#Texture Memory

[felidae-sims]

Game Fuckery Help and Linux List [Update].

I'm avoiding re-installing this shit again, so in the meantime I'm sorting some stuff into lists. For Linux research purposes.

Edit: Standby Memory Allocation on Windows 10: New info coming in: That's not the issue. However, what i wrote below about TM is my own experience and has worked for me (without doing what Jessa was saying in the SB memory part, I remembered, hope I didn't waste anybody's time). Does it make sense? idk, but it's harmless, and if it's actually a thing and not just a freak coincidence, and can help anybody else then why not. I do remember trying it with and without cleaning cache :/ [for fuck sake the nerve on EA to put out for sale a new edition without improving it to 64bit]. As discussed by Jessa below, it's an OS problem. What worked for me, for some bizarre reason was to keep Task Manager on before and while playing the game. without it my game was crashing often, on my main non gaming computer. What solved it was fixing windows... for anyone's interested, the gory details are at the bottom of the post under the cut.

+ That combined with clearing cache often.

Jessa's video (Memory Allocation and 4GB Patch Repair). Edit: Turns out this video was pulled back, so basically just make sure the patch is applied?

1. Secound opinion on the whole matter by BrandiNotBroke [the whole #pink flash diaries tag is interesting]:

2. Leefish forum - Sims2 Graphic Cards:

3. @celebkiriedhel's Post (Texture Memory):

Linux:

@teaaddictyt & @niamh-sims About Linux.

2. @nonsensical-pixels about Linux.

3. @brandinotbroke, first Linux supporter I've encountered here. A comprehensive post:

Texture Memory Fuckery (Pink Soup, among other things):

Kiri's post linked at the beginning, first an foremost.

Original Post by @fireflowersims, plus; re-blog by @ovytia. Both of their tags, and comment:

2. A recap on Pink Soup/Texture Sizes by @rockethorse in the comments:

That's it for now. Any more information or good links will be welcome.

Task Manager thing briefly, for the curious (as if it interests anyone else but me, but in the interest of keeping track).

So the game was crashing often. That thing was easy to spot because the laptop would make loud airplane noises when I'd load the game. It got stuck or something, so I went to end it by force with task manager and noticed that all the resources where used to the max - right up until I'd open TM, and then everything would cool down. Like it was playing hide and seek with me. So I figured I'd get smart with it right back, and just leave TM open the whole time. Low and behold, the game stopped crashing. That combined with clearing cache often. Does it make sense? idk, but the computer works in mysterious ways.

[weepingalaxy]

wake up and smell the ashes.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Personally, I think the most devastating tragedy in Gravity Falls was Stan losing his freckles and tooth gap from when he was younger

[beebfreeb]

To all my long-term followers: You have to look through all of my art and deduct exactly what's wrong with me. I know you can do it by now.

[felidae-sims]

Sims 2 modders are killing it 20 years on.

Big Awful Texture Locator

Download the latest version here

Find any texture in The Sims 2 that is too big, or is 'awful' (suboptimal texture format)

Features:

Find textures in any folder you choose

Filter by width, height, memory size, texture format, or number of mipmap levels

Preview and show details of textures the tool found

Remember 'known good' textures, which are optionally excluded from being shown in the list

Look up the path of the package, and the group and instance of the resource

Copy texture/resource details (right click)

Open the package in the default package editor (double click)

Dark mode/light mode and UI scale adjustable

Native on both Windows and Linux

Why?

The Sims 2 has had a long-standing problem known as 'pink flashing' or 'pink soup' when using too much custom content. The Sims 2 is a 32-bit program, which means that it normally has a maximum memory limit of 2GiB (2048MiB) and by using a so-called '4GB patch' you can raise this limit to -you guessed it- 4GiB, this limit might seem pretty large, but due to how the game works you might hit this limit sooner than expected!

Let's say you have 1024x1024 textures (which is the default for Sims 4 textures, and thus also often for 4to2 cc) in RGBA format, these textures will EACH take up 4MiB of texture memory! This means you could possibly only have only a MAXIMUM of 1024 textures loaded in memory before the dreaded pink flashing occurs. In practice, this limit is lower due to other factors.

