How to record videos with Sims 2 in-game camera (HD, no UI, no lag, no file format issues)
I originally planned to include this information in the behind-the-scenes video about Bring Me To Life that I'm currently working on, but it's overly technical and not that interesting. It still might be useful to some people (mostly machinima creators), so I decided to make a separate post about it.
There are two ways to record videos in The Sims 2:
Using screen recording software
This is the most common and probably the easiest way. You just need a program like OBS that will capture whatever happens on your screen exactly as it happened. If this method works for you, it's perfectly fine. No need to follow this guide then.
Using the in-game video capture tool
This way involves capturing videos directly in the game by clicking the video camera icon or pressing V on your keyboard. This method is perfect for machinima creators. It automatically hides the UI, but more importantly, the video will always be perfectly smooth, regardless of the actual performance of your game, i.e. even if it runs like a literal slide show, any videos you capture this way will look perfectly fine.
Okay, so if this method is so great, why do we need a tutorial for it? Well, as is usually the case with this game, the feature works fine, it's just a little bit outdated.
To fix it, we need to do 3 simple* things.
*If you're a Sims 2 player, you're probably used to this kind of stuff anyway
Step 1: Installing a modern codec
In the Camera settings, the game lets you choose if you want the videos to be compressed. I highly recommend choosing that option, as uncompressed videos take up way too much storage space.
The codec that the game uses to handle compression is outdated and most video editing programs will not be able to edit such files. To fix this problem, we need to download and install x264vfw, which is a free an open source codec.
Once installed, open the Configure x264vfw app. No need to change anything there (unless you want to test different settings of course), except for this one small thing:
In the Debug section, go to Log level and change it to None. Otherwise the codec will display a pop-up window each time you record in the game, which is pretty annoying.
Step 2: Making the game use the codec
Locate the VideoCapture.ini file in the installation folder with your latest expansion pack. I have Ultimate Collection, so for me the path looks like this:
D:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\UserData\Config
Back up your file and open the original version with Notepad. You can either replace the whole thing with my settings, or just update the highlighted parts.
While you're at it, make sure to update the LargeSettings value to 1920x1080 so that the videos are captured in HD (no need to worry about it if you're copying the whole thing):
When in game, go to Camera Options and make sure Video Capture Size is set to Large and Video Quality is set to High.
Also, you might want to change the Maximum Video Recording Time to something higher than 60 seconds.
Credit for this solution goes to this person who left the following comment under this video
Step 3: Changing the file format from avi to mp4
Before doing this step, test if everything works correctly when you try to capture videos in the game. The videos will go to the Movies folder in your Documents folder for TS2.
Try to import the videos into your editing software. If it doesn't work, e.g. the program does not recognize the file or the file appears to be corrupted, you'll need to change the file format from avi to mp4.
I personally use VLC media player for that, as it's free and open-source.
Go to Media > Convert / Save...
Drag your files into the File Selection section or select them by clicking the + Add button.
Select the Video - H.264 + MP3 (MP4) profile and click the wrench icon to edit its settings.
In the Video tab, make sure to check the box next to Keep original video track. Go to the Audio tab and check the analogous box.
Save and in the next window specify the destination folder and click Start. VLC will go through each of the files you added.
IMPORTANT:
While Steps 1 and 2 only need to be done once, Step 3 needs to be done for every new video you record (unless, your video editing software doesn't struggle opening the avi files).
The good news is, this step is really fast, no more than a second per a single video. This is because we're keeping the original video track intact. The only thing that is changed is the container. That's why this change is fast and does not affect video quality in any way.
Ideally, this step wouldn't be needed if we figured out a way to force the game to use mp4 when saving those videos, but I'm not sure if this is possible.
Like I said, outside of machinima creation, it probably makes more sense to just record your screen with OBS. Especially if you want to capture videos in 4K, which I don't think would be possible with this method. But it works for me and as it took me a while to figure it all out, I just wanted to share all the info in a single post!
Unlock the full potential of your Sims 2 experience by creating and editing custom aspiration rewards with SimPE. In this step-by-step tutorial, you’ll learn how to enhance your gameplay by turning custom and Maxis objects into aspiration rewards while also editing existing rewards to better suit your needs.
Quick guide to finding hairs by colour system on @/krabbysims fantastic Hair Database. This may be extremely obvious, but you never know! I just figured it out today! I wanted to add a few of Peppermint & Ginger's v4 hairs into my mix of Poppet v2, and was trying to figure out how to find only those textures on the database (in case there were any done by anyone else besides PMG themselves).
Ctrl-F like usual to bring up the search box on the sheet, then click the three little dots for more options.
2. The advanced search box pops up (I dragged it up to the top corner to be out of the way). Figure out what the hair system you are looking for is called in the "Colors" column on the sheets. In my case it was PMG v4 - put that in the Find field, leave Replace blank! You don't wanna change any fields. Make sure search: All Sheets is selected.
