Hey guys!! So Ive been a sims 2 fan since I remember myself. And there are still some things I really wonder about.


Now how can I get my graphics to be like this??
Is it a matter of a cheat/mod/setting/CEPfiles/something... or does it have to do with my graphics card???

I really really DIE to know lol.
Whoever can help me, I will be so grateful!

Thx in advance

Can your computer handle the highest ingame settings? In that case, turn everything up, including game resolution .

A good graphics card can help a lot, but it can only do so much (the game is "old" in computer terms, so the graphics aren't as high-end as the newer games), and a crappy old computer can't handle heavy games as a gamer-computer can. The basegame isn't too heavy, but throw on all EPs and SPS plus several gigs of custom content on top of the nicest ingame graphics, and you'll suddenly need a whole lot more computer power and memory.

Also, for screenshots I'm guessing these people use a screenshot program instead of the ingame pictures. I'm also quite convinced that at least some of them have Photoshop or somethingsimilar, and sharpen up and/or edit the pictures in other ways before posting them.

There are a few pointers here:
http://ww2.modthesims.info/wiki.php...Graphics_Issues
http://simswiki.info/Tutorials:Taki...ly_Bitchin_Pics

Also the game compresses textures so they look blurry: http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php...y_Shop_Projects

You'd need a good computer to handle this. Put all graphics options to max. Hide the neighbourhood view distance if necessary. Make sure bump mapping and shading is working. If that all works without lagging and you have a large monitor there is a way to increase the game's screen resolution.

How new is your computer? How much ram, processor power and which graphics card?

Well, I'm not sure if you can get it exactly the pictures. You can get it better, but as I said, a lot of what I see on the pictures seems to be high quality textures on the items themselves, and I don't doubt it's been sharpened and brightened (and so on) with photoshop/GIMP, and as screenshots instead of ingame pictures (bigger resolution = more to work with).

It could help if you post a picture (screenshot - not ingame C-button picture!) of how it looks after you've done the simple changes we've mentioned, such as turning up the ingame graphics, before you try the more advanced things.

Photoshop can often confuse you quite a lot. Here's an example: Unedited picture - http://i48.tinypic.com/b4erdl.jpg VS edited picture http://i47.tinypic.com/5cyp9f.jpg. As you can see, both the colors and the sharpness is quite different, even if it's the exact same picture. That particular computer has very good graphics, as I had it made to handle heavy animation programs and such, but here's an unedited picture from my very crappy laptop with all graphics turned up (I ran that poor laptop to death, as it wasn't built to handle heavy games or graphics), and there's not a lot of difference, perhaps only a bit in the sharpness (which I fixed with photoshop for the finished version) - http://i46.tinypic.com/3fx2p.jpg. The possible ingame graphics are only as good as they can come, so if you already have good enough graphics, there's not much you can do (except getting photoshop/GIMP and sharpen it up, if it's pictures you're worried about).

Katalpsh, your computer looks similar to mine so I suspect it will work fine and is definitely worth a try.

I wondered why make-up looked so amazing in pictures and a blurry mess on my computer. This will make graphics 100% better and only takes about 2 minutes to do. If you copy the graphicsrules.srg file you can replace it back immediately if not satisfied with performance. It will appear just like the picture you've posted. Obviously those sims are all made with cc. So yes it would depend on the quality of your downloaded content aswell and your ability to design sims and lots that look like the picture. If you follow all these instructions even maxis furniture will look fantastic. The reason the game was shipped with textures compressed was obviously so it could work on all computers.

If you are happy with the performance open the graphicrules.srg file in notepad again and press ctrl + f. Search for screenmoderesolution. Under 'setting $High' change initprop maxreswidth and maxresheight to your screen resolution. You probably won't be able to save it to it's current location so save it to desktop and copy the file back to the config folder. Your screen resolution will now appear as an option for you to select under the display options in game.

