Past sims games returning?!

Saw this on a Discord and thought I'd spread the word.

I'd say this is great, but I do not like the idea of cloud gaming. I would want an offline version. What does everyone think of this?

All I see is speculation, honestly. When I think of legacy Maxis titles, I think more like SimEarth and SimAnt and the like.

A (most-likely) unmoddable version of older Sims games (even TS1) doesn't sound appealing, in all honesty.

I'd love it! Imagine being able to log in to a game of Sims 1 on your netbook when away from home. Without having to worry about wrangling with installation, setup, graphics compatibility and so on. Great for people who are on the move, have limited hard storage on their devices or don't want to be bothered with fine tuning and mods.

Ah yes, those people are likely to be hanging out on a forum called Mod the Sims.

The price people would have to pay for the convenience of cloud gaming is that the harware requirements would likely quadruple and the latest Windows would be required.

Plenty of people have ragequit Sims 1 and Sims 2 because they couldn't get it working on their new computers!


I think it's aimed at those people though- the ones who have the boomer desktops with old hardware and software (like me) are the ones who can get Sims 1, 2 and 3 working from the old discs.

My pc is an updated gaming rig and I've had no trouble running TS2 and even TS1. There's a lot of fixes to make the games run on modern systems and worst case scenario, setting up a virtual machine using Windows XP is more accessible nowadays, with lots of tutorials out there.

I wouldn't want to buy TS2 all over again AND buy a more restrictive version.

IF this is true, I'd hope it's games like SimAnt and the like. They're a bit harder to run on modern systems and mods/CC aren't such a big part of the experience.

I have a 'boomer' desktop, but for the sake of being somewhat up with the times, I've had to drop Windows XP (which is the last known OS that could run Sims 1) and got to Win 7. It's only because I don't like being too far behind the times-but I am not going to upgrade to 11 or whatever they're doing this year.

Sims 3 I could probably get to run on this machine, but after all this time I would have to wonder why anyone would? I've never liked the way 3 came out.

The rumors are just probably all of that-rumors. EA knows that the people who would go back to previous iterations are a very small group and they're not going to break a sweat trying to make them happy.

I had to update to Windows 2008 R2 to run recent software, including the Sims 2, which crashed my Nvidia GPU. I slimmed the OS down as much as possible, didn't install the Desktop Experience pack or Net Framework 4. Every "retro" game that comes out, even if it is just a platformer with a jumping Mario-like character and brutal pixels, requires a decent GPU and is likely 64-bit. For old games they add questionable upscaling in a new engine that is not compatible with stuff made for the original.

I recall an issue with The Sims (one) where it didn't have sound, but I never found the reason for it.

You can run TS1 on a more recent OS, including Windows 7. You may need a fix or workaround but it's possible, I still play TS1 from time to time.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with that-I recently attempted to install the Sims 1 on my drive from my disk and it refused to read the disk. Which makes it unplayable for me. However, you can download the entire caboodle (the whole series) from another site (and no, I'm not going to tell where) but it has to be mounted to be able to run the game at all.

My disk drive is working fine. The disk is unreadable. The last time I ran it was on XP.

Edit: that whole caboodle I mentioned? I installed it, and it's not working because EA figured out what was going on and has Safe Disc copy protection installed on it. Bootlegged copy is disabled. Don't even bother to ask. It's not worth anything.

You wouldn't be able to play the game with a disc anyway. Modern Windows blocks secdrv.sys from running for security reasons, which is a file needed for the old SafeDisc copy protection to work. Installing the game via setup.exe should still work though, and the game will run fine with a modified exe or iso. I suppose in theory you could get it running by unblocking secdrv.sys somehow, but that is not recommended at all. I guess another alternative is to run the game through a VM running an older version of Windows, but I've heard of problems happening even with that approach.

There's also another issue on Windows where an "Catastrophic failure" error prompt can appear when attempting to install the game, which fortunately has a solution.

All of the above is good reason for the game to be rereleased in some fashion though. It's definitely a hassle, and I think the average person is going to be too intimidated, or simply not knowledgeable enough, to navigate all of that. I don't see a justification for making any such rerelease cloud-based though.