3. Hit Find - it may take a moment, but then it will jump to the first instance of that field in the workbook. Hit Find again to go to the next - there doesn't seem to be a way to go back that I've found.
Hope this helps anybody who didn't know about this or maybe didn't know about the database!
Making your own career/NPC outfits (and attaching them to custom and default careers)
Tutorials I’ve used that helped me understand this a little bit more:
SuperFly’s „Attaching custom clothes to careers”
@rio-sims „Adding extra options to NPC and Career Outfit Templates”
@itsdiamondeyesuniverse mini-tutorial on random clothes and hair
and some general knowledge from Hat’s Simpe Tricks
I’m just compiling them and adding results of my own experimenting. It will be pretty long, so everything is under the cut.
Download Template files [SFS] or [Google Drive]
First step is to understand what makes an outfit template.
Looking at my empty template (OutfitTemplate-Empty.package), you can see 4 files. You don’t touch the BHAV and OBJf, they control the behaviours and functions and such. Good practice is to change the name of the OBJD and NREF to something unique. For custom outfits, you will have to change the GUID in the OBJD, but I will touch on that later in the tutorial.
But that’s just an empty template to fill with your own outfits. Every variation of an outfit is made of 2 files:
3IDR (3D ID Referencing File) - This one contains skeleton resource and hair/clothes property sets.
AGED (Age Data) - This one pretty much contains instructions on how to read the 3D ID.
In my 3D ID template files you can see the first line is a Resource Node - that’s the skeleton. It always has to be there, don’t delete it. Second line is a property set - that’s the outfit that you will be replacing. 3D ID can have many lines of property sets in particular order, depending on what Age Data is saying.
(My SimPE shows Age Data in CPF, which reads hexadecimal, but sometimes can also show it in XML, which reads decimal. If some lines are different in decimal, I will put it in brackets.)
If you open up any of my Age Data templates, you can see a lot of lines that may make sense intuitively, and some that make no sense at all. Here are lines that are actually useful and how to change them:
AGE
2 - Child (also 2 in decimal)
4 - Teen (also 4 in decimal)
40 - Young Adult (64 in decimal)
8 - Adult (also 8 in decimal)
48 - Young Adult + Adult (72 in decimal)
10 - Elder (16 in decimal)
58 - Young Adult + Adult + Elder (88 in decimal)
I think it’s better to always include Young Adults with Adults. If for example you don’t use mods that enable jobs for YA, then nothing happens and nothing breaks. But if you do, then your YA can wear their job uniform.
GENDER
1 - Female
2 - Male
3 - Unisex (only for children!)
STRETCH
It’s only important in teens - they use adult skeleton, but smaller. For adults/elders stretch will say 1, for teens - 0,94. Children use their own skeleton, so their stretch is also 1.
VALIDPARTS
3e4 - If you want to add hair to your outfit (996 in decimal)
3e0 - If you don’t want hair in your outfit (992 in decimal)
LISTCNT
Number of elements in your 3D ID. Technically counts from 0, but as the first item is always a skeleton, for ease of counting - it’s the number of property sets used. For only fullbody outfits it will be 1, fullbody + hair or top + bottom = 2, hair + top + bottom = 3.
SKELETONKEYIDX
Position of the skeleton in the 3D ID. Always 0, as it’s the first item, counted from 0.
LS, LK, LE
All 3 needed together. They are counted from 0. So the first 3 lines will be named ls0, lk0 and le0_0. If you add another item to your outfit (eg. hair + fullbody clothes), next 3 lines will be named ls1, lk1 and le1_0, then ls2, lk2 and le2_0 etc.
LS
Always 1.
LK
The numbers are already in decimal, so the same in CPF and XML. From what I’ve tested and I’m sure of:
LE
Which line in 3D ID corresponds with this item, counting from 0. As line 0 is always a skeleton, and dealt with in the „skeletonkeyidx” line, you can just count property sets.
If you use my Age Data templates - you don’t have to worry about all that, but I made this tutorial only because I really wanted to know that. So maybe someone else would want to know too :P
Now that you can understand what makes a working outfit, lets make one! This will be split into 4 parts: part 1 - making a new, custom outfit; part 2 - replacing existing outfits; part 3 - attaching outfits to careers; part 4 - testing if it works.
Part 1 - Making a custom outfit
In this example I will make an outfit for adults only, for the sake of shorter tutorial :P
First step: Open „OutfitTemplate-Empty.package” in SimPE. I will change my OBJD and NREF names. In the OBJD you have to change the GUID (the one with all zeroes in the template) - how to make a GUID? Click here to generate 8 random characters in hexadecimal (refresh for a new string), delete any spaces, then put „0x” at the start. Then check with this spreadsheet if it conflicts with any Maxis objects. My new GUID will be 0x1234ABCD (only for tutorial purposes, yours should be more random to avoid clashing with CC objects too). Save the file as a copy.
Now we’re going to add actual outfits. First, one for female adult sims. You have to add a 3D ID template (in this case for teens/adults/elders) and an Age Data template that includes your preferred combo. For this one, I will get AF-Hair-Fullbody.
