Still Sims 2 @amythestfenix - Tumblr Blog

What happened when GoS died?

Aka: the clarity and communication that you deserve

Hi everyone. As some may have caught already, GoS is not dead (anymore)! During the period that it was, however, so much drama started and if you ask me; it all comes down to people not knowing what's going on and making assumptions that further sparked panic. So, let's clear some stuff up for those who got caught in the rumor mill.

Oh and if you haven't, it's worth reading @julessims excellent writeup on how she got GoS working again.

This is gonna be focused a bit more on communications stuff. Like, a bit more general I guess?

amythestfenix

Thank you so much for all your hard work and for keeping us informed!

#garden of shadows #gos #sims 2

papermoonproductions

Thoughts on the Loss of GOS & Sims2Artists

I am not usually someone who gets involved in Sims community discourse or public callout-style posts, but this genuinely breaks my heart to see.

A massive amount of the custom content, creativity, and inspiration behind my work on Vermillion Sins came from communities like Garden of Shadows and Sims2Artists. They were huge pillars of the Sims 2 creative space for years.

What hurts most is not even just the shutdown itself. It’s the lack of warning.

These sites were not just forums anymore. They had become archives of nearly two decades of community history: old creators, inactive creators, forum attachments, resources, tutorials, contests, shared knowledge, and years of creativity that helped shape this community into what it became.

A simple “hey, this may go offline permanently soon, please archive what you can” would have allowed people time to preserve pieces of Sims 2 history before they vanished. Instead, so much appears to have disappeared overnight.

And to be clear, I do not think anyone is owed endless unpaid labor or permanent site maintenance. If someone no longer has the time, energy, money, or interest to continue running something, that is completely understandable.

But I do think the community should have at least been given the chance to help. People absolutely would have pitched in through backups, mirrors, technical help, donations, archival efforts, or simply having enough warning to preserve pieces of history before they disappeared.

The Sims 2 community has survived because people cared enough to preserve things. Without archivists, backups, mirrors, and Wayback captures, huge parts of this game’s creative history would already be gone forever.

And honestly, I hope this becomes a wake-up call moving forward. Preservation should matter.

TOUs and repost policies should not become barriers that result in entire pieces of community history disappearing forever the moment a creator or site owner leaves, especially in a community where everything is interconnected.

I respect active creators wanting credit and boundaries. But abandoned content should not be treated like untouchable lost media while the community watches it disappear forever. Communities preserving older Sims games and their content are a huge part of why those games remained alive and accessible long after EA itself had largely moved on from supporting them, and likely played a significant role in renewed interest surrounding things like the Sims 2 Legacy release.

I hope more people begin supporting archival efforts, mirrors, and preservation projects before more Sims history is lost for good.

amythestfenix

I'm in shock. I spent 15? years of my life posting on Sims2Artists with posts on GoS as well) and there was NO WARNING that it would all disappear.

We were not a well-known forum like GoS, but it was not an abandoned site. There were still people posting content and actively checking in- perhaps not every week- Shastakiss, Hokadk47, myself.

I would say that I have a lot of the site content (although not as organized as I would like) but I am not sure what to do about it as my health is not really up to dealing with the massive amounts of re-posting required. I am reachable @ https://simpearls.boards.net/ if you want to contact me about it. Tumblr comments cannot be replied to and messages (especially anon) are not reliable. Amythestfenix

#GoS #Sims2Artists #sims 2 #sims2

theenchantedplumbob

okay but would anyone actually use a planning journal made specifically for sims 4 cc creators? 👀

I’d use this digitally 📱

I’d print this at home 🖨️

I NEED THIS IMMEDIATELY ✨

I don’t make CC but this is gorgeous 💜

Voting ended onMay 26

because my notes app chaos is getting concerning.

i wanted something for: ✶ set planning ✶ swatch organization ✶ blender workflow notes ✶ release tracking ✶ random 2am cc ideas

amythestfenix

A great idea!

spockthewok

Object Limit 2: Electric Boogaloo

Good Bad news, everyone!

I have returned from a grueling 48-hour adventure deep within the Maxis mines, and have witnessed unspeakable man-made horrors with my own two eyes — the object limit is very real and there is nothing that can be done to fix it! The end times are upon us!

Okay, I'm being slightly dramatic. It could be fixed fairly easily, but not with a simple patch, and likely not without access to the source code (anyone else tired of hearing that excuse?).

