My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads

I have lots of sub-folders inside it (71 Folders, 4,118 Files, 1.21 GB).

In case you didn't follow what iCad and I were saying about enabling Custom Content, the screenshot below shows how to enable the Custom Content Dialog when starting up.


You then have to restart the game and select Enable Custom Content when that Dialog shows: thus:


My advice would be to persevere in trying to get to get Double Deluxe to work before installing the UC on a low-end laptop. Your setup is very similar to mine except that my netbook (like a laptop but cheaper and smaller) uses Windows 7 Starter Edition. The problem is that the later EPs make demands on the graphics chips that are beyond the capabilities of the integrated graphics chips used in most cheaper portables. The chips overheat, causing them to burn out. Since the chip is integrated into the motherboard, the motherboard in turn is severely damaged, making the computer unusable. The netbook that iCad used for 6-8 months (mentioned in her post #18) was a dedicated machine only for playing The Sims 2 on, and she regarded it as disposable if it did burn out. I need mine for business too, so I have to be more careful. From what I have read on this forum, I understand the problems if burnt-out chips started with Pets (EP4), so I believe I have to limit myself to the EPs before that (University, Nightlife and Open for Business), and to the SP's that use the Open for Business game engine or earlier. With Double Deluxe, your highest EP is Nightlife, but as the Celebration! Stuff Pack is more recent than Nightlife, your game engine is actually the Celebration! one. However the Celebration! game engine is really just a slightly tweaked version of the OFB game engine. You can add University (EP1) and Open for Business (EP3), and the Family Fun (SP2), Glamour Life (SP3) Stuff Packs, and you will still be using the Celebration! game engine that came with Double Deluxe and it will still be the Double Deluxe disc that you put in the drive to start. The H&M® Fashion Stuff Pack (SP5) is later, but it's game engine is still just a slightly tweaked variant of the OFB one so it should be ok too. (You'd probably have to start the game with the H&M disc instead of the Double Deluxe one, but that would be the only change.) (The earliest SPs, the Holiday packs [SP1] should be ok too -- they don't have their own game engine, and they don't have an uninstall option -- Maxis hadn't really worked out what a Stuff Pack was when they made them! ) But I reckon you're running a risk if you run anything later on a low end portable (laptop or netbook). How big a risk, and whether it's worth taking is a matter of opinion. The Ultimate Collection (UC) has all the EPs and SPs, and uses the Mansions & Gardens (SP9) game engine. There is of course no reason not to register the UC on Origin (as I have done myself) but I'd think hard about installing and playing it on your current computer. I am of course biased, but I have been playing a very enjoyable game on a low end portable for over three and a half years with no graphics problems, despite originally being told here that my computer wasn't good enough to play TS2 at all. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) by the time I read that, I was already too much hooked on the game to be able to stop. I'm not even sure if I want to play with all the EPs. I have heard it suggested that the later EPs may make Sims stupider, and, whatever they may be, my Sims certainly aren't stupid!

I have a little question for @iCad : I play with all graphics options (shadows, reflections, etc.) on minimum settings. When you were playing on your netbook, did you do the same? I really would like to see their reflection when they look in the mirror. I'm not too bothered about the other settings being low.

Sorry for taking so long to reply, but I have to sleep sometime! (And I regret to say, my Sims wanted me to come and play with them! ) Hope this helps!

I have already made sure I have those settings on but it still doesn't change anything, i think the problem is that it doesn't recognise that I have CC i think? I looked up what my laptop is but I'm not really sure which part is the important part : Samsung NP3530EC-A0CDX 15.6" Intel Core i3 Laptop 6Gb 500GB
I got origin and tried to download UC but I don't think it's avalible anymore :/
Don't worry about late replies, I had to sleep too

Just check that I've understand this right: you've got Double Deluxe successfully installed on a Windows 10 laptop. You can start the game and play it. But the game isn't recognising any of your CC?

Have I got that right? I can't help feeling that this is probably something quite simple that we're just not seeing.

You should be able to see quite easily if the game is seeing the stuff in your Downloads folder. You should be able to see your mods and CC listed in the window at the top of the Enable Custom Content Dialog that I've outlined in red:
If that window is empty then your game isn't seeing your CC. If there's something in that window, then it is seeing at least some of it. (Note: this doesn't work for Body Shop stuff like clothing and hair, but all your hacks, mods, custom objects, object recolours, etc. should show.) So, may I ask, is anything at all showing in that window?

You can't just download Origin and get UC. You have to use the chat or call option to talk to someone who works there and ask for it. Then, you'll have to send them a pic of your discs to show that you do own the game.

@AndrewGloria
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe on my netbook it wasn't even possible to have shadows turned on. And if it was, then I would've had them off. I also had reflections off. Since I was playing a full game on it, and it was very unpowered, I turned off pretty much everything to avoid lag as much as possible. If I didn't have the full game on it, I think it probably could have handled reflections well enough, so long as we're not talking an entire wall of mirrors of something. IIRC, your netbook is a little better than mine is (mine was one I bought for $199 at Walmart, and if I blew it up during the time I played on it, I would've just bought another. ), so I'm thinking you could at least handle reflections. I'd give it a try. If you find it lags more, you can always turn them off again.

