I just checked my downloads folder-altogether about 7GB total in all.

I'm working with a 1T drive SSD and 8GB RAM, so I do have a fast loading time of about a minute. 2 if I count the loading screen.

I might even be culling something out, but this is probably the fastest time I've ever had playing the game in 25 years.

Having an SSD, huge amount of storage, a state of the art graphics card and more than adequate memory is the key to having a faster running and loading game.

The Sims with a SSD and 16GBRAM is gold. Load times are so fast with or without CC.

Gosh, remember the days of waiting an hour to play a family?




Haha. This is true. I'm watching someone build a neighborhood on YouTube and he had to cut back on his CC because he experienced pink soup. He admitted to going crazy with CC when he first installed the game.

I remember not that long ago (about 10 years ago) when i waited 10/20 minutes to get to the neighborhoods. Even when I didn't have that much CC.

I'd do a Sudoku puzzle while I was waiting.

10-20 minutes is nothing compared to my ancient laptop (usually at least 3 hours, and even then it occasionally went into a "loading forever" loop and I just had to give up and try again . Spent the time doing housework, reading, or some other activity off-screen (wouldn't have dared using another program apart from having Gadwin run in the background - probably would've overloaded the poor thing ). Good old days of XP, 512 mb RAM and virtual memory assistance, which kicked in every other time I played (with BG to FT and 10+ GB of CC... gee, I wonder why... )

My old gaming computer - maybe an hour of loading (but then I also had a laptop, so if I wanted, I could spend the time CC-hunting or writing).

Nowadays, 5-20 minutes means I can just watch a Youtube video or two, or check a couple sites while it's loading, and weirdly enough (or maybe not) it feels fast.

20-minutes load time is hardly fast unless you're Superman.

This might sound crass, but if any game nowadays had that long of a wait time to play, I'd lose interest in the game very quickly and shelve it.

There's a bit of a difference between loading the game on a SSD and HDD... A SSD would by default have faster loading, but unless I rearrange my entire computer, reinstalling several programs, and/or opt for less than 2 GB of CC, I'm kinda stuck with playing the game on a HDD and having a bit longer loading time.

These days nobody seem to have any patience (just the mention of a below-one-minute loading screen seems to get people's rage going ).

My only tip for new Sims 2 players is to just soak in the game's charm, before venturing out to shop mods to enhance it. Especially with all the hairstyles, that quickly add to the game's load times.



Dunno if you considered this option, but you could always clone/migrate your HDD data to an SSD, so you can skip the whole reinstallation process. In case you want to sample a video that covers the topic. As long as the SSD is in your system already, once your original data from the HDD is cloned and migrated, your PC will load the "newest" drive first... or at least it did for me when I made the transfer.

@simmer22 Don't make me remember those 512 ram computers. At that time having a 256 graphics card was something for privileged people. XD Each game of Sims series came out 10 years before the time computers could run it, and when there were finally computers that could handle them, EA no longer provided support. So I could say that all the Sims games have always been broken and relatively unplayable if it weren't for the community. For my web series I remember leaving the game loaded for over an hour, taking photos with the game at maximum graphics with 2 fps, and then closing. To play normally, I only played in houses and never go to community lots. what a nightmare xD

Ironically Bodyshop takes longer to load for me than the game does. So long that I regularly open Task Manager just to make sure that it is loading. XD

Sure, the game does take a while, but I accept that as the price I pay for being a CC addict. I prefer my CC to a faster loading time.

People do have way less patience nowadays though lol. These kids have never experienced dial-up!

@Charity I think the 4gb patch could also be aplied to body shop!! I remember that the load improved significantly

Someone told me that and I thought, Great! Then promptly forgot about it. XD

I shall do it now, thank you!

If you're not 100% dependent on all your CAS CC when using Bodyshop, loading in just the items you need also significantly reduces the loading time (as does temporarily removing build/buy/etc.)

Bodyshop also loads much faster on the second load (in a bootup session), so if you removed some CC you needed, booting it back up again shouldn't take too long (even if the cache files are deleted).

If you keep the Cigen file, loading the thumbnails also goes faster.

If I'm creating stuff, I just keep some of my newer CAS files + the files I need (meshes/recolor/etc.) +my last made bodyshop file(s), so I don't have to mess about with fixing the SortIndex (otherwise the items end up at the back of the catalog, in front of the EAxis stuff). Kinda lazy, I know, but that's one thing I'd prefer to not edit (especially after I found out back when I made a lot of infant accessories... The mess it made in the catalog when different sets kept getting the same numbers )



For what it was, my ancient laptop ran surprisingly well for a while, though I think FT (and the CC) might have been at the edge of what it could manage. Didn't last for more than roughly 5-6 years, two of which were not all that simming-heavy (it had started to "dark-screen" randomly, which I think might have been the battery, or motherboard, or what have you - on the verge of failing). Last time I had the game up, I tried building a house, and it took 5 minutes from I clicked to a floor appearing. I gathered its simming days were over (and I was right, it went completely dead as a doornail not long after).

