#sims 2 4gb patch

[belladovah]

A Complete Guide on how to Fix & Optimize The Sims 2 on Windows 10/11

I've made a video tutorial and written guide on everything you need to know on how to Fix & Optimize The Sims 2 on Windows 10/11, with Performance, Stability, and Graphics Enhancements.

Watch the Video Tutorial on YouTube:

Read the Written Guide on my Website

[chieltbest]

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 1024x2048 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 8MiB of texture memory! This means you could possibly only have only a MAXIMUM of 512 textures loaded in memory before you run out of memory completely. In practice, this limit will probably be 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.

[simbassims]

Some info about The Sims 2: Legacy Collection

Heads up on The Sims 2 Legacy Collection: It does not have Denuvo. The .exe file for it is only 20MB and Denuvo usually weighs hugely on the executables. Meaning there is no anti-piracy active on this release. Game is also (unfortunately) still 32bit, BUT the executable has been modified to be Large Address Aware, which means it can use up to 4GB of RAM (it comes pre-installed with 4GB patch, basically) There has indeed been some alterations made to the engine, at least to some extent; they did not lie on the game description. There has been fixes on the shadows akin to simnopke's, with resolution tweaks as well. What i think has been happening to some people is hardware not being properly detected, which leads to the same old error with DirectX 9.0c and you having to utilize Graphics Rule Maker to do patch the options into the game (otherwise it would default to the lowest ones available, basically, with all the low resolutions and such). I think EA will likely patch those problems soon enough though. I will be looking further into what exactly was changed and give a follow-up. Wondering if they fixed the First-Born Syndrome?

[fireflowersims]

What we know about the Sims 2 "Legacy Collection"

IKEA stuff is not included, H&M is

The holiday pack (Santa and toddler new year) is included

Available on Steam, Epic Games and EA App

Requires the EA App to play

Has been "secured" with Denuvo

Minimum system requirements: W10

Sims 2 Legacy Edition: €29,99 (EU)

The Sims 25th Anniversary bundle (also included "The Sims (+7 EP's)" and 2 Sims 4 kits): €39,99 (EU)

The Sims Legacy Edition: € 19,99 (EU)

Will update this post as more news comes in from people actually buying/playing it.

ALRIGHT PEOPLE. We are getting the first reports of people playing it. We also got the feature list

Graphic rules is no longer necessary

The exe has been 4GB patched

They copied simnopke's shadow fix

Better support for widescreen resolutions including improved UI scaling

They "fixed" Pink Soup. As of yet, this has not been verified by a Pink Soup sufferer

"improvements and fixes". Unsure what they are

The structure of the install folder has been changed (disks: each ep has a separate install folder. UC: one install folder containing named Pack folders. Legacy: EP1, SP2 etc)

The game is still 32 bit

It appears Denuvo might not be on it after all. It's Schrödinger's Denuvo right now

Many players have been reporting that it does not seem to be stable. Lots of crashing.

BIG update: we did a stresstest and we managed to get pink soup! Note: the stresstest was done by adding a neighborhood default with many 2k textures, then inviting all neighbours in an uberhood. This is not a normal average situation.

[simbury]

How I got my Sims 2 game working on my new Windows 11 laptop, step by step.

OKAY. Gadies and Lentlemen.

I have seen plenty of these around, but I wanted to share my process!

So I bought an MSI creator laptop. The specs are as follows:

CPU: 13th gen Intel i7-13700H

RAM: 16 GB DDR5

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU

Step One: Fresh install. I used the EA App to install the UC version on my new laptop.

Step Two: Download and install RPC launcher. This will automatically apply the 4gb patch. Run as administrator, but not in any kind of compatibility which renders the 4gb patch useless.

Step Three: Download and install Graphics Rule Maker. I used all of the recommended settings, aside from texture memory which I set at 2048 mb for reasons that will become clear later.

Step Four: Memory allocation fix (empty standby list). Explanation here.

Step Five: Setting virtual memory. I used instructions from this post at MTS - My virtual memory paging file is now minimum of 25000 and maximum of 30000. You'll need to adjust to your system's own specs.

