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Good Guy EA™ ends supports for Sims 2, BUT offers free upgrade to Ultimate Collection

Shrike Alvaron

Shrike Alvaron

Member
All right, after that super long wait and having to answer what my favorite cartoon is (Ah... Pokemon as my avatar tells, but not for the anime as she probably thought), turns out my code was already used? Well I gave her all my other email addresses and it was indeed registered to one of them, so I can only assume back when I played it that I created an account to download stuff from the community sharing marketplace thing. In the end she gave me the Ultimate Collection ("only for me"), so all is good. :3

I'm guessing my problem with it having been used is the same for most people who made an account for its online features and then forgot about that account later when they used more of EA's online services, so if they say the code's already in use maybe do as I did and give them all your alternate and old emails.
 
tauroxd

tauroxd

Member
Shrike Alvaron said:
All right, after that super long wait and having to answer what my favorite cartoon is (Ah... Pokemon as my avatar tells, but not for the anime as she probably thought), turns out my code was already used? Well I gave her all my other email addresses and it was indeed registered to one of them, so I can only assume back when I played it that I created an account to download stuff from the community sharing marketplace thing. In the end she gave me the Ultimate Collection ("only for me"), so all is good. :3

I'm guessing my problem with it having been used is the same for most people who made an account for its online features and then forgot about that account later when they used more of EA's online services, so if they say the code's already in use maybe do as I did and give them all your alternate and old emails.
Click to expand...

Where did you tak?
 
T

TheUnsunghero26

Member
Just got my retail copy (Sims 2 Double Deluxe) added to Origin as the ultimate edition. Very cool of them to do this. Been a while since I've played The Sims 2, but it was always one of my favourites.
 
W

Why would you do that?

Member
Just finished talking to EA support. I had to send a picture of my game case with manual + code, with the support case number written on it. No big deal, though. I gave the info and got Sims 2 Complete.

I was told it was a one time exception just for me, just like some have said.


F.Edit: Wait, can you really easily register Sims 2 Double Deluxe on Origin? I have a copy of that as well as a copy of Sims 2 vanilla, and I contacted support because I couldn't register the vanilla game on Origin. Maybe I wouldn't have needed to wait for 30 minutes...
 
T

TheUnsunghero26

Member
Why would you do that? said:
Just finished talking to EA support. I had to send a picture of my game case with manual + code, with the support case number written on it. No big deal, though. I gave the info and got Sims 2 Complete.

I was told it was a one time exception just for me, just like some have said.


F.Edit: Wait, can you really easily register Sims 2 Double Deluxe on Origin? I have a copy of that as well as a copy of Sims 2 vanilla, and I contacted support because I couldn't register the vanilla game on Origin. Maybe I wouldn't have needed to wait for 30 minutes...
Click to expand...
Sorry, should have clarified. I went through the EA support chat and said I wanted to register my double deluxe code on origin. I gave the code. I asked "is it true that EA is giving free upgrades to the ultimate edition?" And he responded "yes :) ." He sent a code to my email address, to make sure it was my origin account. After I told him the code I had received, he added the game to my account. Super friendly and helpful guy. Weird that you had to send a picture, and that he said it was a one time exception, when that's clearly not the case.
 
V

Visualante2

Member
More interesting scenario to me is: when they end support for the Sims 3 which is on Steam.. what do they do? Offer everyone an update to the Origin version? And would Valve facilitate that?
 
A

Arkain

Member
Shrike Alvaron said:
https://help.ea.com/en/contact-us/?product=origin

You should be able to go through a few steps there (I think I chose codes for the category since it seemed most appropriate) and then initiate a live chat. Also probably a telephone support number somewhere but I prefer chat.
Click to expand...

I contacted them to add my Sims 2 physical copy, and after going through several steps to confirm my identity, the very friendly support rep guaranteed me that the game was added to my origin library. However, it's almost been 24 hours now, and the game still hasn't showed up in Origin.
Is anyone else having this problem? I guess I'll need to contact them again.
 
G

Garrett Hawke

Member
So I just booted the "Ultimate Collection" and the splash screen was the "Fun With Pets Collection". The Main Menu says it's "Mansion & Garden Stuff".
Weird. Also, the download was only 12gb or so. Tiny.
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
How long did it take you guys for the game to show up? I asked them at around 7 PM last night and the guy told me he had redeemed my physical copy, but it didn't show up. I asked him about this and he said it takes about 2-3 hours for the system to "update" (I don't know how, given how all game redemption is instantaneous when I do it).

