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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
11 years ago

The Sims 2 Ultimate/Super Collection for Mac? (and other questions)

Windows users (could) get the Ultimate Collection (all EPs/SPs) for free. Mac Users have to pay £20.99/$29.99 for half the EPs/SPs.

Questions:

Is there a Mac version of The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection?

Yes, it's called the Super Collection. Aspyr (The publisher of the on-disk Mac version) released 6 (of eight) Expansion Packs and 3 (of ten) Stuff packs for the Mac. It's available in the Mac App Store for £20.99/$29.99.

It features a new rendering engine, native support for retina displays, and most importantly works on modern (10.7+) Macs which the on-disk versions don't.

Can I buy the Mac version (and any of Aspyr's 6 expansion packs and 3 stuff packs) in a retail store, on disk, and play them on a Mac?

No, unless your Mac runs Snow Leopard (10.6) and earlier. Apple dropped support for running PowerPC applications (like the Sims 2) in 10.7 (Lion).

To check the version of OSX you are running click the Apple logo in the top left, and go to About this Mac.

NOTE: The on-disk versions of The Sims 2 Mac are not the same as the recently released Super Collection, and do not include the updated features mentioned above.

Why does the Super Collection only feature half of the Windows Ultimate Collection?

Since porting those 9 EPs/SPs on disk a few years ago, Aspyr stopped porting expansion packs due to contracting and licensing agreements with EA, as EA now does all PC and Mac ports for games in house (like TS3). Aspyr since released the Super Collection and hence only included the Expansion + Stuff Packs they have ported (9/18).

EA could potentially port & release the Ultimate Collection for modern Macs themselves, but this would likely take alot of work, to then release it for free probably wouldn't make much business sense.

Can I play [the windows version of] The Ultimate Collection on a Mac via Wine?

No. Wine support for The Sims 2 has been broken for many years due to The Sims 2 requesting 1024 pixel vertex shaders, yet Wine’s Direct3D implementation only providing 256. Real Direct3D 9 on windows provides upto 8192.

Can I play [the windows version of] The Ultimate Collection on a Mac using a Windows Virtual Machine?

Not well.  If you have a copy of Windows (XP, Vista, 7, or 8) and either Virtualbox (free), Parallels Desktop (paid), or VMware Fusion (paid), you can attempt to run the game inside a Windows virtual machine. Running any game through a Virtual Machine will likely result in slow graphics performance, if it works at all. Attempting to run the Ultimate Collection with XP in Virtualbox gave me the error: "Direct3D returned an error: D3DERR_INVALIDCALL! The application will now terminate." Same message with Vista.

Can I play [the windows version of] The Ultimate Collection on a Mac using Bootcamp?

Yes. Bootcamp allows you to dual boot your Mac to run both Windows and OSX. You'll need a copy of Windows (XP, Vista, 7, or 8).

Running Windows nativly is the best (and really the only) way of playing all The Sims 2 expansion packs on a Mac.

  

 Solutions:

  • Use Bootcamp to run the Ultimate Collection if you have a copy of Windows.
  • Purchase the Mac Super Collection and get half the Ultimate Collection.

Joe.

59 Replies

  • This is so frustrating that we can't play on mac, as i have every sims 3 game as well as the ultimate collection. It is disappointing and puts me off of buying anymore EA games due to the discrimination of platforms.

  • Tremayne4260's avatar
    Tremayne4260
    Hero
    5 years ago

    Since Sims 2 Ultimate Collection is no longer available, I wanted to let Mac users know that the Sims 2 Super Collection is available in the Apple App Store for about $20 US. Aspyr updated the game to run on Catalina or later so it is a 64 bit game.

    To give a little history to those who feel that we Mac Users "were left out", we were lucky to get what we do have of Sims 2. At the time, Apple Computers used what was called the "Power PC" chip which was made especially for Apple. Windows computers all used Intel chips. And because the Mac OS is different from Windows, EA/Maxis had to hire a company called Aspyr to port the game to the Mac OS. Aspyr is still around and does still port games to different OS and from PC to console. In the days of the original release of Sims 2, we got the base game about a year or so later than the Windows folks and from then on most EPs about 6 months later. Remember the game had to be re-programmed to run on the Mac OS and to run on Apple Computers. Aspyr had only been contracted to port a certain number of EPs which Sims 2 exceeded. I'm not sure of the details, but Aspyr did port three of the stuff packs (Holiday Stuff, Family Fun Stuff and Glamour Life). Near the time of the release of Bon Voyage for the Mac, Apple switched to the Intel chips and that made porting the game much easier. The players are not quite sure why Aspyr stopped porting the game, but Bon Voyage was the last expansion pack that was ported. It was about a year and a half before Sims 3 was nearing release, so EA had hired folks to work on porting that game in house. 

    If you do still have Sims 2 UC in your Origin account and want to play the game, you do need a copy of Windows and can either Bootcamp your Mac or use a virtual machine program like Parallels to run the game. As always if you need help installing the game, just start a new thread, explain what you are trying to do and please do let me know if you are using a Mac or Windows computer.

  • Jordynn218's avatar
    Jordynn218
    5 years ago

    From my personal experience running both the Ultimate Collection (through Bootcamp) and also have the Super Collection through Aspyr, I personally think the Super Collection is worth it. The graphics look great, and the game runs so smoothly for a mac which is rare for a Sims game. The only thing that sucks is not having the Apartments pack. While playing the Ulitmate Collection through boot camp I deleted it very shortly after. I didn't like the inconvenience of switching back and forth between Windows and Mac, and the game definitely didn't run as well for me as it did the SC.

    Although I do wish that the Ultimate Collection would release to Mac players because I do believe that the Mac community has been jipped by EA multiple times; I think that if you're considering getting the Super Collection DO IT. You won't be disappointed. 

  • Tremayne4260's avatar
    Tremayne4260
    Hero
    5 years ago

    @badbleep_16 , while it would be nice, EA and Aspyr would have to agree to exchange and port the code. Sims 2 has been sunset by EA for over two years now and I doubt they will. If you were lucky enough to get the Sims 2 UC code back before 2018 and are on a Mac, there are ways to play the game. If you are interested, please start a new thread providing details.

  • @mustheory The reason they did the free promotion is because they were removing the Windows version, which included an out of date piece of software that the license had ran out on. The Mac version doesn't include this software, therefore it can still be sold.

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