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r/sims2help Wiki: The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection Guide

# r/sims2help

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general-information

# Back to Index

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# A Note on Abandonware

The Sims 2 was previously considered abandonware on Windows, but this is not a legally recognised term. As per Wikipedia "Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no official support is available. Although such software is usually still under copyright, the owner may not be tracking copyright violations". The Sims 2 is still under copyright, and thus downloading it is piracy - people who say otherwise are incorrect, though it is a commonly held belief in the Sims community that downloading abandonware is not piracy. This was the case even before EA started selling the Sims 2 Legacy Edition. Although it is piracy, we do recommend doing it anyway and link to downloads for the Ultimate Collection because this is still not available for sale anywhere.

# Can My Computer Run The Sims 2?

It depends on which version you want to run - the discs and the Ultimate Collection have lower requirements than the Legacy Edition re-release.

## Ultimate Collection / Discs / Repacks / etc.

The Sims 2 was released in 2004 which means almost any computer will be able to run it nowadays. Even cheap laptops/notebooks will be able to run the game, though the performance may not be great.

To find your system information, press the windows key and type dxdiag. From there, it will tell you about your processor (CPU) and memory (RAM). To check your graphics card, go to the Display tab.

Requirements for the Ultimate Collection:

- 2GHz CPU
- 2GB of RAM OR > 4GB with the 4GB patch installed
- 256MB graphics card
- 13+GB of free disk space

13GB of disk space is the absolute minimum needed for the Ultimate Collection to install. Additionally, you have to remember that another folder will be made in your Documents (under EA Games/The Sims 2 or The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection). This is where your neighbourhoods, lots, screenshots, settings, and mods will be saved. My (u/ProperSpeak) personal folder in Documents is almost 4GB. Having 20GB total available is preferable but, if you plan to get a lot of custom content, you'll need a lot more space. Some people have more than 20GB of custom content alone!

## Legacy Collection

The Legacy Collection has increased requirements, listed below:

- Operating system: Windows 10
- Processor (CPU): i3 3220, Ryzen 3 1200, AMD FX6300
- Memory (RAM): 4GB
- Hard drive (free space): 16GB available space
- Graphics card (video):
  - GPU: NVIDIA: GTX 600 series or later or
  - AMD: Radeon HD 7000 series or later
  - Intel HD Graphics 620 series or later

# Legacy Edition / Oldgamesdownload / MrDJ / archive.org repack Missing IKEA Stuff Pack

## Oldgamesdownload / MrDJ / archive.org repack

If you have downloaded your copy of the game from OldGamesDownload/archive.org/Mr DJ's repack, it is not the Ultimate Collection, despite the name, it's the discs bundled together. This version is safe and works the same as any other version of the game - it's just missing the IKEA stuff pack and has a different file structure to the Ultimate Collection.

The IKEA Stuff Pack can be downloaded here. Once the IKEA pack is downloaded, you will need to extract the folder by right clicking and choosing "Extract Here" or similar, and once extracted you will see there is a TSData folder inside.

Then go to your install directory, which is C:/Program Files (x86)/Mr DJ/ by default. There is a "The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff" folder in here, go into this folder and you will see there are currently two folders - TSData and TSBin. Delete the TSData folder and then from your extracted SP8 folder, move/copy the TSData folder and paste it into this location. You will now have Ikea Stuff correctly installed.

However, some people have reported that this doesn't work for them or it causes issues such as crashing. Clearing your cache files (go to Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2 and delete accessory.cache and groups.cache at the end of the folder) may make the IKEA pack work for you. If you're unable to install the IKEA Stuff Pack and you really want to have all the packs, you should uninstall the game and install it again using one of the versions we have linked above which is the proper Ultimate Collection.

## Legacy Edition

Download the IKEA pack linked above and follow the instructions here.

# Patches

All of the digital downloads for the Sims 2 (from games4theworld, Origin, MrDJ/oldgamesdownload, archive.org, osab's repacks) are patched already so you do not need to apply the patches. If you have installed from the discs then you should apply the patches as they contain important fixes. You can download them here - you may get a security error from your browser, this is just a precaution and these files are safe to download.

# Making A Backup / Uninstalling Old Versions Such As Discs

If you have a previous version of The Sims 2 installed on your computer, such as a copy from the disks, but you would like the Ultimate Collection there are a couple of steps to follow.

First, if you want to back-up your saves, custom content, and mods, you'll want to go to Documents/EA Games and right click on The Sims 2 folder. Choose "Copy" and go elsewhere on your computer (or a cloud service like Google Drive or a USB stick), somewhere safe to keep the files. When you're in the new location, right click and choose "Paste". Your saves, mods, and custom content will copy over to this new location.