If you look at the Age Data, you can see here that it’s for Young Adult and Adult female sims (age = 48), it has hair (validparts = 3e4) and contains 2 property sets in 3D ID (listcnt). In the ls/lk/le lines you can see that it contains hair (65537) in the first property set and full body (65544) in the second one. (Though the order of the property sets is in the names of the template files, so you don’t have to check every time!)
Now we go to the 3D ID. If you want to attach Maxis clothes or hair, use Scenegraph Resource Finder. Set it to Property Set Search and type your hair/clothes name there (found through the default database or the debug mode in CAS). I’ve chosen afhairupdoweddingveil_black. Doesn’t matter if you choose _black, _blond, etc, your sim will automatically wear the hair in their own hair colour (for CC hair - only if it was binned correctly). Let it search. When you’ve found what you’re looking for, note the group and instance. Now open the 3D ID. Select the property set in it and change the group and instance to the ones of your chosen hair/clothes. Commit and save.
For the fullbody outfit, I’m gonna use CC clothes (AF Lolita Dress and Boots by animera at MTS). First, make sure you have a mesh and a recolour in your Downloads folder so the game can access it. Then open the recolor and find the corresponding property set. Write down group and instance and close the file. Open up your outfit template file again and go back to your 3D ID. Click on the property set line that you set up before and click „add” to clone that line. Now change the group and instance as you did before. Commit and save.
Remember that any hair and clothes used in an outfit has to be enabled for Everyday!
That’s all for the female sim, now onto the male sim.
As before - add the 3D ID template and Age Data template. I will choose AM-Hair-Fullbody.
As you can see, my new 3D ID and Age Data have the same instance as the previous ones - they will clash. So we have to change each new 3D ID and Age Data’s instance to one higher. So change instance to 2 and click force commit on both.
Next steps are the same as before - add property sets. I’ve added a propeller hat and a fig leaf, classy! Commit and save.
That’s pretty much it. If you want to add other age/gender combos? You can, just each new 3D ID and Age Data pair need to change their instances to one higher. You want to add like 20 options for every age and gender? You sure can, same thing as before - instance number goes up (remember, it’s hexadecimal so after 9 you got A - F, then 10 etc). You can have one outfit with hair, other without hair, one top and bottom and one full body, one for female adult and 10 for male adult, doesn’t matter, all combos work, as long as the property sets in the 3D ID are in the same order as in corresponding Age Data.
But right now, my custom outfit is done.
Part 2 - Default replacing existing outfits
While you can attach custom outfit to any career, default replacing outfits is the only (known to me) way to change NPC outfits without digging into BHAVs (which I don’t understand lmao).
First step is to clone the outfit you’re replacing. Open Object Workshop, click Start and wait a bit as it loads. Then go to Other > Outfits and find your chosen outfit. I’ll use „Outfit_NPC_Maid_test”. Click Next. Then if it says Recolour, change it to Clone. Uncheck every box!!! Click Next. Save the file.
If you look into the Age Datas and 3D ID - they almost always look like a mess, so we’re going to replace them entirely.
Doesn’t really matter which age/gender combo you replace with which, but I’m going to check. In my example, instance 1 is for an adult female, instances 2, 3 and 4 are for an adult male.
Right click on the 3D ID, instance 1, then click „Replace” and choose my 3D ID template. As you can see, group and instance remained unchanged, this is very important! Now right click on the Age Data, instance 1. Replace it with an Age Data of your choice. I will use AF-Hair-Fullbody. As I explained the process in part 1, I won’t go into detail here. I will also replace instance 2 with a 3D ID template and Age Data AM-Hair-Fullbody. I will replace female outfit with pink gorilla suit and male outfit with diver suit, because why not.
If you want to add more options: as stated in part 1 - when you add new 3D ID and Age Datas, instance numbers go up, but in this case you also need to change the group to the same as your default (in my case, the maid outfit has group 0x7FE81E93).
Maid outfit has 1 version for an adult female and 3 for an adult male. Of course you can add more, but what if it has more, and you want less? I want to have only 1 version for each gender. How to go about that? You need to replace all of the 3D IDs and Age Datas, but nobody said some of them can’t be identical. So I will replace my instances 2, 3 and 4 with the same outfit - diver suit. If I only replaced instances 1 and 2, I would have a chance to get a diver sut man maid, but also a chance to get 2 variations of vanilla man maids. Now I have 3 variations for male sims but they are identical, so all of them will spawn in diver suits.
You don’t need the OBJD, OBJf, NREF and BHAV, as we didn’t edit anything there. You can delete them from your package.
Save the file and you’re done!
Part 3 - Attaching outfits to custom and Maxis careers
If you replaced a default career or NPC outfit, you don’t need to do anything else, it just works. But for a new, custom outfit - you need to attach it to a career.
Remember the GUID that you set in the OBJD? Mine was 0x1234ABCD. Write down yours somewhere.
