So I've tried researching this question and while there are a few answers here and there, I'm having a hard time getting complete responses. So I'm finally just going to ask--apologies for yet another thread on Windows 10 and specs.

But I'm having trouble getting my game to run the way I want on Windows 10. I've tried the tutorials, done the Graphics Rule Maker and the Memory Allocation and I'm still not liking the results. Is my game functional? Sure. Does it run well? Highly debatable. Basically, I'm constantly getting flickering and invisible items (used to be pink flashing, but I've got the mod that turns items invisible). Back when I was on Windows 7, this would only happen after several hours of gameplay, and then I could shut down the game, restart, and be all good for another few hours. On my Windows 10 build, this happens instantly, from the moment I turn on the game. It's a struggle to keep neighborhood deco visible and not flickering. Some of my larger homes and community lots struggle to show everything--I get lag or again, things turn invisible fairly quickly. And by large, think 3x4/4x3 or 5x3 or so. Yes, these are bigger homes, maybe mansions, or they might be renovations of some of the bigger community lots; so these lots do have a lot of stuff on them. But again, I feel like my game should be able to handle it, as my computer did before. And knowing this problem, I do try to keep poly counts in mind and keep them reasonable. No 20K+ hairs for me anymore, that's for sure. But I am a high cc user--at the highest points on my old computer build, I used to have 20-23 GBs. And that was uncompressed. It took a while to load the game (maybe 20 mins or so), but once loaded, it ran smooth on Windows 7. I had little lag and I could play with the highest graphics and shadows, have neighborhood deco on and view neighbors on the highest setting. Pink flashing was only after like 4-5 hours or more. Now that I'm on Windows 10, I definitely can't run that much. I try to lighten my downloads folder and take out things I'm not actively using at the moment, especially when I'm just building. I get things down to about 10-15 GB, but it's still too much. I get flickering and the pink/invisible items. I'm at a loss here, especially because in my research I've seen so many simmers say their game runs great on Windows 10. So I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong.

I'm thinking that maybe the people who run a great game don't have nearly as much cc as I do, but I can't confirm, because the amount of cc isn't always discussed when people share their computer specs. For context, I built a computer about three years ago when my old graphics card died. That's when I switched to Windows 10 and I upgraded my processor and RAM at the same time. (So I used to have 20+ GB of cc on 16 GBs of RAM.) I thought I built something that could handle the game the way I wanted it to run, but again, I see graphic issues even when running my Build-Only Download folder. I'm having a hard time accepting that after 15 years of running 10-15 GBs of cc, and another 5 running 15-23 GBs, that I would now have to massively cut back on cc in order to get a stable game. It's pretty frustrating to take the time to decorate my hoods and create community lots only to have to turn neighborhood deco off and limit my time spent on those community lots. I haven't had to do that for over a decade. Like way, way back when there were still new EPs and I was on Windows XP!

There's so much new cool cc I want to use but I feel like my game can't handle it. I can accept that I can't have everything installed and that I may need to compartmentalize my folders so that if I'm not using it, it doesn't get loaded. I have started to separate my Downloads folder into separate folders for each neighborhood. But there's still themed cc that I'm not using all the time that I would like to have loaded--think hospital deco for when I want my sims to visit the clinic or carnival deco for when my sims go to the town fair in the summer, etc. There are some build items that are themed but I might occasionally use here and there for different lots. I've thought I could at least separate build cc by neighborhood, but I can't tell you how many times I've loaded up a hood and realized the cc/addons I wanted to use were in the other neighborhood folder. Sometimes I do want some Victorians in the modern/contemporary hood, or vice versa. Or I want to have that one broken down mansion or crazy junkyard that sims can visit on a lark. So it's been hard for me to figure out how to cut my cc folder down. I mean, I've spent hours analyzing what mods need to be installed in which neighborhoods and figuring out which clothes would be worn by which sims. I try to preview everything and make sure I'm only loading things I actually want to keep. It's exhausting trying to keep my GB count down and organize themes. Like, do I need to keep my Island/Vacation deco separate and only install it just before my sims go to Twikkii or whatever? Because that's kinda where I'm at now and to me, that takes some of the spontaneity out of playing. Like, the game is 20 years old now, surely I don't need to limit my play more than I did when it just came out, right???

