You should tell us, what version of the game you have (which EP's) and what hacks or mods you use. And if you ever downloaded stuff from the Exchange; you could've caught a hack involuntarily.

Like MissDoh said, InSim doesn't conflict. I had some minor issues before it had been updated for Seasons, but nothing dangerous.

InSim is just a means to give you easy access to all the features that are already included in the game, no mods.

And yes, changes you make with it, are permanent. You don't even need to spawn the big device, there are lots of sectionals for the different features. Just try it, you can always delete it if you don't like it. But frankly, I couldn't imagine to sim without InSim anymore.

Or you can always use InSim -> mortality state -> planstsimism -> off.

Do you mean you want to convert an adult outfit for children? That's not possible. Only clothes for sims with the same height are interchangeable (young adult, adult, elder) with SimPe.

If you want a kids outfit, using a special color or pattern, you need to open a child mesh with bodyshop and try and fit the pattern of your adult clothes on it with a graphics program. But that is explained really good in the links MissDoh gave you.

Believe me, your nervousness will very fast give way to the addiction this awesome device will cause.

Seriously, the InSim can do everything that is integrated in the game, but hidden in normal gameplay. Meaning, it just makes options easy to use, which are there already. So no conflicts like with many hacks. Plus, you'd need a hell of a lot of different hacks to get close to the functionality InSim provides.

And InSim won't break your game. There may be little problems if you use the wrong version for your EP, but all you have to do in that case is take it out of the downloads folder and all's well again.

I haven't been able to live without InSim for years now...

Yes. In EA Games\The Sims 2\Music you find all the folders for the different kinds of music in buy/build, cas, stereo and wallspeakers. In every folder there is a file 'settings'. Leave that alone and just add your own mp3's. And in game in the audio options you can choose which files to play (uncheck the default songs).

But if you experience game crashes, be advised to look into those folders if any of the music files are corruped. My game kept crashing after a few minutes in CAS (felt very much like overheating graphics) for a very long time until I finally figured out that one mp3 was corrupted. I don't say that custom music breaks your game, I just want you to be aware that mp3's can break and the game can't handle that. Until you take it out, no permanent damage to the game.

I wish you lots of fun with your 10 times better game.

jase429, I have the exact same card (the 512MB) and I'm trying to get rid of it... (never ever again ATI)

Just a couple of days ago a new NVidia card was released: the GeForce 8800GT, which has very nearly the same performance than the still high priced 8800GTX, but approximately the price of the 8800GTS, which has not half the performance. I already ordered it, but currently everybody wants it and it's sold out everywhere.

BUT. It is still a pricey card and it is PCIe and I didn't find any info what kind of slot you have on your motherboard, ThexVillain, the graphics you use now are on board and you'd need an AGP or PCIe slot.

I agree with everyone else, go to Dell or whoever usually takes care of your computer and tell them what you need (RAM and graphics). Because no offence, but I doubt that you would be able to determine what kind of hardware goes on your motherboard and install it.

Good luck with it and maybe you'll share your decision with us afterwards.

Originally, yes. But Christianlov deleted all uploads on MTS2 and now the only way to get ahold of the stuff is at the graveyard. And they are really good items.

Could you please post your whole system specs? Nobody can tell you what card to buy if they don't know what kind of hardware you got. The easiest way for you to do so is as follows:

Click on start -> run and type in dxdiag-> ok.
After it is done with analyzing your computer, click on the middle button at the bottom of that window and save all in a text file. Then attach the text file here and we can have a look, okay?


PS: It's no wonder that with every new EP your graphics are detoriating further. The game needs more and more performance for the new features (weather and lighting do need a lot of resources, for example).

PPS: you can edit your posting to avoid double posts with the 'edit' button under your posting.

It's on again!
I've been waiting for the graveyard to come up again, too because I wanted that skintone changer.
Now that you reminded me: graveyard

One word: Insimenator.

I don't know what happens with your downloads, but you can simply make a sim into a vampire with the 'mortality state' function of InSim.
Probably there is also an option in the testing cheats, but since I have InSim, I wouldn't know.

I can't tell you much, but I often read that it isn't possible to properly uninstall Bon Voyage. So, yes, if your problem is caused by the new EP, I guess you'll need to reinstall everything up to Seasons. If you want to get rid of BV altogether, that is.

1. Yes, you can move the downloads folder back to the new installation, just be sure you got the path right. And no, patches you'll need to install again, it's not a file you can copy and paste. And pay attention to the proper order of installation (basegame, patch, ep1, patch, ep2, patch a.s.o.)

2. Well... in EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/Nxxx there are folders "lots" and "characters" - but don't ask me what is what! They are all just numbered and the only way to find out about them might be SimPe. But I'd recommend to better not touch anything in those folders. But there are people out there, who know better, maybe one of them knows how to clean out these folders safely.

3. NO. There was a reason why The Sims tended to crash every five minutes. Removing packages from the game is not a good idea and hence Maxis made it impossible this time around. You can only delete your custom content, if you have any. That content is marked with an ansterix and you can safely delete items with an asterix from in game or bodyshop and your downloads folder.

There is no way to make the game run better by trying to thin out game files. I repeat, you can only delete what you've put in your downloads folder. The only way to make the game run better is to buy a better computer, sorry.
You can gain a little performance by defragmenting your harddrive if you've moved around a lot of files (save something here, delete another there and so on). But that's about the it. From my point of view, anyway.

I use AlZip and here's even a new version for Vista.
Plus it offers way more than unzipping lots of different archives.

Huh. This game really works differently for everyone *wonder*.
I didn't experience those problems, but of course I withdraw that suggestion and try and remember it in case anyone asks again! Sorry.