SimCrazy

Just another sim blog

[evannamari]

Friends, please tell me, why do we need the SimStandardMaterial type at all?

So far I only found out that it looks bad compared to StandardMaterial

The first screenshot is SimStandardMaterial, and the second is StandardMaterial. The hairline texture looks much better

But it can't be useless, right?

[goingsimcrazy]

The "StandardMaterial", when used on sims, has several weird effects, on accessories in particular. They show up see-through, or as if the normals are showing inside out, and usually get a metal-looking shine or washed-out colors, even if reflection and all other effects gets removed in the TXMT. This also gets much worse with the "Blend" option in the TXMT (see-through issue in particular). Haven't tested it with hairs, though it's likely similar effects can be observed (and I think I've seen an example or two of hairs and clothes, with bugs related to the setting). It's possible some of it isn't as easy to see on one-layer items that overlap with something else, or on a black background, or maybe you really did somehow find the perfect combo of TXMT settings to avoid all these issues. A while back I spent more than enough time troubleshooting accessories, figuring out StandardMaterial was the culprit for at least 2-3 problems I frequently had with the files (there's an issue in some of the original files - some TXMTs have an arbitrary mix of "SimStandardMaterial" and "StandardMaterial" settings in the same file. When you make a recolor, the issue transfers to the new item). If I remember correctly, StandardMaterial also creates some weird effects for skin (I think it's how people have made the "ghostly" and effect-type skins. Usually not something you normally want). So no, the SimStandardMaterial is not useless. It's the regularly used one for all non-SimSkin CAS items. StandardMaterial is used for buy/build. (It's likely they have somewhat different handling of transparency, though. It's always been a bit of an issue, but could also be partly an ingame problem. Bodyshop and CAS seem to use somewhat different shaders and texture handling than what's used on-lot).

[tennant]

It’s Christmas Day, I never get up before ten.

[docorwho]

M E R R Y  C H R I S T M A S 

[azriona]

It’s not Christmas unless this giftset has appeared on your dash at least five times.

[syrenpan]

It’s back 💕

[lizawithazed]

it’s not christmas without wilf on your dash 

[talaline]

Annual Wilf reblog.

[amazoogle]

[thatssomanda]

My brother saved this document and everytime he gets angry at our neighbours for being loud he prints it to their wireless printer and you can hear the wife shout “Why the fuck would you print this AGAIN?!” to her son.

[auntytimblr-deactivated20150403]

every time we serve chicken at work i think of this post

[gallusrostromegalus]

1.  If you were wondering, you can type the numbers in the works cited into google and they appear to be medical journal articles about using medical imaging to detect and diagnose a rare form of Gastritis.

2. Please enjoy the offical powerpoint presentation of this paper at an academic conference by the original author, complete with Q&A:

[zillyirk32]

THIS IS GOLD

[aprillikesthings]

oh m god please watch the video it’s some of the most contagious laughter on the planet

[artikgato]

When I saw this cross my dash tonight, I smiled and thought “yess, the chicken chicken chicken post, I get to reblog it again and inflict it on all of the people that have followed me since last time”, and then I scrolled down more and to my utter delight there was A VIDEO, needless to say my night has been made

[eliciaforever-deactivated201906]

I HAVE NOT SEEN THE CHICKEN VIDEO IN TEN DAMN YEARS HOLY SHIT

STILL FUNNY

[ruelukas22]

The bell

The last question

The woman howling in laughter 90% of the time

It’s all beautiful

It’s all

So beautiful

[explorerrowan]

I love that he was absolutely 100% prepared for a question in chickenese.

[caterinas80]

“I do not feel capable summarizing this article”

Same

[gothighunicorntolerance]

Chicken chickens chickens

[bastlynn]

Chickens.

Chick chicken chicken chickens chiiiiicken. Chicken chicken.

[applewatersugar]

Sooo, recently I've found a way to fix (in my opinion) "unfinished", alpha custom content made for TS4. First I tried to remodel a high-poly shirt and copy the UV map from the original to the low-poly one. With this method I was able to decrease the polycount from 19k to 1,8k in 2-3 hours.

After that I tried to figure out a faster method and found an open source auto remesher addon/plugin for Blender which cut the work time in half, 1 hour! Tried this plugin out with another shirt and I was able to cut down ~8k polies AND keep the quality that the original shirt had!

Then another one!

I honestly don't know what to say. I am convinced now that most TS4 CC creators only make their work to fill their pockets and wallets. I know they say that they do this out of a hobby, but PLEASE, if you put your work behind a paywall, at least make sure it's optimized.

[saruin]

Open Source Auto Remesher - Blender addons

While we have quite some remeshers now like quadriflow and voxel remesh, this might be worth taking a look at: Open Source Auto Remesher

[anachronisims]

How to EFFECTIVELY Use Empty Standby List to Reduce Flashing and Crashing

This tutorial is for TS2. Obviously. This is virtually the last "chapter" of advice for the Pink Flashing Survey Report (still forthcoming as a single readable thing but posted in bits and pieces over the last six months). PS it's a lonnnnnnng post. Ctrl+F "tldr" for the very short version once you open the cut.

"Part 1" of the Empty Standby List ("ESL") tutorial was already written comprehensively with screenshots by Digi at her wordpress. Following Digi's tutorial will get you set up with ESL as a routine automated background task your computer runs, typically every five minutes.

@gayars set up two instances of the routine, each running every five minutes, staggered two/three minutes apart. In other words, task 1 runs at 12:00, task 2 runs at 12:03, task 1 runs at 12:05, task 2 runs at 12:08, etc. However, I found that this negatively impacted the graphical performance of my game, notably by having the ESL task window flash over the game window, which I had never seen before, nor since reverting back to a single 5-minute task routine.

Anyway. Go do Digi's tutorial if you haven't already; I'll wait.

Background on Why this Matters

So, now your computer will be wiping the standby memory every five minutes. The thing is, this won't be able to have much impact on your game unless you wait to let it wipe before you do a major loading action.

Major loading actions are, in general order of strain (most to least strenuous):

Loading a full neighborhood.

Loading a large (3x4 or bigger) populated lot.

Loading a large unpopulated lot.

Loading actual CAS, if you have a lot of non-defaulted CC.

Loading a medium (3x3) populated lot.