So again, what am I missing, cuz I feel like I'm going crazy trying to get my game back to a good place. People that have games that run well, what are your experiences like? Anyone got any ideas for me? Do I need to organize my folders better, rearrange things by lot instead of theme?

Here's my current specs:
OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Processor : 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11600K @ 3.90GHz
Installed Physical Memory (RAM): 32.0 GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition, 4 GB GDDR6 Memory
My main hard drive is a 2 TB SSD

If you see anything wrong with my specs (or if you need more info) let me know. But I'm seriously considering rolling back to Windows 7, as I use this computer just to play old games and primarily TS2--but that itself is a trial. (I do have my old Windows 7 install discs, but apparently, Windows 7 did not come with USB drivers. So I can't install it because the keyboard doesn't work and I can't press Enter. Yeah, it's as crazy as it sounds and now I'm trying to figure out how to turn my Windows 7 disc into an iso file and install USB drivers into it. Fun Times. If you have any advise for that, let me know; it'd be much appreciated.)

TLDR: Windows 10 or 11 users, if your game runs great/well, what are your specs? And how much cc do you have?

I wouldn't say my game runs great, as I get similar issues on my most complicated hood. I can't load Zarathustra's lots at all for example. They immediately crash my game.

However, I did discover that running Chrome while I have the game open is a total no on those hoods, and it was definitely Chrome causing the game to run out of memory because it was when I switched to it on loading it would wake up whatever tab it had put to sleep and prioritise Chrome and put the game in the background. (I actually wonder whether this process might be the culprit of memory issues in Windows 10/11?) I have switched to Firefox when simming, and fingers crossed, no more crashing or invisible sims. But I haven't played a huge amount and mainly on my test hood/less decorated hood. Though I did add a bunch of neighbourhood deco on there and it's OK I only had one invisible sims incident and that was when I forgot and left Chrome running.

I do think it does have more pink soup issues now compared to how it used to but it's hard to tell if this is an OS issue, me having done something different in game, browsers using a TON more graphics resources these days, CC being more intense, or what.

My specs:

Windows 11 Pro
11th Gen Intel Core i5-11400 @ 2.6 GHz
16GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 (I don't know the RAM but the standard for this card was 4GB apparently)
Game is installed on a 500GB SSD.

I play on 1920x1080 resolution, windowed mode. Furthest lot view with LotSkirtSize set to 120. Medium/optimised lot imposters.

I do have different install folders for different themes. At the moment one TS2UC folder (in documents) is about 9GB and the other is about 7GB. I don't have a huge amount of CC compared to most people I don't think. My biggest Downloads folder is about 6GB and 2GB of that is hood deco!

I did recently switch to letting my card handle smooth edges rather than letting the game handle it, which seems fine so far (I actually prefer the way it looks).

I think I need to look into polys. I never pay attention to whether something is high or low poly and I wonder if what I am seeing is the effects of accidentally placing a load of high poly items on a lot together.

Get rid of the "flicker" mod (your game is trying to pink-flash, and if your game is flickering all the time I'm pretty sure the mod isn't doing anything to help).

I had pink soup so bad my screen looked like it had been smeared with beets. I even had pink in Bodyshop. Finally found the issue, and the only pink I've seen since is on a very heavy lot which used to give pink-flashing on my old computer (much lower specs), and so far only seen the pink in NH view, after visiting the lot (the lot is at wall limit and has TONS of CC).

You have similar-ish specs to me, slightly different card/processor, but not too different. If you want to, you can give my version of GR a go (below). It's probably not optimal, and I've done a few edits since, so no guarantees it will work for you, but if you find it gets rid of the worst of the pink-flashing, you can do similar changes to yours.
https://simfileshare.net/filedetails/4789628/

I manually edited the file using Epi's tricks here:
https://episims.tumblr.com/post/190...-helped-me-with
The first version(s?) of GRM deleted the line mentioned here, which is what caused pink soup for me (I used an older version of GRM - before they fixed this issue). The new versions of GRM are supposed to fix this as long as you tick the proper boxes, but it absolutely doesn't hurt to check if it actually has fixed these things. Adding back the line made my game go from constant pink soup to no pink (with exception above) in practically no time at all.