The issue is that the limit isn't localised to purely the Build/Buy menu — it's integral to every aspect of the game that involves objects. Here are just a few examples of the game's functionality that would need modifying to remove the limit:

Sim pathfinding and routing.

Mapping tree tables to objects.

Interacting with objects.

Manipulating objects within lists (reading/writing/deleting them).

Objects being unselectable in the Build/Buy menu was also a result of this limit and I managed to fix it very quickly, but because The Sims 2 is a house of cards with the limit as its foundation, everything started falling apart almost instantly.

"So, what is this limit?", I hear you ask. 32,767. Yes, you read that correctly. The game is only willing to accept object IDs up to a meager value of 32,767. In computing terms, this is the maximum value of a signed 16-bit integer. It can store many more objects than this in a list, which is why you can still see all your 4t2 objects in the catalogue, but it isn't designed to recognise this many IDs and thus can't do anything with them.

Why are integers signing things? Are they famous or something?

'Signed' refers to the fact that these are integers (an integer is just a whole number btw) that can represent both positive and negative values — negative numbers have a negative sign before them, hence the term 'signed'. An unsigned integer is therefore one that can only represent positive values.

While they can both represent the same total of different values, the range of representable positive values differs. Using 16-bit integers as an example:

Unsigned: 0–65,535 Signed: -32,768–32,767

This shows that both can represent 65,536 different values, but the range of positive values for signed integers is half of that of unsigned integers. Object IDs cannot be negative, which means Maxis deliberately chose to use signed integers as a way to cut the ID limit in half.

The cherry on top of all this is that the game is manually converting 32-bit numbers into 16-bit numbers to enforce this limit. This is why I could fix objects not being selectable in the Build/Buy menu easily, as all I had to do was patch out the conversion. Could EA do this across the whole game themselves if they wanted to? I imagine so. But then again, if I had billions of dollars, I probably couldn't be arsed either.

What's an object ID?

An object ID is just a number from 0–32,767 that the game assigns to each new object it places into a list, presumably starting at 0 and incrementing by 1 for the next object. It would appear that CC objects are given IDs first, which is why it was solely Maxis objects becoming unselectable after passing the limit.

Sims and objects are stored in separate lists, but I believe they both contribute to the overall limit. My single piece of evidence for this is that I experimented switching between several hoods and observed that the IDs of objects in the Build/Buy catalogue fluctuated across them. Objects in hoods with subhoods attached had higher IDs than in those without.

What was causing the Build/Buy menu crashes?

The same thing I explained in my original post (the game trying to access null pointers), except the creation of these null pointers was no accident and not the result of something going wrong.

The game merely checks whether the ID for the object it is looking at is above 32,767, and if it is, it deliberately sets the pointer to its address to 0. This would be fine, if it didn't then try and access this nullified pointer immediately afterwards!

I'll cut Maxis some slack here, because surely no one would be crazy enough to want more than 32,767 objects in their game, right guys? How could they ever have predicted such a scenario? (2004 was a simpler time).

Wait, so you were wrong about there not being an object limit? Not so cocky now, are you?

Whoa there, cowboy — hold your horses. If I may direct your attention to this excerpt of an email I sent to @teaaddictyt on the 22nd of April 2026 at 13:42 BST:

As you can see, I was right all along!!!

In my defence though, we thought the crashing was the only thing we had to solve, which is why I missed the completely obvious 16-bit conversion that was occurring within the functions I patched. Unfortunately, I am only human, but I understand if you want to destroy all the spockthewok posters I know you have hanging on your walls...

In light of these new findings, if you want to hear my updated opinion on the existence of the object limit, watch this video.

Is your patch useless?

Yes, but also no. It's not fixing the object limit (I should probably rename it tbh), but it is fixing those annoying crashes caused by it.

At the moment, not having the Build/Buy menu crash when you try and use it is the best we can do. It's up to you which you find more annoying — crashing, or not being able to buy x number of objects in the catalogue. Like the 4GB memory limit, this is going to be an additional constraint we'll have to learn to accept :/

Another alternative would be to join me and the 12 other weirdos who play with no CC, and never have to worry about any of this. No? Oh well, it was worth a try...

Will you ever actually fix the object limit?

If it's even possible without the source code, then not by myself, no.

Because of the number of core areas of the game that would need patching, I don't trust myself not to miss something and have the game explode. Unless someone wants to assemble a modding strike force to try and tackle the issue as a team over several months, I'm not touching it with a 10-foot pole (for your safety and for mine).