Step Six: In game settings. Shadows Off. Neighbours Off. Lighting Medium. RPC Settings. Apply 4GB patch. Automatically Clean Cache. Lot Imposters Optimized. Sim/Object Shadows Classic. I also have lot view ocean reflections ticked.

If your game works like this with no flashing and crashing, awesome. Mine did not. I firstly tried several different texture memory sizes, but they had 0 impact.

I believe the next step is only for NVIDIA cards, but may be wrong.

Step Seven: DXVK. The most recent version from, here. There are plenty of instructions on how to install out there. But make sure you install the 32bit version. I have these two following lines in my DXVK.conf file (and do make sure it is saved as a conf file, NOT a txt or similar).

d3d9.maxAvailableMemory=2048

d3d9.presentInterval=0

The first line corresponds to the texture memory mentioned earlier. DXVK installs won't recognise more than that and having it higher can cause crashes apparently. The second line... No idea what it does but it was mentioned in several guides and reddit posts.

I don't know if the newer versions of DXVK allow fullscreen mode as the older ones did not, but I play in borderless mode anyway which works.

I also delete my thumbnails folder every so often.

I hope this helps someone, this silly old game can be cantankerous but I was determined to get it running again!

[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.

[shinki26]

The Sims 2 Disc Installation and fix guide for Windows 10/11 PCs

I’m writing this guide to hopefully instruct people on how to properly install, fix and run their disc based The Sims 2 game and also educate you on why the discs are not as bad as everyone makes them to be.

First things first, some clarifications about common misconceptions of both the Ultimate Collection and TS2 disc games I’ve been seeing being tossed around:

1. The Ultimate Collection has compatibility patches for modern hardware: 

This one is actually kinda true? The UC did have some patches made to it compared to a fully patched disc game but no one has been able to tell what exactly it did.

A fully patched, fixed and correctly installed disc game should work the same as the Ultimate Collection, with no difference in compatibility or game performance.

2. SecuROM doesn’t work on modern OSes so you can’t run the game off the discs: 

Totally untrue. People who says SecuROM doesn’t work on Windows 10/11 haven’t actually tried running a game that uses it at all. It 100% works even on Windows 11.

What doesn’t work on modern OSes is SafeDisc, which all packs released before Bon Voyage used. So if you install BV and any pack released after it, the game IS going to run normally as it’s using SecuROM instead.

3. But SecuROM makes the game lag: 

True, for some machines it does happen. But as I will explain in the guide, you can uninstall SecuROM with the official removal tool and just use NoCD executables to have it not install itself again.

4. The discs requires Flash and it’s been deprecated:

No, the discs DO NOT require Flash. The only thing that uses it in the setup is a pop up that used to ask you if you wanted to register your game. Since of course you can’t register it anymore, you can just close it and it WILL NOT affect anything.

That out of the way, let’s get to the guide!

What you are going to need:

-All original TS2 patches released by EA back in the day:

They’re all hosted HERE on ModTheSims. 

Please, be aware that there may be multiple variatons of a patch. You need to pick the right one for your game. If you have The Sims 2 Base Game DVD version, you will have to download the second option where it says “DVD Patch Notes”, for example.

For Pets and Seasons the “DD” patches mean Digital Download, so if you have them on either CD or DVD them both are going to use the “Disk Patch”

If you seem to be not able to download them, right click the download link and choose “Save Link As”.

If you have The Sims 2 Deluxe / Double Deluxe / Holiday Edition / Other compilations you’re not going to need the Base Game patch as those versions are already updated!!

You also don’t need the Nightlife patch if you have Deluxe or Double Deluxe!!

The same thing applies for the Collections: You don’t need to patch their EPs!!

-Grumpy Loader:

Get it HERE on ModTheSims.

-If you have Bon Voyage and/or packs released after it... SecuROM Removal Tool:

Get it HERE.

-If you have Mansion & Garden Stuff... Sims2RPC:

Get it HERE on ModTheSims by @lazyduchess!

