I'd probably name it Back Street because it shows backs of community lots on Main Street. And there are Main and Middle streets already. It's just my opinion.

Essa, I think that the reason the loading screens sometimes don't show highpoly hair or clothes, and start omitting or failing to render properly family members once you pass ten, is just that they were designed to handle ten people max and lower-poly items. It doesn't help to add more RAM if the function is only able to access a set amount of it. After all, the whole point of loading screens is that they're an "under construction" sign - the available RAM is busy assembling the lot you're accessing. It would be counterintuitive to allow them to bleed off RAM to paint the sign.

^ It seems the loading screen goes by "shaders off" rules, so anything that doesn't work if shaders are off won't show in the loading screen (meaning anything roughly in the 25-30k and above area). Looks to be item by item, and not combined.

But this is another good reason why you want to keep CC fairly low poly, I guess...

What, you mean Bridgeway?

@kestrellyn I hope RL isn't too bad- I really appreciate your mods!

Stupid question here. I remember a ways back there was a discussion about someone buying a new computer (I think it might have been @AndrewGloria ?) and the specs that would be needed to run the game well. I'm in a similar situation, looking at buying a new computer or having a friend help me build one, and I was hoping someone could point me in the direction of that conversation. I've tried searching the forums but haven't had any luck.

I believe AndrewGloria has a new one, so he should be able to help.

Does anyone know if there is a readme or some info on a hack called friendly fights by @Chris Hatch ?

My new computer is a Dell G3 15 3500 gaming laptop with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card, 8 GB RAM, a 512G SSD, and Windows 10 Home. I bought it online from Currys/PC World in the UK for £799. There are still a couple of minor niggles, but on the whole I'm extremely happy with it. The remaining problems (if you can call them that) are that my Sims don't have shadows, and that a few outfits show too bright in CAS (but they're OK in game). I regard both as minor niggles -- my game is running far, far better than it ever did on my old computer. There were a few problems installing and configuring TS2 on it, but people here at MTS helped me to overcome them all in a couple of days. As I recall, the posts about it are mainly in this thread starting about 11th and 12th October. I also had a Help thread, and one issue was raised in omglo's survey on running TS2 on modern systems. I'm about to go to bed, but I'll post links tomorrow.

One caveat : my highest EP is OFB. You might have more bother with SecuROM if you have Bon Voyage or later. But in my case setting upTS2 to run on it was much easier than I anticipated.

Did Nopke's Shadow Fix not work for you?


I found the following in my notes. Also be aware that this conflicts with Pescado's "Fight Club" mod.

I know if you impregnate a Sim with themself, you get a clone in the opposite gender.

Does this lead to game corruption?

https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=649362 you can read about the newer systems some of us are using here. Kestrellyn had a thread about buying a laptop a little while ago too, and they shared their specs when I asked about it.

The camera controls for taking pics in game is harder in sims 2 than sims 3 (at least for me ) But would these be good enough to upload with the respective sims?

In case it wasn't obvious they're all Harry Potter Characters

Professor McGonagall


Angelina Johnson


Lee Jordan


Dean Thomas


Pavarti Patil


Padma Patil


Luna Lovegood

No, it should be fine.

Yes it does work! But I've only just installed it now.

omglo gave me instructions on how to edit Graphics Rules.sgr to enable shadows on my Sims, and at first it seemed to work. Mallory Mace, who was outside putting something into the dustbin/trashcan had a shadow for the first time. But, when she went back into the house, those horrible black oblongs appeared under her feet. At the time, I knew that Nopke's Shadow Fix was a thing, but I didn't have a link to it, and I was rather engrossed in my game, so I just put Graphics Rules back the way they were and went on playing. I should have known that Nopke was here on MTS, as I've had her CAS sliders for a while. I suppose that, having played without shadows for 8 years, they just weren't that important to me. (With or without shadows, my high resolution responsive game is still quite amazing to me -- I'm not going to complain about minor niggles! )

Anyway, thanks for the link RoxEllen! I've got shadows, both outdoors and in, and my game has got even more wonderful.

The only issue left is that some outfits in CAS show too bright. Chris Hatch even made a mod for me that gives me extra columns in CAS, and stops Sims in CAS hiding behind the UI.

I'd like to fix the issue with the bright Sims in CAS. Maybe I will some day, if I can work out what DXVK is all about. But it won't break my heart if I can't. The outfits show up right in the game -- which is much more important.

Mischief Managed, I love them! Minerva looks awesome. I also love your username. I was Luna Lovegood for Halloween this year and my dog was Fluffy haha. Did you make the Hogwarts uniforms or find them somewhere?

@BeckyBoo8 Thanks! The uniforms are by cloudlessnights here on MTS just search harry potter in the clothing downloads

It's a strange issue, if I play my game with all EPs and SPs, CAS is fine. But if I load a basegame environment with AGS, I get the bright CAS problem. It's not my graphics rules- I have the game utilising and identifying my card okay in both games. And bumpmapping and pixel shading are working okay in both too. So I'm thinking it must be something to do with the way the game handled lighting prior to the later EPs. You don't have Seasons, do you AndrewGloria? I remember they overhauled the way the shaders worked in the game at that time, so it might be that the EPs before that are affected. My graphics card isn't even new- my Sims PC is getting on for ten years old now. But of course the drivers are kept updated, and my OS is Win 10.

