🐇🌿 Bunsim

Did you know you can modify your game files to start with custom lots in the lot bin? Did you know you can add your favorite lots to the program files and you'll never have to import them ever again? I sure didn't. Here's how.

Part 1: Freshen Up That Lot!

Locate the lot you want to freshen up. If it's in your Documents > LotCatalog, it'll be named something like cx_00000001.package. [Hint: you can use CleanInstaller to browse your LotCatalog with pictures!]

Clean it up using LotCleaner and LotCompressor (and Magic Wand, if you want). Here's a tutorial. Do NOT skip this step, or you risk contaminating future save files with old sim references.

Make it a spiffy new picture. Personally I like to lump my similar lots together with a similar title/street name. And I color-code using CatherineTCJD's color-coding format. If you want to match me, you can download my template psd here.

Open your lot in Simpe and replace that old preview. Click 'jpg/png image'. Right click the property > Replace. Change file format to 'all files' to see your image. Click either 'yes' or 'no' on the 'resource changed' popup (it doesn't matter--one updates the image preview immediately, the other doesn't). Click save.

Part 2: Relocation Time! *MAIN LOT BIN*

You cleaned up your lot, right? No sim references left? Don't skip this step or you risk messing up future hoods. Clean up that lot!

Select your lot file and rename it to the cx_00000000.package format. You can use any numbers but it must be in that format and have 8 digits. The number denotes the order so get creative with your categories. (ex: lots cx_00000100-150: modern houses / cx_00000200-250: beachy, etc.). You can use any bulk renamer to rename files in order without having to manually number each one.

Pick an Expansion for your files. Mansion and Garden comes first in the lot bin, Base Game last. The expansion you select will denote the location of your lots within the catalog. The file location is the same in every expansion, so you can even spread your lots around for max organization.

Move your cx_#.package lot file to Program Files > The Sims 2 > [expansion of your choice (ex. Nightlife)] > TSData > Res > UserData > LotCatalog. You will already see some files here. These are the maxis lots that fill the lot bin every new game. You can delete them if you really want to, or just change the extension to something else to make them go away. (Catherine has a backup if you need them back.)

Done! Now your custom lots will prefill the lot bin every time you generate a new The Sims 2 save file in your documents!

This will not pre-fill existing games. If you want to put your new clean lots into your current file, rename your main The Sims 2 save file (in your Documents folder) something else. Launch Sims 2 so it regenerates a clean copy. Create a new Hood, let the game load, and check out the LotCatalog. It will be now filled with your brand-new lots. Copy them over to your main file's LotCatalog. [Check your main LotCatalog in game to make sure you won't be deleting/overwriting anything you want to keep (make a backup just in case!) Check it again with CleanInstaller. Do not delete/overwrite occupied homes! And delete your old and crusty lots in game if you want to be extra safe.]

Part 3: Relocation Time... 2! *SPECIALTY LOT BIN*

You cleaned up your lot, right? No sim references left? Don't skip this step or you risk messing up future hoods. Clean up that lot.

We will now populate the second tab in the lot catalog, the Specialty lot bin that holds Hotels and Apartments. You can put whatever you want in here; it doesn't have to be hotels or apts. You can move lots from the main catalog to this one, if you want. These lots do not appear in the LotCatalog of your main save file, in case you try to look for them there later. They only exist in the program files.

Rename your files. Unlike the previous lots, you can name these lots anything you want, as long as it ends in _Permanent.package. stinky_Permanent.package is perfectly fine. Name it something descriptive.

Pick an Expansion for your files. You can put them in any Expansion folder, but personally I keep my apts in Apartment Life to stay organized.

Move your files. Take your stinky_Permanent.package and move it to Program Files > The Sims 2 > [expansion of your choice (ex. Nightlife)] > TSData > Res > LotTemplates. You'll see some other files here already. These are blank lots and hotels/apts (if you're in Apt Life or Bon Voyage). Don't touch the blank lots, but you can remove the hotels/apartments if you don't want them. (You can move them to the main lot bin by renaming the files to the cx_# format and moving to the location in part 2). You can open them in SimPe to check what they are, but Catherine has a visual list here.

Done! These lots will appear in the Specialty lot bin every time you boot up the game, even in your current saved game.

Have fun and enjoy organizing!