For a custom career, open it up in SimPE and open Bidou’s Career Editor. Choose the level you want. On the bottom left, under the description, you can select some of Maxis outfits, or just type your own GUID. Do that, and your selected outfit name will change to Other. Close the Career Editor and save your file. You’re done :P
For a Maxis career, use Object Workshop. Choose Other > Sim Type, then select your career. Be sure to pick the one you need, as most careers have an Adult and Teen/Elder version, and in Object Workshop it just shows 2 identical names. I’m choosing the adult version of a Criminal career and clone it (with all boxes unchecked!!!). Save the file!! Now the steps are identical as in custom careers - open up Bidou’s Career Editor and change the outfit GUID for your chosen level to your own GUID. Close the Editor, but don’t save the file yet. Now you can see one little file that has been changed, as indicated by the italicised name. This file is named „Outfit GUIDs” and it’s the only file we need - delete the rest. Save the file and you’re done!
You can also edit the „Outfit GUIDs” file manually (if you, for example, don’t want to clone a career and start from scratch every time you need to make an edit). Lines 0x00 and 0x01 have to stay empty (0x0000), as they are reserved for Unemployed. Level 1 is represented by lines 0x02 and 0x03. You put your GUID there, but split in 2 halves and in reverse order. My GUID was 0x[1234][ABCD], so it will look like this:
Line 0x02 - 0xABCD (level 1, 2nd half of GUID)
Line 0x03 - 0x1234 (level 1, 1st half of GUID)
Next lines work the same - 0x04 (2nd half) and 0x05 (1st half) for lvl 2, 0x06 (2nd half) and 0x07 (1st half) for lvl 3 etc.
Part 4 - Testing!
When all your needed files are in your Downloads folder, open the game and choose a testing hood. Make sure your boolprop cheat is on! Open a lot with at least 1 sim (we will be spawning more of them).
For testing careers, make sure you have enough sims to see your desired results. My career outfit had 1 version for adult females and 1 for adult males, so I only need 2 sims. If your outfit has more variations for the same age/gender combo, you will have to spawn a lot of sims to make sure you will get all of them! As you know, this game is famously not very good at being random, so you can have two variations of an outfit and you can get 10 sims with the first version and only the 11th will spawn with the second :P For spawning new sims, shift click on a sim and select Spawn > Tombstone of L and D. I clicked „New Adult Male” and got a random dude.
Now to get them jobs easily, I shift click on a newspaper and choose a job. You can also set their job level. For my sims, I need to test Criminal career level 1.
Now give them a wardrobe (or a few, if you have a lot of sims to change) and make them dress for work. As you can see - my sims are wearing their new pretty outfits! (Excuse my "I use lowest possible graphical settings so my laptop doesn't explode" ass screenshots)
To test NPC outfits, shift click on a sim and select Spawn > NPC and Townie Maker. First choose a gender, then find the EP of the NPC you want to create, in my case it’s the basegame, so I select Make NPC > Maid. It will spawn a random NPC of your chosen gender. You can cycle it a bit, clicking on the NPC maker again and selecting Repeat Last. If your outfit has many variations, cycle as many times as needed to make sure all your options appear correctly. When you’re done, click on the NPC maker and choose Kill. Now choose the other gender and repeat. Cycle as many times as needed. I only needed to see 1 female maid in a gorilla suit, but I needed to cycle a bit to see if nothing slipped through the cracks with the male maids. Everything works great and they were all divers :P
After all that testing we’re done! Have fun with making all of the outfits your heart desires! ♡
To all TS2 & TS3 players that continue to have issues with graphics and memory, try installing an older version of DirectX. The newer versions do not include the older drivers. Basically, installing an older version is not downgrading but giving the computer the needed drivers so that it can work the graphical parts of the game more efficiently. Microsoft is a bit cagey about what is in each version but they do say "end-users trained to download every new release of “DirectX” were camping Microsoft Downloads for every release (despite zero use for their existing games), huge numbers of end-users still download the DirectX SDK and install it thinking it will help ‘fix’ their games, and of course game install developers tended to use exactly the same logic and tools that worked in the 1990s without really knowing why.
Basically you need to find the version of DirectX that was out when the game was published and install at least one version. Linking the 2010 DirectX driver because game developers did not include it in the game.
Yes! You!
At this stage, to my knowledge, you can only do this the lazy way when creating an Uberhood new, from scratch. It may well be possible - but IDK. The ancestors... well thats a hard job which I dont think anyone wants to tackle. Not all of these subhoods add the NPCs, but most do. Its hit and miss. But thats part of the fun I guess!
Base Game
Pleasantview
This is easy, meetme already did the work for us. Thanks Komei, Goopy, I guess you were too iconic. Their Simblr Here.
Strangetown
Sunrader has subhoodified Dorsal Axe’s Fixed Strangetown. Dorsal Axe’s is a dream for purists who merely wish to not borkify their games. Find Sunrader’s Website here.
