The Sims™ Legacy Collection news & patch notes

Sul Sul, Simmers! We hope you’ve been enjoying these games as much as we have! In this patch you’ll see some stability improvements as well as some more options for windows management in both games. Please continue to report any issues on the official EA Forums. - The Sims Team For the most current patch updates, please visit The Sims Game Info Hub here. February 27, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 20, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 12, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 6, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 4, 2025 patch notes are viewable here.

Fixed Issues:

• General stability and performance improvements
• Alt+Enter does not always scale the way players expect
• The Sims can crash if a Sim interacts with the shower while the Tragic Clown is on the lot
• If The Sims gets minimized while loading packs for the first time, the player can be prevented from interacting with the game until it is restarted
• Lots whose families are on vacation do not have a Vacation icon
• Tiles around pools are rendered with original fidelity
• The Sims would minimize if it was not the foreground application
• Aggressively cycling through window zoom levels and full screen with Alt+Enter can lead to unresponsiveness or a crash
• The UI scaling at different levels can be too extreme
• In windowed mode, the bottom of the game window will sometimes default to being behind the Windows taskbar

Functionality Improvements:

• The Sims now has in-game options to control window size, game resolution and aspect ratio (derived from resolution) used at launch
• The Sims is now using an improved pixel scaling strategy that provides better looking sprites, UI, etc
• In windowed mode, the game window can be resized and the game palette (where The Sims is displayed) is scaled to match the window dimensions. The Sims will preserve the original launch aspect ratio

General Notes:

• The Sims requires a Vulkan compatible GPU. Please check on your GPU manufacturer’s website to see if your GPU is compatible with Vulkan and ensure you are updated to the latest driver version.

There may be issues not listed here that are in the process of being addressed as certain issues require an extended investigation on our end. Even though these fixes may be in active review, it’s not a guarantee that we’ll have an immediate fix for it in an upcoming patch. Please continue to share and report any issues on our forums, and join our official Discord community for tips, tricks, and news! Dag Dag, The Sims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/3314060/The_Sims_Legacy_Collection/

Sul Sul, Simmers! Thank you for your support as we continue to improve PC compatibility issues and community reported issues. We appreciate your patience and hope you’ve seen some good improvements over the last few weeks. Please continue to report any issues on the official EA Forums. - The Sims Team For the most current patch updates, please visit The Sims Game Info Hub here. February 20, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 12, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 6, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 4, 2025 patch notes are viewable here.

Fixed Issues:

• General stability and performance improvements
• Some players had difficulty setting/changing the game language
• Some players had problems with with their game save directories not being recreated and, in some cases, causing a crash on the Steam platform
• In some situations the game would not recreate missing UserData folders. The game is now more robust in replacing missing UserData folder in the game save directory
• The game could sometimes take a very long time to launch
• A crash would occur when queuing certain events at the Goth house
• The game would crash on some computers that were waking from sleep
• Text/caption added to a snapshot would not be saved
• Family friend counter would sometimes be grey

General Notes:

• Please note that The Sims (TS1) requires a Vulkan compatible GPU. Please check on your GPU manufacturer’s website to see if your GPU is compatible with Vulkan and ensure you are updated to the latest driver version.

There may be issues not listed here that are in the process of being addressed as certain issues require an extended investigation on our end. Even though these fixes may be in active review, it’s not a guarantee that we’ll have an immediate fix for it in an upcoming patch. Please continue to share and report any issues on our forums, and join our official Discord community for tips, tricks, and news! Dag Dag, The Sims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/3314060/The_Sims_Legacy_Collection/

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45471358/302a50adc172ff302892a611b0883cec585e24a2.jpg Bask in the nostalgia of The Sims™ by collecting five trading cards featuring characters you love. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3314060/The_Sims_Legacy_Collection/

Sul Sul, Simmers! We’ve loved seeing all the creative builds and memorable moments you're enjoying in these legacy titles! We’re continuing to address the major issues you've been reporting via the official EA Forums. - The Sims Team For the most current patch updates, please visit The Sims Game Info Hub here. February 12, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 6, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 4, 2025 patch notes are viewable here.

Fixed Issues:

• General stability improvements
• Addressed video player issues
• Performance improvement with AMD GPUs
• On some systems, walls, floors and other items might not appear on screen
• The game could crash when zooming in/out of Calamity Forest
• Child Sims would sometimes show a “Missing Animation” error when interacting with mail
• On some computers set to 2k resolution, visual artifacts or tearing could be present on various game screens
• The blue panel on the bottom of the screen did not properly fill the horizontal space
• Tiles near pool edges sometimes displayed as empty and grey
• The Burglar appearing could crash the game

General Notes:

• The game by default adopts the aspect ratio of the monitor it is run on. The aspect ratio can now be specified with the launch option “-maxaspect::” (note that underbars ‘_’ can be used instead of colons). Examples: -maxaspect: 16:9, -maxaspect_4_3 or bespoke ones like -maxaspect: 16:10
  • Note that the option will only set the aspect of height to width. It will only restrict the maximum width - it can not increase it
  • In windowed mode, the window will run at the aspect ratio; at fullscreen black bars will fill the unused space of the monitor
  • This will mostly be useful in situations where your monitor (virtual or real) is very wide, but you want the game to be a more traditional aspect ratio
  • Note that there are limitations on how extreme a ratio this will accept
• There are some hardware configurations that we are seeing a disproportionate number of errors on and are actively investigating.
• Some players who have experienced problems with getting an error indicating a lack of Vulkan compatible devices have reported that in some cases removing "OpenCL™, OpenGL®, and Vulkan® Compatibility Pack" can resolve the issue
• We have received reports of “random flies” appearing. This is working as designed

There may be issues not listed here that are in the process of being addressed as certain issues require an extended investigation on our end. Even though these fixes may be in active review, it’s not a guarantee that we’ll have an immediate fix for it in an upcoming patch. Please continue to share and report any issues on our forums, and join our official Discord community for tips, tricks, and news! Dag Dag, The Sims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/3314060/The_Sims_Legacy_Collection/

Sul Sul, Simmers! We’re back with another update. Our team is working hard to resolve issues related to crashes and usability that have been reported in the community. Thank you for your continued reporting efforts via the official EA Forums! - The Sims Team For the most current patch updates, please visit The Sims Game Info Hub here. February 6, 2025 patch notes are viewable here. February 4, 2025 patch notes are viewable here.

Fixed Issues:

• A memory issue could lead to various unexpected behaviors after playing for a period of time (random crashes, sluggish performance, missing objects, etc)
• A memory management issue could lead to random crashes when traveling between worlds
• The game could fail to launch on Snapdragon based computers in some situations
• The movie player is temporarily disabled while we address a stability issue. We will provide an update when we are able to restore it. While it is disabled, you will no longer see the intro logo splash
• The Relationship panel would show only five relationships
• A memory management issue could cause random crashes when zooming in/out of Calamity Forrest and other dense lots
• Blue panels that appear when selecting various game elements (e.g. grabbing an object) would not scale to fill the horizontal space
• Tiles around pool edges would sometimes appear grey
• Importing Sims or Households was looking in the wrong path. Sims and households to be imported can now be placed in “C:\Users\\Saved Games\Electronic Arts\The Sims 25\UserData\Import”
• Improved error reporting
• On several hardware configurations, the game would display a “Unable to find a suitable Vulkan device” error (AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, and others)
• Spraying roaches (and other bugs?) was more difficult than it should have been
• “Work” and “School” icons were missing from Sims portraits

General Notes:

• The game by default adopts the aspect ratio of the monitor it is run on. The aspect ratio can now be specified with the launch option “-maxaspect::”. Examples: -maxaspect: 16:9, -maxaspect: 4:3 or bespoke ones like -maxaspect: 16:10
  • Note that the option will only set the aspect of height to width. It will only restrict the maximum width - it can not increase it
  • In windowed mode the window will run at the aspect ratio; at fullscreen black bars will fill the unused space of the monitor
  • This will mostly be useful in situations where your monitor (virtual or real) is very wide, but you want the game to be a more traditional aspect ratio
  • Note that there are limitations on how extreme a ratio this will accept
• There are some hardware configurations that we are seeing a disproportionate number of errors on and are actively investigating. Systems based on Intel ARC GPUs, and NVIDIA T600 GPU laptops are being investigated
• Some players who have experienced problems with getting an error indicating a lack of Vulkan compatible devices have reported that in some cases removing "OpenCL™, OpenGL®, and Vulkan® Compatibility Pack" can resolve the issue
• We have received reports of “random flies” appearing. This is working as designed

There may be issues not listed here that are in the process of being addressed as certain issues require an extended investigation on our end. Even though these fixes may be in active review, it’s not a guarantee that we’ll have an immediate fix for it in an upcoming patch. Please continue to share and report any issues on our forums, and join our official Discord community for tips, tricks, and news! Dag dag, The Sims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/3314060/The_Sims_Legacy_Collection/

Sul Sul, Simmers! We hope you’ve been having a great time celebrating all of the Birthday festivities! We’re plugging away at reports of technical issues that some players have encountered in The Sims . Thank you for your support and continued reporting efforts via the official EA Forums, it really helps us identify and resolve issues. - The Sims Team For the most current bug updates, please visit The Sims Franchise forums here. February 4, 2025 patch notes are viewable here.

Fixed Issues:

• A memory issue could lead to various unexpected behaviors after playing for a period of time (random crashes, sluggish performance, missing objects, etc)
• The mood level arrows and mood bars had visual artifacts in some cases
• The mouse scroll wheel could take a lot of clicks to zoom
• Some players were encountering a “Vulkan device” error at launch

General Notes:

• There are some hardware configurations that we are seeing a disproportionate number of errors on and are actively investigating. Systems based on Intel ARC GPUs, Snapdragon laptops with Qualcomm Adreno X1-85 GPU, NVIDIA T600 GPU laptops are being investigated
• Users that have experienced problems with getting an error indicating a lack of Vulkan compatible devices have reported that in some cases removing "OpenCL™, OpenGL®, and Vulkan® Compatibility Pack" can resolve the issue.
• When you want to import Sims or Houses, the game could look in the wrong directory to find them. You can now work around this by placing them in “Program Files/Maxis/The Sims/UserData/Import”
• We are investigating an issue where traveling between worlds can result in crashes in some situations

