blueplumbbob

[blueplumbbob]

Why Sims 2 has been so broken the last ten years

This is down to my own research, and I'm not saying it is the one and only reason why the game is so broken these days, but I have some points worth mentioning.

So, you're bored one day. You remember this game you had so much fun playing a few years ago, or maybe as a child. It's The Sims 2!

The game has a few issues than from when you last remembered playing, so you search on google for some fixes for the tiny resolution, and among the countless posts you may find, you may find this:

Or this:

(to the creators and players mentioned here this isn't me making a dig at you, i'm just pointing out some cc that could affect the game from working properly. your stuff is all beautiful :D)

Lesya's game is gorgeous!!! Oh, how can I get it to look like that?

So you, with a clean, vanilla (ugly) game you decide to download a few mods she listed, such as:

Skylines by GCKP (you can get optimised ones by me very soon)

Skies by Lowedeus (you can get optimised ones by me here)

Trees by Criquette (you can get optimised ones here)

No More Blurriness by Voeille (you can get optimised snow only here)

Cool! And then you notice some cheats than can give the game that open-world, interactive feel. Even better!

And you shove them into your folder and you boot up the game. Everything's going great!

Until...

You search hundreds of posts looking for the fix. Some recommend 3rd-party tools, but they seem to make the problem worse. You reinstall, finding you only wasted your time. Something has to be causing this, but you'd never guess it'd be the mods everybody swore by.

Well, in fact, it is. Partly.

I've struggled with pink flashing since 2019, when I reinstalled Sims 2 after I got a decent computer for once. I did everything above, searched for fixes, found Lesya's blog which was my primary inspiration. It was through Lesya's guide that I was able to make my game look pretty!

These mods, which are a staple in the modding community, are beautiful indeed... but what if I told you that the reason they're so beautiful, is because they're high-quality. With textures soaring up to 4k, when, hang on--

In 2004, 4k resolution was... probably unheard of. With the leading monitor size being 1024x768, what would be the point of using such huge textures on an engine that was designed for monitors of at least this size? Would you be able to see the detail of 4k on a monitor of that size? Definitely not.

The max visiting sims, okay, a little hit or miss. If your sims are all wearing high poly alpha CC, then it's a problem. If not, good luck.

Then comes the cheats I mentioned. The lot skirt cheat expands the view distance a significant amount. With the mergenhoodflora cheat, that displays more trees. Combining the two, what do you get?

A massive view distance, blinded by trees.

With skies and skylines with large textures up to 4k, and trees with textures up to 2k, The Sims 2 will collapse. It's like forcing an old man with health conditions to do 20 situps, again and again.

It'll overexert him, by the very least. And you're overexerting the game by cramming custom content that is not optimised for the engine TS2 was built on.

So please, next time you encounter the pink soup, please check your CC folders, and research changes and cheats before you put them into your game. You will enjoy the game much more if you do this, and won't encounter this problem so often.

Don't use Graphics Rules Maker

Instead, opt for a maxis original Graphics Rules uploaded here by Veronavillequiltingbee. It's essentially a rewrite of an old tutorial I made a long time ago.

Once you download the file from VVQB, open DXDIAG by pressing WinKey+R and typing 'dxdiag'.

This value I've underlined is what you need to put after seti textureMemory. Open the sgr file and do CTRL-F and input seti textureMemory.

Add the value from DXDIAG and then save it.

You can use GRM for adding your GPU to the game, but I do not recommend it for anything but that.

Optimising the game... inside the game

*shoves GRM off the table*

We're going to go into TS2 in-game settings for this one.

These settings are optimal if you play CC-heavy households. It will ease the load on your game to make space for the heavy CC you have in your current household. You can tweak these when you want to take photos outside, but for playing I recommend them all to be off - especially at community lots as there are lots of sims there.

I never see anybody talking about Object Hiding.

Object Hiding hides objects from floors that aren't in view. If you're playing downstairs, objects upstairs won't be rendered, thus minimising the load on your game.

I have reflections and smooth edges off because I use ReShade.

Snow on Ground is optional. Sometimes snow can cause pink flashing, I believe it's due to texture replacements that are huge in size too, Voeille's is 2k. I've linked a resized one above.