Veronaville
Once again, Sunrader comes to the rescue. They used A technique of their own invention to extract Townies and NPCs, added them to MeetMe’s template, and then converted to a subhood. Once again, their website is here.
University
Introducing ZachJohnUnlimited on MTS. While he has gone through the process of adding Townies and NPCs to MeetMe’s Bluewater Village, Riverblossom Hills and Desiderata Valley using CAS, this is their work from scratch, and includes all of the Dormies plus extra lore.
Find Sim State University, La Fiesta Tech and Academie Le Tour on their MTS Post here.
Nightlife
Downtown
Did you know all the Downtownies were made in CAS? I didn’t. Yes, that includes Joy Despret Lakshmi Byall. Find them on Meetme’s Livejournal, the place which started this all.
Open for Business, Seasons and Freetime
Bluewater Village
Zach has manually recreated the townies which werent yeeted by meetme, here in Bluewater Village. Get it from MTS here.
Riverblossom Hills
As above, plus a version with the RBH NPCs. Get it from MTS here.
Desiderata Valley
As above again. Get it from MTS here
Apartment Life
Belladonna Cove
I did the work of converting TheNeonPlumb’s CAS work myself. Get the deetz on that thread. This and Downtown are the only ones with no NPCs. Get it from my Simblr here.
Bon Voyage
I don’t think there are clean templates. Can someone let me know if there is one? Twikkii Island and especially Takemizu Village are diabolical. Three Lakes gets a pass (a mountain pass, hahaha). Just use the ones that ship with the game, god. Unrelated, ProfesionalPartyGuest has done a good job at making Locals which are less terrible. click on the hood names earlier to find em.
Thanks to @knut-rocketman who helped me with putting this list together over discord when I was off my face on Vertigo medication (I made my game into a BFBVS several times). Jawusa’s empty hoods might also be of use.
When I first started to use Monique's hacked computer, I looked for at least short tutorial on how this mod works, but unfortunately I didn't find anything. At first, I was puzzled why interest wasn't charged to the sim's accounts on some days, I thought that the mod didn't work for me. And I was afraid that my game is corrupted when I found “SS Member” and “Frat Member” under “Chat with” menu option. It took some time to figure everything out.
Therefore, I decided to write a guide for the same beginners as I was :D Well, and for those who still haven't fully explored features of this wonderful mod :)
Please feel free to write comments if you have something to add! I've been testing all the features of this mod for a while, including those that I had not touched before, and I could still miss something.
Credits:
Huge thanks to my good friend and patient editor @anibats for correcting my poor grammar and making some additions to the guide. Seriously, I don't know what I would do without you :D
And also many thanks to @belladovah for some useful info for the guide.
This is the quite big guide so I hid it under the cut.
WHAT IS IT?
Monique's hacked computer is a fairly well-known mod that offers the player a bunch of new opportunities. The most commonly used features are: the banking system, online shopping and skill studying. The computer is a separate object with its own GUID, which means that all standard in-game computers are unaffected by it. It has the usual options of a standard computer plus several new ones, and it comes in a wide variety of meshes, so you can choose the ones that you like the most.
Some mesh options:
INSTALLATION
The mod includes several files:
● The main file is responsible for the mesh of the computer and most of the new options. The number of these files = the number of various hacked computers in your game. Select the computers you like and drop them into the Downloads folder. Optionally, in a separate subfolder (call it for example “Monique Hacked Computers”) so that you can easily find them.
The mesh options include clones of two standard computers: the cheap Moneywell Computer and an expensive Little Sister WD15 computer. All of the rest are either conversions from The Sims 3/Sims 4 by Veranka and other creators, or custom computers by various creators.
> Here you can find the list of Monique’s Hacked computer variations and recolors I was able to find so far <
!!! Keep in mind that ‘Taka Laptop’ and ‘Edu-Osmosis Laptop’ are conflicting with each other. You can install only one of these laptops in your game:
● Controller files are responsible for calculating interest for deposits and loans, notifications about winning/losing a lottery, custom potions, sim pie-menu options etc. It is enough to have a single set of these files in a separate folder.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Chaavik (the modder who upgraded the mod for the Freetime and Apartments addons) in a thread on the insimenator forum mentions that you need to put each computer in its own separate subfolder with its own separate set of controllers. Not sure why. In this case the controllers are expected to conflict with each other in the HDCU utility. Based on my tests, no matter how many hacked computers are in the game, they all work with the single set of controllers.
If you're suffering from a jump bug (or pop up errors with testingcheatsenabled cheat on) when you hover over a sim, you need to remove buggy file "MQ_Computer_Global_Sims_Controller.package”. This file adds a pie-menu options for your sims and is not required for the computer itself to work. (source)
Now let's look directly at the functions of the mod.
BANK ONLINE
One of the most game changing features of Monique’s Computer is the banking system. Sims can keep money in their own accounts, transfer money to each other, take out loans etc. Let's view all the functions in detail:
● Deposit – Any sim, from child to elder, can start their own bank account. Those sims can also transmit money to a baby or toddler's account, so that they can start saving money from birth. A sim can deposit all the money from the family funds or part of it.