I also had to update my Nvidia graphic card, because pre-update, CAS had small black stripes running down the entire screen (went away after updating). This could help with any other graphic issues that crops up.

I think I also increased the pagefile a bit (for increased virtual memory) at some point - but it's been a while so I'm not sure if I set it back to the original size or not.

---

If you play with shaders off, and notice sims are suddenly missing hairs, body parts or even heads (yes, that can happen too) - it's likely the CC items are a bit too high poly. Shaders seem to be necessary for displaying CAS meshes above roughly 25k (not sure about the actual limit, but seems to be in the 25-30k area).

I'm not too worried about polys most of the time. Very detailed/high-poly items are generally things I either tend to avoid (especially clothes), reduce (when I convert), or try to use sparingly. People tend to have different views of what's high-poly, too. In my book, anything from 15-25k should be used with a bit of caution but is generally fine, 25k+ is high (for CAS, it's high if it requires shaders to show properly), and in most cases anything above 30k is unnecessarily high for CAS items (most of it would have looked perfectly fine and been much lower poly if meshed properly).

I find it's sometimes worse with textures. Some creators use larger than 1024x1024 px, or use the RAW format, which is almost a sure way to cause problems with pink-flashing.

It will be your CC causing the pink flashing/invisible flickering that you need to resolve. Probably because some items are high poly, large textures, too many of eg trees.

Recently I download a bunch of deco toys, and then started having a lot more pink. I figured probably the toys, lets look at poly count in simPE. Some of those toys literally said "Too many to count". All of those and also the other really high ones I tossed, volla no more pink flashing again. I also tend to turn off hood view and neighbour view which also helps a lot. I removed the lot skirt cheat, again it was making more demands on my game. So figure how to lighten your games load.

As to CC I have that between several folders, just another way to lighten the load but also to have unique defaults.
I have:
16.4 gigs in my Uber hood folder
13.9 in my medieval folder
8.71 in my frontier folder. This is loading so fast and I can keep on neighboors and hood deco, I am loving it. (I have thought of making this Frontier to Victorian but Victorian may need to be its own folder)
and only 6.63 in my MM folder

I am on Windows 10
NVIDIA GeForce 2060
32 RAM and not sure what else.

I think that message comes up if the vertex (not poly) count is above a certain level, and not all that high, either. Probably a bug in SimPE. I've seen it even if the polycount is fine.

When I installed Sims 2 on my current computer (windows 11) I got pink flashing without any custom content at all, I tested it right after installing just to see how much I'd need to tweak graphics and as I used maxis hood it didn't matter if it gets littered with million freshly spawned townies since I'd delete it afterwards anyway. I determined that the main cause was simply the standby memory not emptying so game couldn't use the memory and instead turned to pink flashing. Of course large textures speed up how fast it fills up but if your standby memory gets dumped it'll happen at least bit less frequently. I actually documented everything I did on my tumblr when I installed it. As far as I can say it looks and runs fine but I also don't exactly play the game anymore for years but at least I haven't had any crashing when I turn it on to take pictures and build when the mood hits. Some of my lots have 8 sims with poly and texture wise large hairs and I'm not seeing issues with them nor with all the clutter the lots contain.

But also, I'm very careful and modest about things, I have the lot view set to medium most of the time as I don't need to see whole hood worth of neighborhood deco and houses from my Sims' windows, don't use skyboxes unless I take outdoor pictures that would look bad without it and after that I delete them. And while I've tried reshade I felt it was pointless so I don't use that either so my game can use all that memory for the hundreds of hairs I have in my game instead of rendering the whole damn neighborhood view

anyway my specs:
OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Home
Processor : AMD Ryzen 7 3700x 8-Core processor 3.60 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12288MB of Dedicated Video Memory

CC: depending on which folders I have in about 8-16GB (since I have multiple themed games and each has its own folders)

They are all high for 1 tile deco toys. Some were around 11K. Also like i said I had near instant pink with them, and it was gone when i removed them.