If you DO NOT have this pack, you’re going to need to source a NoCD executable of the game based on your latest installed pack.

-If you DO NOT Have Mansion & Garden Stuff... 4GB Patch:

Get it HERE.

-Graphics Rules Maker:

Get it HERE.

Having downloaded everything, you can start inserting your Base Game disc one! Or your Base Game DVD!

Installing the Base Game:

There’s no mystery in this part, install your game normally as you would back in 2004 following the instructions of the setup.

Three of the biggest problems I’ve seen people have when installing the Base Game is:

1. I get a red pop up saying “This app has been blocked for your protection”

This happens usually on Double Deluxe games and later EPs such as Bon Voyage, FreeTime and Apartment Life.

There’s two ways you can circumvent this.

First one is the one that I personally prefer:

-Open the Task Manager

-On the top left, click “File”

-Click “Run new task”

-Click “Browse...”

-Now go to your disc drive in your PC and open it, select Autorun.exe

-The target box should be pointing to “D:\Autorun.exe”. The “D” letter changes depending on what letter your disc drive is set to in your PC

-Check the “Create this task with administrative privileges” box

-Now click OK.

The setup is going to run normally now.

When you are installing EPs that show you this error, you can do the same thing to every one.

The other way is just to change your PC’s date to somewhere before 2020.

This is going to work too, I can’t explain to you why though!

Something about licenses expiring!

2. I get a Flash pop up when I try to install!

As I explained earlier, you can just close it and the installation will continue normally.

3. The setup just hangs at a specific percentage and won’t progress anymore!

This is mosty probably the setup asking you to swap discs!

DVD users do not have this problem.

What happens sometimes is that the setup GUI is supposed to make a pop up window appear in front of the GUI asking you to swap to disc 2, but on modern OSes it doesn’t appear sometimes.

Actually, it does. It just is in the background, if you minimize every open window on your machine you’re going to see the little pop up!

Just swap to disc 2 and press “Ok” on the pop up and it should resume installing.

The same thing can happen when having to switch to Discs 3 and 4.

After installing the Base Game:

Now you are going to need to patch it.

Open GrumpyLoader, on the top left select “Load...” and on the window that opens, choose the Base Game patch’s executable you’ve downloaded and open it.

It’s going to automatically patch your game, if you are on the 4 CD version of the game you may have to swap discs.

Sometimes GrumpyLoader throws errors when updating, especially when it ends. But you can just ignore it.

After patching, your Base Game is FULLY installed and properly patched, congratulations!!!

But if you didn’t already try, you will see that you can’t run the game as it doesn’t open.

That’s because the Base Game uses SafeDisc that doesn’t work on modern OSes as I said earlier.

Installing Expansion and Stuff Packs:

It’s the same process of installing the Base Game. Follow the setup instructions.

After installing each one, PATCH them with GrumpyLoader.

For example: you just installed University!

Do NOT immediately install another pack right after. 

Follow the same GrumpyLoader patching process you did on the Base Game but choose the University patch instead.

Do the same thing to ALL EPs and Family Fun Stuff.

Also, there has been some info online about installing packs out of release order can mess up your game.

I personally don’t think it’s true as I never had any problems but I prefer to be better safe than sorry.

If you want to, Install them in this order:

-University (or University Life Collection)

-Nightlife (skip if you have The Sims 2 Deluxe/Double Deluxe)

-Christmas Party Pack (I don’t recommend if you have Happy Holiday Stuff or The Sims 2 Holiday Edition) 

-Open For Business (or Best of Business Collection)

-Family Fun Stuff (or Fun with Pets Collection)

-Glamour Life Stuff

-Pets (skip if you have Fun with Pets Collection)

-Happy Holiday Stuff (skip if you have The Sims 2 Holiday Edition)

-Seasons

-Celebration Stuff (skip if you have The Sims 2 Double Deluxe)

-H&M Stuff (skip if you have Best of Business Collection)

-Bon Voyage

-Teen Style Stuff (skip if you have University Life Collection)

-FreeTime

-Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff (skip if you have Best of Business Collection)

-IKEA Home Stuff (skip if you have University Life Collection)

-Apartment Life

-Mansion & Garden Stuff (skip if you have Fun with Pets Collection)

If you’ve installed all packs, great! You can even launch your game from SP9′s (Mansion & Garden Stuff) disc and executable as it uses SecuROM which WORKS on modern OSes.