Remember that a sim will not be able to take out a loan as long as they have any money in their personal deposit account (as you can see on the picture above: there is no “Loan” option for Lazlo).
With help of these personal accounts, you can separate money for each sim in the family. For example, you can split the money for students in the dorm, so that their scholarships and grants do not mix together.
Once the sim’s account accumulates $2000 or more, they begin to gain interest.
Interest is credited to the account at 6 a.m. 3 times a week: on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Interest rates are about 5%.
$100, when the account has at least $2000
$200 when the account has at least $4000
$300, when the account has at least $5000
$400, when the account has at least $7000
$500, when the account has at least $9000
$600, when the account has at least $10,000
$1200, when the account has at least $20,000
$6000, when the account has at least $100,000
$12,000, when the account has at least $200,000, etc.
Once the sim dies, the money is still saved in their account, however, the deceased sim will of course not be able to withdraw it. A day or two before the death of an old sim, all their savings should be withdrawn from the account in advance and distributed among the heirs (or donated to charity). The problem arises if a sim dies suddenly. Your only option then is to remember how much money was in their bank account, and add that amount to the family funds with a cheat.
Please also note that if you for any reason remove the mod from your Downloads folder, and then start up your game without it, the bank accounts of all sims will be reset to zero.
For that reason, I keep track of the accounts in the spreadsheet, so that in case of any problems I know how much money each sim had. You can do something similar (or not, it’s up to you).
● Check Money – Using this option, you can check how much money the active sim has on their account (or how much more you need to pay back on a loan). Here you can also check how much money another sim has on their account, or check the amount in the family funds of any playable household (including those in the family bin).
● Withdraw – Here you can withdraw the required amount from your sim's bank account (or withdraw everything at once). A sim that interacts with a computer can only withdraw money from their own account.
● Transmit Bank Accounts – A sim who has some money in their Bank Deposit Account can transfer all of that money, or part of it, to the Bank Deposit Account of any sim they know.
● Transmit Money – This option gives you the opportunity to transfer money from the current family funds to:
The Bank Deposit Account of any sim that your active sim knows (Transmit Money…/To Bank Accounts…).
The family funds of any playable household (Transmit Money…/To Household Funds…/Playable…) OR to the funds of sims/families located in Family Bin (Transmit Money…/To Household Funds…/Sim Bin…).
Additionally, you might see social class townies in “Sim Bin” menu option. Seeing as these townies were shipped with Apartment Life, it is possible that this happens because the mod hasn’t been fully updated for that Expansion Pack. The below image shows the Address Book of my test Strangetown where only Ajay Loner is located as an active family in the family bin. Here you can see a total of 21 randomly generated social class townies in addition to him:
● Donate Money – The sim gives the selected amount of money to (supposedly) charity, after which that money disappears. This can be useful if your sims have a ton of money and you are unsure of what to do with it. You can also use this option if you are using tax rules in your game.
● Auto Child Banking ON/OFF – A child will autonomously deposit $10,000 or $20,000 (depending on the money available in the family funds) if their Bank Deposit Account is empty. It is implied that this is money for college.
● Loan – The opportunity to take out a loan at interest. If a sim takes out a loan, they will no longer be able to save money in their personal bank account until they pay off the debt.
If a sim has taken out a loan, their bank account will show a negative amount of money, which is the remaining sum to be paid back on the loan.Loan interest is calculated at 6 a.m. 3 times a week: on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
On days when the mail carrier brings bills, part of the loan debt will be added to the bills. Thus, your sim will have to pay at least part of the loan from time to time, and not accumulate it indefinitely (or until its amount exceeds the number perceived by the game code).
● Pay Loan – This option let you pay off the loan or part of it if a sim still has a debt to the bank.
● Pay Bills – This is quite a useful feature, especially when you are too lazy to send a sim to the mailbox, and then look for bills scattered throughout the lot. All bills are paid at once if there are several of them. A sim will freeze for a while after paying the bills. Do not be afraid - at this moment the game searches for all the bills available on the lot and deletes them.
Those who often forget to pay bills in time will be pleased with such periodic notifications:
Also, the option to pay bills online will be available in the sim pie menu (by clicking on the active sim).
Banking System Tweaks
And finally, some information that may be useful for those who avoid using Monique’s Computer due to interest rates. The original rates are ~5% and can be quite high for some players, especially in the case of loans. Many people (including me) choose to use the Loan Jar mod because of it.
But Monique’s computer banking interest rates can be easily tweaked if you are familiar with the SimPE program. You can tweak the mod yourself with the help of this guide. In addition to interest rates, this guide also explains how to fix the bug that causes inactive sims to gain interest on community lots.
For those who are not comfortable with SimPE, there is already tweaked version of the Monique’s Computer mod by @thedudewiththedragontattoos. It contains 3 flavors:
Community lot fix only without interest rate changes.
