If you can't wait for a loading screen, you obviously have better things to do than play the game. My TS2 game is a whole lot faster than TS3, and I feel like I spend less time waiting when playing it as well.

My old laptop had loading times between 1 1/2 and 3 hours with 9-13 GB of CC. Got stuff done while I was waiting, and enjoyed playing once it did load.

I have loading times from 1 minute and up, depending on how much CC I have. I've had loading times around 1 hour with around 35 GB of CC on my stationary, while on my laptop I try to keep the amount of CC to below 20 minutes of loading (10-15 GB).

How do you even find anything with 35 GB of CC?

Actually, I seem to have fallen in love with the Sims 2 Loading Screen again... I start it up and a minute later, when I look after distracting myself, I'm already on the city menu. If I start a new city, sure, it'll take longer since it'll create new areas and all, but overall it's much faster than Sims 3.

C-A

Meh, the loading screens is not that long and it's pretty much worth it when you have active community lots.

Yes, I think this was more of an issue back in the day when TS2 was first released (10 years ago remember). Most people have higher powered computers now with more RAMz and better video cards. I'm sure some people still have issues with loading but overall it must have become less of an issue over time.

I have to imagine 'collections' really come in handy at that point.

As to loading screens, once in game, they are under 30 seconds (for body shop, community lots, vacation and sub neighborhoods). Home lots take about a minute. And loading up the game from desktop to neighborhood takes under 10 minutes...unless cache files need to regenerate.

I now have over 12GB of CC (64,000 + files), but it's all neatly organized.

Now, with no CC (other than game fixing/inhancing mods). The game launches from desktop to neighborhood in less than 30 seconds, and from lot to lot, or neighborhood to neighborhood, in under 15 seconds (with all EP's and SP's). But, I have to have my CC.

Overall, loading screens aren't that big of a deal for me.

Yup, collections are handy. I hardly ever used them on my old laptop (took ages to load them, and they would sometimes crash the game), but I've got collections for quite a lot of things now. I've also gotten better at sorting deco items into proper categories, so food and cutlery and the like is in with the kichen items, deco flowers and plants are in flowers, toy deco and other baby/child items are in the child category, and so on. That helps, too. I've had in planning a complete reorganizing so I can throw out items I no longer use, but I've not gotten that far yet. Lots of rubbish collects over the years...

I sometimes have difficulties finding items, but if I know what I'm looking for, I usually find it.

Loading screens remind me that I need to eat, sleep, and pee, and perform my daily routines so I can survive in this world. If I'm fast enough, I can zip to the bathroom, relieve myself, and zip back to the computer before the loading screen ends.

I prefer no loading screen over loading screen, mind you, but if you're going to hate on TS2 because it has loading screen, then I wonder how you even got a computer, since an operating system has a loading screen as well!

I've never seen the loading screens as a problem. My game takes about 5-10 minutes to load initially (although I tend to leave it loaded and minimized if not in use, so I don't load that often) and switching beyond lots rarely takes more than a minute, so not really enough time to do much else anyway. I have a good amount of CC, but it probably pales in comparison to most.

Pfff, TS3 has "loading screens," too. You know how when you zoom to another lot and all of the objects are gray blocks for a second or two (I imagine it'd be a lot longer on a low-powered machine)? Or when the taxi appears to take your Sim somewhere and it's a gray brick for part of the ride? There's your "loading screens." The game is rendering right before your very eyes instead of behind a screen. Basically, a game has to render sometime; it's just a question of whether or not you see it doing it.

I prefer screens, myself, mostly because 3's on-the-fly rendering eats a lot of system resources, constantly, the result being that, for folks whose machines aren't highest-end, their TS3 neighborhoods are largely ghost towns because there's not enough resources left over to render and animate a lot of Sims on top of constantly rerendering the environment. If you're more of a "Ooooh, look at the pretty scenery!" kind of person, that's probably a good thing. If you want to actually play the game, though, it's not so good. In TS3, I want to build and look at the pretty scenery, not really play. But in TS2, I want to play. So give me loading screens and lively community lots ANY DAY.