Should Maxis go on trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity?

Probably.

Anyway, that's all from me, apologies for the false hope :( One small positive is that I did manage to map out a reasonably large chunk of the game's code while I was frantically searching for solutions, which should make my life easier when looking at your requests. I feel like I need to successfully complete some of them now to make up for this dud!

Will

(Thank god I didn't look at this for my dissertation, I would have failed my degree).

teaaddictyt

Will forgot to include a screenshot from my email to him where I said,

"My other theory is that it's something to do with 16-bit integers having a max value of roughly 32000 (I can never remember the exact number) and maybe there's some kind of limit there, but I lack the skills and technical knowledge to look into it." Heh.

Ah well. Time to do another downloads folder cull, I suppose...

Seriously dude, thank you so much for really diving so deeply into this and leaving no stone unturned trying to figure it out. I appreciate the hours of mind-bamboozling work. @spockthewok you still have your well-deserved place on Mount Willmore 😄❤️

#sims 2 object limit

teaaddictyt

Notes on the ObjectLimit

Here is a short summary of my notes and findings on the Object Limit after struggling with this beast for years.

See @spockthewok's post for the explanation on what this is and what the limit is (32,767 Objects).

By the count on @picknmixsims's Maxis GUIDs spreadsheet, the game has just shy of 14,000 objects in it. I do not believe that all of these contribute to the limit (cos the maths doesn't check out) but just keep that in mind as you're calculating how much room you've got in your folder.

Sims count. If you've got a hood with a tonne of character files (you can find these in Documents / EA Games / The Sims 2 / Neighborhoods / [HOOD] / Characters) you're gonna have less room for CC

Reducing GUIDs can create way more space in your folder. Tutorial I use to do this is here by HugeLunatic - I reduce all CC rugs to 1 GUID, for example.

CAS Content doesn't count

Fences and hood deco don't count

Custom foods count. This can be an unexpected one

Same goes for custom careers, and Uni majors.

To easily check how many OBJDs you've got in your Downloads folder, use HCDU+ by PickNMix. Scan the entire folder for the "OBJD" resource only, go to the info tab, and the program will tell you how many files it scanned.

I don't have all the answers on how some people seem to have more OBJDs in their folders and not hit the limit while others with less do hit it, but that's what I can tell you from much testing and experience.

I also don't know if default replacing Maxis GUIDs still only counts as 1 object, but I'd assume it would.

Sad day for us CC addicts... Maybe if EA would actually do something about this and follow Will's instructions to properly patch Legacy Edition to remove the limit, I'd actually consider switching to that version of the game LOL.

amythestfenix

For reference! Thanks for the info and link to HugeLunatic's tutorial! I'm sure I can reduce GUIDs for lots of deco objects I have!

#sims 2 object limit

4t2 Syboulette Sandy Spiky Spot (Partial Set)

@syboubou made this beautiful desert outdoor set for Sims4 and I really wanted it for my new neighborhood. So many lovely pieces to convert! So many recolors to do! My energy level just wasn't up for it.

Procrastination paid off! @episims converted part of the set! Less work to do! So I did the rest of the set - items bordered in red on Syboulette's lovely graphic. Many thanks to Syboulette and Epi!

If you want to have this too, you can

DOWNLOAD

#sims2 cc #sims 2 download #sims2 download #sims 2 cc #sims2cc #sims 2 custom content #4t2 conversion #4t2

#sims 2

spockthewok

Sims 2 Object Limit Fix

Soooo... I didn't intend for two highly requested fixes for The Sims 2 to drop within the space of a week and a half, buuuut...

Here's where you can download an experimental patch to fix the so-called 'object limit'!

https://github.com/spockthewok/TS2ObjectLimitFix

(Ultimate Collection only at the moment, I'm afraid).

The good news is:

Both @lordcrumps and @teaaddictyt have tested it with stupidly large CC folders and report that it works.

There isn't a dissertation the length of Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' you need to read through to understand wtf is going on.

The crashing wasn't caused by some hardcoded object limit at all! (That I know of).

An explanation of the issue for programmers:

And for everyone else:

The code for the Build/Buy menu was missing basic checks to confirm that the data it was trying to do things with was actually valid. No, I'm not joking.

Basically, it appears that all of the objects you can buy in the game are stored in something you can think of as being like a big, long list, which grows in size with the more custom objects you have.

