I guess I wouldn't consider a minute and a half a long wait time.



My computer isn't a multi core and I still have 1.10 wait time.

Hey, guess who feels incredibly silly right now?

I prompted ChatGPT with my observations and was provided with a list of options to try out, among them using dgVoodoo.
So I try dgVoodoo and... the game starts up in 3 seconds.
BUT
The neighborhood is full of Purple Flashing.
I try the different video card emulation options in dgVoodoo; all of them are faster, but all have Purple Flashing.

Then I realize... dgVoodoo is, like, pretending that you're using a different video card, right?

Oh.

I haven't even tried the Graphics Rules Maker yet.

So I download it and run it, Auto-detect, Save files... and sure enough my game now launches in 5 seconds with no graphics glitches.

So I've spent this whole thread trying to figure out what we've known for a decade: Graphics Rules Maker... rules.

Let this be a warning to anybody who still needs it: Never skimp out on updating your sgr's, get Graphics Rules Maker from simsnetwork.com today...

(Just adding in that one of the older versions of GRM caused severe pink-flashing + crashing issues for me - but after I fixed the issue it caused, my game worked fine. GRM isn't needed if you know what to fix in the GR file, but it can be helpful if you don't know what to fix and get stuck. It has also seen a lot of updates since the version I had problems with, so it probably works a lot better now than the older version I was stuck with).

I did a quick test where I removed most of my CC (not all mods - had about 65 mb left but didn't want to fine-sort which ones to remove so as not to cause any potential problems), plus everything in my Projects and SavedSims folders. From a fresh computer restart, my game took about 35 seconds before the first video/loading screen appeared (I clicked it away, always do, haven't bothered removing it), around the 2 minute mark or so the splash screen started "splashing", and less than 4 minutes altogether before it was at the NH choosing screen.

My laptop has a HDD as the main drive, so I'd think if you've got a SSD loading would be faster. I'd think CC and whatever other content is in the game does count toward both kinds of loading, both the pre-video and full splash screen.

I think the "pre-load" before the video/loading screen pops up likely is a bit longer if I have more CC, but I don't think it's been upwards of 1.5 minutes. Maybe around 30-60 seconds. I play UC, windowed, and without RPC, not sure if it has anything to say.

With minimal to no CC, I don't think an all-in-all ~4 minute, maybe ~5 minute wait to a lot is much to complain about. I was about to get the stopwatch on my phone (didn't think to get it up before I started the game, of course), but my game was halfway done loading before I could even find the app, let alone start it up, so I went with what the sidebar clock said. Started at --.11, game had loaded to NH at --.15, so you can probably subtract some seconds here and there. You don't get much done in 5 minutes anyway. Back in the days of my first laptop, I'd start up the game, clean the apartment or whatever, and come back to a still loading game (~3 hours)...

(Just an add-on/extension to my PM answer from earlier)

As for ChatGPT, I don't know if that one ever offers anything useful. Never even heard about dgVoodoo in relation to Sims 2...

3 hours ... yikes. Mine has fortunately never been that bad.

I've never used the GRM. It's not an essential mod, is it?

It's not a mod at all. It's just a program that generates a graphics rules file.

If you can test whether the launch time increases when you comment out boolProp disableTexMemEstimateAdjustment true that would be very helpful. I've only ever been annoyed about the 1.5 minutes launch time, and that was all it took to fix it for me. I need to change the title of this thread again I think, it may still be too confusing.


It turns out it's just a single line that GRM added to my Graphics Rules.sgr file that made my game launch faster. So if one is willing to edit with Notepad, GRM is not needed at all.

What is GRM actually used for?

It's for generating the graphics rules file. It's literally in the name of the tool.