This post will be updated with later findings. I hope you all found it informative :]

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Me & Mushie - Chapter 1

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Sunderland's Royal Jewel Vault (50/∞) ♛

↬ The Duchess of Osgoode's Emerald Tiara

This tiara dates back to the spring of 1899. That April, Princess Imogen (the fourth daughter of King George I and Queen Alexandra) married the 4th Duke of Osgoode. At 29 years old, Imogen married relatively late compared to her sisters, but she was able to marry her true love rather than a foreign prince. The wedding was simple, but the princess received an enormous cache of wedding gifts. A convertible tiara, featuring five upright heart-shaped ornaments, was a gift from Imogen’s eldest brother, Prince George Nicholas and his wife Matilda-Mary, the Prince and Princess of Danforth. The tiara was set with freshwater pearls and cabochon emeralds sourced from Russia. The jewel was worn both as a tiara and a necklace by Imogen and later her two daughters, Princesses Helena and Agnes of Osgoode, until Imogen died in 1962. The tiara was then left to Imogen's goddaughter, Princess Mary of Glencairn, who began wearing it in the late 1980s. Since then, the tiara has been in Mary’s rotation, having been worn for several prominent events, including King Louis V’s 60th birthday party. In 2003, the jewel was worn as a necklace by the princess’s daughter, Heather Belgraves, to her 18th birthday gala at Woodbine Castle. Creation: Created in 1899, likely by Albemarle Provenance: 1) Princess Imogen, Duchess of Osgoode 2) Princess Mary of Glencairn, Mrs. Belgraves Other wearers: Heather Campbell (nee Belgraves) Status: Currently owned by Princess Mary of Glencairn

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I wrote a spoken word poem about that enclave of creators who converge at once onto interesting themes for CC just to boil all the life out of it.

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Look LUXE! SHOP the LOOK!!!! PRETEND you're PURCHASING some OVERPRICED L*U*X*Eury DECOR! you better NOT "STEAL" this I N F I N I T E L Y C O P I A B L E D I G I T A L C O N T E N T that (IN OUR OPINION) you could NEVER purchase in REAL LIFE to GET THIS LUXE. FUCKING. LOOK!! SHOP the LATEST in our P R O D U C T L I N E of PORRIDGE-BASED CONTENT that has had ALL of the CHARACTER and PERSONALITY sanded off it in our ARDUOUS but SIMPLISTIC (recycling) CREATIVE PROCESS!!! SHOP. THE. LOOK. THE. LOOK. L O O K. at our BROAD COLOR PALETTE with variants on the BILLIONS of COLORS in the natural world, such as: GREY, BEIGE, and ALSO-GRAY. We think you are FAR TOO PLEBIAN to use ACTUAL COLORS so we took the LIBERTY of KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE!! SHOP the LOOK. L O O K!!!! L O O K into our E Y E S and see the reflection of LITERARY GIANTS such as the GLOSSY ADVERTISEMENTS of: BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS...MAGNOLIA HOME... and...IKEA!!

SHOPtheLOOK. and LOOK. EXCLUSIVE. L U X E!!!

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Another PSP Building by @chrisnewbie makeover; The Old Library

I made some changes on the Layout, moved Lincoln downstairs and left the upper floor as the Library part... which looks now a bit empty without Lincoln's conspiracy stuff...

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A High School inspired by the one from SimCity 4

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Hypatia Library, exterior. I built it to match the student union next door, which itself was modeled after some TS3 uni rabbitholes.

Floor plans below:

Keep reading

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tumblr seems to be fine with me sharing this finally 🙄

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When I come back from the grave Forget my charms I'll never be the same

have the only screenshot i liked from a scrapped edit idea

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90s Save File - Oasis Springs Lore/Households

Oasis Springs is a small, sun-drenched town. The scorching heat of the day forces residents to hide in the roadside bars or hang by the pools, sipping cold drinks and spending time with friends. However, when the sun sets, things take on a darker tone. The streets fill with personalities you'd rather keep your distance from. Same places now buzz with tension as those with dark pasts and uncertain futures cross paths with those who prey on desperation. Life here is raw and real: social inequality, organized crime and corruption among the elites are issues this place has struggled with for years. Think twice before it's secrets consume you as well.

As promised - big update!! I think it's time to finally show some households (and post more frequent updates 🥲). Willow Creek was supposed to be first, but I want to add more families before I share them, so here we go lol. This is the overall lore for this world - there's so much more to that, but details will be revealed in family bio's and then each sim's backstory. I tried to put households that have the most connections on the same page, but they are all connected to each other in some way (and to sims from different worlds). I will use this post as navigation and add links when I put them together, so you can check out and download those households more easily.

There are 33 sims in total and almost all of them are available to get individually here, those who are not there yet will be posted pretty soon as I'm going to do one more sim dump for this world. If you want to know more about the save, check my post here.

