What is no longer installed? The patch or the game?

@Loving-Em: I have the r9 390 (8gb model) graphics card as well, but on the windows 10 build 1607. I had issues (pink flashing, crashing..) on February, on windows 10 build 1709. I haven't tried their newest build yet, since I got my sims back to working perfectly by rolling back. Haven't installed the latest AMD drivers either. Just happy to be back to playing. Hope that you get your problem solved!

I tried rolling back but it didn't work... I only tried rolling back the card driver though. Could this be a specific windows 7/radeon thing? I have to admit I'm not sure what you mean by build haha I'm not up on terminology, barely know enough to get myself into trouble with all this :P
I'd give just about anything to have my sims back, it's killin me.

Regarding the builds: Microsoft releases these bigger updates called feature updates twice a year for Windows 10, which are usually named like "spring creators update 2017", which was Windows 10 build 1703. For me, the 2017 Fall creators update screwed Sims 2 on my computer.

You said that you noticed sims 2 issues "Back at the end of November 2017", right? I searched, and there was a monthly update at 14th of November 2017 for Windows 7. So it was either that or a graphics card update around that time (or both), which might be jamming your game? There were multiple updates to Amd Radeon software on November apparently, the first one being version 17.11.1. Have you tried rolling back to versions before that? Or the latest one ( 18.5.1 )? I read that you have tried:

"With the new Windows update my game actually improved a small bit, and I thought rolling back the card driver would fix it the rest of the way. Driver from November brought back the original issue, after updating to that most recent April update (18.4.1), the problem persisted. I had to roll back the driver to 18.2.1."

I did find this while researching this matter: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/commen...tx_9_support_a/
Quote from the site: "I'm sure you have all read about AMD's latest mistake, breaking DirectX 9 support for many games in the latest Adrenalin drivers for Radeon cards on Windows 10, Windows 7 and probably also Windows 8 (please confirm!) and basically not caring about it until now, new drivers are in the pipeline:"

That sounds what might have caused the problems, since Sims 2 is a directx9 game and the timing is about right, that topic was posted 5 months ago. And switching from AMD to NVIDIA card helped JoandSarah77. I hope that will be of help to you and others with the same issue!

One more question, if rolling back graphics drivers doesn't help: Have you made a clean uninstall of the drivers with DDU? Sometimes there's something left of the old drivers that cause trouble. That's a bit technical though, so you may want to ask a friend to do it if you're unsure how (Although there are good tutorials for it on the internet, but things may go wrong during it)

I am sure it is part of the issue. The really odd thing about it was when I got my computer in February the game worked on the AMD card that I had. Yet after the updates even uninstalling the driver and installing it with the disk that came with my computer and reinstalling DirectX9 did not fix the issue. Only changing the card out to the Nvidia solved it.

Thank you for the lovely video! I followed both steps and my free memory went up drastically by several gigs. Hopefully no more random crashes!

I've tried several versions, 17.11.1 being one of them and earlier, and even one from last spring. I haven't tested it on this latest driver update (or with the latest windows update), I really need to, just can't work myself up to being disappointed again. I had found that Directx9 thing, my post on leefish is actually linked on here haha and it absolutely corresponds. Wouldn't be surprised if the windows update in November started the process and then that update sealed the deal.

I have made full uninstalls with a few of my tests, using a ddu. Doesn't seem to have made a difference though.
My next step is to see if anything has changed with the most recent amd update (18.5.1). I'll let you know if anything changes Thank you thank you thank you for your help. This crap can get overwhelming, and it's awesome havin people who actually know what I'm talking about haha

Hi, I just attempted to apply the 4gb patch to my Ultimate collection Sims2Ep9 .exe following the video. But now I get an error message saying something about Core/Activation.dlll missing. I am using ultimate collection in windows 10, the new updated version. i dont know what im doing wrong. im now reinstalling my game.does anyone know how to fix this? I saw that @thewrittenletter was having this problem too, but they never said they found a solution.

Hey there. Jo sent me here, as I've been having the weird graphical issues (no flashing, but blank thumbnails, plus it freezes when finishing in CAS and confirming). I have the UC on a Windows 7 computer with AMD HD 7700 graphics. It was working fine before maybe late last year, and I can't roll back my drivers.
I posted in the Silly Questions thread about what I've done to fix it with no luck. Plus my memory shows 4gb in the config log. So I don't know what to do now.

Hi Jessa!

First time commenter, fist time viewer, and your video is awesome! I was playing with S2UC + S2Store Edition augmented, and since I couldn't get the 4gb patch to work (stuck at 2048mb memory - though it did double from 1024 to2048 when I moved the .exe to the CSBin file...strange...), the standby memory clearing had no effect, as you promised. I therefore went and manually uninstalled all Sims 2 content and redownloaded just the UC from Origin, and the 4gb patch worked as advertised, even without moving to the CSBin, and without having to get the more malleable .exe from Leefish. As you might've guessed, playing with UC without Store Edition added on means my custom neighborhoods aren't playable here.

I realize I may need to start over if I want a crash-free game, but I wanted to get your advice to see if re-installing (manually) Store Edition would allow me to keep the 4096MB of memory. I somehow doubt it, and if it doesn't work, I may have to re-start the process again.

As a side note, in uninstalling some content I must've done something wrong that corrupted my system and I had to do a system restore. No data was lost, thankfully, but the task I set up for the Standby clearing has been lost. Should I re-do this?

Thanks! Also your voice is very calming.

Yeup, still having issues with the most recent Radeon driver and windows. At this point I'm just throwing in the towel. Don't think there's anything for it but getting a new graphics card.

