#ts2 intro bypass

[id-element0]

Bypassing TS2 intro movie

I honestly don't know who would need this but since I have it, I can also share. I was fixing/revamping my ReShade preset the other day and I said "Why don't I also try and install it for the sims 2 while I'm at it?" This reminded me that I still had to hit the space bar when the intro video came up. I realise a lot of people still handle it this way or just delete the movie file. Both ways are equally annoying to me so I decided to solve it. What I did was creating a half-second long blank movie in avi format and changing the extension. Why is it better than hitting the space bar or just deleting the file, you ask? Well, it's effortless. You don't have to do anything apart from replacing the original file. It also deals with the issue that comes with deleting the file, that of the game hanging for a moment after the logo because it's searching for a file that doesn't exist.

No screenshot because there's nothing to show. The transition from EA logo to loading screen is quite seamless with a momentary black screen. So for anyone interested, here it is. Also, my first sims 2 upload - yay, I guess.

- INSTALLATION -

You need to be able to see file extensions in your file manager. Search for how to enable it according to your OS if you cannot see file extensions.

For Starter Pack -> “C:\Program Files (x86)\The Sims 2 Starter Pack\Double Deluxe\Base\TSData\Res\Movies\”

For Origin/EA App -> "C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Double Deluxe\Base\TSData\Res\Movies\"

For Retail/Disc -> "C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Movies\"

Find the file that says intro_eng_audio.movie and change the extension part 'movie' into something like 'bak'. This is just for precaution if you want it back again. If you already deleted it then just download mine.

- DOWNLOAD -

:: MEDIAFIRE | SFS ::

And now the technical details for the nerds.

The video codec EA uses is Electronic Arts Madcow Video or in short 'mad'. It is allowed to be decoded but not encoded. Meaning you can watch media created with this codec but cannot create media with it. I know the game can load media encoded with AVI so I decided to create an empty avi file and just change the extension to 'movie'. It turns out that as long as the name is the same, the game doesn't care the codec is different.

So in theory you can use this file to replace ealogo_audio.movie as well. If the file in the Base folder doesn't work try ..\TSData\Res\Movies\ in your latest pack. For UC and Starter Pack it would be SP9; for disc version it would be whatever you installed last.