WineHQ

The Sims 2

A sample version of The Sims 2: Body Shop. This Create-A-Sim tool can create and customise Sims that can later be transferred to the full game.

Application Details:

Version: Demo
License: Demo
URL: https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games...
Votes: 1
Latest Rating: Bronze
Latest Wine Version Tested: 4.21-staging

Maintainers: About Maintainership

Free Download Archived Download Link

Test Results

Old test results
The test results you have selected are very old and may not represent the current state of Wine.
Selected Test Results

What works

  • Installation.

What does not

  • Playing the game.

Workarounds

What was not tested

  • Everything else.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

  • GPU: Intel
  • Driver: open source

Additional Comments

The application crashes with the following error:

---
Direct3D returned an error: D3DERR_INVALIDCALL!
The application will now terminate...
---

Following is the final line of the output text on the terminal:

---
:::
fixme:ddraw:ddraw7_Initialize Ignoring guid {aeb2cdd4-6e41-43ea-941c-8361cc760781}.
err:winediag:MIDIMAP_drvOpen No software synthesizer midi port found, Midi sound output probably won't work.
fixme:d3d:wined3d_check_device_format_conversion wined3d 0x23c70d8, adapter_idx 0, device_type WINED3D_DEVICE_TYPE_HAL, src_format WINED3DFMT_B8G8R8X8_UNORM, dst_format WINED3DFMT_B8G8R8X8_UNORM stub!
fixme:d3d:wined3d_device_set_software_vertex_processing device 0x2321998, software 0x1 stub!

selected in Test Results table below
Operating systemTest dateWine versionInstalls?Runs?Used
Workaround?
RatingSubmitter
ShowArch LinuxDec 15 20194.21-stagingYes Yes YesBronzeDmytro Kropenko 
CurrentSlackware -currentFeb 06 20204.0.3Yes No NoGarbageMaxim-007 
ShowArch Linux x86_64Jul 14 20194.12.1-stagingYes Yes YesBronzeDmytro Kropenko 
ShowSlackware -currentOct 13 20183.0.3Yes No NoGarbageMaxim-007 
ShowSlackware -currentJun 29 20183.0.1Yes No NoGarbageMaxim-007 

Known Bugs

Bug # Description Status Resolution Other apps affected
8051 The Sims 2 demo needs support for software vertex processing STAGED View
46742 The Sims 2 demo needs support for ProcessVertices() with software vertex shaders NEW View

Show all bugs

HowTo / Notes

Other ways to run The Sims 2

This game does not run under regular Wine. The game crashes with D3DERR_INVALIDCALL because The Sims 2 requests 1024 vertex shader constants, but Wine has a hardcoded limit of 256. Direct3D 9 normally supports up to 8192, using hardware shaders first (where available), followed by software emulation. Software emulation is not currently supported in Wine.

Wine Staging helps improve the situation, but may result in an unstable gameplay as reflected in test reports.

Below documents some third party solutions, which cannot be submitted as test reports here.


1. DXVK

If you have a Vulkan-enabled graphic card, install dxvk through Winetricks and enjoy a fully playable experience without much (if any) glitches specific to Wine. DXVK is a Direct3D to Vulkan translation layer.

Note that Steam's Proton includes DXVK, which may work too.


2. Lutris

Lutris is a platform for installing games in a unified interface on Linux, an installer is available for this game.


3. Manually patching Wine

There is an old repository that documents patches and glitches for an older (now unsupported) version of Wine:

https://github.com/lah7/sims2-wine-patches

Technical analysis of The Sims 2 under Wine

While still far from perfect and prone to unexpected crashes (dependent on hardware), it is possible to run The Sims 2 under Wine.

The infamous D3DERR_INVALIDCALL error is due to the fact Wine is hardcoded to supply 256 vertex shaders instead of 1024 that The Sims 2 demands. By patching this constraint, as well as providing "dummy" code for unimplemented shader interfaces, enables the game to play to surprising results.


Acknowledgements

A thank you goes to swswine for initially discovering the game's major unimplemented undocumented shader interface and for writing the patch to demonstrate this in bug report 8051. Further contributors include Robert Walker, Alexandr Oleynikov and Paul Gofman.

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8051


Graphical Glitches Inevitable!

While the patch enables the game to play fairly well (dependant on hardware), there may be issues including:

  • Family thumbnails rendering red "t-pose" Sims.
  • Some skin tones look lighter on the character's head than the rest of their body.
  • Icons above sim head (like when a Sim gains a new friend) can cause a temporary polygon explosion.
  • Changing resolution mid game in household mode can sometimes result in a black screen.


Do not submit test reports for patched versions!

Please do not submit test results here as this is a hack to get the game running. Continue to submit tests for vanilla Wine or wine-staging (as long as this is explicitly stated), but it seems unlikely we'll see improvements from "Garbage" for regular Wine until the missing undocumented shader interfaces are implemented.

Comments

Back