Warnings
- SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).
- The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.
Key points
- Runs well on low-end hardware, especially laptops and integrated graphics cards.
- This game uses a slightly modified version of the The Sims 2: Bon Voyage engine and most fixes and some mods for it also work here.
General information
- Official Website (EA, archived)
- Official Website (Yahoo, archived)
- Official Website (Aspyr)
- Answer HQ for The Sims series at EA.com
Availability
- SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
Save game data location
System |
Location |
Windows |
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims™ Life Stories\ |
macOS (OS X) |
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- The final folder may have a localized name depending on which language you installed the game
Video
In-Game Graphics settings
- The game's maximum default resolution is 1600x1200. For higher resolutions you need to edit the following file:
Electronic Arts\The Sims Castaway Stories\TSData\Res\Config\Graphics Rules.sgr
Set maxResWidth and maxResHeight to your display's native width and height, or copy/paste the following:
option ScreenModeResolution
setting $Low
uintProp maxResWidth 2560
uintProp maxResHeight 1600
uintProp defaultResWidth 800
uintProp defaultResHeight 600
setting $Medium
uintProp maxResWidth 2560
uintProp maxResHeight 1600
uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
uintProp defaultResHeight 768
setting $High
uintProp maxResWidth 2560
uintProp maxResHeight 1600
uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
uintProp defaultResHeight 768
end
Each of the game's cameras can have their FOV set independently using the fov parameter in their Camera Settings files, which are contained in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims™ Castaway Stories\Cameras\
- If your "Edge Smoothing" slider is greyed out in-game, then it's likely that the game cannot determine how much VRAM your GPU has and is defaulting to its failsafe of 32 MB.
Raise amount of fallback value[citation needed]
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- Navigate to the configuration file location.
- Open
Graphics Rules.sgr .
- Find the following section:
if (not $useSoftwareRasterizer)
# failed to obtain device texture memory size, force to 32 MB
if ($textureMemory = 0)
seti textureMemory 32
endif
and change seti textureMemory to the value of your GPU's VRAM in megabytes.
Notes
- This makes game use your VRAM amount as fallback value. Do not put value higher than actual VRAM amount is!
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Alternative Fix
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- Navigate to the configuration file location.
- Open
Graphics Rules.sgr .
- Search for
enumerateMultisampleLevels
boolProp enumerateMultisampleLevels false
and wherever it says false next to it, correct it with true . There are multiple lines with the enumerateMultisampleLevels so keep changing to true until there are no more results.
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- Toggling Vsync can cause the game to hang.[citation needed]
Vsync can only be toggled using the Cheat Console (Ctrl+⇧ Shift+C) and using either the 'vsync off' or 'vsync on' command.
Input
Audio
Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
Separate volume controls |
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Voices, Sound Effects, Music, Ambient and Audio Quality sliders |
Surround sound |
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4.0 and 5.1 |
Subtitles |
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No intelligible dialog. All in-game dialog uses the fictional Simlish language. |
Closed captions |
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Mute on focus lost |
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Game 'forgets' it does not have the focus when leaving loading screens |
Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
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Speech is fictional language called Simlish. Speech is subtitled with generic icons. |
Brazilian Portuguese |
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Czech |
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Danish |
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Dutch |
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French |
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Finnish |
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German |
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Hungarian |
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Norwegian |
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Polish |
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Russian |
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Spanish |
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Swedish |
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Issues fixed
Black Square Under Sim
Download Sim Shadow Fix
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- Go here and download the file that suits your preferences (0.2 shadows are more opaque, 0.4 more transparent and 0.3 are in between).
- Extract the .package file inside the zip file you downloaded to
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims™ Life Stories\Downloads\
- If you're using an Intel HD Graphics card, the author recommends downloading the
xReallyNotMisty versions of the fix.
- If the
Downloads folder is missing, create it.
- If your installation is in an language other than English, the
The Sims™ Life Stories folder will probably have the localized name instead.
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Game stuck in 800x600 resolution
- Occurs because the game fails to detect the video card correctly.
Edit Graphics Rules.sgr
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- Go to
<path-to-game>\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Config .
- If you don't have a Fun with Pets directory, the Mansion and Garden Stuff directory should have your game files if you're playing Ultimate Collection.
- Open
Graphics Rules.sgr with a text editor.
- Search for:
option ScreenModeResolution
setting $Low
uintProp maxResWidth 800
uintProp maxResHeight 600
uintProp defaultResWidth 800
uintProp defaultResHeight 600
- Replace
option ScreenModeResolution
setting $Low
uintProp maxResWidth 1280
uintProp maxResHeight 1024
uintProp defaultResWidth 800
uintProp defaultResHeight 600
- Save and close.
- By default you can select up widescreen resolution to 1280x720.To force more widescreen resolutions change the values for the desired resolution.SeeWidescreen resolution.
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Other information
API
Executable | PPC |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows | |
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macOS (OS X) | | |
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32-bit[3] and PowerPC only. |
System requirements
Windows |
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Minimum |
Operating system (OS) |
XP |
Processor (CPU) |
1.4 GHz |
System memory (RAM) |
256 MB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
3.5 GB |
Video card (GPU) |
T&L Capable 32 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible |
macOS (OS X) |
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Minimum[4] |
Operating system (OS) |
10.9.5 |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz |
System memory (RAM) |
4 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
3 GB |
Video card (GPU) |
Nvidia GeForce 8800 series AMD Radeon HD 3870 Intel HD Graphics 3000 256 MB of VRAM |
Notes
- ↑ SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
- ↑ When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below
%PROGRAMFILES%
, %PROGRAMDATA%
, or %WINDIR%
might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore
on Windows Vista and later (more details).
References