That is a bit different, you had not yet set your PC up properly. Everyone should have the 4 gb patch, stand by etc done.

Knights is an established set up with 16 gigs of content. I find as I go over 15 pink tends to ramp up unless I take measures.

Pink-flashing just for the object itself, or the entire lot?

I've experienced objects pink-flashing directly out of buy mode once (not related to pink soup), which was an item that had a 2048x texture. It kept pink-flashing whenever I put it down. When I reduced the texture to 1024x, it behaved fine (I have another item that has a 2048x texture as a recolor - it's just for very close-up pictures, I use smaller textures when playing - and it shows up fine). I think it could depend on both the polycount and the textures (especially large textures and if the RAW format has been used).

This was on my old laptop, which I had reduced CC for (less than half than the one I used for storytelling - I think it hovered somewhere between 5-12 GB). I think the only other time I saw pink-flashing on this one was with a skybox (probably 2048x textures), so I'd think it had issues with the textures more than the meshes.

My old simming computer would go into pink-flashing on heavy lots, but removing items with either high polycounts or large textures (or possibly heavy-duty TXMTs, since I had shaders on) would keep back the pink-flashing for a little bit.



Me too, but this was after I tried setting up my new laptop with the old GRM (I first had to get past the start screen, which turned out to need a lot of setup, too...). Turned out CC wasn't my problem (couldn't be, I barely had any installed at the time, probably less than 1 GB), but the GRM bug mentioned above.

Funny thing is, before I found out there was a pink soup issue, it even loaded my really old, really heavy story hood. I was kinda shocked, because my old laptop didn't even want to load to the hood screen. It did crash/pink-flash when trying to visit a lot, though. I think if I had managed to set it up properly at the time (with the actual fix), it might even have run without crashing. Never bothered testing again, because it took around an hour to load and I think I gave it a couple tries before realizing something wasn't quite right. The hood screen showed up fine, but everything on-lot was pink, and it crashed about a second after loading the lot.

Generalized pink flashing. Not just that lot or hood either, I went over to another hood where I just build (same sims 2 folder with 16 gigs of content) and it pink flashed there as well. I know that I am on the edge of pink flashing is why I turn off neighbours etc and for the most part its fine, but those deco toys pushed it back over the edge.

Big lots and lots with more CC are generally more likely to cause pink-flashing, so it can depend a bit. If the lot was already pushing it, putting more CC (any) onto it could just as likely have been the issue. Depends on the items, though.

I once had my sims bake and eat cookies (which were low-poly, but food so multi-mesh), which seemed to be what pushed the big lot over the edge. Removing a few random items allowed me to finish up the pictures, but they were eating pink cookies for a short while. I think they were even EAxis cookies (the santa ones).

And weather. Snow really pushes the limit, but rain and autumn leaves can be a bit iffy, too.

Turning neighbors and NH deco off, and reducing the lot view can help, especially if the lot is already pushing it. Unless you need it for pictures/storytelling/other (and it can be turned on for thsoe purposes), keeping those settings off or at low-ish settings is a good idea.

Thanks for the responses everyone, it's been helpful. I had thought that my issues were just me, especially since, like I said, I've seen so many posts--on other sites, too, like Tumblr or Reddit--where people say their game runs fine on Windows 10. But I was always seeing some kind of graphics issue and having to figure out how to troubleshoot shoot it or ignore it. I'm thinking now that we all just have different tolerance levels, . Then of course there's the different setups and cc levels. I probably should've read those "my game runs well" comments with a few grains of salt.

