Sims 2 on Win.10; advice needed please
A while ago I managed to get EA customer support to add the sims 2 ultimate collection to my Origin account. I've never installed it though; I tried to reinstall sims 2 from discs onto my old Wind...
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I have it on my Windows 10 machine. I had to do A LOT of tweaks to get it right. I'll summarize what I did for you, and try to find the resources I used. Mind you that I only used my old physical copies, so some of these might not apply to the UC.
Btw, as Sims 2 is a very old game, it runs just as well on integrated graphics. Although if you have a dedicated GPU like GeForce, you might as well use it.
1. Black shadow boxes - Starting with a certain GPU driver update years back, indoor sim shadows began appearing as black boxes. Someone made a mod to fix that after so long, and that person is now my god. http://modthesims.info/d/569585
2. Limited memory access - As Sims 2 is from the days of 32-bit operating systems, it can only access up to 2 GB of RAM, and the other 2 GB is reserved for the OS. This wasn't a problem for me until it started crashing despite me having boatloads of RAM. You'll have to edit your exe files so that your game can access up to 4 GB of RAM. http://digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=21931.0
3. The most time-consuming step: Editing your graphics rules - Sims 2 has a fixed list of GPUs to determine the quality of your game. As such, it can't recognize any modern GPUs, and assumes that your system can't support the game (as if). The problem here is that even if you max your settings, it'll still lower your graphics quality, most notably in the neighborhood view. Also, your game will only allow you to invite 2 people to parties, which you can override by using the IntProp MaxNumOfVisitingSims cheat.
https://www.simsnetwork.com/simpedia/the-sims-2/editions/the-sims-2/specials/graphics-rules-maker-improve-compatibility-with
ALSO IMPORTANT: if you install Sims 2 in your C drive's Program Files (the default location), you need to run Sims 2 in admin mode for it to access some important files correctly. Sims 2 was made before admin mode was a thing, so by default it will be denied permission if it tries to access anything in protected folders like Program Files.
Btw, as Sims 2 is a very old game, it runs just as well on integrated graphics. Although if you have a dedicated GPU like GeForce, you might as well use it.
1. Black shadow boxes - Starting with a certain GPU driver update years back, indoor sim shadows began appearing as black boxes. Someone made a mod to fix that after so long, and that person is now my god. http://modthesims.info/d/569585
2. Limited memory access - As Sims 2 is from the days of 32-bit operating systems, it can only access up to 2 GB of RAM, and the other 2 GB is reserved for the OS. This wasn't a problem for me until it started crashing despite me having boatloads of RAM. You'll have to edit your exe files so that your game can access up to 4 GB of RAM. http://digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=21931.0
3. The most time-consuming step: Editing your graphics rules - Sims 2 has a fixed list of GPUs to determine the quality of your game. As such, it can't recognize any modern GPUs, and assumes that your system can't support the game (as if). The problem here is that even if you max your settings, it'll still lower your graphics quality, most notably in the neighborhood view. Also, your game will only allow you to invite 2 people to parties, which you can override by using the IntProp MaxNumOfVisitingSims cheat.
https://www.simsnetwork.com/simpedia/the-sims-2/editions/the-sims-2/specials/graphics-rules-maker-improve-compatibility-with
ALSO IMPORTANT: if you install Sims 2 in your C drive's Program Files (the default location), you need to run Sims 2 in admin mode for it to access some important files correctly. Sims 2 was made before admin mode was a thing, so by default it will be denied permission if it tries to access anything in protected folders like Program Files.