Loading a medium unpopulated lot.

Loading a small (2x3 or smaller) populated lot.

Loading a small unpopulated lot.

Loading CAS catalogs from within a lot (e.g. using FFS clothing tool, "Change Appearance" on the mirror, shopping for clothes/trying on clothes on a community lot).

Turning up your lot view settings (generating other lots' lot imposters within your current lot)/panning the camera around.

You should already be doing at least all medium- and large-lot loading with the Lot View Settings Juggling Method, and “uint LotSkirtIncrease” removed from your userstartup.cheat - otherwise whenever you load a lot you are compounding the strain by also having the neighborhood load at the same time.

Using Resource Monitor Effectively

If you watched the Jessa Channel tutorial on flashing, she recommended downloading a third-party RAM usage monitoring software. This is unnecessary. For purposes of reducing your crashing, all you need is the native Windows program "Resource Monitor" that she also recommends.

To open it:

Click the Windows symbol/start menu.

Begin typing "Resource Monitor."

Click Resource Monitor when it shows up.

Once it is open, get to the useful information:

Click the "Memory" tab.

Make sure the "Processes" and "Physical Memory" subs are fully open, as above.

Sort by "Commit (KB)."

Each time you reopen Resource Monitor, it should restore your last view settings, so you won't have to repeat these steps.

While Resource Monitor is still open, "Pin" it to the taskbar so it will always be readily accessible.

Right-click the icon on the taskbar.

Click "Pin to taskbar."

If it says "Unpin from taskbar" you have already done this step :)

Now comes the monitoring part. You will focus on the dark-blue "Standby" block of the bar graph on Physical Memory.

Every fifth minute, when the ESL task runs, this will flash down to 0 and then pop up to about 30-75, depending on what you are doing. It will go higher faster if you are doing stuff, obviously, and hover pretty low if your computer is just sitting still. TLDR the remainder of this tutorial: only take stress actions when Standby is below 100.

As we all know too well, TS2 has a 4gb RAM limit. The problem is, TS2 seems to count the memory that is in standby, too, not just the committed/working set. Thus, before you take a major loading action (that is going to push up to 1.5gb into Standby), you need to wait for Standby to wipe so the game doesn't accidentally think it's using more memory than it is. Got it?

This is how much RAM my game is using when my neighborhood opens, pretty closely zoomed in on any particular lot. If it is zoomed out further - like a whole city block - both committed and working set are easily over 2.2gb. When I pan around the neighborhood, it continues going up. Portions of the hood that go back out of view seem to get relegated to standby, but yes, my game has crashed just from looking too much at my neighborhood from too wide an angle. Unless I slow down and let ESL run before moving on to the next section.

Six months of diligent Resource Manager monitoring has resulted in substantial reductions of crashing and flashing on my first hood view load and first lot view load. It is not 100% guaranteed, but it cuts it back to Very Playable Levels. And when I have tested the theory by purposefully not letting ESL run before a stress point, it always flashes and/or crashes within the next couple minutes.

SO! Here's what I do when I'm launching my game.

Because of overheating concerns, I always fully shut down my computer when I'm not using it for more than an hour. If I have been playing and experience a flash or crash, I will restart before trying again. @infinitesimblr, a survey Respondent who reported virtually no flashing or crashing despite a vast CC catalog, also recommends restarting between using Bodyshop or SimPE and the full game. I have found it may make a difference with Bodyshop (which I use too rarely to make a pseudoscientific claim) but that I have found basically no impact going from SimPE to the game. YMMV.

Immediately after Windows is done loading, I open Resource Monitor and wait a few minutes. Often background updates begin running and the Standby bar goes crazy - sometimes filling up the entire available RAM - and I just let it sit and do its thing. (Usually I start the computer right before my kid's bedtime so I am not actively waiting on it or anything. Go take a shower or make a sandwich or drink some water, like you did in the old days when the game itself took 20 minutes to load.)

Once the standby bar levels out and is consistently peaking no higher than about 250mb between ESL wipes, after the next ESL wipe, I will launch the game. (Usually between logging into Windowsat the beginning of storytime and checking Resource Monitor before we go do tuck-in, it is reliably hanging out below 100 unless a big TS4 or Windows update was downloading.)

Reminder: do not delete thumbnails anymore prior to launching the game. I also have turned off RPC's clear caches option and have observed faster loading times with minimal increases in crashing.

After the neighborhood selection screen comes up, wait for ESL to run again before opening your neighborhood.

If you have continue to have more than VERY sporadic hood load flashing after taking these steps, you should try launching into a subhood if you have one, then pivoting to the main hood if that's where you're playing that session after yet another ESL wipe. If that doesn't help you simply need to thin out your hood or accept the flashing. (I ended up deleting about 25% of my deco trees and 10-15 outer-lying lots that will be re-placed in a subhood.)

After the hood is loaded, navigate to the lot you want, but DO NOT actually load that lot until ESL runs yet again. Ditto for CAS - Do not select "Create New Family" until ESL has run again.

Play should be proceed as normal at this point. You probably don't need to alt-tab back to Resource Monitor again unless your sims are going traveling or you are changing play lots.

BONUS TIP #1: You can put a shortcut to the ESL routine on your desktop and push it manually (just double click the icon) if you don't feel like waiting once the game is loaded. I have had imperfect results with this vs. just waiting the five minutes, though, because the game wants to run through some stuff and flush it. But it's an option for you to experiment with.

BONUS TIP #2: If you have a really deep clothing/hair CC catalog, try to avoid using the FFS clothing tool option where you select every outfit for the sim, and their hair and makeup, at the same time. Instead, choose individual outfits by type and use the regular mirror option to change appearance (or SimBlender has it, I think, so they can do it where they already are).

[kurlyfrasier]

NEED HELP WRITING? (a masterlist)

I have likely not added many that I've reblogged to this list. Please feel free to roam my blog and/or ask/message me to add something you'd like to see on this list!

