and see if it makes a difference.

okay trying this now!!

@mate54 hi again this hasn't worked either.. just to check I shouldn't be running it in compatibility mode or as an administrator and my folder should look like this?

@15blythm 

Those dxvk and d3d9 files are from the d3d9.dll which is normal. I am noticing that two files, which my game has, are missing (paul.dll and GL.ini) but that might be because mine is a digital download.

I am not really sure what else to recommend because I've gone through all the common fixes, but you can try installing DirectX 9 using these instructions. I'm sorry that it's still not working, but I am running out of options.