Getting your game to work properly:

Your game is fully installed, patched and even running if you have Bon Voyage and later released packs!

But you probably noticed very heavy lag, crashing, bad graphics and things not running as they should.

That’s because, just like the Ultimate Collection, the game is a PITA to get running properly on Modern OSes!

If you have Bon Voyage and/or later released packs: I HIGHLY recommend you to uninstall SecuROM from your machine.

This is going to help greatly with game performance.

Use the SecuROM Removal Tool I’ve linked earlier and remove it from your PC.

Do NOT open the game again as it’s going to install itself again if you do so.

If you have Mansion & Garden Stuff: After uninstalling SecuROM, you’re going to need to install Lazy Duchess’ Sims2RPC Launcher I’ve linked earlier. Follow their instructions on the download page and be sure to apply the 4gb patch in the launcher as it’s going to GREALTY help with the crashing.

Or... if you DO NOT have Mansion & Garden Stuff: Get an appropriate NoCD executable for the pack you are using to launch your game and apply the 4GB patch to it.

Open the 4GB patch executable and use it on your game’s exe.

After doing all that, all that remains is fixing your game performance, resolution and graphics!

Install Graphics Rules Maker and open it.

Firstly, you’re going to have to add your Graphics card to the game’s database. To do that, go the “Device Info” tab and add it there.

Back to the “Settings” tab, be sure your game is set to “The Sims 2″ and is properly recognizing where your game is installed, if for some reason it isn’t, click “Browse...” and point it to your latest installed pack’s folder.

For example: “C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff”.

-Force Texture Memory: Use the auto-detect button and it should automatically calculate the best value for your graphics card.

Check “Disable texture memory estimate adjustment” and “Enable driver’s memory manager” boxes.

If you have an AMD Radeon HD 7000 series, also check the “Fix AMD Radeon HD 7000 series recognition”.

If you have Intel integrated graphics, check the last two boxes.

Now you can set your resolution! Choose your default (which one the game is going to start with) and maximum resolution your game is going to support.

After doing all that, you can click “Save Files...”

And... Done! You got your disc-based The Sims 2 game fully working, properly patched and fixed!!!

Any Feedback on how to improve this guide is very welcome!

Happy Simming, y’all!!! :)

[pizzleyanked]

hi cat! 🩷 so as you know i really enjoy your ts2 posts and lately i've gotten the itch to play it again! but last time i played ts2 i played it with only a few crappy cc clothes lol, so i have no idea what mods are essential mods to have in ts2 or where to get them, how to prevent saves from getting corrupted and how to build your own custom hood - stuff like that. so i wondered if you have any advice or if you knew any guides on where to even get started on this? 😭 thank you 🩷🩷🩷

vilna hiiiiiii!! first of all i am so sorry that this took me so long to reply! i got ill and it hit me harder than it should rip 😭 anyways, thank you so much as always for your kind words, you know i love your stuff so it really is appreciated 💖

it’s a long write-up and i reference a lot of guides and resources from the community from which i learned myself. i’m really grateful to this community for sharing these resources, truly! i tried to organize this as best and include as much as i could, but i'm sure there may be missing things or things left unclear. so if you have any questions feel free to message me!

i. installation

i personally use the sims 2 rpc launcher by lazyduchess, which is included in osab’s installation guide. i really like this guide, since it includes links to the full sims 2 collection, as well as indications to make the game work more nicely with modern hardware and software, such as modern graphics cards through graphics rules makers or the 4gb patch.

it also includes instructions for reshade installation (i personally use the rpc injection method).