Reasonably sure my game loaded quick even without that line, back when I had the pink-flashing issues (with no/low-CC) - but I had so much trouble with pink-flashing without it, I'm just glad my game works now, and also reasonably sure editing out the line isn't going to do much. I think I edited a few more things in the GR file while I was at it, but it's been a while so I'm not sure. Here's the tutorial/tips I used:
https://episims.tumblr.com/post/190...-helped-me-with (#1 and #2. #3 could potentially help for pink-flashing issues, too)

Could also depend on which game you have - if you're using Legacy, I think that line was missing from the GR file (or deactivated?), so adding it back in would probably help.

The "boolProp enableDriverMemoryManager true" line could also be of help (this one is a tick box in GRM)

If you edited with GRM, is it possible the edit changed other things? It has several settings, some are set by default unless you untick them.

That is the first thing you should do after installing your game.

I edited it with Notepad. I made sure to only comment out that line.
To be clear, I only wanted you to comment it out temporarily. Just to see if it also takes a minute longer on your machine. I don't believe my machine to be that special that it shouldn't be reproducible for somebody else.
You don't owe me to do it, of course. But I just hope I can convince one of you that this was not a case of bottlenecking or cache issues or the like.

My theory is that when TMEA (Texture Memory Estimate Adjustment) is not disabled, every time I launch The Sims 2, the game benchmarks my texture memory by filling it up to capacity. This explains the GPU activity I recorded much better than bottlenecking.

Both of us have loading times proportional to the amount of CC we have; you have a lot of CC, so you have a larger gap when launching the game than I do; but it is still much shorter than the loading screen before the neighborhood selection.
But when I don't have TMEA disabled, this proportionality is broken: the time before intro video/loading screen is then longer than any other load time in the actual game. If it was simply a matter of bottlenecking, why is it fixed by a single parameter change?

Again, if one has a lot of CC then everything takes longer, and then the I agree difference is probably pretty meaningless. But for someone like me, who has minimal CC so I can load into the game to test my mods quickly, it is very useful to know this. Also, it seems some people don't use GRM, so someone else may benefit from knowing about this specific Sims 2 quirk and how to disable it. It's just better to have this stuff documented than not, you know?

I've heard that this is an issue related to specific graphics cards, so it may well not affect anyone that doesn't have your specific graphics card.

Had multiple of the line in my file for some reason - didn't remove them for the test, but set them to "false" instead of "true". Only timed the pre-load.

Already had loaded the game one time today, so game loaded quicker than the first time. Roughly same conditions as earlier today, about 50 MB of mostly mods and mod-related CC)

With "False" - Pre-load about 1.20 before video. Load itself was fast, probably around 2 minutes to NH screen.

With "True" - about 25-30 seconds pre-load before video. The rest of the load was roughly the same speed as with "false".

So yeah, looks like it shortens the pre-load, too. But if you've got a Nvidia card (probably others as well), you'll likely want the line in the GraphicRules file to avoid pink-flashing and crashing, so I'd imagine if people already have it set up with the line, the long pre-load already won't be an issue for them (Can't remember the pre-load being over a minute before I got it fixed, but it's been 4-5 years since I messed around with the settings, and I'm used to loading times being all over the place, so I likely didn't even notice if it was ).

Perhaps I'm lucky, but the load time from clicking the desktop icon to before the video for me was only 16.71 seconds. Splash screen load time was only 28.93 seconds. So, within ~45 secs, I'm within the game playing.

But I've got a NVMe SSD though.

My potato computer startup time is in geologic eras. Hence I am a fossil.

In the default file this is present: boolProp disableTexMemEstimateAdjustment true
I have never adjusted this file and don't see a need to do so.

Changing it to false doesn't seem to have an obvious effect. Time to the blue screen is about 21 seconds. Memory use in NvidiaInspector ramps up to about 1700 MB and falls back down again with both settings.

I have GTX 750 Ti with 2 gigs of memory.

You have to distinguish the first startup from subsequent ones when some data is in the cache already.

I actually had 3 game startups - I'd already done the "cold startup" of the game earlier in the day with my original GR file ("True"). I did time that one too, and it was around the ~35 second mark for the preload, so similar to the third startup.