Now that you have a back up, you are free to uninstall using this guide. Please follow all of the steps, otherwise you may be unable to reinstall the game. Once you've completely uninstalled, follow the directions at the top of this section to download our recommended version of the Ultimate Collection.

To replace your files. go to Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2 (or The Sims 2 UC, depending on what you've got). Delete all of the folders inside and then paste in all the folders that you backed up elsewhere.

# Why would I break the law when I can buy UC online?

The Sims 2: The Ultimate Collection was only available for free on Origin for a few years. It is not possible to buy The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, and it never has been. If a seller is advertising The Ultimate Collection for sale, please be advised that it is not a legal copy. To receive this version, they would be selling you an Origin account. This is against EA's Terms of Service and these accounts are often stolen. The original owners of the account can reclaim it at any time or if EA realizes you bought the account, they could terminate it. If they are not trying to sell you an account, but are instead going to send you a download link for the files, you would be buying pirated files if you pay them - you may as well just download the game by yourself!

It is possible to buy the Sims 2 Legacy Edition on the EA App, Steam and Epic Games and you are welcome to do that if you wish, but it is not the Ultimate Collection.

# Well, what about the disks then?

There are about 20 discs in total for the entire collection.

You will need to use a program to update the base game files (e.g. Grumpyloader) in order to install the expansions, because you cannot install the expansions without the base game trying to update which will now always fail and cancel the pack install. You will then have to patch the base game and every expansion you install before you move onto the next one. The Sims 2 server was taken down in 2011 which means the disks can no longer patch themselves.

You'll also have to deal with SecuROM (included with the later discs, from either Seasons or Bon Voyage onwards) which is known to cause a whole host of issues, such as disabling disk trays completely. It also stays on your computer, even when you uninstall Sims 2 and SecuROM, and you have to get a special tool to remove it that SecuROM released once they lost a lawsuit. However, you can only remove it once The Sims 2 is uninstalled or by using a NoCD exe - unless you download a noCD exe, as every time you load the game, it will re-install itself (if you don't ever run the game from the original exe, and always use a cracked one, SecuRom won't be installed in the first place).

If you are determined to use the disks to install, you can follow this guide. However, we do not provide support with getting the discs to install and recommend you use the Ultimate Collection linked above to save yourself from this tedious process, unless you are comfortable with troubleshooting issues yourself.

# Why do I need to apply so many fixes to play the game?

These problems are due to the fact that the game is 19 years old. It is unable to recognise new hardware and operating systems. These are incredibly common issues that arise on all versions. It doesn't matter if you got your game on disc, Origin, or if it was an illegal copy. Time is always cruel to old, outdated games.

# Why does my computer or anti-virus say that the download is malicious?

In short: it's a false positive. Special thanks to u/Reblyn for this section.

Windows flags every program as a virus that isn't officially "signed". How do you "sign" a program? You go to Microsoft and ask them to do it. Naturally, fan-made mods and arr'd copies of games aren't signed. This is reserved for official programs and games, which were usually created and published by big corporations, who had the money to go and ask Microsoft to sign their product.

That's all there is to it. This is how false positives happen.

Third-party virus scanners such as Virustotal are, quite honestly, complete and utter garbage and shouldn't be used. Fan-made programs are simply not in their database and will therefore be flagged as potential malware. As you can imagine, their databases are probably also quite lacking. They'll have most well-known programs in them which don't need to be checked anyway, for everything else they're pretty much useless.

Programs that have been used by the community for over 10 years are not suddenly going to have viruses in them, otherwise someone would have caught that a long time ago. Viruses don't just float around the internet and attach themselves to files that have been uploaded years ago, that's not how this works.

Last revised by Mysterious_Potential 8 months ago
Created May 2, 2020
6 years ago
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- PAGE SECTIONS

- Back to Index
- A Note on Abandonware
- Can My Computer Run The Sims 2?
- - Ultimate Collection / Discs / Repacks / etc.
  - Legacy Collection
- Legacy Edition / Oldgamesdownload / MrDJ / archive.org repack Missing IKEA Stuff Pack
- - Oldgamesdownload / MrDJ / archive.org repack
  - Legacy Edition
- Patches
- Making A Backup / Uninstalling Old Versions Such As Discs
- Why would I break the law when I can buy UC online?
- Well, what about the disks then?
- Why do I need to apply so many fixes to play the game?
- Why does my computer or anti-virus say that the download is malicious?

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