ii. setting up a clean slate

whether you want to play in a premade neighborhood or a custom neighborhood, i recommend using a clean slate, meaning empty and/or clean neighborhoods. many functions of the game use hoods, and sometimes these aren’t actual physical hoods and instead add sims as townies or npcs. there are also “clean” versions of premade neighborhoods that fix/tweak oversights by maxis.

mind that if you want a brand new hood without maxis’ townies, you need to get an empty pleasantview template (N001) in your game’s installation folder, or disable it somehow by changing its name. you can still play in pleasantview as it will be stored in your documents neighborhoods folder, and you can use clean versions for that. you also need to get empty stealth hoods.

this all may sound a bit complicated, but simgaroop made a wonderful write-up here for different user cases depending on what you’d like to do in your game. the mods linked here are a boon!

as for making a brand new empty hood, i love getting custom terrains (which are sc4 files originally made in simcity 4). some of my faves are made by @/nimitwinklesims, but i also like finding them at modthesims. you don't need to create each type of subhood, but i do have at least one of each in bloom valley. in bloom valley i have two downtowns (one is magic town from sims 1 originally converted to sims 2 by @/voleste. the other is @/kattaty's remake of downtown, which will be deleted and replaced with a downtown i'll make myself to be more consistent with my other subhoods. it is incredible, and i think i will use some of their lots in my new downtown because they are great), i have two shopping districts. one is strangetown because i love those premades and townies; i never have sims visit or form relationships with them though, it's just so i see them around. the other is oakburg which uses acorn bend as a base, it works more or less as an expansion to bloom valley and it's where i play more often than not these days. then i have the vacation hood makeovers by @/plumbtales. the university hood was made from scratch by me.

when you create your own hood, you will either have to set up your own townies from scratch or source them from community shared townie hoods. for making townies from scratch, i recommend @/simper-fi’s guide (also recommend getting the mods linked here before you make a hood).

for townie hoods shared by other simmers, i recommend those shared by @/mikexx2 (seriously, look at all those familiar faces that ended up as spouses for gen 1 in bloom valley) and @/marvelann’s sims made townies by @/letthemplaysimscc. i also use the bon voyage locals shared by @/plumbtales. i also make my own townies from time to time or use specific downloaded sims as townies.

iii. on corruption

here’s the good news: as it turns out, corruption really isn’t an issue. april black has made an excellent video on the matter of corruption; although it is long, i recommend anyone who plays ts2 to watch it, or at the very least the final timestamp. to know what to do and what not to do.

although corruption isn’t an issue, i still consider the suite of “anti corruption” mods to be essential in order to avoid overpopulation and overall weirdness.

iv. making the game look pretty

i have linked my eye and skin genetics over here

my supernatural skins default replacements: alien - witch - vampire - plantsim - werewolf - considering switching my vampire, zombie, and werewolf defaults to this

for hair, i only use 4t2 conversions. i just like the way they look. i use @/platinumaspiration’s 4t2 defaults collection, which is a boon. for custom hairstyles, i recommend going through @/4t2clay

for clothes, i recommend going through the sims 2 defaults database. i have also linked some favorite creators for male clothes here. note that they also have female clothes. other creators i enjoy: @/mdpthatsme @kaluxsims @/jacky93sims @/goatskickin

i have a lot of makeup and “skin details” in my folder, but i have always been fond of @/lilith-sims’ things

for build/buy, that’s more difficult to pinpoint, but i again recommend @/sims4t2bb for a conversion database, and also @/veranka-downloads’s plentiful 4t2 and 3t2 conversions. some creators that feature in my folder: @/i07jeuu @/linacheries @/nonsensical-pixels @/pforestsims @/tvickiesims

custom sliders in cas: @/simnopke’s sliders, @/memento-sims’ sliders

for the ui, i use the incredible @/greatcheesecakepersona’s clean ui; i also use the mods linked here (+ @/keoni-chan’s amazing talk to me icon to replace icons), particularly the one to remove the red border in pause mode since that won’t be removed in tab camera

speaking of camera, this is the camera mod i use

i regrettably don’t recall the exact lighting mod i use (looking at them, probably cinema secrets), but i know it is one shared by @/veronaquiltingbee

to beautify my neighbor, i consider these skylines by @/lowedeus to be essential (+ optimized textures by @/celestialspritz). additionally i use the rural charm terrain and roads default replacement by @/criquettewashere in addition to most if not all of their hood decorations. i also love 3t2 hood decor conversions!

