#betterfield

Yesterday I did something what helped Sims 2 to run like a dream. Of course it seems like it was just a dream, cause today we played the purple flashing, crashing game again, but after restarting for the 20th time, I got a chance to work on Betterfield a bit. And I can tell Betterfield is getting better by the time...

This is my first time seeing the autumn in Betterfield. I’m in love. 🌧🍁

Hi dear Anon! :) Thank you very much for your kind words! 💜💜💜 Actually Betterfield is a remake of @ousmeo’s remake of @criquette-was-here​‘s Dullfield. When I first saw that neighborhood it was love at first sight, and I wanted that map to be the base of Betterfield (which already existed). I modified and redecorated it many times, this version of Betterfield is the 2020 version, but there were many before. I have to say there’s still a lot of work with this to finally be complete. Anyway I’m thankful for all of the wonderful neighborhood deco creators!

And about my graphics setup... Well, it’s interesting you asked it, because yesterday I was about to write a post dedicated to this theme, I’m just not sure about some things so there’s a lot of testing still waiting for me, but here (after a lot of useless talking) I answer your question. 😁

So, I have a Lenovo Ideapad 520, with Intel i7 7500U, 8gb RAM, and two graphics card, an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX and an integrated one, Intel HD Graphics 620. Oh and I run the sims 2 from an SSD. That’s it in general, but if you interested I explain how I manage to run the game with such a beautiful graphics these days under the cut.

Warning! It’s going to be messy and huge, and more like a long boring story than a tip, but can be useful for someone. (I’ll write it down properly someday)

------cut should be here but tumblr refuses to put it here, and put it at the top of post instead where I can’t delete, sorry------

When I bought my laptop I was really dissapointed, because I was only able to play the game with the integrated card, and it wasn’t bad but kind of annoying when I knew I have better. If I tried to enter Betterfield with nvidia, the game crashed on the neighborhood loading screen. Uptil some point I was like okay, then I’ll play with integrated card, nevermind........ but of course I’m dealing with those problems like almost everyone in the community the random crashes and purple flashing.

I’ve dedicated half of my life to solve these problems. :D Sims 2 really is an annoying game! I’ve tried every possible solution what can be found over the internet, there were always some little trick what helped, but after some time the troubles came back. The last year was intense. There are a lof of clever people out there finding new ways to get rid of the crashing and flashing issues coming with new and new solutions and I couldn’t be more grateful to them. When I say I‘ve tried everything I’m not kidding. And I was like okay, I’m going to pretend my integrated card doesn’t exist and I will fix NVIDIA. However there are those annoying issues with both of them........

I’m trying to mention everything what helps me these days to run a smooth and beautiful sims 2 with a huge CC folder (67k+ file lot of them really high poly). First the 4gb patch and the Graphics Rules Maker. These two are pretty common.

There’s one solution what seems like to help a lot of people but for me it never worked, the DXVK method. It looks really useful, and time to time I give it a shot, but somehow never works out for me, my game crashes whenever I try to use it. But the tip @episims made is one of the most useful things I’ve ever seen, and the one by @dramallamadingdang as well.

Absolutely useful, but somehow never enough. Maybe because of my huge CC folder, or some broken mod, or my computer specs, or just windows 10 or sims 2....... whoever knows....So I was messing around with nvidia profile inspector according to iCad’s tip, trying to reach beautiful garphics with low ingame settings. It was a complete failure. Maybe my expectations are too high but those looked terrible! I decided to turn everything to the best in nvidia control panel (profile inspector seems too complicated for me), and then checked the game again. It was still ugly as hell with low ingame settings. Then I thought what the heck, and I’ve turned every settings to the best and highest, and went on checking Betterfield.

It was something I’ve never seen before. A completely smooth, lag free, purple flashing free, crash free wonderful game, with beautiful textures, smooth edges. With the highest graphics setting in and out of game! I loaded my biggest lots which are always crashing or flashing, none of them did! That was the time when I first posted about Betterfield.

The next day I was really happy, started my game thinking it’s going to work... well, I was wrong, but not too surprised. It crashed when I loaded Betterfield. I took a deep breath and started to think through what have I done yesterday what helped. And after I’ve tried some method I guess I found the little trick what helps me from that day to reach that “dream state of sims 2” again.

So, I have an almost empty neighborhood which I named “stop crashing b**ch”, that I use for testing and etc... I did the graphics tests I mentioned above there as well. So my first thing when my game loads up is to load that neighborhood and a household in there. In the household I set all of the graphics settings to the lowest (expect smooth edges). Then, I load up Betterfield. I have to mention here Betterfield is really a huge city, with tons of decoration, lots, and households (which could be corrupted as well XD). So, at that point Betterfield loads up just fine, but remember the settings are on the lowest. Then I enter one of my biggest lot, which used to be nothing more than a purple flashing. And in the household I turn the garphics settings to the highest again. And that’s it. Ugly textures are refreshing, becoming high res and beautiful, Sims 2 runs like a dream, and beautiful as a blooming flower! At this point I usually test night mood and turn on and off some lights just to see everything is fine for real. After that I can enter to my other big households, lots, without any crashing or flashing. Once I look around everywhere in 360 degree it’s absolutely lag free. Same goes for the neighborhood itself. Beautiful in day and night. :)

The only reason I haven’t share this little discovery of mine, because there’s one lot (Betterfield High School) which is still causing the purple flashing (even if it’s just a huge unfurnished building...), and sometimes there are some objects here and there randomly flashing... but according to the purple game I had before it feels more like a small bug or something :’)....

Okay, what I got is Sims 2 with highest graphics settings in game and in Nvidia control panel (like 8x edge smoothing and stuff...), working beautifully, the only thing I have to do before playing my HUGE neighborhood with my HUGE and high poly CC folder is to load up an empty neighborhood, enter a family, set the graphics to the lowest, then enter my big city, enter a big lot (or whatever, I’m not sure about this part), and set the graphics to the highest again!