That said, some people are really obsessive over their game's load times. I've read posts where people have timed how much longer it takes to load with "X" amount of CC, and they make comments like, "OMG! 32.7 SECONDS LONGER!!!" My response to such things is a bewildered and quizzical, "And? But? So? Therefore?" But for some people it's really important to them. To each their own. I guess they see loading times as time they could be playing but can't, and perhaps if you only have a few moments here and there to play, long wait times WOULD be annoying. If you're in that position, I'd advise you to keep the CC down. But generally, I say use loading screens to get up off your ass and get some circulation going. It's good for you.

It's easy to find things if in the beginning when you have little to no CC and you start with sub folders. Then after that just place new CC where they belong. After years of playing I have around 30gb and still adding.

I know on my old computer before it just totally gave out, it took 35 minutes to load, but now on my refurbished XP laptop, I just start my game, walk outside and smoke a cigarette, and when I return my game is loaded. It takes less than 2 minutes to switch lots.

The only thing that I personally don't like is the music when the game starts. When my son is sick and has crawled in the bed with his Mommy and me, it wakes him up. So usually I play with the sound off.

Organization and many, many sub-folders are your friend.

I don't find anything unless I need to find it (and it takes time). That's why I'm planning a full reorganizing, particularly less layers of subfoldering, hairs/clothes/furniture sets in separate places, and so on.

Delphy's Download Organizer. Can sort out your downloads so it doesn't just look like a (very valuable) junkyard of .package files. May also make lunch for you.*

<small>* May not make lunch for you, but it might make lunch for your Sims. Stop being so selfish, greedy, and lazy and go make your own lunch.</small>

The thing is, with the ultimate collection and all, I think there are alot of Sims 3 players that are getting it and experiencing The Sims 2 for the first time. Most of the people complaining probably weren't used to loading screens because they've only played The Sims 3. For those of us who have played previous Sims games we're used to them so to us it's no big deal. I don't mind loading screens at all, but I will admit that open worlds are convenient so I could see how going from an open world to a closed world might seem like a downgrade, especially when you're not used to it, however I think it would be a little silly to dismiss an entire game because of loading screens.

Going back to Sims 2, yeah a part of me finds the loading screens a bit annoying, but given how much shorter they are for me than what I remember (or I'm remembering wrong) it doesn't bother me a whole lot. It's a bit annoying that I can't just go to a community lot and back without two loading screens, but... yeah it's really not that bad.

C-A

My loading screens in TS2 are almost non-existent (TS2 UC + 3GB CC), and my computer is ~2 years old. I can barely find the time to sneeze before the game/the lot/the whatever is loaded. :lovestruc

Loading screens, CASt and all the rest would be great, IF they weren't a trade off between that and laggy performance, generalised texture of items, instability, etc.

People saying of course it's better and why wouldn't you want it in sims 4 generally seem to not realise this (I'm not judging that - not every player can or wants to know how the game works "under the hood") but I think sometimes people don't understand that a game which is seamless, beautiful, fast, non laggy, never crashes, etc etc is just not possible at this point in time. Maybe in the future it will be. But for now it's a trade off and a balancing act between two good points about a game. For me stable and not too laggy is more important right now.

Loading screens never bothered me in any of the games. I always used the time to get 10-20 pages (or 30+, in my current Sims 3 save) of reading done. But long loading screens did compel me to make Sims 2 community lots more all-purpose, since the time investment of the loading screen meant my sims were going to be staying there quite a while to justify that long a wait.

I don't enjoy loading screens, but lets not be naive. Ts3 has loading screens too. Ever tried world adventures or university? Lol, anyhow in my opinion, the less time it takes to load, the better. Sims 2 takes about 20 seconds to load a family with minimal CC on my pc. I am a fan of open worlds, however. Gta has had that sandbox play since the beginning. Not that I'm comparing the two, but it's a simularity.. Ts3 and San Andreas. Open hood.