But yeah, for context, most of my cc is CAS stuff, clothes and hairs. I'm not always actively using it but I do like to have options. I've tried to reduce the cc load by building without CAS stuff installed, which at least makes load times quicker. I also sometimes try to remove stuff for ages I'm not playing. So if I decide to start a new hood with uni premades, I take out stuff for toddlers, kids, and teens cuz I'm not playing any families with them yet, etc. Things like that. I do have a couple of GBs of objects and deco and I do like clutter. So it's possible I'm using too much cc on one lot. Or that I have high poly/texture items and I don't know it. I have had to take out a few high poly cars, for example.

And when I say I have issues from the start, I mean I've had neighborhood deco going invisible or flickering in hood view. Sims in the lot loading screen flashing pink and/or doing the T pose. Again, after I just started up the game. My computer seems to have a hard time loading Downtown, too--and I frickin' love that subhood! City-type hoods where there are lots of buildings close together or a lot of deco, even just Maxis deco, seem to be the worst for my computer. Which just makes me sad. I don't need to see the entire neighborhood when I play lots, but I would like to see a couple of houses, maybe a row or two away. I feel like my specs should be able to handle it, you know?

I did finally do the empty standby allocation months ago but I really didn't see too big of a difference. I'll have to see if I can dig up an old graphics rule file to see if maybe there's a bug that I missed. I had uninstalled Windows to go back to Windows 7 when I discovered the can't-use-a-keyboard-during-Windows-7-install thing. So my computer is empty right now and the game is uninstalled. I've been avoiding MTS and browsing on Tumblr for months now while my computer was out of commission. Kinda hoping for a out of sight, out of mind thing, like maybe I wouldn't miss my own game so much if I didn't read about others' games. Anyway, that's why I'm kind bummed about this graphics issue. It's not always super terrible but it is always there. I've learned a bit about computers in order to play this game and done work on my computers over the years in order to keep playing it. I've learned how to troubleshoot computer issues, how to install a new graphics card and upgrade memory; I've learned how to reapply thermal paste on the heatsink, and I finally built my own computer, all just to run this game! But this constant invisible/pink soup issue--ugh! I just don't know how to solve it.

The game does run fine on Windows 10 after applying the 4 gb patch and doing the graphic rules. The CC that we toss at it isn't the game.

I've not had any issues with running Sims2 on my Win 10/ Win 11 desktop. No pink flashing, no lagging. It runs superbly.

My specs:
OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Home
Processor : 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11700K @ 2.50GHz, 8 Cores, 16 Logical Processors
Installed Physical Memory (RAM): 32.0 GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super
Sims2 is installed on a 1 TB SSD

Downloads folder size is 22.7 GB - mostly skintones, hair, and clothing

GRM, 4GB patch, standby memory fixes are all installed.

Is there a good guide to polycounts anywhere and how to understand what is "high"? As I said before I have always just merrily ignored these but I do feel like maybe I should try and educate myself, since if it turns out I do have items with a high poly count but I don't care about them that much, then I could easily get rid of them for a smoother-running game.

Here's a thread about the subject:
https://modthesims.info/t/227588

13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700HX 2.10 GHz laptop, with 16 GB ram. 8 GB 4060 graphics card. I have a strict 10 GB CC limit. Right now, I'm at around 9 GB. The only thing I did was edit the graphics rules and install RPC. Once, it flashed pink when loading a heavily decorated neighborhood. I turned the game off and on again in preparation for fixing it, but after turning it back on, the game wasn't flashing pink anymore.

While the game is running fine for me (no flashing, invisible objects etc.) I'm much more of a casual player than some of the people here. I don't play for 4-5 hours straight, so I'm not sure my computer wouldn't start acting up after that amount of time.

I think 1K per tile is considered low to moderate.

The reason I haven't responded yet is that I can't remember the name of the Windows utility (I'm pretty sure it's by Microsoft) that tells me the the spec of my PC. I ran it a lot in my first few weeks after getting my current computer, a Dell gaming laptop, in October 2020. But I've never had cause to run the specs utility since, and now I can't remember how to! The reason why I've had no reason to run the utility since, is basically because it's been running well most of the time -- I've never seen pink flashing in my game. If someone can remind me what utility I need to see my specs, then I'll reply properly. I reckon I use a fair bit of CC (7,641 files, 2.36 GB in 141 subfolders) but a lot of it is Body Shop stuff. (Mostly barely-there skimpy clothing if I'm honest -- for the boys as well as the girls). There is a lot of cheap Maxis furniture in my Sims' houses!