another useful resource is the gos events

please note that a lot of these creators do multiple categories of cc, so recommendations for one category may overlap with another; i know that this is just scratching the surface but i hope it helps

v. gameplay mods

i use so many mods to overhaul the gameplay so there will be some omissions. i’ll do my best to provide the most important ones (ignoring the ones previously mentioned)

economy and careers: uni part-time jobs for teens - lower wages - no 20k simoleons handout - loan jar (afaik lamaresims is working on a version to enforce regular payments) - custom bills (750%) - expensive bills for apartments (300%) - private school bill fix (in moreawesomethanyou-al.zip; charges the household 200 simoleons each school day for a child in private school) - lamare’s job options mods - 50% job promotion chance - restricted job offers - work food delivery

food & eating: basically @/jacky93sims's whole library

lifespan & health: lifespan (modified as follows, baby to elder: 3 - 7 - 14 - 21 - 91 - 7-14; i will make the adult lifespan longer still given that i play very slowly, it works as young adult and adult stages, and as is i don’t see many sims of gen 1 living to meet their grandchildren) - more dangerous fires - frequent & faster disease processing

personality: 3t2 traits project and associated mods

relationships and woohoo: acr - romantic standards - reproductive capabilities configurer - pregnant sims wear any outfit

supernatural/occults: plantsims can change hairstyle - no more leafy hair - no more werewolf hair - child lycanthropy - werewolf fangs fix - werewolf transformation 3 nights a week + no personality change vampires can’t eat food - vampire motive decay during day based on aspiration + vampire hunger goes down at night & social/fun decay- hereditary supernaturalism

travel and community lots: visit other sims - community time (+ limeyyoshi’s fix, reuploaded bc i cannot find it)

university: semester changes - pets at university - maternity for young adults - maternity outfit fixed for young adults

misc: planting overhaul - monique’s hacked computer, which i use to give sims separate bank accounts, study skills and badges online, and so on (1 - 2 - 3 - 4) - townie apartment residents - community lot skilling - engagement and wedding ring for color traits - invisible medicine cabinet (so sims can brush teeth and wash face with any mirror) - shiftable everything - midgethetree’s mods - fix subhood selection - longer seasons (7 days)

[frankscrank2]

So I had a blue screen crash while playing Skyrim. It corrupted every save I had. Bad enough. No. Something had damaged sectors on my Hard drive. The Hard Drive was done, we were unable to install windows onto it or repair it. Had to re-install windows on a smaller SSD. I lost Sims 2 completely and now must find a tutorial to get the little bastard working again :/ Like 4GB Patch and standby thing and more. Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Could someone link me some sort of video/tutorial or something to get the Sims 2 working again for me?

[lostinpleasantview]

i've finally hit the dreaded object limit for the first time in ages i fear 😭 and the first time with this laptop / since i had to rebuild my CC folder in 2022 when this same laptop's (which i bought BRAND new) hard-drive crashed and i was stupid enough to cut + paste my files from my backup drive instead of just copying them.

I was getting crashes in the buy catalogue in random places that make no sense (once when clicking on the decorative icon, once when clicking on sofas). from my experience with the object limit, there is no rhyme or reason: the game will just randomly decide to crash when you're in buy / build mode. this is usually my clue that "you have too much damn cc!"

in previous cases i've dealt with this, the crashes would always happen when moving through the pages of the catalogue, but the crashes would be random (ie. it might crash on page 2 of decorative / sculptures; next time it'll be page 3. i've never had crashes when just initially clicking on a category, which is weird!

either way, it's fixed now- i was doing a lovestruck bonanza and using the category folders to see / get rid of things i didn't want. I don't typically throw in 4t2 stuff like that, since I like to use the conversion catalogue to look at all the objects before I even put them in. But they don't have a page for Lovestruck yet, and I wanted all the cute stuff now! Funnily enough, i wouldn't get any crashes when using the eye dropper to make a copy of an object- and i could scroll through the category it was in just fine without issue. but click on it myself? Sims 2 says nope! Crash.