It's been 13 hours and it still hasn't shown up. I'm trying to contact them again. They didn't ask me for a code or anything but I took a picture of the physical case containing the code anyway just in case they want to ask me that now.
 
Z

Zafir

Member
EatinOlives said:
How long did it take you guys for the game to show up? I asked them at around 7 PM last night and the guy told me he had redeemed my physical copy, but it didn't show up. I asked him about this and he said it takes about 2-3 hours for the system to "update" (I don't know how, given how all game redemption is instantaneous when I do it).

It's been 13 hours and it still hasn't shown up. I'm trying to contact them again. They didn't ask me for a code or anything but I took a picture of the physical case containing the code anyway just in case they want to ask me that now.
Click to expand...

Showed up straight away for me, just needed to click the little refresh button at the top of the my games page.
 
G

ghostlyspice

Member
Vigilant Gambit said:
No.
Click to expand...

It does, actually. You have to set the compatibility to "Windows XP Service Pack 2"
Although if you use Windows 8.1 like I do, there's not an SP2 option (SP3 won't work apparently?), I'm using Windows Vista compatibility and it's working fine for me...

You also can't have shadows set higher than medium or you'll get a black box under your sim.
You may have to Alt-Tab out of the program and then back in. I don't seem to have to do that but some people have said they do.
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
Well apparently I had some weird issue where I had the game in my Origin account but it wasn't showing up at all on the client (not even as a hidden game or anything). I got a lady on chat who got an Ultimate Collection code from a specialist they had to contact for my case and they gave it to me to redeem (instead of them redeeming it for me). After I re-installed Origin it showed up in my account! Wee!

In other news, I cant' believe I still have a complete-in-box version of vanilla Sims 2. I think I bought it at launch way back in '04. This is a very uncharacteristically nice thing of EA to do.
 
V

Vigilant Gambit

Member
ghostlyspice said:
It does, actually. You have to set the compatibility to "Windows XP Service Pack 2"
Although if you use Windows 8.1 like I do, there's not an SP2 option (SP3 won't work apparently?), I'm using Windows Vista compatibility and it's working fine for me...

You also can't have shadows set higher than medium or you'll get a black box under your sim.
You may have to Alt-Tab out of the program and then back in. I don't seem to have to do that but some people have said they do.
Click to expand...

TheAdmiester said:
Yes it does.
Click to expand...

Welp.
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
grosvenor_92 said:
I have copy of the game but since it won't register on Origin am I still eligible for the upgrade to the Ulimate Collection ?
Click to expand...

You should be. Talk to a customer service on chat and they'll help you. I have a physical copy from 2004 and they didn't even ask me for the game's key when I asked them to register it to Origin for me.
 
O

Owningrampage

Banned
god this ea game advisor was a bitch. first she asked me when i purchased it. second she wanted to see a god damn receipt from 2004! god i never had this terrible service from a ea game advisor at 1:22 am. Now i finally got it thank god i can play sims 2 now.
 
B

Baron_Calamity

Member
It just showed up in my origin collection. installed it and... for some reason it only supports 800x600 screen resolution. the older sims 2 which I still have installed supports 1600x1200. Weird.
 
T

TheAdmiester

Member
Baron_Calamity said:
It just showed up in my origin collection. installed it and... for some reason it only supports 800x600 screen resolution. the older sims 2 which I still have installed supports 1600x1200. Weird.
Click to expand...

Copypasta of my post in another forum:

Resolution
Go to the folder of your most recent Expansion or Stuff pack (whichever executable you launch the game with), go to TSData, Res, Config, and you'll see a file called Graphic Rules.sgr.

Press CTRL+F and find "ScreenModeResolution". That section contains settings for Low, Medium, "Mediumbutlow" and High resolution. Obviously if you have a newer PC, it doesn't recognise it and thinks you're on low settings, so look for the resolutions under $Low and you'll see:
Code: 
      uintProp maxResWidth      800
      uintProp maxResHeight     600
      uintProp defaultResWidth  800
      uintProp defaultResHeight 600

The top two values, maxResWidth and maxResHeight need changing to whichever resolution you use. Save the file and it should be fixed.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Antialiasing/other memory-limited effects

If your game forces low settings such as disabled shadows and/or disabled Edge Smoothing, open your Graphics Rules.sgr file (again, in your newest EP/SP folder) and search for $useSoftwareRasterizer and you should find this:

Code: 
if (not $useSoftwareRasterizer)
   # failed to obtain device texture memory size, force to 32MB
   if ($textureMemory = 0)
      seti textureMemory       32
   endif

This is the failsafe for the game where it sets the available video memory to 32MB if it can't detect your card (most likely it can't, the game's database's newest cards are the Radeon X1800 and GeForce 6800 Ultra :v:). What you want to do is change "seti textureMemory 32" to whatever your texture memory is in megabytes. I have 3GB so I'd set mine to 3072 (I changed the commented code in case I came back to it):
Code: 
if (not $useSoftwareRasterizer)
   # failed to obtain device texture memory size, force to 3072MB
   if ($textureMemory = 0)
      seti textureMemory       3072
   endif

Combine that fix and the one in the original version of this post for resolution and you should be able to play it like a modern game.
Click to expand...
 