This tool will help you find textures that take up too much texture memory, and thus (hopefully) help alleviate some amount of pink flashing.

Tutorial

First, download the program from the link above and follow the instructions to open the program.

Now let's get the program looking the way you want: click on the sun/moon button on the top left of the program to switch light/dark mode and click the "UI Scale" number next to it and enter a new number to change the size of the interface.

Set the folder we want to search: at the top bar, search for the 'Downloads:' bar, then at the end click the button with the folder icon and select your folder. Once you've selected a folder the program will instantly start scanning, if you want to restart this scan then at any time you can click the text in the Downloads bar and press enter.

Currently this list will show all textures in the scan folder, which is probably not very interesting. To find some more interesting textures we can add some filters to the texture list. On the top bar, click on the 'Filter' button: this will open the filter list and it will be empty if you haven't added any filters previously.

These filters filter the texture list one by one, each filter removing more textures from the displayed list of textures. To add a filter, click the plus button, and to remove it click on the trashcan button at the start of the line.

To edit a filter, click on the first box to choose the filter type, click on the second box to choose the type of comparison, and select the number in the last box to set the number to compare with.

The comparison type can be < (smaller than), <= (smaller or equal), > (greater than), >= (greater or equal), == (equal), or != (not equal).

The Format filter is different: make a format filter, then click on the 'choose' button and choose the texture formats that you want to show in the texture list.

Let's edit some textures!

In the texture list, find a texture that you think is too big, and either double click on it to open it in the default package editor or right click on it to show a menu to copy the details of the package.

Finally, once you have the package opened in your favorite package manager, edit the texture to be smaller and/or a better texture format, save and ta-da! your game will now use less texture memory.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

they tried to rebrand as The Criminals but riz is literally the city council's treasurer and also turns out people in their late 20s don't really name their friend groups. so now they're The Intrepid Heroes

[chalkrub]

svanhildr my beloved returns

[arielluva]

its just a burning memory

(version without extra effects/textures under cut)

[mumpsetc]

Stick in the Mud

[varilien]

very very jealous very very clingy triangle

Palestine: Funds | Action | eSims | Info Sudan Resources | Congo Resources | Lebanese Red Cross

[labotor]

"I'll keep your secret, DiMA."

[polarmoon]

the end of the rothmann round came in a blur honestly. gwen decided to get a Divorce Cat (meet wendy! 🐾) and zach spent some quality time with seth since he'll be leaving for uni soon.

and with that we leave the rothmanns. still gotta catch up with leo though (groan.)

[logical-emotion]

a redraw of something from about 2 years ago !! i absolutely adore the new one and it's crazy to see my improvement

old one and yapping under the cut !!

i think the most glaring thing is the coloring and shading ... though the anatomy was bad too .

the background is also . incredibly lacking

and never again will I color pick straight from the sprites ... except for the skin tones i guess. i was smart enough to know that wouldn't look great

also ignore the horrid quality I had to screenshot it from a scratch project because I lost the old files 🙃

mew chan got cut because I couldn't make him look right </3

[leisi-lilacdreams]

warm up doodle that i kept tinkering with

[rockethorse]

That pink soup post is well-intentioned but loudly wrong. fwiw

[restinpeacesensei]

i have drawn a birthday picture for akoya every year for the past 11 years! ;;w;; i imagine that every time i do, he gets a year older!

and now, it's canon!! the boueibu characters really are 10 years older! and akoya officially has a gorgeous dress!!! \>////</ congratulations!!! \TWT/

we would prefer not to pick favorites or receive comments about how the art has changed, but to think of every picture as a precious memory! ;;w;; do you remember them all? ;;o;;

akoya-chan!!! thank you so much for being with us for all of these years!! \;;/////;;/ ive loved you, ive found how to be myself through you, i know now that everything always ends up being okay. im so happy ive been able to share these years with you!! ;;~~~~;;

akoya, and all of you, thank you so much for all the beautiful memories!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY ANGEL!!! \>//////</ WE LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!! \;;W;;/💖💖💖