The only purpose of the code that this plugin patches is to sort the items in the list into some kind of order. This is done by assessing if the value of the previous item in the list is larger than that of the item currently being looked at, and swapping their position if this is true (also known as an insertion sort).

In short, the game wasn't asserting that the data it was about to compare for sorting was valid before accessing it, and then promptly blowing up when it tried to do so and discovered it wasn't.

I imagine that the odds of the game making an oopsie and dumping some funky data into the list increases with the number of objects it is having to process - this might be why this issue only presents itself to those using multiple GB of Build/Buy CC. It was much easier to patch the code encountering the bad data within the list than to try and hunt down the mysterious culprit putting the data in there to begin with, so this is all the information I have at the moment unfortunately.

Either way, one of the first things you're taught when learning to code is to ALWAYS check that the data you're operating on has been initialised (i.e. it holds some kind of value). I guess someone at Maxis must have skipped that lecture :D

Is the 255 objects per subcategory limit theory true?

The Downloads folder I was using for testing had ~672 objects in the Deco/Misc subcategory (Maxis objects included). With the patch, I can freely navigate throughout the entire subcategory with zero crashes, so I guess not?

What about the whole OBJD limit thing?

People have varying beliefs of what the limit on OBJDs might be, but HCDU reports my Downloads folder had an OBJD count of 20,787. Again, without the patch the game would crash when switching categories in the Build/Buy catalogue, with the patch, no crashing.

If you want to hear my opinion on whether such a limit exists, watch this video.

Do I even need this patch if I don't use much CC?

As it adds some fairly important crash-prevention checks to part of the Build/Buy menu's functionality, I'd probably recommend using it anyway, just to be safe - we all know how much this game loves to crash!

Aaaah! I'm still getting crashes with the patch!

I'm aware that a few of you CC addicts out there have Downloads folders larger than the total size of everything ever uploaded to the internet, so if you still experience crashing in Build/Buy mode with this patch, please take a look at the mod's GitHub page and send me over the information requested there. Fingers crossed that shouldn't happen, but if it does, I'll try my best to investigate :)

Anyway...

Will

(I wish I had looked at this for my dissertation, as it was literally only a day's work).

lordcrumps

Are you even real?

yeoldecorprusarium

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

brandinotbroke

Spockthewok (aka Will Nixon) wrote a master's thesis on pink flashing, figured out the cause and potentially found the first genuine fix.

The fix itself (along with the thesis for those interested) can be found here:

A patch to fix the 'pink soup' bug in The Sims 2. Contribute to spockthewok/TS2MemCapRemover development by creating an account on GitHub.

simblr-resources

Simlish Graphics

I'm a huge fan of simlish for cc and so as a resource I gathered up links to simlish graphics for your cc making needs!

CamperStew - Well Worn Simlish Graphics

casteru - Graphic Folder

cloudypixel - simlish graphics

helgatisha - Simlish Graphics N1

homesickforsixam - Simlish Logos

midnights0ciety - Plz Tee Graphics

nucrests - Simlish Graphics Set

nuagelle - vintage designs

one-million-sims - Simlish Rock Band Logos

plutosims - Reel Estate Simlish Movie Posters

plutosims - Simlish Music Posters

plutosims - y2k patterns and graphics

Powluna - Graphics: Simlish Worlds

simclasshero - Shein Bright Like a Diamond

thimblesims - Simlish Resources

tonicmole - Simlish logos

Trillyke - Print Bundle Pack #1

WastelandWhisperer - Sims 4 Werewolf Graphics

I'll edit this with more as I come across them!

amythestfenix

Very helpful!

#sims 2

4t2 Royalty Legacy Dambele Food as Deco

@jacky93sims converted this as functional food, but I really needed deco versions of the pieces for my African-inspired hood, so I made them.

I thought someone else might want them, so they can be downloaded HERE

#sims2 cc #sims 2 download #sims2 download #sims 2 cc #sims2cc #sims 2 custom content

paluding

Sims 2 - Making tall buildings actually playable

I've always hated how the camera jumps up and down when playing tall and slim buildings. Turns out, it's really easy to fix! It’ll take you less than a minute. All the details under the cut.

amythestfenix

Very useful!

WiP

#sims 2

One of my favorite lots in my Finchwick hood, inspired by S4 Cottage Living. This lot was not made by me,as I am a very basic builder; it is my redecoration/edit of this beautiful creation by @alexbgd using the S3 Old Mill set.

#sims 2

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