Community lot fix + interest changed to 3%
Community lot fix + interest changed to 1%
SHOP ONLINE
The second most interesting function of Monique's Hacked Computer for many players is Shop Online. You can buy almost everything that is sold on community lots, vacation lots, from special NPCs, or that is generally not available for purchase and is obtained in a special way.
● Buy Clothing – Without mods, you can purchase clothing only on community lots through special racks. The computer lets you buy it from home, immediately making the purchased items available in the family’s wardrobes.
● Electronic Gadgets – Cell Phone, MP3 Player, and Handheld Game. Without mods, you can only purchase these items on community lots through a special kiosk.
● Buy Produce – Everything that is grown in the garden: tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, strawberries, peppers, eggplants, apples, oranges, and lemons.
● Buy Souvenir – Objects that can normally only be purchased at the respective vacation hoods:
Island - 2 different souvenirs, $75 each (actually, $100*)
Far East - 2 different souvenirs, $75 each (actually, $100*)
Mountain - 2 different souvenirs, $75 each (actually, $100*)
Seashells - 4 different seashells, $430 each (actually, $455*)
The dialog box shows the standard in-game price for these items, but you will actually be charged the price in brackets. I’m assuming it might be a shipping fee since you’re buying stuff from distant countries.
Voodoo doll - $1000 apiece.
ShowMeOff Rack Quick Reference - a reference of how souvenirs displayed on a special rack affecting nearby sims.
● Gypsy – Potions normally purchased from a Matchmaker or a Garden Club member. Let's look in detail, since it is possible to buy several custom potions through Monique's Computer.
Standard potions:
Cologne
Love potion #8.5
Plantophic-C – cures sim from plantsim state
Vamprocillin-D – cures sim from vampire state
Lycanthropic-B – cures sim from werewolf state
New potions:
Plantophic-X – makes sim a plantsim
Lycanthropic-X – makes sim a werewolf
Vamprocillin-X – makes sim a vampire
Also, the new setting for plantsims was added. Now, if you click on the active plantsim, you will see the "Make Skin" option in the pie menu, where you can change their skin between normal or plantsim. This can be helpful if you want to play a plantsim who looks like a normal sim.
● Buy Map – Hidden vacation lots’ maps which usually have to be dug out of the ground.
● Buy Fish – Lets you buy fish that can only be caught in a pond without mods.
● Lottery Tickets – You can buy up to 20 tickets at a time, but this is not exactly the number of tickets, but the number of draw days. Thus, 1 sim can only spend 1 ticket of each lottery per day.
There are 4 different lotteries, and their names are real-life lotteries in the US. Drawing time is 7 p.m. on various days.
Win 4 – tickets are drawn on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Estimating cash up to $1000.
Numbers – tickets are drawn on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Estimating cash up to $5000.
Take 5 – tickets are drawn on Wednesdays and Fridays. Estimating cash up to $50,000.
Match 6 – tickets are drawn on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Estimating cash up to $100,000
The winning odds are rather low (a little higher for Numbers in my experience). I have 1-2 sims winning for the one day in my test family of 20+ sims, quite often none of them won.
*Fun fact: in my test Strangetown, Nervous won almost every day. Lucky son of a bitch.
● Buy Collar – Purchasing collars for pets. Normally available only on community lots with a special object.
● Buy Video Games – Unfortunately, only video games from the basegame are available for purchase: Simcity Rush Hour and The Sims Bustin Out.
● Buy Pets – Buying pets just like through the pet store counter. The same dialog opens where you can select the type, size, breed, temper, etc.
● Buy Jewelry – Accessories from the "jewelry" tab, which are usually sold through a special display on vacation lots.
● Robots – You can purchase any robot that can be built on a special crafting station.
● Change Outfit - Another way to dress up any sim on the lot without using dressers or wardrobes.
WRITE ARTICLES
In addition to novels, your sims can now write articles for the newspaper. A sim will receive some money for the written article, something like $100-500. Most likely, as in the case of the novel, the amount depends on the skill of creativity and hidden writing skill. The article's status is periodically displayed via a notification in the corner of the screen.
● Write…/Article – The sim begins to write an article of a random topic. There are 7 in total: one for each skill. The topic can be manually selected through the option “work at home”. Depending on the chosen topic, one of the skills is studied.
● Write…/Ask Visitor to Write… – Lets you make any sim from a non-active family write an article.
● Auto WA… – The sim will sit down to write articles autonomously in accordance with the specified settings (night or day).
EMAIL
A couple of new options are now available compared to a standard computer.
● Send & Check – The sim sends a letter to the selected friend as usual, then immediately checks the mail for a reply.
● Invitation eCard – The opportunity to invite multiple sims to visit at once without necessity to throw a party. Your sim will send out invitations by email. All invitees will agree to come regardless of the level of relationship with the inviter.
EXPRESS DELIVERY
Order food without having to wait for a delivery person. The order will magically appear in the hands of the sim immediately after payment.