Synonym Lists

Look by @writers-potion

Descriptors

Voices by @saraswritingtipps

Show, Don't Tell by @lyralit

Tips & Tricks

5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists by @writingwithfolklore

How To (Realistically) Make a Habit of Writing by @byoldervine

Let's Talk About Misdirection by @deception-united

Tips to Improve Character Voice by @tanaor

Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for Writers posted by @toocoolformedschool

Fun Things to Add to a Fight Scene (Hand to Hand Edition) by @illarian-rambling

Questions I Ask My Beta Readers by @burntoutdaydreamer

Skip Google for Research by @s-n-arly

Breaking Writing Rules Right: Don't Write Direct Dialogue by @septemberercfawkes

Databases/Resources

International Clothing

Advice/Uplifting

Too Ashamed of Writing To Write by @writingquestionsanswered

"Said" is Beautiful by @blue-eyed-author

[ms-demeanor]

Things that will make your computer meaningfully faster:

Replacing a HDD with an SSD

Adding RAM

Graphics cards if you're nasty

Uninstalling resource hogs like Norton or McAfee (if you're using Windows then the built-in Windows Security is perfectly fine; if you're using a mac consider bitdefender as a free antivirus or eset as a less resource intensive paid option)

Customizing what runs on startup for your computer

Things that are likely to make internet browsing specifically meaningfully faster:

Installing firefox and setting it up with ublock origin

adding the Auto Tab Discard extension to firefox to sleep unused tabs so that they aren't constantly reloading

Closing some fucking tabs bud I'm sorry I know it hurts I'm guilty of this too

Things that will make your computer faster if you are actually having a problem:

Running malwarebytes and shutting down any malicious programs it finds.

Correcting disk utilization errors

Things that will make your computer superficially faster and may slightly improve your user experience temporarily:

Clearing cache and cookies on your browser

Restarting the computer

Changing your screen resolution

Uninstalling unused browser extensions

Things that do not actually make your computer faster:

Deleting files

Registry cleaners

Defragging your drive

Passively wishing that your computer was faster instead of actually just adding more fucking RAM.

This post is brought to you by the lady with the 7-year-old laptop that she refuses to leave overnight for us to run scans on or take apart so that we can put RAM in it and who insists on coming by for 30-minute visits hoping we can make her computer faster.

[ms-demeanor]

There are people saying "what does this mean" so:

Meaningfully Faster

HDD means "hard disk drive" SSD means "solid state drive." An HDD has a spinning platter and a mechanical arm that has to wiggle back and forth very quickly to read the information written on the platter, while an SSD is a silicon chip that has the information "flashed" into it (basically it takes a snapshot of bits with electricity - it's unimportant how it works, just that it doesn't require mechanical movement to access data, and is therefore MUCH faster).

Installing an SSD does *not* require an M.2 slot and does *not* require a ton of expertise on most computers. There are many SATA SSDs available and if you want to replace your HDD all that you need to do is clone your hard drive and look up how to install your new SSD on ifixit (link in a bit).

Your storage drive (SSD or HDD) is the drive that stores the files and programs on your computer. People often confuse long-term drive storage with "memory" and when they get low-memory warnings they think they need to delete stored files. This is inaccurate because:

RAM is Random Access Memory - if is basically the "working memory" of your computer, it keeps track of all the things that your computer does/is doing. For example: if you are working in your browser, the browser is not saving everything that you're doing to your desktop so everything that is going on in your browser is using RAM to remember what pages you've got open and what images are on them, etc. Same if you're working in any other program: if you're writing a word doc and you haven't saved it in a while, all the changes are being tracked by the RAM but are not yet saved on your storage drive. "Low Memory" doesn't mean you're out of room for your computer to hold onto files, it means your computer is low on memory to think about stuff. Because programs are written to use more and more memory as time passes (which is a good thing, for the most part, but causes frustrating problems for people with older devices) older computers will struggle to run modern programs with the amount of RAM the older computers have in them.

RAM comes in different speeds, and the speed of your RAM does matter but if you get RAM that matches the speed of your installed RAM you should experience better speeds from your computer. Some computers have the RAM directly soldiered to the motherboard and cannot have RAM added (this is pretty much true of all macs. I do not recommend buying macs.) but if your computer DOES allow you to add RAM it is generally an easy process - check IFixIt.Com for instructions: just search the model number of your computer and look at the replacement guide for RAM and you will be able to see if you can replace your RAM and see the steps to follow along if you want to do that. There are a large number of tools to look up what RAM will work in your computer. Personally I like the Crucial RAM Configurator tool. Just look up your computer and it will recommend compatible RAM. You don't have to buy the Crucial RAM, you can use the Crucial RAM configurator to get the specs you need and then search for yourself by Size, Memory Technology, Speed, Format, and number of Pins.

Graphics cards are for graphics processing and they're "if you're nasty" because adding a dedicated graphics card is kind of a big hurdle these days: computers are smaller inside than they used to be and graphics cards are big and they are also very expensive right now. Unless you are using a gaming laptop you likely cannot add a graphics card to your laptop, and unless you have at least a couple hundred dollars to spare you can't add a graphics card to your desktop either. But also they will only speed up a very specific subset of applications; if you don't do anything that requires a GPU to get shit done (video rendering, really complicated math, etc) then it isn't going to make your computer faster.

Norton and McAfee run in the background of your computer at all times and can suck up a lot of valuable memory, especially if they decide to randomly start a scan or check back in with the mothership to make sure you've paid for another seven years. They are annoying and they can slow everything else down - McAfee in particular is notorious for this. Modern Windows Operating systems (10 and 11) have a lot of security features built in at baseline and Windows Defender is a perfectly functional whole-device antivirus for almost all users. It was never true that macs couldn't have software infections or couldn't be infected with malware, it's just that *people used to write fewer malicious softwares for mac( and NOW there are a lot more infections written for OSX *and* mac users often think they don't need antivirus. Buds. You do need antivirus. Since Bitdefender only has a free virus scanner for Mac, not antivirus, and Sophos Free is only good for a month, and Avast has recently sold customer data, try Avira.

If you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and click on "task manager" you will find a list of applications that run on startup. Programs that run on startup are turned on and active every time you start your computer, regardless of whether you use the program or not. So, for instance, let's say you have an HP printer and there are drivers for the printer on your computer but you only print things maybe twice a year. If your HP Printer Print Utility is set to run on startup that means that every time you start your computer it wakes up and turns on this program, which slows down your startup time and takes processing power in the background. So just disable it on startup and only start the program when you need it. The only difference here is that it'll take a few seconds to start the utility when it's time to print. Things that I've got disabled on startup include: Microsoft Edge, Adobe, and Cortana.

