[Both games have been fixed] Sims 1/2 Legacy are currently UNPLAYABLE!

[Graf Cedric von Leuchtenberg]

Edit: As stated in the title above, both games have been fixed. (At least for me.)
Therefore, you can consider this post as outdated.

Notice: I purchased Sims 25th Anniversary Collection directly in the EA app.


I can deal with Sims 1 very quickly: It doesn't even start for me (on Windows 11), even in compatibility mode, although even the ORIGINAL CD version works for me (!).

Edit: Now I at least get an error message, which is pretty ridiculous:
"The game was unable to find a suitable Vulkan device on this machine..."
I had my drivers checked again just for you, EA! - all up to date, so I had the AMD driver reset all settings to factory settings and... nothing, same error.
So, is EA seriously trying to tell me that my hardware is outdated? I can "play" Sims 2 Legacy, I can play GTA5, I can even play Cyberpunk 2077, but a Sims 1 rerelease can't handle my GPU? Okay.
So I'll just wait for the next patch, it's not like I'm the only one affected.

Edit for Sim 2:
I reinstalled Sims 2 after the patch, quickly selected a neighborhood and a pre-made family and must say that it seems to be running better. I'll try it again with the same settings and self-created Sim like my first try and then I'll give you guys an update.
I don't want to jump to conclusions or publish false information - so I will test it thoroughly first.

Edit 2:
Now here is the result after a fresh reinstallation after the patch:
For me (1 Sim household) it has become playable. - However, playable does not mean qualitatively breathtaking. A good thing: The errors have been drastically reduced but there are still a lot of bugs that need to be fixed.

- Calls from magazine subscriptions still throw an error, but this no longer resets the Sim.

- every now and then the sim will reset when you use the telescope, but not nearly as often as before the patch.

- The icon of the Sim sometimes becomes invisible for some reason, both in the Sim bar and the large one in the needs. (You can fix it by entering and closing the buy/build menu.)

- Sim memories are not saved correctly. For example, my Sim was abducted by aliens, but this was not recorded in the "Memories" tab, only after the second abduction the memory was added. Also the maximization of logic was not added.

- Not confirmed, but assumed: Pre-patch save data are not compatible with the latest patch. The prepatch version may have already corrupted the save data or the new patch may have corrupted the old save data. I keep hearing about more and more cases where after the patch the saves are corrupted or the game goes crazy.
If you are also affected, please try deleting the saves or moving them to a backup folder.
Find your saves here:
C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\EA Games\

move or delete the Sims 2 saves and start the game and check if the game still crashes / goes crazy. This has worked for some, let me know if it worked for you too.
But keep in mind, there are still bugs that EA needs to fix. so please don't expect a miracle fix.

Sims 2 starts up and at first glance everything seems fine... but only if you don't plan on playing it.

Short version: BASIC features have been completely broken. - Your Sim will be reset every 2nd activity.

Long version:
There were no significant problems in CAS (create a sim).
However, you will notice relatively quickly after playing with your Sim(s) that the game behaves strangely.

Then the problems started - I let my Sim cook something and the game resets my Sim after the food is cooked and the food disappears.

I send my Sim to work, he comes back from work and the game resets him when he gets out of the car and therefore he doesn't get paid.

I let my Sim earn skill points, even then my Sim is reset by the game after a while.

The same goes for meditation, alien abductions and much more.
During alien abductions - your Sim may never return home.

Now some of you reading this may know me, if not, in short: I have been active as beta tester since 2009 and have helped many different companies with many different games,

After a while I had enough and activated the DEBUG cheat
"boolprop TestingCheatsEnabled true" to get to the bottom of the matter...
And oh boy, that was a mistake.

Practically everything you do throws errors, my documents folder was FULL with several MB large error logs.

To give an example: My Sim was always reset during skilling because I had a phone and the incoming call was throwing errors... Yes, you read that right, a PHONE CALL caused a reset.
I repeat again: BASIC FEATURES are broken - HOW?!
This should have been immediately apparent in every test, especially given the enormous amount of errors.

At this point I have to ask, and I don't mean this in a bad way:
Were interns responsible for the rereleases?
Where was the QA? (Quality Assurance)?
Did anyone even test this before the games were released?

For a 25th anniversary edition, this is a complete disgrace for the IP "The Sims".

I can only offer EA if they want to get down to business and seriously want to eliminate the errors - then you are welcome to contact me.

but for now I prefer to continue using the Sims 2 Complete Collection and use tools developed by the community to adjust the resolution - it's not perfect, but at least it's playable...

[LZXio]

They just released a patch fixing some stuff, you can see it on Steam, your problems may be included in it. Maybe updating your game will solve it?

[Graf Cedric von Leuchtenberg]

Originally posted by Lzxio:

They just released a patch fixing some stuff, you can see it on Steam, your problems may be included in it. Maybe updating your game will solve it?

Thanks for the info, I'll try again and update my post if necessary, in any case it didn't work yesterday.

[Bouibouya]

I just lauched the game, with the update, and it's WORSE !! My sim couldn't eat anymore because there was a bug when he cooked, phone did not work anymore... As you said, it's unplayable.

[Mr.CandyKing]

Yeah this update broke the game for me. Aspirations started to disappear, so the sims would become glitchy and randomly reset. My baby was stuck in a toddlers body, so i could not pick him up or do anything with him. I just deleted the game.... 16 hours down the drain.

[Graf Cedric von Leuchtenberg]

Originally posted by Mr.CandyKing:

Yeah this update broke the game for me. Aspirations started to disappear, so the sims would become glitchy and randomly reset. My baby was stuck in a toddlers body, so i could not pick him up or do anything with him. I just deleted the game.... 16 hours down the drain.

I just edited my post. You are actually not alone with this problem.
We assume that either the release version has already corrupted the saves, or the new patch.
For most the problem was resolved by removing the save files from the Documents folder and letting the game with the latest patch create the save files.
Of course, this is very annoying and a pity about the progress... I would recommend waiting to play until EA has largely fixed the game.

[gaming_el]

Does anybody know what the progress with these fixes is? Is EA still fixing it?

[Graf Cedric von Leuchtenberg]

Originally posted by gaming_el:

Does anybody know what the progress with these fixes is? Is EA still fixing it?

I can only speak for myself, but both, Sims 1 and Sims 2 now run without any problems.
I forgot to edit this post, but I will do that now.