While some issues may not be listed here, they may still be in the process of being addressed. Some topics can require an extended investigation on our end, so even though these fixes may be in active review, it’s not a guarantee that we’ll have an immediate fix for it in the upcoming patch. Please continue to share and report any issues on our forums, and join our official Discord community for tips, tricks, and news! Dag dag, The Sims Team

The Sims 25th Birthday

25 Hour Live Stream

Watch The Sims 25 Hour Livestream, featuring your favorite Simmers and other special guests! Join talented builders & storytellers on YouTube, Twitch and TikTok. Tune in February 4th, 2025 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET!

Sul Sul, Simmers! We hope you’ve been enjoying revisiting The Sims! It’s been super exciting seeing all the joy and enthusiasm from our community for this classic game. We’ve also been focused on the reports of technical issues that some players have had, and have been diligently working to address them. We wanted to say thank you to the community for sharing your detailed reports via the forum to help us improve these games. - The Sims Legacy Team: – For the most current bug updates, please visit The Sims Franchise forums here.

Fixed Issues:

• Alt+Tab or Alt+Enter can sometimes cause a crash
• Alt+Enter can sometimes cause the Windows title bar to be hidden
• Alt+Enter can sometimes not toggle between full screen and windowed modes
• On some systems, The Sims can appear to launch and then immediately exit (no splash screen displayed)
  • The Sims should now launch in most situations
  • In some cases where there is an underlying graphics issue, The Sims will display a message
• Some players are unable to click on various parts of the neighborhood map
• The travel screen, when traveling between neighborhoods/worlds, can sometimes appear garbled or glitched
• The Sims might crash if you are not on the default neighborhood, interact with another Sim, and then save
• When using Alt+Enter to cycle window and zoom sizes, the HUD could be clipped. At this zoom level, The Sims will now instead clip from the top of the screen.
• In some situations in windowed mode the title bar might not be visible
• The Family friends counter could sometimes not be visible

General Notes:

• Several players have had problems (e.g. walls, floors, objects not showing up; game not launching; other oddities) that are addressed by updating graphics drivers to the latest versions. Please make sure your drivers are up to date.
• The Sims game window is of a fixed size that can’t have its basic properties changed after it has launched. Moving the window from a monitor to another with a different, lesser resolution can lead to unexpected results, possibly even crashes. If you want to run The Sims on that second monitor please use the option “-monitor:” to force it to launch on the other monitor. “0” is your primary monitor, a second monitor is “1” and so on. We are investigating adding this as a menu option in the future.
• In some situations, players have noted that music only plays in Live mode. Please check your computer sound options and make sure that everything is properly configured (e.g. on a 5.1 surround system make sure that your center speaker is functioning).
• You might be prompted to “Enable the help system” every time you return to a house. This is the game trying to have you complete the tutorial. This will continue to happen until you complete the tutorial.

While some issues may not be listed here, they may still be in the process of being addressed. Some topics can require an extended investigation on our end, so even though these fixes may be in active review, it’s not a guarantee that we’ll have an immediate fix for it in the upcoming patch. Thank you for playing these games that are such a storied part of our history – starting 25 years ago! Please continue to share and report any issues on our forums, and join our official Discord community for tips, tricks, and news! Dag dag, The Sims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/3314060/The_Sims_Legacy_Collection/

Sul Sul Simmers! We hope you’re in the mood to travel back to the year 2000 with us to celebrate the launch of The Sims! To celebrate with you, we’ve brought The Sims and all packs up to date to make it work more easily with Windows 10 and 11! Revisit your favorite packs or finally play that one you haven’t tried yet. This release does a lot under the hood to make this 25 year-old game work on your new computer. We thought we’d also make it easier to see all those classic pixels on your monitor! To scale the game to make better use of the screen space available, try using the Alt + Enter key combination to cycle through the different scaling options. The bulk of the work was to make the first The Sims game compatible with Windows 10/11 from the moment you install it. There are things that you’ll immediately see:

• Game now supports the aspect ratio your monitor is set to (not restricted to 4:3)
  • Different aspect ratios, such as 16:9, gives a wider view of the game
• Crisper rendering and visual fidelity from changing how the game scales textures
• Fixed several crashes
• Improvements and fixes

When The Sims launches it will automatically use the aspect ratio of the main monitor. Unfortunately you can’t change the aspect ratio directly, but you can direct The Sims to launch on a second monitor with a different aspect ratio by using the -monitor: command (“0” is the default monitor). We hope you’ll enjoy returning to The Sims’ neighborhoods, Vacation Island, Downtown, Studio Town & Magic Town to spend time with all the classic Sims and Sims families as much as we did. Enjoy encountering Bella, Bonehilda, Chip, Miss Crumplebottom and the rest. Dag dag! https://forums.ea.com/blog/the-sims-game-info-hub-en/the-sims-25th-birthday-bundle-release-notes-for-the-sims-and-the-sims-2/11848630