Back up your sims 2 folder in my documents before making changes of course. I probably should say that it will work your graphics card and would probably decrease it's lifespan if you play a lot. How much I have no idea. If you played newer games with higher graphics I'm sure the same would happen anyway.

It's the same picture, one straight from the screenshot program, the other edited in photoshop - mostly colors and a touch of sharpness.

Your game looks quite normal in graphics. Edges are smooth, and textures seems to show properly. I'd not say you have any big problems. Do you have a non-edited full resolution (big) screenshot? Resizing the picture, or taking them with the ingame camera sometimes makes the graphics look much worse than they really are. And what's your ingame resolution? 800x600 will look worse than 1600x900 (or whichever choices you have).

Playing in windowed mode with the highest resolution can help a little (you'll need to use something like the resolution you use on your main screen - On my laptop I've got 1920x1080 on the main screen and 1400x1050 for the game (the game doesn't seem too happy about widescreen format if you play full screen, and stretches everything. I also play with the "square pixels" setting on).

The TSdata is in the other directory under "my computer", not under "my documents".
C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData


A lot of things can fool you when you see a picture and think that "surely they must have better graphics than I do". Most of those people know photoshop/GIMP, and knows very well how to do the finishing touches the picture needs to seemingly get this quality. They probably also know how to put up ingame lighting, and a lot of them also hunt down or make CC with good quality textures, which certainly helps. The size of the picture has a lot to say, too. If you edit and resize a screenshot that was, let's say 1920x1080 and one that is 800x600, there will be a difference in quality.

A quick example on how something as simple as light, bigger screenshots and a touch of sharpening can make pictures look like they've got better colors and look sharper/better quality:
Only outdoor light: http://i49.tinypic.com/2lbe2ys.jpg
Better light, as an ingame picture: http://i50.tinypic.com/2wf4eig.jpg
Indoor light and lamps, full size screenshot, not edited: http://i47.tinypic.com/ndo4du.jpg
The above picture sharpened in Photoshop: http://i47.tinypic.com/4r9h1j.jpg
Resized to 600 pixels: http://i50.tinypic.com/264jspg.jpg

Use a screenshot program like Gadwin or some such. That's what I and a lot of other people do to make our pictures look better quality (I'm 100% sure that all of the pictures you posted were taken as outside-of-game screenshots instead of ingame screenshots). The ingame pictures are very bad quality even on the highest setting. Just look at the ones I posted above. One of them is an imgame shot, and as you can see it is quite a lot worse than the others, which are screenshots done with Gadwin (it works the same as using the printscreen button, but it saves the pictures to a folder instead of having to save them one by one).

If you want better pictures from your game, the first and foremost you have to do is to change the way you take the pictures. It's like trying to take perfect pictures with a shoebox camera versus a top-notch pro camera with a hundred times the resolution. There is no way you'll get the same result, for quite obvious reasons.

I use "Gadwin PrintScreen 4.6 freeware" (at the bottom).
There's also Fraps, and a few others. http://www.fraps.com/

You can find some more info here: http://simswiki.info/Tutorials:Taki...ly_Bitchin_Pics
You'll need to learn how to use the camera controls and the TAB button, because the screenshots will capture the menus and everything else that is visible on-screen, unlike the C-button pictures. I also recommend having GIMP or photoshop or some such to edit and crop the pictures, and there are a few hacks in the link you'll need, such as the pause line remover.

Read "No more C Key" and "Camera Controls" in the link. The TAB button lets you use cameraman mode, which hides the menus, and this gives you the best result when you use printscreen to take pictures.

Sorry I didn't make that clear. When saving change "text document" to "all files" and save to desktop then drag the file from the desktop to the config folder and overwrite it.

Why did the OP delete all of their posts on this thread? Now i have only one side of the problem and have no idea what the heck is going on lol.

I don't know, but since the thread is 3 years old you are better off not resurrecting it but to post your own.