Faster Browsing

You should be using Firefox anyway because Firefox rules and in literally hundreds of tests performs as well or better than chrome. If someone says that firefox is ridiculously slow it is because they've either set up a really weird configuration, have had the install go wrong, or just don't understand what they're doing. But ASIDE from that you should use Firefox with Ublock Origin because Ublock Origin is an *amazing* adblocker that doesn't whitelist ads and lets you do things like manage cookies and block annoying popups and a bunch of other stuff. And as of 2023 it will be impossible to install Ublock Origin on Chrome so you may as well switch to Firefox now and live that ad-free life. Ad-blocked browsing speeds up your browser because your computer isn't spending extra energy on loading ads and less shit loading means less RAM utilization means faster computing.

Auto Tab Discard is an extension that allows you to set tabs to sleep after an amount of time that you determine. You can customize your experience so that it doesn't sleep tabs with partially filled forms, or doesn't sleep tabs with media playing in them, or doesn't sleep a specific tab for a session, or doesn't ever sleep tabs from a specific website. Many people use OneTab, which basically turns your tabs into a bookmark list that opens the page when you click in OneTab, but I personally prefer Auto Tab Discard - neither of those are "better" than the other, it's just a question of what works for you.

Faster if you are having an actual problem

Open tabs eat RAM. Your computer is expending memory thinking about what's on all of those pages and even if most of them are slept you probably have more awake tabs than you need.

Malwarebytes has a free virus/malware scanning and removal tool that you can download and run to identify and remove malware or viruses that may be stealing your information and running background programs that are fucking up your speeds. If you think your computer might be slow because you might have a virus, go to malwarebytes, download the free version, run a scan, and follow the instructions that it gives you.

Disk utilization errors happen for a number of reasons and they will all slow down your computer. Here are some of the reasons they happen and some ways to fix them. If you hare having a persistent disk usage error issue *DO NOT* replace your HDD with an SSD until it is resolved because these errors can destroy an SSD.

Superficially Faster

Your browser cache and cookies are the things that your browser remembers between sessions: it might be logins for various sites or the logos of your homepage or a bunch of other stuff. If your browser is running super slow because you haven't cleared cache/cookies for a long time, doing this can help because it will basically make your browser forget about the cookies it has been carrying around for five years for a site you haven't logged into since four years and seven months ago. These are tiny pieces of data but they can add up over time which is why they will make your browsing experience faster if you haven't done it in years but won't make a difference if you clear your cookies and cache monthly. Doing this will log you out of all the sites you're logged into (which shouldn't be a huge deal, but you do need to be ready to log in a bunch, so you should HAVE A PASSWORD MANAGER TO MAKE THAT EASIER). This will make your browser run a bit faster, but if your computer is slow for non-browser reasons or if your cache/cookies have been cleared recently it will have no impact on your computer speeds.

Restarting your computer will speed your computer up for a bit because it will shut down all the programs you had running and clear your computer's RAM of all the stuff it was remembering for as long as you had those programs open. This is, again, a superficial improvement, and if you have, say, restarted your computer three times today it is unlikely that restarting again will do anything for you. But yeah if it's been a couple weeks, friend, restart your computer it is tired and it wants to run patches and it needs to forget the twenty docs you're editing for a minute so it can get its head on straight.

Reducing your screen resolution can make your computer run a bit faster if you're doing graphics-heavy stuff and have really shit built-in graphics support, but realistically all it is likely to do is make your computer look weird.

Your browser extensions run on startup and cause your browser to use more RAM at baseline; you should be installing minimal browser extensions and uninstalling any that you don't need. If it's been a while since you checked your extensions go uninstall the unused ones right now and restart the browser and you may speed up a bit. But the majority of people in the world run pretty minimal extensions so this is unlikely to fix most people's problems.

Will not make your computer faster

Unless your storage drive is within 10% of its maximum capacity it is in no way fucking up your speed. If it is within 10% of capacity go delete whatever's in your downloads folder, clear out your temp files, and empty your recycle bin. If that doesn't take care of it, use a backup drive or a thumb drive and copy off the photos, videos, and music you don't use very often, and only keep what you're using on your computer. If you've got an SSD having too little storage available can fuck with the lifespan, so aim to keep at least 10% free.

Registry cleaners are supposed to clean your computer's registry; basically they're supposed to look at the index of all the stuff your computer knows and delete redundant or outdated entries on the index. However it has been literal decades since a registry cleaner would be able to meaningfully improve performance while they can still absolutely fuck your computer up bad enough that it needs a reinstall and a lot of them are just straight up malware, some of them are actual for-realsies ransomware, a bunch of them sell your data, and you don't need ANY of them. If you don't know enough to fuck around with your registry by hand you shouldn't trust some random ass software that has a history of data breaches and virus infections associated with it. Fuck all registry cleaners.

Manual drive defragging has been obsolete on Windows Machines since Windows 7 shipped with an automatic defragging utility in 2011. In the past when you saved a file to a hard drive it might save that file in a bunch of little pieces scattered all over the platter, so accessing that file meant accessing all the *fragments* of that file and "defragging" meant taking some time every once in a while to put files together into whole files instead of fragments. But then eleven years ago Windows made that process automatic, so unless you have *seriously* fucked up your computer somehow it shouldn't be an issue, and if it is an issue you can run a defrag and then make sure automatic defragging is enabled. But that whole conversation is probably moot since SSDs don't need to be defragmented (and defragging them actually adds to the device wear). So basically if your computer actually DOES need a defrag it is probably more fucked than you initially thought and unless that is the case then it is already defragging so doing an additional defrag won't make anything faster and/or might cause extra wear to an SSD.

[ms-demeanor]

If you are using an older computer and it is tortuously slow and you can't upgrade the RAM or swap in an SSD but you *can* install software, I would strongly recommend installing Linux.

The vast majority of people these days use computers primarily for web browsing and occasionally use an office suite. Most people don't even store their music or photos on their computers these days. If your computer is basically an internet machine that you don't use for anything other than browsing and basic word processing/spreadsheets, then there is no reason not to switch to Linux.

I would recommend installing Linux Lite, which is a well-supported, widely-used distro that most computers built within the last twenty years should be able to run. It's called "Lite" because it is an operating system that requires minimal processing, storage, and memory to run.