I am having issues as well. It has to be the WIndows update for me. A year ago I was playing Sims 2 with no issues at all. I just recently installed it again. After about 30 - 45 minutes in. The game just crashes... I have tried almost everything. The 4 gig patch, it patched successfully. But still, the crash happened. I'm running an nvidia gtx 1050 TI. If anyone has any advice, I would appreciate it. I love Sims 2, I just want to play my favorite game with no issues.

Same here. I miss playing it but guess I'll stick to sims 3.

I get still get crashes too, every time the game's RAM usage goes near 2gb (1 918mb for example). I monitor it with resource manager to see how much it's using and I've noticed that pattern. How much RAM does everyone else's game use regularly? I've followed Jessa's instructions (thank you Jessa!). For system, I have Windows 10, build 1607, Amd radeon r9 390 8gb craphics card, 32GB RAM and AMD fx 8350 8-core 4ghz CPU.

Hey! So not sure if you've read through the last few pages, but a few of us found that for whatever reason the radeon r9 series cards (mine is a r9 390) have completely broke when it comes to sims. We've been searching for causes and fixes, but we only got so far has speculating that it was a combination of windows and amd updates. We've not found any solutions besides getting a new card (I'd suggest nividia since that seems to have solved the issue).

When did the crashes start for you? And are you getting the weird graphic glitch as well?

Thank you so much for this wonderful tutorial!

For Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, I found instructions for applying the 4GB patch at THIS LINK .

Using these instructions, I was able to apply the patch successfully and the game started, HOWEVER, my logs folder/config files did not show the desired 4096 for memory. I tried moving the .exe file (the one noted in the linked instructions for the Ultimate Collection is Sims2EP9) from the TSbin to the CSbin as per the OP tutorial, created a shortcut, clicked on the shortcut and got an error message that says "The code execution cannot proceed because Core/Activation.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem."

I tried moving the "core" folder from the TSbin to the CSbin and the game still would not run and I got this error message: "ERROR LAUNCHING GAME. The game The Sims2 Ultimate Collection does not appear to be installed. Please install it or try relaunching the game." So I moved the rest of the .dll files from TSbin to CSbin and still no luck.

I was about to have a heart attack but then I rebooted my comp and the game ran fine. It was not having the same glitches I encountered prior to installing the patch, however, my memory still does not show the 4096 number.

Update: My game has been playing very well and not crashing since I applied the patch two days ago, however the memory still does not show 4096.

Great tutorial

Unfortunately I've tried everything, but can't get the 4GB patch to apply (Latest expansion is apartment life disc version).

@MuffinMan707

I also followed the tutorial, but the 4GB patch just doesn't want to apply. I have M&G (disc version).

Hi! Thanks for your reply Loving-Em! I have a thread detailing my earlier problem and testing here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=608748
But here's the short version: I had last played around November 2017 and in March 2018 when I came back to the sims 2, I had very harsh pink flashing and crashing. I solved it by rolling back to earlier Windows 10 version.

The game is playing nice now, except when it reaches ~2gb RAM usage, then it crashes. My ISBI neighborhood has grown so much that it's been more frequent. I have read about the AMD problems that came around that time (November 2017) and updating the drivers seem to have helped in my case in conjunction to rolling back the Windows. I'm still trying to solve the 2gb RAM usage problem though.

Can someone help me apply the 4GB patch?

@Yvelotic2001 What error are you getting?

Make a safe copy of your executable first.

Then, drag the exe to your desktop and try applying the patch there. Drag it back to the original location when done.

I didn't actually get any error. I tried applying the patch but everytime I check, the config log still says 2048MB (sometimes it said 1024MB, which I then reverted to the original exe - 2048MB).
So far I haven't run into many problems with the game (it lags a bit, not much, on larger lots or more densely decorated lots and crashed only when I was building a skyscraper which I haven't touched again since), but I would prefer to improve performance either way.

Yvelotic2001 from your last post, it looks as though the patch was applied correctly. My config log still reads 2048MB RAM (or thereabouts), but the lag and crashes have diminished significantly since installing. I can now play the Goth Mansion, which was something I couldn't do before installing the patch - it was crashing within minutes!

You may also find that adding " -CPUCount:1" to the end of your shortcut filepath (find it in Properties) helps with the lag - that forces the game to only use one core ie the type of processor it was designed for. It did for me.

I installed the Ultimate Collection and applied the patch, everything's now working fine. It says 4096 on both.

Hi again. I am still using a Toshiba Satellite C55-B running Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1. It has an Intel i3-3217U CPU @1.80GHz with 8.00 GB installed memory and a 64-bit OS. I have all the EPs and SPs, but not UC. I have set my EmptyStandbyList.exe to clear caches every 15 minutes. I have repeatedly tried patching both my original .exe and the one from Leefish on the desktop, in the TSBin, in the CSBin, and in the folder where I extracted the .rar. I re-downloaded the patch and the .exe, on the remote chance one or the other had become corrupted, and went through the whole process again. (I have patched it in my house, I have patched it with my mouse, I have patched it here and there, I have patched it everywhere...sorry. I have to joke to keep from crying.) Both the Sims .exe and the 4GB patch have admin privileges. Despite claiming each and every time, "Executable successfully patched!" I'm still stuck at 1024MB. I looked at the .exe in CFF and it says the app can handle >2gb address space. Does the 4GB patch do more than make sure that Nt header is checked? If not, then my .exe actually has been successfully patched and I have a different problem: the game can't find/access my memory. Any fixes, any ideas, would be greatly appreciated. I am so very tired of crashing.

Edited to add: I also ran testlimit.exe from the command line, and Windows is releasing the full 4GB. To me that strongly suggests the problem lies within the game itself.