After taking a job overseas I decided to try and install Sims 2 on my current laptop and it runs like a dream, unexpectedly. Here are my specs:

Device name LAPTOP-O1BAHVGL
Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz 2.42 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)
Device ID 74619F33-7114-4BDE-A1B8-380C54DB44FF
Product ID 00330-53975-41780-AAOEM
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch Touch support with 10 touch points

I only have 2 gigs of CC so I imagine that makes the game run a lot smoother. I only have occasional lag spikes when there's a lot going on, and in a year of solid playing it's only crashed on me three times, all during the process of quitting after the screen goes black (don't worry, I save BEFORE quitting). Never once seen pink soup in this iteration of my game. I'm not very familiar with specs or what is needed to make the game run smoothly, but this was definitely not advertised as a gaming laptop. I assume part of the reason is the massive amount of usable RAM, and my hard drive has about 75% of storage still available. The game does drain the battery pretty quick, but keeping it plugged in helps.

What's crazy is my custom built PC runs the game way worse. Constant crashes, especially with weather effects, predictable pink soup after playing for around 5 sim days. I did have 7 gigs of CC on that version of my game, but it made the smooth transition to my laptop all the more surprising. I was able to get my specs from an old Leefish post as I can't access my PC now, but maybe the comparison would shed some light on it for more tech-savvy players:

Time of this report: 6/8/2022, 12:28:15
Machine name: DESKTOP-HIO6326
Machine Id: {4F517982-F8AF-4B2B-9FA4-CF04A260CAD1}
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 18363) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 04/19/18 17:48:21 Ver: 05.0000D (type: BIOS)
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with Radeon Vega Graphics (8 CPUs), ~3.6GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8124MB RAM
Page File: 8820MB used, 3936MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
Miracast: Available, with HDCP
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported
DirectX Database Version: Unknown
DxDiag Version: 10.00.18362.1500 64bit Unicode

I think the pink flashing in the sims 2 is caused by the type of computer rather than Windows, I suppose desktop computers usually have all the newer components and that is why they produce the error. On my Intel laptop it works perfectly with all the CC I want, however on my desktop computer I can only use it for photos, since although it has more fps, the flickering comes quickly no matter how many settings I use. In the lefish forum I remember reading years ago that they also recommended specific computers.

On my laptop asus intel i5 iris xe graphics I only need to use graphics rules and rpc to start playing. I have 16gb of ram. and windows 11, I think it cost me 400 euros.

However, on my Amd desktop computer with too many cores, a good graphics card and everything posh and modern, with 16 gb of ram and windows 10... pink everywhere.

I think the sims 2 prefers Intel xD Coincidentally, all of us who say it works without problems for us have an Intel processor.

I am not really technical so I might be totally wrong about this, but my feeling is that a powerful computer somehow allows the game to use more resources than it can handle, and the game itself is what is going "Waaaaaah!! Too much!!" even if the computer could easily handle tons more textures, because it does for other, more modern games.

Whereas a computer which doesn't have as many resources in the first place isn't trying to use so much, and the TS2 engine is happier with that. It makes sense as a theory in my head, but as I said, I'm not sure it's accurate!

It could also be user behaviour e.g. if you're used to being able to swap freely between graphics-hungry apps like Chrome or your Paint software, or screen-recorders, or leave those things running while playing games, then you might also try doing this with TS2, and TS2 does not like this. As I said - I had FREQUENT crashes when leaving Chrome open while playing, and it took me a really long time to link the two things, but thinking about it, it was 100% that because the times I got crashes would be when I saw a loading screen, I'd reflexively/automatically switch windows so I could browse while the game loaded, and 90% of the time, I'd get a crash literally the second I would do that.

But I know for sure, it's the GAME freaking out rather than the computer actually running out of memory. I know that TS2 can only recognise at maximum 4GB of video RAM even if you have more (is that correct?) so I wonder if it could be something like this:

Computer has 16GB of video RAM
TS2 recognises only the first 4GB of this

Computer has no way of understanding that it needs to block off the first 4GB of video RAM for TS2 exclusive use - so it indiscriminately uses as much of the 16gb for whatever you happen to have open - Chrome, games, paint software, etc. Also, those programs can "see" that there is 10+GB of free space available so they demand as much as they need without curtailing this.

When your usage starts to get close to the 4gb, TS2 starts struggling because it can't access the top 5-16gb of ram. Your computer has no idea of this and merrily continues to use it, won't give you a warning, because it's using less than a quarter of its capacity.

If you go over the 4gb, your computer, and every other program is totally happy because it's still using well under half your capacity. However, TS2 starts spewing pink soup, disappearing items, or just crashes.

If I am right about this, I wonder whether it could be possible to somehow partition that first section of video memory and tell the computer/graphics card that it is only to use the first 4GB for TS2 and nothing else, and everything else can use the remaining 12GB. But I assume that if it was as easy to do that as it sounds, then someone would have made that already. Because we already have the 4GB patch for TS2, so we have already got TS2 to use twice as much video memory as it was originally written to be able to access.

Under my theory/half-understanding, if you have a less-powerful computer and maybe you only actually have 4GB of video memory - the computer and any programs which use the video memory can accurately see the amount of space there is available and will automatically curtail stuff which is using excessive amounts when space is low.

