I actually liked the loading screens. Not only did Sims 2 make them quite interesting, it prevented an overload on my laptop. I hate sims 3's continuous neighbourhood because it makes my processor run like it's drunk red bull until it turns my laptop into a radiator. Obviously that isn't good.

Sims 2, all EP and nearly all SP's, 1GB downloads, Intel GC, it runs flawlessly because of the loading screens. I also thought Sims 2 was more 'free' than sims 3. It still makes me laugh when i see my uni student streaking in the dorms LOL.

Quick question, does anyone know how to change what EP you start the game with? Right now it starts with Mansion and Garden stuff pack with apartment life background sound and i would really want to change it to Nightlife loading and BG, since it's much more perky. The Apartment life theme is just depressing lol.

Loading screens are a blessing in The Sims 2. It actually gives me a reason to get off my lazy butt which has been playing sims for hours and actually go let the dog out, or grab a snack, or minimize the game and check my email. It's not healthy to be playing the sims non stop without any breaks... LOL

I was going to say the same thing. :P

I don't mind loading screens at all. I just go and do something else until it's loaded. It used to take up to 45 minutes on my old PC with a ton of CC, now it takes about 20-30 minutes with the same amount, which is cool. Moar CC!

Loading screens don't bother me at all, because with my computer specs, they last only 15 seconds each.

I don't know if this case applies to everyone, but I noticed that in spite of the fact that TS2 have more loading screens, it's actually faster than TS3's loading- and I don't even have half as much TS3 CC as my TS2

I know what you mean! Even TS3 Game Launcher takes a minute to show up, and TS2 Game Launcher shows up as soon as I click on it.

I play all the Sims games and the loading screens don't bother me a bit. My comp is fairly decent so going from 1 lot to another takes about 3-5 minutes. And I like the open world in TS3, but it takes forever to get from place to place and you'll be lucky if you get no stampy-stamp-wave.

How on earth would you live with that O_O I go crazy after waiting for like 10 minutes!



It does take longer to open neighborhoods but wouldn't that be expected? It's better then running into a loading screen every time I want to change lots in my opinion....

The other thing I hated in TS2 was that you couldn't multitask, sims would go to community lots and not age! Now in TS3 you can have Dad working, mom at home, sister at a friends house and brother at the gym all at the same time.

Id like to know if this is possible too. Its been so long that I dont even remember the loading screen for the past expansion packs haha

Nope, I don't mind them ^_^, gives me a break from playing to make coffee or whatever c:
I hate Sims 3, I mean it's nice to multitask, but Sims 2 is just... better, and I only have the expansions up to Seasons

I don't mind the TS2 loading screens. BEfore I save a house, I put it on pause. That way when I'm doing stuff during loading screen time, the houses don't start playing when I'm away. I'd rather have loading screens than no CC. And it doesn't take that long at all. And you are supposed to walk around every 5 minutes out of an hour spent on a PC anyways. I consider that my mandatory break time lol

Those screens have never bothered me that much, you can always do something else than stare at the screen and wait. And I don't think S3 is that different, there is loading screens too and for example, when you are waiting for your sim to return from work it's almost the same as waiting entering a lot. If there is something annoying to do with waiting, it's when in S3 you really have to do something while sims are sleeping. Now, THAT is slow. Even with speed 3.

They should make the ultra speed do the same function as sleeping in Urbz for console. The screen should fade and then suddenly reappear again with the action complete, rather than staring at a sim sleeping.

Loading screens bug the sh*t out of me because for me and my close to 70,000 items of CC, 2 hours staring at "Loading . . . Pleasantview" isn't so pleasant. The only way I can stand them is when I have an anygame with no CC. It's a lot of fun. ^^

I think you are having a bug. I remember many people had it in the beginning, me included, but not any more. Now sleeping is fast, just like it was in TS2. My game slowed down to unplayable levels when I used to install CC through the launcher, normal package files haven't cause me any problems.

As I mentioned before, loading screens were never an issue for me, but I have noticed that there is one occasion that I'm really happy loading screens don't exist any more, and that's building. I'm a horrible builder, and no matter how careful I try to be, I always miss something (for example doors). In TS2 if I noticed a community lot had something missing, fixing it felt like a huge task. Take your sim back home, save, go to map view, select the lot, fix the thing, back to map view, back to your sim's house, take your sim back to the lot, notice something else is missing, repeat. So for me to actually fix the community lot, the issue to be fixed had to be a big thing for me to bother to do it.