I played with shadows off, and reflections off (unless I needed it for a mirror effect). If I'd introduced the poor thing to UseShaders on, it probably would've died on the spot . Can't remember if I turned off weather, though (on my next computer I needed a mod to turn it off due to heavy snow causing pink soup after somewhat brief gameplay).

Over 2200 on line here with over 1200 viewing Sims 2.
My time 5:40 PM PST 2/16/2025

Lots more players look for help and CC for there game.

Wow just 3 min. later and it over 1680 viewing Sims 2.

Yeah, it's no secret that the rerelease has brought in new faces. Hopefully some of them will be inspired to make their own creations, or perhaps maybe just join us for some discussions...

By the way, you and me have the same timezone.

Some old faces too...

Welcome back! :D

I sometimes make a folder just for testing, but it often ends up with missing meshes. Plus I got a weird bug where some Maxis meshes were duplicated. If I don't delete cigen, then Bodyshop refuses to load again, the drama queen.

Sadly the 4GB patch said, nope, not going to work.

Tried the "copy EXE to desktop, apply patch, cut-paste back in" method?

Thank you! At least I know that my read only is working. XD

I've been playing The Sims since the original game released; I played TS2 and TS1 at the same time from 2004 to 2008 or so, then got a computer that could really run TS2 and switched to it full-time until 2016, when another new computer and Windows 10 did not get along with TS2. I was playing The Sims back when if you wanted to have custom pjs, you had to download skins and give them the right filename (containing elements that referred to the sex, mesh, and color) to replace the defaults. Downloading homes was the same thing -- we had to manually replace the .iff files, none of this in-game porting! (I've also been a member of this website since it was still "modthesims2"!)

I bought the legacy collection about a week ago and am LOVING it. I'm playing both, but TS2 is getting more playtime since it's less work. So far, I have encountered no performance issues or bugs on The Sims 1, and in The Sims 2 I've only had one glitch: once the game crashed when trying to load Don's house, but it's been fine since.

Has anything surprised me....well, it's fun to see how much about this game is deeply buried in my brain or muscle memory. I'm talking sounds, shortcuts, etc. Once I was struggling to remember how to close the cheat console and then stopped thinking about it and my brain just zip! did it. I'd forgotten how WONDERFUL TS2 animation was, especially for the kids. "TS4 could never!" to quote Plumbella. The couch make-out is so much more fun to watch than TS4's.

Plans for future gameplay: given how ANNOYING The Sims 4 is with the event spam/popups, I can see TS2 becoming a major competitor to replace it as my daily driver or main Sims experience. (This weekend it even supplanted Stardew Valley and RDR2, and if you know me that's the sort of thing that would make you put your drink down and stare in wonderment.) I want to start bringing in downloads again, though finding TS1 ones will be fun. I'm going to check my 2004-2009 drive to see if I have any on there. I hope so, because I had stuff like objects that were brought over from The Sims Online. In dire need of clothing, especially for TS2.


Although I've been a member here a long time, I'd like to say how glad I am it's still active! I so much prefer proper forums to reddit.

I recommend the sims2defaultdatabase as a good starting point for clothing

First time back since maybe 2020. No interest in buying the legacy collection. I have the UC, and last time I played it on my Windows 10 pc it was working well. I have been enjoying reading the threads and seeing what every one has been up to., and it was amazing to see a list of "essential "mods created for returning and new simmers . I will definitely reference that if I decide to do a rehaul of my old set up.. Since I been gone for so long, I am curious what are the new trends in hood deco and things like skin defaults, eye defaults ? Are simmers using the mods like the trait project or story progression ? Are simmers still using things such as the sky deco ? I know that game load times and Downloads folder size was always an issue for many. Have simmers scaled back and gone back to basics more now ?

I use the traits, the default sky mod offered here, with the water mod as well. My medieval hood is just gorgeous, thank you very much. Using defaults is the staple in 'historical hoods' that I know of.
Story progression for me was a bust. I did not like having no control over the critters while playing one house.

As for trends, you'd have to ask others-there have been a lot of custom hoods uploaded here in the past few years. I haven't scaled back any, but I haven't expanded my folders very much either-even when I now have a huge drive to store it on.

I have just recently come back to The Sims 2 after a long break. I am wondering what the most popular nh deco is these days ? Trees, sky overlays and such. I took a break around the time Criwuette's rural set and linden trees were pretty popular. I mean more towards Max is match and low poly.