And I believe the OP wasn't seeing that screen you posted a pic of at all, unless that's changed. So for whatever reason, their game isn't detecting that there is any CC installed

Exactly, yes the game runs wonderfully, no glitches or crashes, its perfect but just seems to be blind to the CC. I hope it is something we'are overlooking thats right in front of us. No that window doesn't appear at all but I have only downloaded stuff that you would find in "create a family" such as hair, clothes, makeup and eyes, I wasn't too bothered for now about furniture and other things like that so having said that maybe that has something to do with it?
Though as I mentioned earlier I used to have another Sims 2 DD that i hadn't thought was working so bought the one i'm using now only to find out that the problem was due to the compatibility, and when I was going through the help section on MTS it mentioned using the body shop to try and trigger a downloads folder being created and it actually created a Sims 2 Double Deluxe folder (as opposed to just Sims 2) as well which had a downloads folder inside, so i think maybe my laptop still has remnants of my last S2DD game. i think maybe if i could find a way of removing the body shop and replacing it with one for my current game that would give me a proper downloads folder but I'm not sure how, I tried to install it but I couldn't find it in the window where you uninstall programmes (if that makes any sense)

oh ok, when I followed the steps online it told me to just download it from the origin window/site, ok I will send them a message on the chat

Oh so if I got UC I would probably have to turn off alot of my settings then (shaddows/refelctions etc), I had no idea it influenced how it ran

If you are on a low end machine like a netbook yes. If you are on a high end one no, you should be able to have high settings and a decent amount of cc.

@dapasp
If I were you, I wouldn't worry about getting the UC just yet. Your game isn't working the way it should -and until you figure out WHY it's not, there isn't any reason to do something that could potentially make things worse.

One thing I haven't seen you mention: when you uninstalled, did you make sure that there were NO files left behind? Uninstalling through the Control Panel does NOT remove all files from your computer. There are files left behind that you have to manually remove. (If you did say you did this, just ignore me.)

I think that there were files left behind but they were ones I couldn't actually delete, I tried to but it didn't give me the option to.

You can get the UC in your Origin dash without actually putting it on your computer MLC, I have it on mine and probably will never use it, but I still thought I should have it.

Ahhhhh, you only have BodyShop stuff! (Stuff you put on a Sim, like clothes, hair, makeup, etc.) That's a different thing, then. That screen we've been talking about doesn't detect that stuff, only mods (little files that alter game behavior) or build/buy stuff like doors, windows, furniture, etc. BodyShop stuff doesn't need to be enabled like those things do. So, if that's the case, then A) Are you sure you also downloaded the necessary meshes, if they aren't included with the download and B) If they're recolors of Maxis stuff, and you only have Double Deluxe, are you sure that the items you have don't require an expansion pack that you don't have? (Like if someone recolored a mesh from Apartment Life, for instance.)

EDIT: And yeah, I agree with Mustluvcatz that the UC really isn't what you need right now. By all means, get it if you want, but for the love of God, don't download/install it yet because it's not going to solve the problem at all. In fact, getting it and installing it might make the problem worse, if the issue you're having is because of dangling files and registry keys from your previous install. If that IS the problem, then you'd have to fix that, as well as completely and correctly uninstall what you've got now, before installing the UC.

Can you link us to some of the things you have downloaded?

dapasp, I am a bit surprised that you have differences between two Double Deluxe disks. I would have thought they would be identical (though I might be wrong about that). Could you do something for me to establish exactly what version of the game engine you are running?

1) Start your game.
2) In Neighbourhood View, bring up the Cheat Window (Control - Shift - C). (Hold down the Control and Shift keys and press the Enter key.)
3) In the Cheat Windows type Boolprop TestingCheatsEnabled true, and press Enter
4) Open an occupied lot.

In the top right hand comer of the screen, in small black type, you should see the game version number. If your disk is the same as mine, it should say "v1.8.0.80", which is the Celebration! Stuff Pack game engine. If it's anything else, you have some other version, and we can check just which one it is.

Could you please let us know what version number you get?

Yes only bodyshop stuff, I'm sure I got if not all the meshes required and made sure that they weren't made for other ep's, i think the only requirements they had were to be sims 2.

I downloaded stuff from MTS, Cool sims, TSR, laina sims etc
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=575176
http://thesimsresource.com/download...ite/id/1275589/
http://thesimsresource.com/download...wn1/id/1254267/
http://www.lianasims2.net/preview.p...&section=Casual
http://www.lianasims2.net/preview.p...&section=Casual
http://www.lianasims2.net/preview.p...&section=Casual

Yep, it says "v1.8.0.80"

First hair needs a mesh, did you get that?
Second and third would need a mesh, was it included?
All of Lina require the mesh which are separate from the recolour, did you get the meshes for those? The mesh download is next to the recolour download.

Every single items requires a mesh. They wont show up if you don't have it.

Yep, I got all the meshes required

I remember something what Marka93 said:


Don't know if it helps.

That means you have the same version of the game engine as I have, so, in principle, what works in my game, ought to work in your game too. I had forgotten that the Custom Content Dialog doesn't show if you have no mods or non-Body-Shop CC at all installed; it is a very long time since I ran my game with no mods at all!

Could you do something else for me? Could you go tohttp://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/hacks/ and download nocorruptdeath.zip and nounlinkondelete.zip. With the game not running, could you extract the .package files nocorruptdeath.package and nounlinkondelete.package from the zip files and place them in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads. (These files are simple mods to prevent corruption, and almost all the regular posters here use them, so I think we can guarantee that they won't harm you game. In fact nounlinkondelete is arguably the most important mod there is for preventing corruption, and many people here will say you should never play without it!) Could you then start your game? The Custom Content Dialog that I mentioned earlier should now appear just before the screen where you choose which neighbourhood to play, and it should show these two files. If the dialog still doesn't appear, then something very odd is going on, and we'll have to look further.

Meantime I'll try downloading some of the items you linked to, and see if they show up in my game.

I downloaded and extracted both files and restarted but still to no avail

Try (if you have not) to delete the thumbnails, and that will force the game to recreate new ones (forgive me if you have done that already, but I see only that the cache files were deleted).

This has probably been asked before but does your Download folder start with a capital D?