So I wonder whether another trick could be to somehow trick the computer into only seeing the first 4gb of video memory for the computer as a whole, to be used when TS2 is running. I am sure that must be possible, but it's not a suggested fix for TS2, so I wonder why that is - does it cause other problems? Is the OS in itself using up more of the 4GB perhaps?

I think we can all only have a maximum of 10 or 15 GB if we don't want the game to take forever to load.

I've seen it recommended to set TS2 to only use one CPU core, which can potentially help with crashing. Apparently, it functions better with one core than on multi-core CPUs (which most CPUs are these days).

As for memory usage, I remember back when I used my "ancient" laptop that only had 512 MB RAM - the laptop would switch from RAM to virtual ram (harddrive memory - slower memory derived/borrowed from the harddrive) when it went over the limit (and give a note telling it had done so). I haven't seen the message since, but the function is still available. Setting the limit in the OS higher if it's set very low to begin with could potentially help for TS2. You also need to make sure you have enough harddrive space for this (not a good idea to set it high if you're running out of harddrive space). Giving absolutely no guarantees, though. Back in the days I also had a program that would empty the standby memory (much like the MAF), and it too seemed to help. Can't remember what it was called, though.

I vaguely remember doing the setting to make the game use only one core, though I could be just remembering reading about it and not doing it.

I thought pink flashing was caused by running out of texture memory - how does that use the processor? I thought it was video card ram. I also thought the 4GB patch was about allowing access to more video memory (whatever that actually is). But, I might have misunderstood this. I only have a very basic understanding of what different bits of computer hardware actually do.

I have an Intel processor anyway but it is probably more powerful than a laptop one.

I don't know to what extent it influences, but it may be that the configuration that comes standard with the processor manages the memory of the Sims 2 better. Although there are people who use Amd without any problem. But I suppose that since nowadays it is cheaper to buy a powerful computer with AMD and very new video cards, those types of users are the ones who have the most problems. I also speak from ignorance, but having searched about it when I couldn't play on my desktop computer.

Having a single core is probably the closest answer.

I exclusively play a heavily modded Life Stories on a machine with these specs:

Core i3-9100F
32 GB RAM
GTX 1660 Super
Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC (tweaked to cut down even more on services and other superfluous stuff I know I don't / won't ever use)

284 MB of mods. A bulk of the file size comes from objects I ported from the base game and Celebration Stuff to LS, along with the entirety of Happy Holiday Stuff (everything works as expected - this is purely for my own personal usage of course). Oh, and the GunMod radiance lighting as well.

I have vsync turned off, and reflections as well. This allows me to have very smooth framerates. Screen tearing in the game is very unnoticeable IMO, and their vsync implementation slows the game down, most notably on densely-populated lots.

i don't know this is for now available and you need this the same but i have windows 11, and heres my specs:

Windows 11
AMD Ryzen 5 5600H
Nvidia GeForce 1650 4GB
8GB RAM
1TB SSD

When first i launched sims 2, i saw this square under the sim but that was quick with graphics ruler maker and that was enough, second i had a little bit lag and for some the time that was overwhelming because it crashed my game always, so i just trying to use 4GB patch also and it helps me a lot.
Remember, before changing the all folder and notepad in game base do a backup! I was also searching the problem inside the game and i found that my graphic card is not attached(???) in game and thats why, i changed it already and it worked.
I wish you will get better and maybe try to fix this. ♥

Thanks everyone for the responses. I haven't had a chance to reply, but I have been reading the thread. It seems that yes, getting the game to work can be finicky. Also a lot of you have waaaay less cc than I have! I know that cc isn't a part of the game, but as I kinda said in my original post, it seems weird to me to have to go from playing with years of 15-20 GB all the way down to like 2 GB.

For now I have decided to get an older graphics card. I'm thinking that the graphics card seems to be the thing that determines what kind of game you'll have the most. Which isn't exactly revolutionary, I know, but with my past computer builds, RAM was a big factor in determining how much cc I could install. So I guess I was too focused on that. After reading some posts, I'm thinking that I should try and see if changing up my graphics card would improve my game.

While a lot of you do have less cc, sometimes when I test the game with no or light cc, I still get flickering and screen tearing, while lot of you say you have good experiences. And a lot of you also have less memory than I have and even slower processors, but again say that you get good/decent results. So I'm thinking that my model of graphics card may just not run so well with the game, or be able to handle the game the way I want to play it.

So while I can still find it, I'm going to try going back to the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. While I might have had a slightly different version before, it's the graphics card I used on my old Windows 7 computer and it worked well for about 4 years. I'm just kicking myself a bit because that's exactly the advice Andrew gave me two years ago when I was looking for advice on what graphics card to get! He said to go with the card I knew that worked well with the game. Well, I didn't listen, thinking it'd be prudent to get a newer model for the price. I guess I thought I might want to play some newer games too, so I thought it would make sense to get something to handle both, but that didn't really happen. Most of the time, I'm just playing TS2, but when I do play other games, it tends to be older games like Nancy Drew or Dragon Age. The 1050 would be fine for those. Hmm, I guess my 1650 did work better for TS3, now that I think about it, but I would rather have a better TS2 install than a TS3 install.

So yeah, I got a new card and installed it last week. I'll see how it goes. Wish me luck! And thanks again for the answers everyone! Hopefully this thread will help others, too.