Steam users: can you confirm the exact install path for The Sims 2 Legacy Collection on Windows?

I’m working on SimPE compatibility and want to verify:

The full install path (including folder names)

The name of the base game folder (e.g. Base)

Whether the Downloads folder is in
Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 Legacy\

Please include: Windows version

Steam install drive (C:, D:, etc.)

The EXACT folder names as shown in Explorer.

You want a version of SimPE that will work for your Steam game right? Help me out! I don't have the Steam version for testing.

I don't have the Legacy version, but from what I can gather the paths are:
Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 Legacy\Downloads
And:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 2 Legacy Collection\Base\

I gleaned this info from :
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi.../?id=3420320277
and
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi.../?id=3419253382

Hopefully players of Sims 2 Legacy will confirm or correct this information!

Thank you, I needed some confirmation on the paths. Those are the paths I will be using, then. The SimPE porting project is going well. I have it compiling and launching in .Net Framework 4.5.2. It loads the catalog correctly, and it loads a package file correctly. Most everything else crashes right now, but that is just because I have not worked on any of that yet. First I am working on the recoloring ability. I have eliminated DirectX, as my goal is a cross-platform version, once I drag it, kicking and screaming, to Net 8. I think my next major work is replacing the DDS utilities with an open source third party substitute, CSoil2. And, of course, I continue to find and remove the NSFW content Chris hatch added in 0.77.69. see?
[IMG]Current SimPE[/IMG]

All of these paths can be set in SimPE by the user. There's no need to change how the program works for it to be able to find them.

rhiamom is working on a different approach:
https://modthesims.info/t/694166

I don't see anything in there about removing SimPE's settings dialog, or why that would be desirable.

Maybe Steam works differently.

Because just setting the paths isn’t working. I have both UC and Legacy; I have both 0.75 and 0.77 SimPE. O.75 refuses to accept a Legacy path. I have set the paths before, even setting the complete file table, but it refuses to see any base game that is not exactly what it expects.

Then you have set the paths incorrectly. Plenty of people are able to use SimPE with the Legacy after setting the correct paths. Those are also very old versions of SimPE, but I don't think that should matter. The answer is not to hardcode the paths and require the user to install the game in a particular place.

I did not set the paths incorrectly. This is not my first SimPE rodeo. I have had to set ALL the paths manually before, to each and every folder the app needs to read. And I have done so correctly. SimPE 0.75 reverts to the default base game path every single time. Yes, I save the preferences. People are using 0.77 with Legacy.

And whatever makes you think I want to hardcode paths? How can I support UC, Legacy, Disc/DVD, repacks, Steam and Mac versions, and all the permutations of their possible install locations with hard-coded paths? That's ridiculous. What makes you think I want to force an install location for SimPE? That's a terrible idea. Did you even read about what I am doing? Did you understand it? SimPE is in desperate need of modernization; in particular the dependence on Nividia DDS utilities and DirectX needs to go. I am doing that. I know what open source projects to replace them with.

SimPE is an old program, which expects to be able to have read and write access to its install directory, which it doesn't have in modern Windows OSes, if you have it installed in Program Files. Run it as administrator, and it will have access to its install directory, which will give it the ability to read and write its settings correctly. That's all you need to do. Or you can also install it somewhere that's not Program Files or another write-protected location.



If you're not trying to hardcode the paths, why are you asking for them? Just let the user specify them.

NVidia DDS utilities is needed to edit DDS files, so I guess if you want to make SimPE incapable of editing those files, you can get rid of that dependency. I ran SimPE perfectly well without having DDS utilities right up until I needed to use it to edit a DDS file, so if you never need to do that, you already don't need that utility. The game itself requires DirectX, so there's no point in making it so that SimPE doesn't.

Gee, thanks for telling me things I already know. I put my SimPE in Documents/EA Games, not Program Files.

I said I was eliminating the dependency on the NVidia DDS utilities and DirectX. I did not say I was eliminating what they did. I recall specifically mentioning that I know what open source projects I can use to replace their functionality. Perhaps you could try actually reading what I am posting rather than making unfounded assumptions and jumping to erroneous conclusions.

I asked for the Steam path because I am using a default search path for the game, dependent on game version, with the ability to browse to the game for custom installs, installs to a non-default location, and if the default path is wrong for any reason. Make it easy for the user.

Just what is your problem with me doing this project? You may not need it, but a whole lot of other people do need and want it. If it doesn’t interest you, scroll on by.

