Hello! I registered on this forum just to ask this one question, which is "How do I properly extract the voice files from Sims 2?" For a little bit, I've been trying to extract the voice files from Sims 2 using SimPE, extracting from Voices2.Package, getting all of the MP3 files out, but none of them play. Audacity won't accept them, and when I try to import them as raw data, they come off as incredibly short buzzes. What am I doing wrong here? Is there some kind of protection on the voice files that isn't being used on the music? And am I the only one who's actually ever tried to do such things?

The reason why I want to extract Sims voices is so I can use them for machinimas in post production, adding voice overs and stuff like that for machinimas made in other games. And I've done it before with voices from Ace Combat and Mass Effect. I'm hoping to use voices from the Sims so I won't be too restricted in terms of dialogue.

Here are some pictures that may shed light on this conundrum.

Also do any of you know how to open sounddata.far from Sims 1? That could also help in my endeavors as well.

Thank you very much for your time and your help! <3

Hey AbandonedIntel, I know it's been years since you asked this. I hope you see this even though it's been so long!

I don't know how the sound data from the Sims 1 was extracted, but someone posted all of the files on YouTube. The channel that posted it is LUCPIX, and the video is called "The Sims [PC,2000]: Full SFX Bank (General Sound Effects & Vocal Takes)". Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsSZcAucEXM

I'm positive that video will have everything you are looking for.

LUCPIX also has an account here on Mod The Sims. Profile link: https://modthesims.info/m/member.php?u=10070885

I had been trying to extract the sound data myself last month and had little success, and stumbled upon LUCPIX's video by chance today. It was posted September 25, 2021, which was maybe 7-10 days after I first started looking into unpacking the files. It's amazing how things work out that way sometimes. LUCPIX has all sorts of interesting Sims videos on YouTube, unused graphics and sounds, pre-release stuff, and other things that I imagine are pretty hard to find today. You should check it out!

Sorry for the necro but I'm having the same problem. I followed a tutorial to extract the package files but the mp3 files that I extracted from the game don't play. VLC opens them but doesn't seem to play it.
I'm specifically looking for the charlatan voice lines and tune that plays when he enters a community lot, so I'm searching on the files of the Bon Voyage expansion pack. Can anyone help? :s

Even though SimPE exports them as mp3 files, by looking at the header of those files you can see that they are clearly not mp3s, but instead the header says they are SPX1 files.

I've spent some considerable time researching this, and from the best that I can tell, Sims 2 used a proprietary audio middleware system called SoundMAX SPX for all voice samples in the game. The reason why they did this is anyone's guess. But from what I can gather it seems that the SPX audio rendering system was similar to EAX, in that it allowed physical and environmental modeling of the sim's voices (for example, creating things such as spatialization or wall-reflections possibly based on things like whether they are speaking inside or outside, or the kinds of walls surrounding them, etc.).

What I find most strange is that they chose to forgo this kind of environmental modeling for sound effects, because those are encoded in the XA or Maxis Audio format (which are just a kind of ADPCM compressed wave file). And XA files have a known and widely published file format, and there are tools to decode them (such as Xantippe or FFmpeg -- although personally I haven't had any luck converting XA files extracted from SimPE using FFmpeg. And Xantippe seems to only convert the files as 22 kHz, which doesn't sound as good as they sound inside the game).

But unlike XA, the SPX format is entirely a mystery, and there may have only been around 40 or 50 games ever to use the SPX format. Even Maxis appears to have only used it for Sims 2 -- Sims 1 and Sims 3 for example have voice files that you can find around the web and on places like YouTube. But not the case with Sims 2... there are just simply no known voice file extracts out there.

At this point, my best recommendation would be if you really wanted Sims 2 voices then you would probably have to record them in-game (using something like Audacity set to record your PC's Stereo Mix or sometimes called "What-U-Hear") and then try to isolate them, and edit and export it manually. Unless someone else can shed some light on the situation, or even knows someone with technical knowledge of SPX, then we're stuck unfortunately.

I agree, did my best to export the files in various ways, convert them in different tools - all in vain too

This is probably not relevant to the original author of the thread anymore, however, just wanted to mention that I did exactly what homefish suggested - i.e., recording simlish voice lines in game one by one using Decorgal Talk Hack. Other hacks will be recorded the same way sometime in the near future too.

If anyone finds themselves in need of simlish voicelines - go grab them, they are for free

The files can be downloaded from my SFS folder, all the links and details in the video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wno...nel=LetItSimmer

Hi Let It Simmer! Great work, by the way, doing all the recording and exporting all the dialogue and sharing it with us all! A quick question however.. I notice on the AF and AM you have several names listed after them. Who is Gerri, Zoe, Dave and Stephen?

Gerri Lawlor, Zoe Galvez, David Boat and Stephen Kearin (voice actors).
https://www.behindthevoiceactors.co...mes/The-Sims-2/

Oh, that's what I thought, but I wasn't 100% sure. Thanks!