To do this you will need:

A 4GB USB stick or a blank DVD to create installation media

An internet connection to download the software

Another computer or phone that you can use to follow the instructions, or a printed/written copy of the installation guide

A computer on which to install Linux. Installing Linux as the sole operating system on this computer (which is my recommendation here) will mean that everything else on the computer is deleted. Save all of your files/movies/music/etc. to a backup drive or another computer before you install Linux, because installing a new OS will delete literally everything on the computer and make it impossible to get back.

Here is where you can download Linux Lite.

Here is the Linux Lite help manual, I've linked you directly to the step-by-step installation guide. If you get to a step that you don't understand, search the terms that you're unfamiliar with phrased as questions like "why do I need an ISO to install linux?" or "how do I enter UEFI BIOS on my version of Windows?"

Follow the instructions for installing Linux Lite, and then you can install software on your new OS. Linux Lite comes bundled with Libre Office, which is a free office suite like Microsoft Office that has programs similar to Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. It installs with Chrome, so I would recommend installing Firefox and uninstalling Chrome as soon as you're able to get on the internet.

After that you can pick and choose from a wide variety of linux-compatible software and you can use your computer as a regular computer. I'd say that it's probably a good idea to be picky about what software you install, and to try to keep your computer as lean as possible if you're trying to get a longer life out of an old device.

There are a lot of people in the notes who are saying "my computer can't even load four tabs" or "my computer can't even open the software I need to do this" and if that is your computer I think you've pretty much got nothing to lose from installing Linux. If your computer is essentially unusable in Windows then it's probably not going to be *less* functional in Linux, unless you're keeping the computer the way that it is for some very specific software you're using.

A lot of people think that they can't uses Linux because it's entirely in the command line or doesn't have a graphic interface or something, but most linux distros only look about as different to users as windows does to mac or vice versa.

This is what the Linux Lite default desktop looks like:

It's got a start menu and a task bar and folders on the desktop, same as any other computer. It's very easy to use and has the help manual installed right there as soon as you're up and running so that you can troubleshoot your way through any issues.

Really, seriously: if your computer is slow as fuck and all you use it for is web browsing, this will make your computing experience significantly better without having to buy anything but a thumb drive.

[ms-demeanor]

People are reblogging just the first section of this post and asking what these things mean, so I'm reblogging this in hopes that they'll see the comprehensive update in the notes.

[ms-demeanor]

I want everyone reading this to know that importing bookmarks from any other browser to firefox is a very simple process that will take just a few minutes. Here are some step-by-step instructions from Mozilla on how to import your bookmarks: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/import-data-another-browser

[ms-demeanor]

Hey there, if you like this post you might like it even more as an organized page on my website that can be easily printed into a PDF and shared with people without having to send them to a tumblr link and a weird thread to get the information.

The page is a little more in-depth and technical and has a bit more info on troubleshooting and diagnostics.

[goingsimcrazy]

Useful info, and some stuff that might come in handy at some point.

[unifiedintelligencetaskwhores]

"what does a TARDIS malfunction sound like?"

"idk just dump the entire goofy sound effects library in the span of 10 seconds. That should do it"

[goatskickin]

AUGH

Is fixing hair meshes challenging? I am sick of gappy necks and hairs that aren’t available for all ages.

Does anyone have a decent hair mesh tutorial to recommend? There’s an old one on GoS I tried to follow but I got lost immediately. 

[digitalangels-deactivated202510]

Fixing that sort of gaps usually isn’t too hard unless the mesh shape itself is wonky to begin with, you most likely only need to fix comments and bone weights so pretty much:

Open hair mesh in SimPE, extract the affected ages, import the first one to Milkshape, hide other groups except “hair” (since that one usually should be the scalp) in groups tab choose the hair group and hit comment-button to open them:

Make sure the NumSkinWgts: line says 2 or 3 (2 is enough for scalps but you can use 3 too, 1 however will cause gaps like that) hit ok to close the comments.

Using select tool set to Vertex option, choose these vertices shown in red in picture below (for males it’s one more of the bottom rows too. Sorry this particular scalp is bit weirdly shaped, I just grabbed the first mesh I found from my downloads and it ended up being this deformed one ^^; ):

Open up Joints tab and under the vertex weights choose head & neck for the options then set them both to 50 and hit Assign button at the bottom.

To make sure it stuck turn on the Draw vertices with bone colors to see they’re different color from the rest of the scalp:

then just export it and reimport via SimPE and that should take care of it. Start new file in Milkshape and rinse and repeat the steps for each age.

For more recent hair tutorial I recommend Rented-Space’s one here. It’s about converting Sims 3 hairs to Sims 2 but the process is pretty much the same for converting Sims 2 hair for other ages.

[goingsimcrazy]

For future referencing (because it's an easy fix, but so many hairs, especially old ones, have issues with this).

[ivycopur]

Here's an explanation of the process I've used to add infant genetics to pre-existing sims. Essentially the same process can also be used to make general custom face templates that include infant faces.

[kaylesims]

Someone can help me with converting eyes to bodyshop? Everything is in bmp. format... I have all textures I need.

[goingsimcrazy]

Check the texture settings of the item in SimPE. If the main colored textures (NOT bump or shadow, those should have other settings) are set as "Raw32" in the TXTRs, they often won't export with Bodyshop. I've had a similar message, and changing the setting back to DXT (3 or 5) was what fixed the item so it could be imported/exported in Bodyshop.

[dystopianam]

Masterpost: All the Lighting Mods for The Sims 2 ✨

I'm making this post both because I like to group things under one post and because I need it as a link to add to my tracker, but still I think it will be useful for many!

# Gunmod's Radiance Light System 2.4 by dDefinder on ModTheSims - A realistic, extremely dramatic, sometimes very dark lighting mod that increases the intensity of colors, lights and shadows and adds sunrise and sunset to the game (they don't exist in the vanilla game)

#Gunmod's Radiance Light System 2.5 edited by @dreadpirate - An updated version of the aforementioned lighting, with much more compatibility with many shaders and less blue nights! Every Season it have they own lighting color: Summer is vibrant, autumn has warm colors, winter has cold colors, and spring has a little yellowish "filter".

