Your graphics need to be set to whatever your graphics card can handle and that ensure that your game runs smoothly. If you have a great graphics card and lots of RAM, you can maximise all settings, run at max resolution and maybe even turn on edge smoothing. If you don't have a high end graphics card and oodles of RAM, you probably need to run at lower settings.

Even if you tell us what your graphics card is and how much RAM you have, it's hard for us to know how your game runs with various settings because we are not there, looking over your shoulder. There is no "supposed to" setting for this game. It all depends on your machine and whether you want to deal with lag while playing or not.

Having said that, I have a 512MB graphics card, 1GB RAM and a 3GHz CPU. I run with medium shadows, max sim and object details, snow on ground, I hate the movies so I turn them off but they run smoothly for me, and my edge smoothing is on minimum when playing a regular game, but in a testing game with no CC I can turn on edge smoothing because there is no CC. Having said that - houses like from a particular creator on this site, ones that contain oodles of high poly CC make my game grind to a halt and are unplayable. I play mostly maxis match and I'm careful about what CC I put into my game and poly counts on items and hair, etc. If you throw anything you like the look of into your game, you may need to lower your settings even if your equipment is better than mine, because high poly items will just make your game grind to a halt. I have all EPs and SPs apart from the Holiday Stuff Pack.

Have you installed a new expansion lately? Or have you put in any new CC, including installing a house with CC?

There is a hack out there that stops this from happening or at least reduces the behaviour. I can't remember who made it, I'm thinking Two Jeffs. It essentially stops sims from grabbing a plate that is flagged "in use".

This happened to me, too, at the vacation restaurants. My sims just ended up ordering room service for all their meals because they could never eat the food they ordered in restaurants. I'll look around for that hack for you - I want it too, because I'm about to send some sims on vacation and I want them to be able to eat out. Happens the most in vacation hoods for some reason, not in Downtown or regular hood restaurants. It's puzzling and frustrating. Vacations are expensive enough as it is, without having to pay for food that gets stolen!

Edit: it's actually a Dizzy hack, which you can find at the Laden Swallow. It's part of the multi-hack-pack and the one you're looking for is food-busy-fix. http://www.nectere.net/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=4e5659d35589f1f2860e2144ab328a3e&topic=1140.0 Get the pack for your newest EP in terms of release order. I know it says in the description that it stops sims from food snatching when your sim opens the fridge but I'm pretty sure it stops the restaurant food thieves as well.

Sometimes if you install multiple lots at the same time they won't install properly. Go into the Teleport folder and delete anything you see in there. It should be empty if there are no lots to be installed. Having leftover teleport files can screw up installation of new lots. Try installing lots 1 or 2 at a time, rather than many.

As for the sims - do you have any expansion packs? If you have the base game only, they need to go into the SavedSims folder and not into Downloads and they cannot be placed in a subfolder or they won't show up in the game. I can't remember which expansion it was that allowed us to put sims into Downloads and into subfolders, but you definitely cannot do it with base game only.

If you want to move the hood and it's residents to a new user account, why don't you move the hood wholesale rather than attempting it lot by lot?

What you are doing (packaging occupied lots) is a very bad idea. It will kill your hood. When you package a pre-played occupied lot, you sever all relationships those sims had with sims living in the hood. But they retain their memories. This is not a "bonus" as you called it but a curse on your new hood. What will happen is that memories of these sims that don't exist in the new hood will spread throughout the hood via gossip and attach themselves to all sorts of sims. Then, one day, a baby will be born with the same character file number as one of these phantom sims from the previous hood. The toddler will most likely have adult wants - this is a corrupt toddler, and I don't mean in a Dr Evil way. And the hood corruption will keep spreading until all the sims develop the jump bug which you will not be able to get rid of by removing your CC - it will be all the sims themselves that will be corrupt.

If you want to move the hood then move the whole N00x folder. If you want to just move houses and sims and not the whole hood, extract the sims, get Inge's Stay Put Things Shrub from Simlogical and move sims out of their houses while leaving their furniture behind, and package the empty lots.

Try this one: http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?t=97214

It's in the bowels of the Apartment Life Help section.

The bed in the 4th pic looks like the one one from the base game, but I'm unsure of the recolours. It could be from Piggis Sims.

Also, I am unsure what you mean by "cases". Do you mean cabinets or cupboards, as in "szafki"?

Double Deluxe includes Celebration Stuff and Nightlife. If Uni and OFB are required then the objects that require those EPs will crash the game. Safest not to download the set.

Umm... That's probably because they were Sims2Pack files and not .package files.  Sims2Pack files need to be installed while .package files are automatically read by the game. Sims2Pack files are for TS2, the SLS files are called something different but the concept is the same - .package files get read, the LSPack files or whatever they're called need to be installed.

You can upload the file to a filehost like box.net or mediafire and send the link via a PM. You just cannot attach an actual file to the PM.

I think that's how it worked in my game back when I had that hack as well. Does the sim stay in the Maxis outfit when you keep playing? Try having her take a shower or change clothing at a dresser and see what clothing she ends up with. Try changing into maternity then back into underwear - is she back in the Maxis underwear or is she now wearing your custom undies?

You don't say what EPs you have so I'll give you a link to ALL the hack versions.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/

Just go into the directory for your newest EP in terms of release order, then into Hacks, then find novanishingdorms.zip

Totally agreed. Stuff that makes sims purty seems to be OK. But I wouldn't put anything that does anything cheaty in there because those story mode goals seem to be rather fragile and keep getting stuck for people who try to cheat their way through using the InSimenator and other hacks/mods.

Actually, you can definitely use CC from the beginning. I always put Alice in custom clothing and hair and makeup, etc, and it has never yet mucked up the storyline for me. I also use default replacement skintones and eyes - no problem. I get the CC pop-up, enable, then restart and the CC works. I have also successfully used Shaklin's univeral dresser during the storyline (I was able to finish the story so it does not muck it up), so hacked objects appear to be usable during story mode as long as they're not too cheaty, like increasing skill points and relattionship values. I know that it's a standalone game, "don't use CC before the end of story mode" etc - I am just saying that stuff that uses it's own mesh (such as makeup, hair and clothing and, incidentally, Shaklin's Universal Dresser) works and does not appear to interfere with story mode. Where story mode gets interfered with I have usually found that people had been using stuff that activates cheats, like the InSimenator, not simply stuff that makes things "purty".

Since you've attempted to enable and disable custom content numerous times, it's probably in some sort of unknown state and confused about it's own identity Try deleting the usual suspects - groups.cache, accessory.package, the whole Thumbnails folder. That should refresh all the cache and thumbnail files for you. See how you fare then. Also, make sure that the stuff you are trying to put into the game does not require any EPs. With the Stories games, it's safest to go with stuff that has it's own mesh and is not a recolour of a TS2 object.

Also, in Pet Stories, Maxis disabled debug mode. Which may (or may not) mean that the InSimenator won't work. I am probably the only person on this site that doesn't actually use the InSimenator at all so I have never tried using it with Pet Stories. So the debug mode disabled theory is my theory why you may be having problems getting InSim to work with Pet Stories. Insim = debug mode in object form (more or less, it has the same functions plus a couple of extras) so where a game has disabled debug mode = InSim not working. Makes some sort of sense? Maybe?

Life Stories has debug mode enabled, BTW, and the InSim definitely works with that game, or so I have heard

Skintones and eyes are available for you to assign to sims in CAS (Create A Sim, aka Create A Family). If they are custom skintones/eyes and not geneticised and not default replacements, then they will not randomly appear on your neighbourhood sims. You need to assign those genetics to a sim you create in CAS or Bodyshop.