[PS: did you know you can not only delete or relocate existing bin lots, but replace them with better, and cooler lots by simply overwriting the existing cx_0000000 files in your UserData > LotCatalog folders? Catherine has a visual guide which file is which, if you want to reinvent them all. The lot bin is your oyster!]

I know they didn’t technically originate in the last three years but now that we have the tokens, mods get released all the time still today.

Also, Lamare’s custom lifetime wants

so many!

Lamares planting-overhaul

Lamare on Tumblr and MTS is currently all the rage.

All of JackySims functional objects

Functional hospital

School project

hello gang. it's me. the guy who stopped playing because pink flashing on my nice gaming laptop made this thing unplayable (we're talking pink flash immediately upon loading a small lot). i've somehow stumbled my way into fixing it(?)

tldr; have you tried using Legacy's Graphics Rules.sgr file instead of using GRM?

that reddit is the only place i've seen anyone mentioning it, and after deleting my custom-tailored GRM and replacing it with legacy's EA-built version i literally don't have pink flashing anymore. i didn't edit it in any way but i removed dxvk (which overwrites your graphics card settings and hasn't helped prior anyway) and i use the RPC launcher's no visualization mod (which doesn't help me with pink flash--it's just better on the eyes) and somehow i'm able to load and play lots without any pink.

other optimizations i've done afterwards that have further improved my performance:

forcing my laptop to always use Nvidia GPU

forcing Nvidia to use max settings (direct link to the mentioned MTS thread)

being selective with shaders. personally my laptop doesn't like Shader Fixes in combination with whatever else i have kicking (probably user error on my part for having conflicting shaders, but (personally) i like blue snow so i haven't done extensive testing to make it work). LD has his own version bundled with Lot Lighting Fix (but unfortunately it doesn't play with my lighting mod so I don't use it, but the option's there.)

i know this isn't a revolutionary post, but as a guy who tried literally and i mean LITERALLY EVERYTHING to stop pink soup, the Legacy GR was a very unexpected small fix. i haven't updated my drivers or anything--but after using that and forcing Nvidia to use good settings, i've been able to use max settings, shadows, shaders, and load every lot on the same session with hundreds of objects. i don't want to jinx it but maybe you should try it.

~

The thing is that the Legacy Edition GraphicsRules.sgr doesn't do anything revolutionary. The only thing EA did is take out all the hacky stuff that used to be in there (tldr: In the old version, the game would check whether you have a particularly old GPU for 2004 standards and adjusted some graphics settings based on that, which you can see in the old GraphicsRules.sgr, but those were nothing major. EA completely took this out since all modern GPU's are able to handle this 20 year old game anyway, so now the videocards database is basically obsolete).

The bad news is that the new GraphicsRules.sgr does not solve pink flashing either. It still happens (although maybe less frequently but I don't have any hard data on this). Source: My own game on Windows, where I've been using the new GraphicsRules. I literally just posted a pink flashing screenshot yesterday.

I agree on the advice about shaders. Be selective with it. I've posted a lot of testing and hypotheses under the hashtag #pink flashing diaries for those who are interested and my current working hypothesis is that pink flashing has something to do with shaders, I just don't know what exactly is causing this. We only know for sure that it has something to do with Windows. Be aware though that shaders do not just mean lighting mods (this is a common misconception in the community). Shaders are basically rendering everything you see in the game, which is why high poly meshes and big textures can be an issue as well (it's not exclusive to CC though as I have seen pink flashing happen in unmodded, empty hoods too).

hello again.

so my brother has been unable to get a job because he doesn't have a license. to remedy this, we have decided to sell one of our two vehicles that were left to us by my grandfather, to get his license corrected (he has a $300 fee against it).

we have initiated the process of selling the truck, but we need a death certificate for my dad which is not going to arrive soon enough to keep our utilities from being shut off.

i have asked for so much help and i feel so blessed to have received the help i have. but if you are able to donate anything to me, please consider doing so because we are struggling and scared and i'm still in a hard grief spiral that is consuming me.

my goal right now is paying our electric bill, which can't be extended due to it being set up in an averaged arrangement, according to our electric company. un-averaging it might make it go up to as much as $400 in summer, which would be devastating for us. our electric bill is $254, so that is my goal. if anyone can help us raise this, please do.