Willow Greek

Invalid shader cache file - possible causes

Pine's post-processing mod called Custom Post Effects, or an edit by DreadPirate (if it's present in Downloads it may cause pink soup, without enabling the features)

Conflicting shader mods

Broken mods

Game crashed when shaders were being compiled

GPU driver-related issues

(It's not relevant for TS2 but I might as well mention that in modern games, a major game update or driver update can make older cache files obsolete and cause some issues until files get refreshed.)

⚠️Shader-specific issues usually summon pink soup faster than 'usual' memory issues, often as soon after you open the game. If you have a shader conflict going on, clearing cache won't do much until you remove culprit mods.

Let's say you removed the problematic mod, and the pink still lingers. You could wait it out. Well, you don't just "wait", you need to actually play for a while, let the driver identify invalid files and re-compile them. But it can be frustrating if you have a small window of time you'd like to spend taking screenshots. You can speed things up, and clear caches manually.

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You start by clearing .cache files in /Documents/ The Sims 2 folder, of course.

[ *if you use DXVK: clear dxvk shader cache in your TS2 game exe folder]

Clearing DX / GL shader caches:

Don't do this when the game is running.

Don't do this if you don't experience lingering pink - this is not a cure for random pink flashing

⚠️If you play many games, naturally this will affect them - games take longer to load when shaders are being compiled!

1. First, open NVIDIA Control Panel /Manage 3D Settings, take note of the current Shader Cache Size settings, then set the size to Disabled and restart your system*

*This is a 'proper' way, but sometimes I skip this step if I really don't want to restart PC.

2. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run box.

Type:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\NVIDIA\

..and press Enter.

3. Clean DX cache folders:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\NVIDIA\DXCache

%LOCALAPPDATA%low\NVIDIA\PerDriverVersion\DXCache

4. Clean OpenGL shader cache folder:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\NVIDIA\GLCache

Of course you could try to only clean DX cache (or GL cache, if you play with DXVK), that might work.

*You may wonder, why clean GL /or DX shader cache if TS2 game runs on DX / or Vulcan? Apparently, there could be some "spillovers" in all cache folders. And I did notice files being generated in DX cache folder when I run TS2 via DXVK.

5. Re-enable Shader Cache Size in NVIDIA Control Panel, if you disabled it. Set it to driver default, or whatever you set before (if you play 'AAA games', 10GB is the recommended GPU cache size. By default it's 4GB for most modern GPUs). Restart the system.

Tip: prevent automatic clean-up of shader caches. If you use automatic disc cleaning, exclude DX Cache folder.

6. Optional:

Windows DX shader cache might contain "corrupted" files. You can use windows "Disc Cleanup" feature, it includes windows DX cache folder.

Or you can do it manually, these should be at

%LOCALAPPDATA%\D3DSCache

Windows might also use secondary shader caches. On my system these are always empty though (AppData = a hidden folder):

\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\DirectX\ShaderCache

\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\Nvidia\ShaderCache

"CLEAN RUN":

When you run TS2 after clearing caches, play slow. Don't go straight to giant hood / large lots