Second startup was with the setting to "false" (~1.20), third one was setting to "true" (~30 seconds). Both done within about 5-10 minutes of each other, under the same conditions, so there was a noticable difference.

(I'd imagine the test probably could be done better with 2 separate cold startups, but I couldn't be bothered restarting the computer - 2 after the cold startup would comparably give a similar result for a quick test).

But there's currently a test sample size of 2, so at the moment it's too early to say if it has any effect for everyone. Most people who have messed around with their GR file likely already have the line in their files already, so wouldn't have issues with a long preload if the line fixes this.

Huh, interesting, it wasn't present in my Default file. I play on Ultimate Collection from EA App aka Origin.

EDIT: I was VERY wrong, it is actually present TWICE times in my file, but only in conditional statements. There's a big procedure in the middle for adjusting the settings depending on the video card. So if one's card fulfills the conditions to, it is disabled there.


Maybe there's something elsewhere in the file that launches the TMEA for certain cards. I will try and see if I can find it.

Mine had something similar (was present three times, two looked like conditional ones, the last one is the line I added in).

My file looks a bit messy, though - I think it's after GRM had a go at it, because it's mentioned several times

It seems to be pretty messy by default. All the changes GRM makes are marked with a "# GraphicsRulesMaker Tweak" comment

Sorry that I didn't realize it was in the default file! But it's in there twice, NVidia is one of the two vendors of cards where it is (supposed to be) skipped. If that's where you changed it, then I would have expected you to see an effect:simmer22's report points in favor of the delay being reproducible on most machines, but yours doesn't.
At least, not on the surface. The other vendor where it is disabled by default is Intel:So if my hypothesis should hold, then either A: you changed the line where it is executed in case of an intel card so it is actually still disabled for you or B: $appControlledAA IS "true" for your game, so the else statement is NOT executed, meaning that TMEA was running for you in both cases. That could explain your GPU activity, and maybe the procedure is just faster on your video card?

EDIT: Well I say that, but then I also found that the game launches fast when using dgVoodoo, seemingly regardless of what virtual video card you choose, even if it is not NVidia or Intel. Maybe TMEA is just fast when using dgVoodoo...

Yes, but what is the graphics rules file? Is Maxis supposed to generate it and doesn't? Do you need the fix if you don't get pink flashing?

It's files that control various graphic parameters for TS2 and Bodyshop. They're installed together with the game, but often need some editing if the game's graphics and settings aren't set up the way you want it, or if the game isn't reading the graphic card properly.

You can find the files in your Config (for TS2) and CSConfig (for Bodyshop) folders in the "[Install location]\[SP9/M&G or other latest EP]\TSData\Res" folder.

Ok, thanks. So why do you need the GRM?

Graphics Rules.sgr is just a text file that comes with the installed game. In my installation, it's located in The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Config. If your game works, you probably already have it, and if your game works fine, you probably don't need the fix.

GRM can help you if the game prevents you from setting the resolution to anything but 800x600, for example, which the game sometimes does for modern machines. Technically you can do the same fixes as GRM can if you edit Graphics Rules.sgr yourself, but GRM is a bit more user-friendly and is set up to apply the same fix to both Sims 2, Body Shop, Sim City 4 and the Sims Stories games.

It's a program that helps editing the GraphicRules files. Makes the process easier (the GraphicRules file has a lot of text, and can be very confusing, especially if you have little to no experience with coding language). GRM is just a simpler way of editing the files because you have tick boxes and explanations for what to do. The same edits can be done directly in the file, if you know what you're doing (or have a good tutorial).

The GraphicRules file often needs editing if the game isn't reading the graphic card the way it should, or if the settings aren't showing up properly. TS2 is an old game, and doesn't have full support for newer graphic cards or big screen resolutions out of the box, but some tweaks to the GraphicRules file can fix at least some of those issues. It can also help with some issues related to pink-flashing/crashing.