● Pizza – The pizza delivery person (if they already generated in your hood) will specify if you want to make an order and will name the cost. If you press “yes”, the sim will immediately get up from the chair and a box of pizza will materialize in their hands.
● Chinese Food – Works the same way as the pizza order.
● Groceries – As always when ordering food at home, a dialog box will appear where you need to select the number of food units. Shipping (or teleportation costs) is also paid. After the payment, the sim will get up from the chair, and a basket with groceries will appear in their hands, which they will immediately carry to the kitchen.
STUDY BADGES
Sims can study any of the game's available talent badges using the Hacked Computer:
Toy Making
Flower Arranging
Robotery
Sells
Cash Register
Stocking
Cosmetology
Gardening
Fishing
Pottery
Sewing
Ask Employee to Study – If you have a business and employees, you can send an employee for training using a computer. No more newbies stumbling over the cash register for hours! Now, before working at the cash register, your employee will be able to learn how to do it with online studies.
CAREER
● Select Job – This option allows you to employ a sim in any career available in the game, including custom careers.
● Unlock Career Rewards – This option speaks for itself: unlocks all career rewards.
● Quit Job – Quit current job.
● Retire – This option is available even to teens and adults and gives a corresponding memory. The retiree's status will not be displayed in the career tab for teenagers/adults, but the pension will be paid anyway. For older sims the option works as normal.
WORK AT HOME
The option is similar to "Write…/Article", but you can select the subject of the article and immediately see what skill will be studied when writing.
Also, if there is at least one Monique’s Computer on the lot, an additional option "Work at home" will appear in the pie menu of each sim from a teen and older through which they can be assigned to write an article.
Stories (Creativity)
News & Editorial (Logic)
Foods & Beverages (Cooking)
Fashions & Styles (Charisma)
Sports (Body)
Tech & Gizmo (Mechanical)
Home Guides & Tips (Cleaning)
BUSINESS
● OFB – Write Article is ON/OFF – An option similar to "Writing Articles". Only one sim can be assigned to write an article autonomously.
Assign to Household – Make someone from an active family write an article.
Assign to Employee – Make one of the employees write an article.
Unassign (SimName) – The assigned sim will stop writing the article.
● Interval Time - Allows you to adjust the interval between article writing sessions.
SCHOOL
● Do Homework – The student sits down at the computer, clicks the keyboard for a few seconds, then all of their homework is burned with an electric flash. The sim is believed to have done their homework. This could be useful for those who are tired of children spending too much time doing homework (or hiding it in the snow in the far corner of the lot so that the player cannot find it).
* The want “Do Homework” will not be fulfilled. “Help with Homework” will be but without a corresponding memory.
● Private School Fees ON/OFF – This option is disabled by default. If enabled, a fee will be charged for each student enrolled in a private school. The payment takes place at 12 p.m. for teenagers and at 2 p.m for children when they are at school (a notification will appear in the corner of the screen). The amount varies from approximately $100 to $300 per student and depends on their current grade. If the family does not have the money to pay for the next day, the student is temporarily transferred to a regular school. As soon as the family has money to pay, the student is transferred to a private school again.
Please note that if the option is enabled, children studying in a regular school will be automatically transferred to a private school (even if they have a D grade). They will also get a corresponding memory.
You can use simler90’s Private School Mod instead of this feature, if you don’t like how it works on Monique’s Computer. Simler90’s mod charges $100 at 6 a.m. on school days.
● Study Skills – Lets the sims study any of the 7 skills (cooking, mechanical etc.)
● Study Skills ON/OFF – The possibility to automate the skills learning for any sim in the family. The sim will sit down at the computer and study the assigned skill for a certain period of time, then take a break and sit down to study again. Time intervals can be adjusted. Only one sim can be assigned to study autonomously.
● Study Time – Allows you to adjust how many hours the sim will study the skill if you gave them the task to do it automatically.
● Interval Time – Allows you to adjust the interval between automated skill studying sessions.
COLLEGE
● Auto Move In to College is ON/OFF – When a teenager has 1 day left before growing up and if they have the want to "Go to College", they will automatically leave for college. This option is disabled by default.
CHAT WITH
● SS Member – New online chat option for teens and students. A window opens where you can see all members of the secret society (including previous members who have already graduated from the university). As a teenager, you can become friends with them in advance, so that after entering the university, you can immediately join them. Or, if you are too lazy to look for them with your student, you can communicate with them through the forum.
● Frat Member – Similar to a secret society. A teenager will be able to make friends in advance with members of the commune they interested in, then immediately join them after moving to college.
And that’s all, folks! I hope you enjoyed this guide and found answers to some of your questions about this mod. Take care and have a nice day!
Sims 2: Setup Guide 2022 ~ TS2Store Discord server ~ Download TS2 and share resources with the community! Fix graphics, crashing, pink f
I made some nice changes and simplifications! This guide is a great way to start out quick and easy with TS2 Store's Ultimate Collection download. (Including link - available in Discord)
When you're done, check out our Discord. I would love to start a great community area for sharing cc, finds, & gameplay!
