#stranizia

Dreadpirate’s lighting mod is essentially a bunch of modified lighting configuration files. You replace the game’s original lighting files with their modded versions, and this changes the way the lighting looks. Also included are some shader compatibility fixes.

First, you’ll want to download both Lighting Configuration and Shader Fixes from dreadpirate here.

Then, open up or extract the lighting configuration zip file. Because I play The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, I got the files I needed from the highlighted folders below. Make sure you choose the correct ones for your version of the game!

Then you need to navigate to your game installation directory. In my case, that’s D:\Games\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, but this may be different for you.

Then copy the contents of the first folder to your installation directory! (Make a backup of your original directory folders somewhere before you do this, just in case something goes wrong.)

This will replace all of your existing lighting files with the modded versions. 

Then open up the other folder. This contains fixed store lights, which can go into your Downloads folder with the rest of your mods and CC. I actually don’t have these, so I don’t think they’re essential???

You’ll also want to copy the userStartup.cheat file into your Config folder. This is in the same place as your Downloads. On my computer, the path is Documents\EA Games\The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection\Config. You can also add the lines to your existing userStartup file, if you have one.

After you’ve done that, open up the shader fixes zip file. Here you’ll want to choose one file from each folder and put them into your Downloads. If I remember correctly, the “ea” files are fixes for the default shading, whereas the others are modded (don’t take my word for this, I might be wrong lol). These are the ones I chose. Voeille’s water shaders are very pretty! 👇

And as for Skyfix, I searched for the original simNopke mod in my Downloads, but didn’t find it. It appears to be included as part of the “main” shader fixes file here, so I believe this acts as a replacement (like I said, it’s been a while lmao). You don’t need to use both.