After a dreadful day of trying to make this work, I'm reporting that The Sims 2 finally works on my new Linux system! 😭❤️ Admittedly I have made my own life harder setting this up, but the most important thing I've learned from this experience and thought it might worth sharing:
Before you try to install TS2 on your Linux, make sure that you have your graphics card's driver updated!
When I first installed The Sims 2 on Linux it was incredibly laggy and choppy, because the default Nouveau driver didn't work well enough with my Nvidia card. After I installed the Nvidia driver from the built in driver manager, the game just straightup crashed.
Then I had to find out that Mint's driver manager couldn't install the newest driver for my card (RTX 3070), and even when installed, it didn't work. 😂
So if you have an Nvidia card and struggling or planning to install Linux in the future, below the cut are a few useful tips that I've discovered in the depths of the Internet:
Check what driver the official Nvidia site recommends for your GPU. - I did this and it showed driver version 570.
2. I think this is optional, but open your terminal and type the cmd: sudo apt update - this will trigger Linux to update its driver list.
3. Open Driver Manager, and see if the recommended driver (570 in my case is available). For me it was not available, only the 550, this was my issue.
3.1. If you can see your required driver, awesome, install it from the driver manager and skip to step 5.
3.2. If not, you have to use this PPA. -> Meaning you have to open your terminal and enter the following commands (when I list multiple commands to run, first type the first one, press enter, then type the next one, press enter etc.):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/
ppa sudo apt update
You can also find installation guide on the link above, but it's basically this.
4. Now you have to restart your system, and repeat Step 3. of this list. The newest driver should show up in your Driver Manager now, install it.
5. After installing, open your terminal and type the following command: inxi -G -> this will allow us to check if the driver works properly. Shock, it did not for me :D
When working properly, it should look like this:
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch resolution: 1:1920x1080~60Hz 2: 1920x1080~60Hz
When not working, it looks like this:
Example 1: Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X: loaded: nouveau
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa failed: nvidia
6. This is the thread that helped me fix this problem. You have to scroll down to the Nvidia Graphics troubleshooting tips.
7. I had to add this "kernel boot parameter": nvidia_drm.fbdev=1 into the system. On this link you can see how to add it either temporarily or "permanently" (meaning you don't have to add it every time you start your system, but it is removable).
To add it permanently, you have to type the following commands into your terminal:
8. After you added it, reboot your system, and when it starts again, check if the parameter is there with the command: cat /proc/cmdline
9. If it's there, run the inxi -G command again, and see if it looks like it should.
10. If not, you might have to update the Kernel version of your Linux, which you can do in the Update Manager/View/Linux Kernels menu. I had to update mine from 6.8 to 6.11.
After all this you should be good to install the game, I made my life so much harder than it was necessarily so I hope my research on how to deal with an Nvidia Graphics card with Sims 2 on Linux is helpful to some of you. 😂