W

Why would you do that?

Member
^
Hey, thanks for that. I was wondering why I couldn't apply AA. Might not go through with it, though - AA kills my integrated graphics card.

ghostlyspice said:
It does, actually. You have to set the compatibility to "Windows XP Service Pack 2"
Although if you use Windows 8.1 like I do, there's not an SP2 option (SP3 won't work apparently?), I'm using Windows Vista compatibility and it's working fine for me...

You also can't have shadows set higher than medium or you'll get a black box under your sim.
You may have to Alt-Tab out of the program and then back in. I don't seem to have to do that but some people have said they do.
Click to expand...

It works fine for me without any compatibility settings, except I can't alt+tab out of the game.

My GPU is the integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics, and I don't get that shadow problem. The only graphical problem I have is that there's a strange flicker when I pan around the screen, and it only showed up once I changed the resolution to match my 1366x768 monitor.
 
Z

Zero-Crescent

Member
Finally got it and a few other old EA games I own (The Sims 2, Crysis, and Spore (via Steam)) registered on Origin today. My first chat with support resulted in the CSR (after confirming my account e-mail and asking for the CD-Keys) telling me to wait for an e-mail with the Origin-compatible codes for my four games. Three days later, no e-mail arrived, so I resumed the chat today. I explained the situation to this (different) CSR, who asked for the keys again, along with some verification questions. He then logged into my account with a temp password and added the games, though apparently my Battlefield 2 key came up as "invalid", so he couldn't add that one. The rep also sent me a 15% off coupon for Origin. Of course, The Sims 2 came up as the Ultimate Collection, so I'm happy to have gotten the upgrade.
 
G

grosvenor_92

Member
EA support was cool enough to give me a copy of the Ultimate Collection despite never buying the Sims 2 on Origin. I might actually go back and play it as well since it's been a long time since I played the game
 
L

Labrys

Member
i found my old copy of double deluxe, and while it literally took 2 and half hours i eventually got the code for the ultimate edition. dude was apparently having a lot of tech problems on his end but he was very friendly

i was never able to get a lot of the expansions as a kid so i'm excited to play this
 
Z

Zoidberg Jesus

Member
I got my copy of Sims 2 Double Deluxe redeemed on Origin. The support rep was really nice, but he said I'd get the Ultimate edition on the 22nd. I don't mind waiting, but some of you are saying you got it right away?
 
P

Princess Viola

Member
I found my copy of The Sims 2 Double Deluxe, so I just contact EA customer support, explain that I want it added, and then give them any information like the code and such?
 
L

Labrys

Member
Aiko Heiwa said:
I found my copy of The Sims 2 Double Deluxe, so I just contact EA customer support, explain that I want it added, and then give them any information like the code and such?
Click to expand...

They'll ask for the code, and if they have trouble registering it they may ask for a picture of the manual/box/dvds with a note with the case number and date on it, at least that's what I had to do with mine.

Zoidberg Jesus said:
I got my copy of Sims 2 Double Deluxe redeemed on Origin. The support rep was really nice, but he said I'd get the Ultimate edition on the 22nd. I don't mind waiting, but some of you are saying you got it right away?
Click to expand...

Yes, i was given mine immediately via a code by the dude helping me
 
P

Princess Viola

Member
Labrys said:
They'll ask for the code, and if they have trouble registering it they may ask for a picture of the manual/box/dvds with a note with the case number and date on it, at least that's what I had to do with mine.
Click to expand...

haha thanks

i just got off customer support and now i have the sims 2 ultimate collection on my origin account

hahah now to spend hours with this game again (and to think that i uninstalled the game about a month ago)
 
C

ColdRose

Member
I don't have TS2 base game registered on Origin (I own a boxed copy), but I do have some expansions/stuff packs registered. Wasn't expecting anything, but I logged in to Origin today and there's TS2 Ultimate Edition sitting on my dashboard. Not often I get to say this, but nice one EA!
 
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