I'll also say that given we still don't know much about the object limit, I still wonder what causes it. Like if there's a hard limit, something related to computer specs, or something else entirely. This laptop is a gaming laptop and has 32GB of Ram; my last one had about 16GB. I feel like I have way more CC currently than I did then, but that may just be me. Plus, it wouldn't make much sense, since Sims 2 is such an old game and can only utilize 2GB of Ram anyways (4GB with the patch, of course).

Either way, I'm probably overdue to go through my in-game catalogue and taking a good hard look at everything I've hoarded and determining if it's really necessary. Like... do I really need three different uni-type showers, where you just put them on the wall? I say yes, of course I do!! Obviously! But when it comes to keeping this twenty year old game stable and not crashing? Then, probably not.

I will say, this game has been more stable and more playable for me since I settled on a Maxis-Match aesthetic (with a rather liberal interpretation of what's Maxis-Match- I consider 3t2 and 4t2 Maxis-Match 😅). I'll just spend some time cleaning out the catalogue and go from there.

[simesthetick]

Okay so I didn't actually have time to play anything BUT I was really missing Sims 2

So I thought I would mess around a little with Body Shop. But. Now it just crashes. Like I know it's been a while but it always worked fine before? After clearing cache, re-applying 4gb patch, doing Graphics Rules Maker, we're good! (And I'm realizing much of my clothing cc is giving 2015 😬)

For a time. Crashing is back. I know Body Shop is a fickle beast and all but I got nervous for the actual game itself. And I've been away from it for a minute now, so I'm pretty rusty with things.

And..... yeah. Crashes at startup every time. Omg what happeneddddd.

So after more screwing around with Graphics Rules, I think it came down to adding disableTexMemEstimateAdjustment true? I'm guessing there was a driver update somewhere along the way that messed things up.

She is back, and she is beautiful. <3

[bubuthejedi]

Sims2 Legacy ✨🎉

My thoughts on the Legacy....So first of all it loads signifficantly faster. No need to set up graphic rulers, 4gb patch, and memory allocation program. The cc (including mods/ jawusa's no townies) works well, if you install all here, you're ready to play (cuz no Ikea pack in the legacy version):

Many people wanted even the 'not compatibile old version' to come back. This one is at least optimized for win10 and 11. It's not very cheap sadly, but you guys know EA🙃 Overall, I am very happy (even tho it's not a physical copy of the game, which I very much prefer) because it's just much smoother and easier to run it. I do wish we had been given some sort of 'let's celebrate legacy' extra content...well, again... you guys know EA🙃 Long live The Sims2 and big hugs to all the fellow Sims2 players💗💗💗

PS. I packed Ikea, if you need it:

The link will expire eventually but hey, for now it's all there:)

[glowyjellyfish]

So a couple weeks ago, I got distracted from my assorted historic sims 2 hoods projects in favor of my Just Play the Game downloads folder, a collection of stuff I accumulated over time without fancy aging systems and traits and the like. Just classic mode with lots of CC. I got excited and downloaded a good handful of new sets and installed them.

Now my game keeps crashing utterly at random—sometimes shortly after starting to play a lot (as in a few game hours), sometimes a few (game) days in. One time it ALWAYS crashed when I took Morty Roth to a community lot to fish. So now I’m forced to do a lot of the clean-up work this downloads folder is supposed to avoid requiring.

-I keep running various scanners (DDO, SimPe GUID check, Clean Installer, Hood Checker, HCDU+), and nothing leaps out as a problem, particularly not anything newly added. I am constantly removing duplicate items, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

-I’m hesitant to run a 50/50 check because the crashing is very random. Sometimes I play a household for a full season and it’s fine, other times it crashes for no discernible reason. I have deleted a lot of objects so I doubt it’s my object mesh limit. It happens during gameplay, not in the catalog so it’s probably not a GUID conflict of some sort, although I could be wrong. I don’t THINK it’s all the new modern sets I downloaded, because that’s all furniture and a couple outfits—nothing mod or hack-y. I did download the LS bundle and some patches for it.