It only took me a few days to get the computer (including TS2) running well, but that was with the help of a lot of people here. I'm pretty sure you were one of them @Phantomknight. In fact I recall you gave me advice before I bought the gaming laptop. My SSD appears to be only 0.5 TB, and that may be beginning to become a problem, but my game still seems to be playing better than yours. There is no significant lag. Sub-hoods and community lots load quickly when I send my Sims on outings. And of course the graphics are much, much better than they were on my old netbook. I normally have Firefox, Outlook, File Explorer, Notebook, Word and WhatsApp running at the same time as The Sims 2.

In the last couple of months or so, I've started to get the game occasionally crashing or hanging. This may be because I'm starting to get a little tight for disk space on my SSD. Or I may have to consider shutting down some of these other applications when I'm playing.

Of course another possible reason for the better performance might just be that I'm playing with just three EPs rather than eight. I really don't want to jeopardise that for the sake of adding some new features, some of which I'd only want to mod out anyway. I'm still composing a post about that in the Cars v Walking thread. But I have a bit of an attitude of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"! As far as mods are concerned, I've now got my game pretty well exactly where I want it. I enjoy the game the way I've got it, and my Sims seem happy with it too.

When SSDs go past 75% full, they can start to run slower, so you may want to do something about that.

Running several background tasks while playing (especially heavy ones, and graphical ones) can also slow down the game, since it shares the same resources. It's best to close down as much as possible.

Andrew, if you go into Settings, there is a section called About this PC which should show the system spec, apart from the graphics card if you have a separate card. That is found under Device Manager > Display Adapters.

My SSD is 0.5 GB as well but I also have a second 0.5 GB drive with the main Windows installation on it and a third 1TB hard drive for storage :D

I found a polycount option in Delphy's Download Organiser, and, well. I certainly have a lot of random high poly stuff that I don't care about That will be interesting to see if it makes my game run much smoother.

Here are my specs in full:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10300H CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz (10th Gen.)
Installed RAM: 8.00 GB (7.80 GB usable)
System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
OS: Windows 10 Home
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti
SSD: 512 GB

CC: 7,641 files, 2.36 GB in 141 subfolders

As you can see, @Phantomknight , your specs are better than mine in almost every respect, but my game does seem to be playing better. I still wonder if only playing 3 the first three EPs may be part of the explanation.

Windows 11
ACPIX64-based PC (Asus Tuf-Gaming F15)
SSD - 1TB
CC: Around 10GB (this is mostly due to a number of building sets, some of them will probably be removed sooner rather than later).

I have had no cc in my game for a long time, building Paternoster and Clarens for uploading. My old pc also broke, and after I started downloading again, I may hae gone over the top a bit

I do not have ANY pink flashing. Never.
My game crashes at times, though - sometimes within an hour, sometimes once a day/two days. I am trying to remember to quit the game if I leave the desk. I find that rather annoying and try to save regularly (have a mod too, but it is always popping up at the worst of times).

I tend to agree with @joandsarah77 above - it is most likely cc causing the pink flashing. I have been very strict on myself when downloading cc, and I do check the polygons when it comes to hair and outfits (ooh, those boots are lovely - but not going in my game with that polycount)!

OS: Windows 11 Education
CPU: AMD Athlon 300U 2.40 GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx
RAM: 12 GB DDR4
Storage: 250 GB SSD

CC: from 286 MB (casual gameplay, mostly mods, very few objects and bodyshop items) to 1 GB (themed castaway stories CC collection)

My game runs just fine. On smaller lots, I can even run at max graphics settings with no lag. On larger lots I tend to lower the graphics to a medium to avoid the lag. If I leave it on high, it's still bearable though. I have a habit of keeping the windows open when I'm doing some work on my laptop, but I definitely close every app and the browser (and sometimes even go offline) before firing up the game - though lately I've been finding myself multitasking and going to the forums in the middle of my gameplay - but the one MTS tab doesn't really impede the performance much, luckily.

