The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection Linux Wine

The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection Linux Wine – how to play this game on Linux.

The Sims 2 is a 2004 strategic life simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to The Sims.

The game has the same concept as its predecessor: players control their Sims in various activities and form relationships in a manner similar to real life. The Sims 2, like its predecessor, does not have a defined final goal; the gameplay is open-ended. Sims have life goals, wants and fears, the fulfillment of which can produce both positive or negative outcomes.

All Sims age, and can live to 90 sim days depending on the degree to which their aspirations are fulfilled. The Sims 2 builds on its predecessor by allowing Sims to age through six stages of life and incorporating a 3D graphics engine. Although gameplay is not linear, storylines exist in the game’s pre-built neighborhoods. Pleasantview is based 25 years after the town in the original The Sims. Strangetown’s storyline is based on the supernatural, and is loosely connected with Pleasantview. Veronaville’s characters are based on Shakespearean characters.

The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection Linux Wine – how to play this game on Linux.

The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection is a game with Windows and macOS releases but there isn’t a dedicated Linux version. Fortunately you can still play it but it requires some tweaking. But fear not! We’ll guide through the entire process. Let’s begin!

For this game you’ll need Wine, ESync, Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2010 and 2013, some registry editing, and some config file settings editing.

• To get Wine dependencies on Arch Linux and Arch-based distributions like Antergos, Manjaro, etc., enable multilib and then install wine-staging:
  sudo pacman -S wine-staging
• To get Wine dependencies on any other distribution (including Ubuntu, Linux Mint), install Wine Staging by follwing instructions at WineHQ.

Additional system dependencies required for Origin installation:

• Arch: lib32-gnutls lib32-libldap lib32-libgpg-error lib32-libxml2 lib32-alsa-plugins lib32-sdl2 lib32-freetype2 lib32-dbus
• Ubuntu: libgnutls30:i386 libldap-2.4-2:i386 libgpg-error0:i386 libxml2:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386 libsdl2-2.0-0:i386 libfreetype6:i386 libdbus-1-3:i386

– This game requires a special Wine build named Tk-Glitch. You can learn how to install it from it’s GitHub page here.

– Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable installation is very easy for you just have to issue the following command:

winetricks -q vcrun2010 vcrun2013

– Now we have to disable harmless Wine error dialog:

winetricks nocrashdialog

– The game requires Wine to be set in XP mode. You can easily do that from the Wine configuration window:

winecfg

Now from the drop-down menu in the lower right corner choose Windows XP:

– ESync is mandatory for The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection. You can learn how to use it here.

– If the game crashes after a certain amont of time, you’ll have to start it with the large address aware variable. Just issue the following in terminal before starting the game:

export WINE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE="1"

You can also put the variable in the shortcut or create a script.

Now the game should run! Keep in mind the first start is very slow. Depending on your PC specs it may take up to 10 minutes. This is pretty normal and it is just the way it is on Windows.

If you still have problems with the game, you can try the following fixes:

– If the shadows in your game are misty, download this archive, extract it, copy the „simNopke-simShadowFix0.4.package“ file, go to /prefix/drive_c/users/your_user/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims/The Sims 2/Downloads/ and paste the file there. The second file „thumbnails_fix.package“ is a patch for the corrupted family thumbnails Wine bug. You can place it there too.

– Setting Vertex Shader Model to 2:

•  Start regedit:

winetricks regedit

• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D and create a new string value with the following name:

MaxShaderModelVS

Set value of 00000002.

– Setting Pixel Shader Model to 2:

• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D and create a new string value with the following name:

MaxShaderModelPS

Set value of 00000002.

– If you can’t change game’s resolution don’t worry. It’s an infamous Windows bug too. Go to /prefix/drive_c/Program Files/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff/TSData/Res/Config/ and open the „Graphics Rules.sgr“ file with a text editor. Change the following settings with mentioned values:

seti Low    3
seti Medium 3
seti High   3

Save the changes and start the game. Now you’ll can change the resolution.

From this file you can also set a custom resolution. Here’s an example:

– If there are black squares under your Sims, you’ll have to lower the Shadows setting to Medium or Low. This is not a Wine bug, as the same problems is present on Windows too.

– You’ll have to change the resolution in town mode. Changing it in other places may result in a black screen.

– Origin In-Game problems:

In some cases, The Sims 2 may not be able to start due to Orign In-Game not working properly in Wine. To disable it, you need to open Origin>Application Settings in the top menu, then open Origin In-Game tab and uncheck „Enable Origin In-Game“. This should fix the problem and allow The Sims 2 to start.

• Wine version used in the video – Wine tkg-3.21 with ESync enabled.

For any questions don’t hesitate to use the comments section bellow.