Now fixing my building mistakes is so much easier and I can do it on the fly. There is probably as many button clicks that there were in TS2 to go from your game to the lot in build mode but it's still a much more pleasant experience, and I can do it without actually exiting my household. Also spotting building mistakes is easier when you can roam you hood while your sim is at work or skilling.

My first Sims game was Castaway and in the first hours of playing, half of the time was purely loading screens
Then I got a new laptop, and since Castaway was laptop friendly (dont know how else to rephrase that) I got much more out of the game. And now with a new comp it loading isnt a hassle. I particularly loved the little icons in the background

I love the sims 2, but the loading screens are a minus. Its not just the game, the neighborhood, the sub-hood, the house, and the lots you visit. Its the makeover menu, the shopping menus for clothes, your sims phone book etc...ad nauseum. Of course you multi-task during the loading screens, but I still just wish they weren't there.

I really dont mind the loading screens at all, for me they are not that long despite over 1GB cc and running on the memory hog that is vista. What irks me is the stupid little lags caused by grand witches, that batty match maker and the unsavoury charlatan. I have seldom been tempted to buy sims 3 and each time I have I go read the sims 3 forums and realise something I dearly love is missing from the sequel and go happily back to sims 2.

I don't mind loading screens, and I prefer TS2 over TS3 in general because: !) sims look better in TS2; 2) TS2 is a complete game with a lot of opportunities; 2) my PC is to weak for TS3. However, it irritates me that loading screens are so long. I have all EPs and SPs, and nearly 7 Gb of CC, so it takes 20 to 20 minutes to load the game, nearly 3 minutes to load a ousehold, and even more to send a sim to a community lot, but still my sims attend community lots often, because I want them to have a lot of communication and entertainment, and it is better to do this on community lots rather than wasting time at home.

I can stand all the loading screens for one reason: The Sims, in any version, has extremely low requirements. There are flash games which lag more on my PC than TS2. I think the good solution for long loading would be making enormous caches, don't know why creators didn't thought of it. Maybe managing such cache would be too difficult for most casual gamers; maybe it's not so easy to implement or practical how I think

No, that's pretty much my experience too. I have about.... 10 pieces of CC in my TS3 folder? Versus the millions in my TS2. IMO, the texture rendering in TS3 IS my loading screen (which is why my TS3 sims never leave home).

Well, my laptop doesn't even meet the Sims 3 base games minimum requirements, and I have still played it (with expansions) for years on medium - high settings, in spite of the problems that causes (glitches, lagging, and crashing to name a few). I also download waaay more CC than I should, which makes the loading screen to get into the game about 30 minutes. All in all, I could see why they would want to make it so that Sims 4 is capable of running halfway decent on less shitty computers considering that some people like me are stubborn a**holes who won't stop playing a game just because it won't work right on their computer. >_>

A lot of times, I switch back to the Sims 2 for the simple fact that it is easier for me to wait for about 2 minutes for a loading screen to go downtown than it is to wait 30 minutes to get into a game which, in spite of being a seamless 'hood, runs like horse sh*t being thrown at a fan. Not only that, but I can run the game at higher settings, feed my CC addiction, and experience little or no lag during gameplay. Besides, we all know that the Sims 2 had some great aspects that were nowhere to be found in the Sims 3.

I don't understand the problem here? Or rather, it seems to be up to the simmer how they prefer their games to load.

I stopped playing TS3 when it would take *literally* ten minutes for a town to load for me (with very little CC), and I don't exactly have a low end computer. Decent dedicated graphics, 8gb of ram, newly upgraded harddrive etc. And the "seamless" neighborhood chugged like no tomorrow when panning around. Even the Overwatch mod couldn't save my game. Give me lot-oriented loading screens any day. Or a seamless world without the crippling CAST ;D (TS4 not having CAST is a blessing for me)

I'm pretty much in and out with TS2, once things load the first time, it's a zippy little game.

My loading screens aren't that bad, even with everything installed and with a lot of CC (although I deleted a lot). It only sucks when I want to play TS2 and have to wait, while my fiance is busy playing his games and then when TS2 finally loads, he's all like: "Bored, wanna watch Star Trek or play Killing Floor?" xD