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A vaguely 1930's Lilith Vatore 🦇

Thank you, @gilded-ghosts, @rustys-cc, @northernsiberiawinds, @faaeish

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Another park renovation that looks like any other of my parks.

let's pretend my Pleasantview isn't on its dying breath rn

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certain sims modders preparing their latest update

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French Estate

More Informations and How to Download the build

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The Poodle Palette - Photoshop Actions

Hey guys! So there was some interest for me to release my poodle palette so here it is! The download comes with the set of photoshop actions, a list of hexes for the swatches, and a list of hexes for the overlay. I use them over the EA white (light grey) swatch, not the dirty blonde. If you recolor anything with this palette please just tag/link back!! Enjoy! :)

SFS | Dropbox (No AdFly)

BUY ME A COFFEE? :) ☕

BECOME A PATRON (early access, WIPS, requests, and more!)

[blueplumbbob]

~*~*~*~Celebrating Season 2 of Arcane~*~*~*~

Download from the Gallery #Vys-sims

Base Sim Credit

Jayce Original Base Sim by #donpanchocruz

Mel Original Base Sim by #monosims

Viktor Original Base Sim by #llazyneiph

Ekko Original Base Sim by #mucammo

Sevika Original Base Sim by #bartzkull

Custom Content List

Jayce: Hair [x], Shirt [x], Skin Overlay [x], Decades & Eyelids [x], Eyebags [x], Nose Mask [x], Skin Detail [x], Eyebrows [x], Eyeliner [x], Contour [x], Lips [x]

Mel: Hair & Outfit [x], Face Mask [x]

Viktor: Hair [x], Shirt [x], Eyebags [x], Nose Mask [x], Nose Mask 2 [x], Skin Detail [x], Eyebags [x], Eyelid [x], Spotlight Skin Detail [x], Face Kit [x], Contour [x], Lips [x]

Updated Caitlyn: Original Post/CC List [x], Hair [x], Face Mask [x], Hairline [x], Nose Mask [x], Eyebags [x]

Updated Vi: Original Post/CC List [x], Face Mask [x]

Ekko: Hair Outfit & Face Mask [x]

Updated Silco: Original Post/CC List [x], Face Mask [x]

Updated Jinx: Original Post/CC List [x], Lighting Overlay [x], Little Details & Nose Shaders [x], Nosemask [x], Face Sculptor 2 [x], Eyebags [x], N82 Eyeshadow [x], Lips [x]

Sevika: Hair [x], Outfit [x], Eyebrows [x], N111 Eyeliner [x], Contour [x], Eyeshadow [x], Lips [x]

Huge thank you to CC creators!!

@mucammo @monosims4 @faaeish @joshseoh @pyxiidis

@mercisims @remussirion @pralinesims @okruee @obscurus-sims

@goppolsme @golyhawhaw and @tamo-sim @sayasims @miikocc

@simandy @alyssajoltsims @cosimetic @dirtsims @ms-marysims

@natalia-auditore @northernsiberiawinds and amoebae

[blueplumbbob]

Thank you for reading the Langston Legacy

To all my dear followers and friends - it took me some time to post this final post for the Langston Legacy, because it is so hard to say goodbye to this group of sims that has been part of my life and many of yours for nearly 5 years.

But we made it. All the way to the modern day! This Decades Challenge is complete ⌛️

I hope you all enjoyed the final walk with Mac through the Langston family back to their origins. I really loved revisiting where they came from and seeing old faces. It felt like the fitting way to round this Legacy out.

This is the end for the Langstons. Above you will see all the characters we met over 12 decades - and I have the wonderful @goldoradove to thank for helping to create a 51 sim pose that was so unique to this particular family and all of its individuals. The thing I love most about this community is the people I have met through telling my sims story, and collaborating on this pose to say farewell has been truly heartwarming. I have endless, endless thank-yous, Rilla 💖✨

Ew I’m crying now as I write this, how dare sims make me feel this kind of emotion?! But seriously. Thank you everyone who has ever been invested in this sims story. 5000 followers later (excuse me 😳), and I want you all to know that every comment and like and message has been so meaningful. You are the reason I was able to keep this going for so long, pick it back up after long hiatuses, and finally finish it in my own slightly-protracted way as my life outside of simblr has changed. What started as a pandemic hobby in lockdown turned into a huge project that has sustained me creatively and I feel a bit lost now that it’s complete.

So… what’s next? Stay tuned and I’ll update in a few days on where I’m at with my future plans on simblr. But in the meantime, go discover and read and follow and support all your fellow historical simmers and above all, create your own characters and worlds of your choosing without shame or inhibition 💕🥹