-My gut insists it’s a townie with bad CC trying to walk by, but I don’t have the faintest idea how to test for that or fix it. Maybe I could do a test lot and teleport in each townie looking for a crash, but if that works how do I find what item on them caused the crash?

-I did just discover and remove an unwanted default replacement amongst some X-Men characters I installed in this game—the last batch of CC I installed before this batch. So it might just be that, whatever it was? I don’t know yet. The only test is to try playing again, and I have to wait until after work tomorrow for that.

-the log always just gives me “access violation”. I did double check that the 4gb patch is still applied, and I believe it is, and I checked that the texture memory looked okay in GRM. It seems more like a CC problem than a game/hardware problem, although it COULD be the game running out of memory. Seems unlikely as I am not getting pink flashing, just the crash, but it could be.

-one thing I did in the cleaning process that could have been problematic was delete my Sun&Moon collection, deeming it Not Right for this particular setup. I don’t think I had touched it in this game.

-Now I am having the urge to start a new, clean Uberhood with all my nice new CC, except the one I started setting up has the same old copy of my main modern downloads folder, so it’s likely to be experiencing the same problems. Unless it truly is the X-Men content that’s the problem lol.

(I want to have Simlogical schools in districts, limit careers based on local buildings, use supernatural lifestates and 1 day = 1 year aging, follow most of the premade relationships instead of wasting time hunting for the perfect match for everybody, include the downtownie Tricou teens, and mix up the method for choosing a college—base it on expense rather than location as I have been doing).

But I would also very much like for my Just Play downloads folder to be ready to just play again and complete a round. I’ve had bad luck with Uber/megahoods even though I love them, I would like to get one off the ground. My last new one used Proportionate Aging and also featured a bugged taxi driver showing up as a walkby and forcing the game to speed 1 until I teleported him away, something that is probably fixable but not with my limited abilities. I just want to play the game.

[dystopianam]

So...aside from that tutorial that explains how to make Bodyshop aesthetic...is there one that explains how to make it more stable and make it crash less? For now I have only installed the 4GB patch but not much has changed...

Speaking in technical terms, I know that what causes Bodyshop to crash is the creation of thumbnails. But where are the bodyshop thumbnails cache stored? Because if they are the ones that are created in the main folder of The Sims 2 (cigen etch) it's a big problem, because I have to continuously delete them or BS won't even open...

For The Sims 2 I learned this trick: practically every time I install new ccs I spend whole hours scrolling through the cc catalog (be they hair or clothes) and so I let the thumbnails generate. Once generated the game does not crash anymore because the game don't have to struggle to generate lots of thumbnails that it have already created. But it doesn't seem to work with BS???

[polarmoon]

how did you get the sims 2 to work well on your pc?

a lot of trial and error lol, my game is held together with duct tape at this point

4gb patch, all the recommended mods, and clearing my cache is how i get it stable. i still have random crashes (usually when leaving or coming back from community lots) but i'm pretty lucky with my game honestly? its not for the faint of heart though lol especially with the long startup times when you have cc and mods

[grimbunnies]

Disclaimer: I don't know if this is still an issue with Windows, but as I've been thinking about the fixes I installed to ensure the stability of my game, I remembered the Memory Allocation Fix. This is/was a bug that meant Windows would keep a bunch of memory on standby and never release any of it (even if it didn't need all of the memory for standby processes). The fix forces some of the memory to be periodically released.

I can't claim it fixes pink soup. My issues were always sudden crashing related. But after I applied the Memory Allocation Fix as shown in the video, crashing became a very rare occurrence for me. I'm sharing this because I don't often see this bug and fix discussed, which may be because it's no longer an issue (I haven't double checked and it's been years), but... posting in case it's still relevant!

I use Windows 10. The post says it's also helpful on Windows 7. No idea about Windows 11, sorry!