I'm just curious, so don't eat me. XD Why remove Direct X and NVidia? Are they difficult to get hold of nowadays for new users?

You are spot on. Nvidia DDS utilities can be very hard to find. The Wayback machine is about the only place you can find it. And it is Windows only. The very old specific version of DirectX that SimPE uses is obsolete and unsupported, and also Windows only. My ultimate goal is a Mac version of SimPe. A more modern, stable Windows version is just a step on the way to that goal. But eliminating those two dependencies, and replacing them with more modern and powerful utilities, benefits everybody. We are no longer limited by what was possible in computer graphics in 2004, so neither should SimPE be limited to 2004 level capabilities.

If you already knew this, you wouldn't be having trouble getting SimPE to save its settings. Also, putting SimPE there may interfere with how the game works, since it includes package files.



Or in other words, you are hardcoding those paths. As long a you have the ability to browse to or otherwise specify a custom path, that's all you need. You don't need to hardcode anything. There's no need to know what version or repack of the game the user is running, either.



I don't have a problem with it. Someone else is already doing this and I don't think we need two SimPE rewrites, but if you want to duplicate effort, I don't care that much. I just want to know why you're changing how the settings work, since that doesn't really make any sense and you're just making extra work for yourself.

DDS Tools is very easy to find and install, you can get it from NVidia. If you're going to have a Mac version of SimPE, it's going to be different from the Windows version anyway (unless you plan on rewriting it on a different language, which does not seem to be the case), so the Mac version is going to have different dependencies anyway.

Does the Legacy version of the game still use NVidia and Direct X or did they replace them with something more modern?

The Legacy wasn't really changed much beyond the UI and Graphics Rules and EA deciding to break the Manage Inventory primitive and the way games were saved for some unknown reason. It was a rerelease, not a remaster that would have made major changes and updates to the code. DDS utilities isn't needed to play the game, or to run SimPE. It's only needed if you want to edit DDS files, regardless of which program you're using to do it.

They didn't think that people would recognise the game if they didn't break something. XD

Agree. And while you CAN do a recolor without using the DDS utilities, using the game import instead, it gives a much poorer resulting texture.

Moving on, somebody else is doing what I am doing? Who? Where? It's not Chris Hatch, his SimPE version is specifically geared to people using his custom NSFW expansions and gates features behind code so only people who bought his expansions even see those features. Very much not in the spirit of the GPL license of SimPe. It's not the people mentioned earlier in this thread. They are doing virtually a complete rewrite from the ground up, re-inventing the wheel, in my opinion. If somebody else is modernizing SimPE toward the goal of a Mac version I really, really want to know about it.

There are multiple people working on this project in April Black's server, they have a repo here: https://codeberg.org/sims-hacker-zone/SimPE

I have never heard of Chris Hatch selling any Sims mods for money, and I'm sure if he was he probably would have been regarded the same way as other paysites were, which does not seem to be the case. I don't know what SimPE features you think are gated behind his mods, either, the mods are completely separate from his version of SimPE, and I can confirm that you still get e.g. the names of his local variables that only his mods use even if you don't have them installed.

Also, if you think you can remove dependencies on major libraries without essentially doing a rewrite of the program, you're probably going to be sadly disappointed.

Yeah, Chris Hatch's expansions were always 100% free and SimPE provided boobs for all. XD

Seeing as Mod the Sims hosted the patches when they weren't available anymore I had trouble believing that they wouldn't have links to find Direct X etc. and I was right.

https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=630456

The NVidia page where you can download DDS Utilities is also the first google result for me when searching for "nvidia dds utilities".

One of the problems is that the original link at the Nvidia page currently doesn't work (it says "not found" when you click on the download link for the EXE file - at least for me, and I've not had issues downloading it up until somewhat recently). Some people have also had issues with the download page not properly loading.

Osab (and probably a few others) have reuploaded the file, but whether those links stay up forever is unknown.
https://osab.tumblr.com/post/634706...load-recently-i

Ahh, that is a new development since I downloaded it. It looks like there is a SFS link to it in the SimPE thread, though, as well.

Thanks for this link. I went and looked, and they are doing something completely different. Their main focus seems to be on adding Sims 1 capability. But nothing has been committed in over a month. I get that it is a busy time of year for most people, and a hobby project takes a bit lower priority. I will check back in another month to see if anything is getting committed.