#Maxis Match Lighting Mod by Dreadpirate - The environment is more saturated and bright, removes the dull gray tint that vanilla game has. Everything is smoother and more uniform. The shadows are calm, exactly like the ones in the vanilla game. Each season has its own lighting, the nights are black instead of blue and it has many compatibility with many shaders. This one also has sunrise and sunset.

#Cinema Secret by Dreadpirate (@veronavillequiltingbee) - A perfect mix between the Gunmod Radiance and the Maxis Match Lighting mod. It use elements of both, such as the shadows and calm colors of the MM Lighting Mods but the intensity of the lights of the Gunmod Radiance (especially noticeable when using neon lights). It has many compatibility with many shaders, the nights are black instead of blue, it has sunrise and sunset and every season has its own lighting.

#Neighborhood Lighting Remedy by Criquette - This lighting mod is ONLY for the neighborhood and you can use it together with any of the three lighting mods mentioned above. Fixes the direction of the lights and shadows to be consistent with that of the lot imposters and makes it more consistent with lot mode.

#Accurate Neighborhood Terrain Lighting by @simnopke - This lightind mod is like the above one. It is only for the neighborhood and can be used in conjunction with a DP & dDefinder lighting mod but NOT in conjunction with Criquette's NH Lighting Remedy.

EDIT: simnopke said: "My Accurate Nhood Terrain Lighting mod does something different than Criquette's Nhood Lighting Remedy and can be used with it. Moreover, my mod has two versions intended for use with Criquette's mod."

#Minimalistic CAS Lighting Mod Replacement with Custom Light by Dreadpirate - This lighting mod is CAS ONLY and can be used together with a dDefinder or DP lighting mod and a lightind mod for the neighborhood. Using similar lighting to the MM Lighting Mod, it makes the CAS more saturated and smooth. You have to change a value in a lights file within the game install path but it's worth it!

One small problem I've noticed is that when used with lighting mods other than the MM Lighting mod it often doesn't work well even if the value is correctly changed. For example, when I changed the lighting mod and switched from MM to Cinema Secret, it triggered the super lighted sims bug in CAS which I didn't have before. But then again, this could be just my problem. There is fix by Lazy Duchess for this bug but you need to be very careful. Sometimes it conflicts with some shaders (as in my case) and unleashes an absurd pink soup even in bodyshop even if bodyshop shouldn't have anything to do with it. But AS ALWAYS, maybe it's only a problem of mine because I'm very unlucky.

EXTRA SHADERS BUT NOT REQUIRED

#Better Nightlife by @criquette-was-here - Even if it does not change anything graphically with colors, lights and shadows like a lighting MOD it adds shaders that allow the deco hoods to light up during the night. So for example, by downloading hood decos compatible with this shader you can have street lamps that light up on the street (in the neighborhood), buildings lit up at night, lit bridges etch.

#Blue Shadow No More by Dreadpirate - This shader removes the blue tint that snow creates even if you use lighting mods that make the night black instead of blue. Many DP lighting mods (Like MM Lighting Mod) have this shader already included, so you don't need to download it, this is an individual shader if you don't use their lighting mods. To be honest, neither the shader INSIDE the lighting mod nor the shader by itself has never worked for me, but I think there is a problem in my download folder at this point or I am very unlucky.

#Overly Bright CAS Fix by @lazyduchess - As I have already explained before, this mod fixes the bug of super enlightened sims in CAS. Sometimes it can conflict with something (which I don't quite understand with what) and trigger an absurd pink soup, so if you suddenly start to notice more pink soup than usual try to remove it and see how it goes.

Maybe it just conflicts with some lighting mod or some shader. In my case it could be the DP's lighting mod for the CAS.

#Moi Shader Roof by niol on ModThe Sims - This shader fixes the lighting of roofs which sometimes appear much darker than their texture. Many lighting mods from DP have this shader included OR are compatible with this shader. So check the descriptions under their lighting mods before downloading it.

#Brighter Roofs...But Not Too Bright! by Deastrumquodvicis on ModTheSims - Same as the previous shader, but makes the roofs less bright than they show with the aforementioned shader. This shader uses Moi's shader as a base, so you can NOT use both. Use only one. Many lighting mods from DP have this shader included OR are compatible with this shader. So check the descriptions under their lighting mods before downloading it.

#Moi's Neighbourhood Water Global Mod by niol on ModTheSims - This mod changes the water color of the neighborhood. Nothing more nothing less. Many DP mods are compatible with this shader.

#Pond & Sea Water Overhaul by Voeille on ModTheSims - This mod changes the water of the sea and ponds and makes it more realistic using The Sims 2 Castaway water shaders. Many DP mods are compatible with this shader but for some shaders like Better Nightlife it needs a little more attention. For example, if you use Better Nightlife you will need to use the version of these shaders provided by the Better Nightlife link to be compatible. So you have to delete these for use their shaders if you want both.

You can't use this together Moi's Water.

#A World Lit by Fire by hat_play_sims on dreamwidth - This mod itself doesn't change shaders dramatically, but it change the color of some lights and make them more sensate. I'll explain: many maxis lights that are powered by candles or should give off a warm light regardless, give off a cool, white light instead. Have you ever seen a candle emitting white light? No! This mod fixes all lights in the game and makes lights that need to be warm... warm. Perfect for history-themed saves or for the ones like me, completely obsessed with candlelight in this game. Many DP mods are compatible with this shader. It's immensely beautiful when used with the dramacity of the Radiance System but works quite well with other lighting mods as well.

[goingsimcrazy]

For future reference

[digisims2-deactivated20251019]

The real reason I logged in today was because I installed couple of Sims, each in their own folder so I knew I'd get duplicates and planned to sort them out but before that did this important little step:

Searched the whole folder for *.package to get all the package files listed. After that I set the order to "size" starting from the biggest one and it revealed me this;

Now you're probably wondering, what's so bad about these randomly named files I've highlighted. Well, maybe you've heard of the file that can make your game crash at for example sim aging to elder? Or perhaps your game randomly crashes when random sim enters your lot? Sometimes the file is called "uhkjhihjkj(11)" and it's a file that likes tagging along with packaged Sims and occasionally people pack it together with recolors that are actually using in-game meshes thinking that it's an oddly named mesh.