I bought this laptop in the middle of the pandemic as a temporary new laptop for college. It cost roughly €300, and it did have a slight downside of shipping with only 4 GB of RAM. I bought a new 8 GB memory tile some time last year, and was surprised how cheap it was - I think around €15. I still have PTSP from when I actually played this game as a kid, and having my parents never buy me the computer components I wanted because it was just too expensive. Plus the recent change of our national currency from kuna to euro really made the numbers small-small. I see no significant improvement with the new memory, though; it ran just fine before, it runs fine now still. I'm pretty happy with the machine, being that it was supposed to be a temporary one until I saved up and got something better - turns out, I don't really need anything better at the moment.

I get by with the storage by having OneDrive (free student plan - 500 GB) upload nearly everything apart from system and program files to the cloud, with the exception of the active Sims 2 save directory. I have Storage Sense turned on (I'm not sure if it's available on Windows 10 too) that automatically deletes local files in case the disk gets full; the files then download automatically if I try to open them later on. The files I access the least (old photos, archive etc.) are stored on IDrive and on my old laptop's HDD that lies in my desk drawer.

Hi! I've been struggling to get sims 2 to play like it used to on my newer computer as well. It's so frustrating at times! Currently I'm playing a test of time challenge with only around 4gb's of cc. On my desktop computer, it starts pink flashing and crashes during about 80% of my play sessions, usually if I play more than 1 household during a session or visit a community lot, that hastens the flashing. But on my laptop, it has only once crashed and once pink flashed (separate times), never mind how many households or community lots I visit during play session.

My important computer specs at the moment are as follows:
Processor: Ryzen 5600
Graphics card: AMD radeon rx 7900 xt (overkill for sims 2 I know, but I stray to other games sometimes)
Ram: DDR4 corsair vengeance 3000mhz, 32gb
+ tons of ssd space for games and CC and one old HDD that serves as a backup archive atm.

The laptop, which ironically runs the sims 2 way better than my desktop, haha ha…
It is a Lenovo Yoga slim 7 with ryzen 4800u processor, integrated graphics and 16gb ram. I can heartily recommend this model to any sims 2 fans.

Both systems have the latest windows 10 version currently. As I said, regular pink flashing and crashes on my desktop pc, but only once had pink flashing and a crash on my laptop. I play the same hoods and have the same cc on both of them. The sims 2 does have more fps and is smoother during playing on my desktop, but isn’t as stable.

One difference besides the hardware is the sims 2 installation though, in my desktop I have the ultimate collection from EA origin (though I use Lazyduchess’s RPC to launch it) and on the laptop I used Osab’s sims 2 starter pack to install. All the usual fixes (GRM, 4gb patch, standby memory fix..) are applied on both. On my desktop I have used dxvk from time to time, the latest version seems more unstable with sims 2 tho.

I hope you get your computer sorted out soon!

I ran Sims 2 on Windows 10 for a long time with zero issues besides installing the patches- though admittedly I don't have a lot of CC, something like 5GB I believe- I can check next time I'm on my gaming PC. Here are the specs from my last PC:
Windows 10
AMD FX6300 3.5Ghz
Nvidia Geforce GT 730
8GB RAM
1TB HDD

In November, I decided to build a PC and installed Windows 11. Immediately had pink flashing with my minimal CC (also after not having a great time trying to install from disks). I had fixed the graphic rules file, but the flashing came back with a vengeance after a longer play session. Well little did I know there was a program now that edited the graphic rules file for you (evidently I need to pay more attention to these things) and after running that my game was totally fine. I am a bit hesitant to run the game for super long but I've been fine for hours long gameplay so far. I do not have a ton of high poly CC though, i think just some hairs, so that probably helps. I do keep my settings relatively high. I also did the standby fix, 4GB patch... possibly other things I can't remember but those were the main things.
Windows 11
Intel i9 12900K 3.2Ghz
Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060ti
2x16GB RAM
2TB SSD