^ I'm wondering if it could be something that's been muddled up with the GraphicRulesMaker and/or the UC GraphicRules files somehow. I've never had the bright CAS items issue before, but now suddenly have it if I play without the DXVK (my game keeps crashing randomly for no reason with the DXVK, so I'm trying without it for a while - for now I only get a few random bright items).

It seems to be a very recent issue, too. I've only seen it reported the past year or so, possibly even a shorter timeframe.

Unfortunately I don't know if I had the issue previously, as I went a lot of roundabouts without trying CAS (my game kept crashing and pink-flashing and I had all sorts of issues), then tried the DXVK fix and then had a long gap of not playing because it wasn't working as well as I'd hoped. First time I did try CAS without the DXVK it had black stripes, which I fixed with a proper driver update (directly from Nvidia), and when I tried again, I had the bright issue.

I have seen the brighter CAS issue once in a while - not too often, but I would like to not see it at all as well

@simmer22 I didn't use the GraphicsRulesMaker- I modded my own files to make my card recognised. And I'm playing disc install, not UC.

I'm in the process of removing custom food. I found there were far too many options to choose from & I got overwhelmed, haha. So, I am aware I need to remove the memories of learning to cook the custom food & the burnt food ones. I am also aware of the gossip & favorite food which luckily none of my Sims have. The question is, what do I do with the "[invisible] - Token- Sim - Foods Eaten {}" in simPE? Some of them (very little of them actually, my Sims mostly ate the custom food....) say actual game food like Cereal & Hot dogs. I assume the ones that are empty with just {} are custom food my Sims have eaten? If so, I assume I can just delete those?

Also, do I have to go through each household & get rid of any CC food leftovers? Is there an easier way of getting rid of leftovers if I do have to do that? I use Simply Leftovers so you can imagine how annoying it'd have to be to keep going back and forth getting food out & either washing it up or putting it in the dishwasher & breaking the darn thing in the process..

Edit: I think I found the answer to my first question. I'm backing up just in case, of course. But I am curious about my second question, if anyone knows. Thanks!

If you get the bug only with the BG, maybe EA did a blooper in the UC GraphicRules (or shaders or wherever else the bug is) and left out or edited a bit that they shouldn't have? Or perhaps there's an error somewhere else. After all, they did manage to bug up the Holiday pack files, so I wouldn't put it past them... Would be interesting to compare and see.

Also, it would be interesting to know if anyone who has this bug with the UC still has it after updating their game. I can not remember if I updated my game or not, and I've done so many edits I don't know if it's worth it to go through all of that again just to figure out I've already updated...

I miss my near-problem-free CD install...
Ok, so it didn't like weather, but so what? 35 GBs of CC and pink-flashing after 3 days of constant playing (or after snow for a few hours)? What was there to complain about, really? I think my UC game has statistically crashed and pink-flashed more the few times I've played it this past year or so than throughout all the years I played with CDs...

When I get time I'm going to make AnyGame configutations for each EP in turn and see if I can figure out which ones have the bright CAS issue. I noticed that some people say the problem goes away if they turn shaders off or maybe on, but no difference there with mine. The whole basegame lighting is a bit dodgy, the floor spotlights are super bright like searchlights, and other lamps are very dim. I have GunMod's lighting in my usual game, but when I'm running the AGS I have a set of completely clean game files that I swap in, with no mods or additions apart from the graphics rules and CEP. So it's not that. But the CAS room has spotlights, so maybe it's as simple as certain lighting being messed up? I find that some clothes and hairs have materials that don't seem to be affected by the over bright CAS.

In my game the "too bright" in CAS problem only affects certain outfits. It seems to go by the mesh used. It affects KnightSkyKyte's "Pretty Boy" outfits which use a custom mesh with the high-heeled platform boots:



But it doesn't affect von Squirgle's variant (which I think I got on GOS), which uses an ordinary nude mesh.



Horace has S2 skin. As you can see his head is right with both versions, and his back looks about right too. It's as if the lights at the front of the CAS stage light up too brightly on certain meshes. I'd be interested to know how this happens. And, of course, if it can be fixed.

^ I've had a peek at the hairs, clothes and accessories doing this in my game - but I haven't yet figured a link between them. The TXMTs seem to have pretty much the exact same settings, and the meshes also seem to be pretty similar to each other, none very high poly or having other particular issues that could make them act different (I even edited a few to have the exact same TXMT settings as some that I know showed up fine - they still bugged out in CAS, but looked fine on-lot. And yes, cache files deleted).

Haven't looked at the skins, though - but I have very few skins in my game at the moment, and I think the sims I tested with used more or less the same couple or so sets of skins, so I don't think that can be it.