Well it's not a mesh. This file has few characteristics that make it pretty easy to spot: firstly usually the random name (or the uhkjhihjkj(11) mentioned earlier), secondly the file size, I've seen few slightly different sized ones but usually it is 6807KB or 6.64MB depending on where you check the size. Thirdly, if you open it in SimPE the contents will look like this:

It contains 1534 CRES resources, and as you can see it's CRES:es of all(?) base game accessories, clothes, hairs and who knows what else. The list is so long I never bothered checking it all though. Point however is that for whatever reason this file corrupts very easily and causes game to crash at random moments. And even if it doesn't corrupt it's just plain junk file that's taking space on your hard drive.

Now you're probably (hopefully!) looking through your Downloads folder to see if you have this file/these files and that's a good idea. Also good news is that you don't need to panic, if you find this kind of file in your game just delete it. Nothing will break, nothing needs it so your recolors will remain working. It's literally a junk file and it's perfectly save to delete so please do so.

I felt like making this little PSA since I realized that not everybody probably is aware of this stupid file lurking out there in random downloads. + this way I can just link this post whenever it sounds like somebody might have this particular issue with their game so I won't need to type it all over again every time.

[goingsimcrazy]

The file that goes under many names, and can go unnoticed for quite some time, until one day when suddenly your game crashes for no apparent reason when a sim grows up or under various other circumstances. I had a few variants of this one in my files, but removed them all a while back. Nasty little buggers...

[desiree-uk]

Adding the games .exe files to DEP exception list

Another step I should have added when disabling ‘SysMain’ from my previous post is to add the game’s .exe files to the DEP exception list.

DEP is a like a Windows protection system that stops old apps and games that it thinks is a virus or malware and will either stop the game/app running altogether or make it crash if it uses a high amount of memory at one time - in the case of Sims 3, when its saving. So disabling SysMain will allow the game to use all its memory, but it’s an old game so Windows OS, especially 10/11 will try to shut it down by causing crashes at short moments of high memory and cpu usage. 

Press Windows + R keys together, type the command “sysdm.cpl” in the Run dialog box and press Enter.

Click the ‘Advanced’ tab and click ‘Settings’ under ‘Performance’. Click the ‘Data Execution Prevention (DEP)’ tab. Tick ‘Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select:’  and add these game .exe files to the list:

S3Launcher.exe

Sims3Launcher.exe

TS3.exe

TS3W.exe

TSLHelper.exe

You can’t add Sims3LauncherW’ to DEP exception list, so ignore it. 

Click ‘Apply’ and ‘OK’ and exit from System properties. Run your game.  See: Disable ‘SysMain’ Service for gameplay.

[goingsimcrazy]

Could always come in handy for TS3 - and perhaps also for TS2?

[becausebirds]

[stubbornseedling]

Among the smartest and longest lived animals we can ever hope to interact with and it was willing to learn this stupid trick to amuse its human friend.

Thank you patient bird.

[goingsimcrazy]

Pure gold XD

[shinki26]

The Sims 2 Disc Installation and fix guide for Windows 10/11 PCs

I’ve been seeing around the internet people demonizing the discs and saying they are “bad” “old” “unsupported” “buggy” “ancient” and a bunch of other bad words and also outright refusing to give support to disc users.

I’m writing this guide to hopefully instruct people on how to properly install, fix and run their disc based The Sims 2 game and also educate you on why the discs are not as bad as everyone makes them to be.

Just a warning: I’m a Windows 10 user, I don’t know if exactly everything is going to be 100% accurate to Windows 11, but the game SHOULD work the same on it.

First things first, some clarifications about common misconceptions of both the Ultimate Collection and TS2 disc games I’ve been seeing being tossed around:

1. The Ultimate Collection has compatibility patches for modern hardware: 

This one is actually kinda true? The UC did have some patches made to it compared to a fully patched disc game but no one has been able to tell what exactly it did.

A fully patched, fixed and correctly installed disc game should work the same as the Ultimate Collection, with no difference in compatibility or game performance.

2. SecuROM doesn’t work on modern OSes so you can’t run the game off the discs: 

Totally untrue. People who says SecuROM doesn’t work on Windows 10/11 haven’t actually tried running a game that uses it at all. It 100% works even on Windows 11. What doesn’t work on modern OSes is SafeDisc, which all packs released before Bon Voyage used. So if you install BV and any pack released after it, the game IS going to run normally as it’s using SecuROM instead.

3. But SecuROM makes the game lag: 

True, for some machines it does happen. But as I will explain in the guide, you can uninstall SecuROM with the official removal tool and just use NoCD executables to have it not install itself again.

4. The discs requires Flash and it’s been deprecated:

No, the discs DOES NOT require Flash. The only thing that uses it in the setup is a pop up that used to ask you if you wanted to register your game. Since of course you can’t register it anymore, you can just close it and it WILL NOT affect anything.

That out of the way, let’s get to the guide!

What you are going to need:

-All original TS2 patches released by EA back in the day: They’re all hosted HERE on ModTheSims. 

Please, be aware that there may be multiple variatons of a patch. You need to pick the right one for your game. If you have The Sims 2 Base Game DVD version / Deluxe, you will have to download the second option where it says “DVD Patch Notes”, for example. For Pets and Seasons the “DD” patches mean Digital Download, so if you have them on either CD or DVD them both are going to use the “Disk Patch” If you seem to be not able to download them, right click the download link and choose “Save Link As”.

If you have The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / Holiday Edition / Other compilations you’re not going to need the Base Game patch as those versions are already updated!!! The same thing applies for the Collections: You don’t need to patch their EPs!!

-Grumpy Loader: Get it HERE on ModTheSims.

-If you have Bon Voyage and/or packs released after it… SecuROM Removal Tool: Get it HERE.

-If you have Mansion & Garden Stuff… Sims2RPC: Get it HERE on ModTheSims by @lazyduchess! If you DO NOT have this pack, you’re going to need to source a NoCD executable of the game based on your latest installed pack.

-If you DO NOT Have Mansion & Garden Stuff… 4GB Patch: Get it HERE.

-Graphics Rules Maker: Get it HERE.

Having downloaded everything, you can start inserting your Base Game disc one! Or your Base Game DVD!

Installing the Base Game:

There’s no mystery in this part, install your game normally as you would back in 2004 following the instructions of the setup.

