How Platform-Independent is The Sims 2?

[Chairman Greg]

I'm not even sure how to phrase the question, so maybe if I just describe what I'm thinking someone will know what I should ask.

Once upon a time, I played The Sims only on my Mac G4.

Eventually, frustrated with running a Windows emulator to use all the tools for The Sims, I finally sold out to the Dark Side and bought a Windows box.  

When The Sims 2 came out, the only machine I had that could handle it was my high-end Windows-based CAD machine (furshlugginer Solidworks stopped supporting MacOS, y'see, a sin for which I am sure they will pay mightily in the afterlife), so I've been simming on Windows ever since.

Now, after reading these threads, I'm getting the impression that The Sims 2 is even more platform-independent than The Sims was.

So... if I were to update the Mac fleet with a fancy new machine and high-end graphics card, how would that experience with The Sims 2 differ from the Windows environment?

Will SimPE run on a Mac?  (I use it a lot to fix things in my game as well as for developing new stuff.)

What else do I need to know if I want to get back to simming on a Mac?

And... as a Maker of Sims Stuff and a Host of Sims Sites, is there anything I should be doing to accommodate Mac users?

[Marhis]

I use SimPE in a virtualPC environment, and with a little workaround it is perfectly satisfying; plus there is a mac project very interesting: WooHoo (http://woohooformac.wordpress.com/) which could became a very power tool.

The worst problems that I found, and I'm not yet been able to resolve, are with programs that check default Win installations of the game prior to start. I tried to create a fake installation on my virtual disk, copying files, but it didn't work.
These programs are essentially TS2enhancer and a few others.

Consider, anyway, that I own a G5 mac, while now Macs are Intel-based, with better, if not full, win compatibility (you can install _natively_ both MacOSX and Win on the same machine).

[BeosBoxBoy]

The sad and horrible truth is that the Aspyr version of The Sims 2 is a far inferior beasty.  It has a wide assortment of problems with almost every aspect of custom content.  Aspyr's policy is straight forward on the matter of custom content - they don't recommend it and don't support it.

So if you want to make custom content for the game - then doing so on the PC with the PC-platform version of the game in mind is the only sane and safe way to go.  I was a Mac user for over 12 years - but when they switched from real MacOS to OSX they lost me forever.  I cannot blame any company for not wanting to make versions of their software for OSX - Apple effectively shot itself in the face by going to the BSD-clone.  Steve Jobs has systematically destroyed Apple's edge on technology by going cheaper and cheaper and using PC hardware.  The last real Mac was made over 5 years ago now.  So if you want to say a box full of nothing but PC hardware running a BSD-nix clone OS is a Mac, more power to you; but this sort of thinking leads to voting Republican.