I'm able to run TS1 on Windows 10--iirc, just one file has to get swapped out, and that's it (and I play from my original discs).

As to the main topic: I think there's a much bigger number of us who would go back to the older games than EA thinks, they're just not aware of it. Considering how many of us are *still* working to increase our modding knowledge for these games, clearly we're still interested (if they were smart, they'd look back and see why we love them so much...).

If they could fix what was broken in them AND allow us to mod, that'd be one thing, but if they don't intend for modding (something that's becoming increasingly more and more clear as new iterations of The Sims come out), then nah, I'm personally not interested.

How do you disagree with facts? Just because you can't get it to run, it doesn't change the fact that it is possible to do so. Your information about no-disk versions is also inaccurate, but I don't know if I can go into details without breaking the rules.

You also don't mention anything about trying any fixes, etc. Running the game as-is is probably difficult or impossible, running the game with fixes and workarounds (like I mentioned before) is indeed possible.

Does it work for everyone? Maybe, maybe not, depending on people's settings, systems, what they're doing, etc. But that doesn't mean it's universally unplayable.

This is why I'm not able to play it on my system:





I found that the copy I'd downloaded of the Complete Collection is indeed Safe-Disc protected, and I only found that out while I was running it using a video emulator.

I've not found a modified exe. or ISO yet for the original game, and I don't think there is one-I'm not even sure that there is a copy to download of the game on-line.

Life is too short to argue about game installations or how one can do it. I'm done with the argument. Have a great day.

sims 1? Make a XP virtual machine and run it from there.

I really liked the sims 1 when I was a child, but today I wouldn't play again, without a family tree or aging it makes no sense to me.

I would like a remastered version of Sims 2 with all the things that were left out and more tools and animations.

I'm physical forever, but I realize with computers having changed a lot in the past decade, that won't always be an option. I've never had a SecuROM issue but I heard if you try to install TS2 on too many computers it'll lock you out from installing. So I would probably jump at the chance to buy The Sims 2 complete on Steam or whatever the case may be, just as a fallback option if I need it.

I like the idea of an updated Sims2 .. but in all reality the chance of me actually gettin it is nearly nil. The reason bein that with each original EP they put out nearly all the mods needed to be updated to work with whatever changes EAxis made. I don't see that happenin as easily now. Yes, there are some "newer" mods and creators, but there are so many older mods that I still use that I'm not about to give up.

IMO, the best thing EAxis could do is release the code for Sims2 to allow for the players to take it in hand and make a redo the way it should be done instead of them muckin things up ... again :D

Dunno about that, I had one. But I don't remember where I found it.

I downloaded a reputed valid exe of the whole series, and it did not work.
I won't tell where I got it, but when the loading screen keeps loading and not going into the game, that's a bad copy.

People don't know that EA had piracy locks on the game, so if you got a pirated copy, it would never work.

Probably makes a difference if you have the original discs (I had the Complete Edition) and just want to play the game without wearing out your discs.

I spend to much money on my Sims 2 EPS from Base and beyond Seasons ( I am completely happy with what I have with all my customs and mods ) especially the mods some of the modders are no longer active. Years ago I had my computer custom made ( around 2011 ) that cost me more money as well.
I am still using window 7 I have NOT upgrade to window 11.

All I know is window 7 have never fail me and play my Sims 2 game very well up until this day or year 2024.
I am not sure if Window 11 or whatever window they come out with will work with Sims 2, since it is 10 years or older.
I wonder are there any other members still using window 7 ??? Who is playing the Sims 2 which I think is the best out of all the Sims game. :D

I put off upgrading from Win 7 for the longest time, because I don't like the changes windows made in win 8 and above, and I feared Sims would be worse. Eventually my mobo died and there were no win 7 compatible options available so I had to accept going win 10, and it was very easy to make it act like win 7 and equally easy to get TS2 to work fine. Definitely runs more smoothly now than it did on win 7, so it was worth it in the end. That was a couple of years ago now.