Three of the biggest problems I’ve seen people have when installing the Base Game is:

1. I get a red pop up saying “This app has been blocked for your protection”

This happens usually on Double Deluxe games and later EPs such as Bon Voyage, FreeTime and Apartment Life.

There’s two ways you can circumvent this. First one is the one that I personally prefer:

-Open the Task Manager -On the top left, click “File” -Click “Run new task” -Click “Browse…” -Now go to your disc drive in your PC and open it, select Autorun.exe -The target box should be pointing to “D:\Autorun.exe”. The “D” letter changes depending on what letter your disc drive is set to in your PC -Check the “Create this task with administrative privileges” box -Now click OK.

The setup is going to run normally now. When you are installing EPs that show you this error, you can do the same thing to every one.

The other way is just to change your PC’s date to somewhere before 2020. This is going to work too, I can’t explain to you why though! Something about licenses expiring!

2. I get a Flash pop up when I try to install!

As I explained earlier, you can just close it and the installation will continue normally.

3. The setup just hangs at a specific percentage and won’t progress anymore!

This is mosty probably the setup asking you to swap discs! DVD users do not have this problem. What happens sometimes is that the setup GUI is supposed to make a pop up window appear in front of the GUI asking you to swap to disc 2, but on modern OSes it doesn’t appear sometimes. Actually, it does. It just is in the background, if you minimize every open window on your machine you’re going to see the little pop up! Just swap to disc 2 and press “Ok” on the pop up and it should resume installing. The same thing can happen when having to switch to Discs 3 and 4.

After installing the Base Game:

Yay, you did it! See how the discs aren’t the devil??

So, after installing the base game you are going to need to patch it.

Open GrumpyLoader, on the top left select “Load…” and on the window that opens, choose the Base Game patch’s executable you’ve downloaded and open it. It’s going to automatically patch your game, if you are on the 4 CD version of the game you may have to swap discs. Sometimes GrumpyLoader throws errors when updating, especially when it ends. But you can just ignore it.

After patching, your Base Game is FULLY installed and properly patched, congratulations!!!

But if you didn’t already try, you will see that you can’t run the game as it doesn’t open. That’s because the Base Game uses SafeDisc that doesn’t work on modern OSes as I said earlier.

Installing Expansion and Stuff Packs:

It’s the same process of installing the Base Game. Follow the setup instructions. After installing each one, PATCH them with GrumpyLoader. For example: you just installed University! Do NOT immediately install another pack right after.  Follow the same GrumpyLoader patching process you did on the Base Game but choose the University patch instead. Do the same thing to ALL EPs and Family Fun Stuff.

Also, there has been some info online about installing packs out of release order can mess up your game.

I personally don’t think it’s true as I never had any problems but I prefer to be better safe than sorry.

If you want to, Install them in this order:

-University (or University Life Collection) -Nightlife (skip if you have The Sims 2 Deluxe/Double Deluxe) -Christmas Party Pack (I don’t recommend if you have Happy Holiday Stuff or The Sims 2 Holiday Edition)  -Open For Business (or Best of Business Collection) -Family Fun Stuff (or Fun with Pets Collection) -Glamour Life Stuff -Pets (skip if you have Fun with Pets Collection) -Happy Holiday Stuff (skip if you have The Sims 2 Holiday Edition) -Seasons -Celebration Stuff (skip if you have The Sims 2 Double Deluxe) -H&M Stuff (skip if you have Best of Business Collection) -Bon Voyage -Teen Style Stuff (skip if you have University Life Collection) -FreeTime -Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff (skip if you have Best of Business Collection) -IKEA Home Stuff (skip if you have University Life Collection) -Apartment Life -Mansion & Garden Stuff (skip if you have Fun with Pets Collection)

If you’ve installed all packs, great! You can even launch your game from SP9′s (Mansion & Garden Stuff) disc and executable as it uses SecuROM which WORKS on modern OSes.

Getting your game to work properly:

Your game is fully installed, patched and even running if you have Bon Voyage and later released packs!

But you probably noticed very heavy lag, crashing, bad graphics and things not running as they should. That’s because, just like the Ultimate Collection, the game is a PITA to get running properly on Modern OSes! If you have Bon Voyage and/or later released packs: I HIGHLY recommend you to uninstall SecuROM from your machine. This is going to help greatly with game performance. Use the SecuROM Removal Tool I’ve linked earlier and remove it from your PC. Do NOT open the game again as it’s going to install itself again if you do so.

If you have Mansion & Garden Stuff: After uninstalling SecuROM, you’re going to need to install Lazy Duchess’ Sims2RPC Launcher I’ve linked earlier. Follow their instructions on the download page and be sure to apply the 4gb patch in the launcher as it’s going to GREALTY help with the crashing.

Or… if you DO NOT have Mansion & Garden Stuff: Get an appropriate NoCD executable for the pack you are using to launch your game and apply the 4GB patch to it. Open the 4GB patch executable and use it on your game’s exe.

After doing all that, all that remains is fixing your game performance, resolution and graphics!

Install Graphics Rules Maker and open it. Firstly, you’re going to have to add your Graphics card to the game’s database. To do that, go the “Device Info” tab and add it there.

Back to the “Settings” tab, be sure your game is set to “The Sims 2″ and is properly recognizing where your game is installed, if for some reason it isn’t, click “Browse…” and point it to your latest installed pack’s folder. For example: “C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff”.

-Force Texture Memory: This one depends on how much VRAM your graphics card have. For example, you have a 1gb VRAM GPU, you’re going to need to set it to 1024. 2048 for 2gb, 4096 for 4gb, etc. If you are using an integrated GPU, try 1024 at first. DO NOT leave it at “Do not force” or you are going to experience DirectX9 errors!!!

Check “Disable texture memory estimate adjustment” and “Enable driver’s memory manager” boxes. If you have an AMD Radeon HD 7000 series, also check the “Fix AMD Radeon HD 7000 series recognition”. If you have Intel integrated graphics, check the last two boxes. Now you can set your resolution! Choose your default (which one the game is going to start with) and maximum resolution your game is going to support.

After doing all that, you can click “Save Files…”

And… Done! You got your disc-based The Sims 2 game fully working, properly patched and fixed!!!

Any Feedback on how to improve this guide is very welcome!

Happy Simming, y’all!!! :)

[goingsimcrazy]

Reblogging in case I ever need it...