How many sims 2 expansion packs does it take to start slowing gameplay?

I don' t know why I thought I had answered this yesterday, but here goes: Some EPs are more notorious for causing system stress than others. Bon Voyage is one, because of the NPCs it creates right off the bat, before you even need them. Seasons, because of the weather effects (you can turn those off in the video settings) and University (dorm lots are crawling with NPCs on a regular basis). When you load custom content and expansion packs, the most significant use of RAM is when the game loads, when a neighborhood loads, or when a lot loads. You can see this when you run the game in windowed mode and have Task Manager running. You will see the RAM in use shoot way up as these things happen. But, after the load is finished, RAM is released. The more RAM you have, the faster it will load. What affects the speed at which you play is more a result of what objects are included on the lot at the time, how many sims are present (not just the sims who live there) and your video settings in the game. Which means that your CPU and video card are being worked during actual game play more than RAM. Items that are fairly detailed and complex will be more taxing than simple items. You see a lot of custom content sites will indicate the number of faces and vertices in objects they make. The more complex an item, the more processing power is required to render it. If you have a lot of highly detailed objects on a lot, you'll see more of a difference. Which is why a small lot with four walls and a roof and one sim is not going to be very taxing, no matter how many EPs you have installed. Expand that one room house to a fully furnished two story with a finished basement and add 7 more sims, then hold a party - you will see a difference in speed. If you turn on other features such as reflections, clickable neighbors, shadows and high detail and resolution, you will also notice a significant difference in the speed of the game, if your PC is somewhat borderline. What your video card doesn't handle, the CPU will if it can. So how far you can go with EPs and other stuff content is entirely up to your machine. I have a 3.0Ghz dual-core Vista 64 machine with 2GB RAM and a 7950 NVidia card. Even with all the EPs and SPs installed, I never noticed any slowness until I slapped 1GB of custom content on top of that. Now the larger lots are starting to lag during parties. I need to give up some custom content :\

it depends how fast your computer is i have all the expansions but no stuff packs but i have tons of custom content and it only takes a while when you enter a town or a lot for the first time but i also have a very fast computer with 3GB of ram

ur comp only lags when u need more ram its a real easy upgrade to install yourself just go to http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/viewscanbyid.aspx?id=3B49885D31D926C3 that will tell you how much ram u need at a miminal level then go to newegg.com and buy some ram in your price range now you want maybe a gig more than recomended unless you cant afford it

Everyone here is right. It has to do with your RAM, not the expansion packs.

it depends on which computer you have are there are ways to make it go fast again like more ram or dowloding programs to help it or like i had the blue screan crash but i found a suotion shift alt c boolprop useshaders false oh and aparently it helps if you dont use the letter box cheat if you dont wat it is its when you type in boolprop testingcheatsenabed true in the cheat box and press shift and click on the letter a whoe lode of options come up but apparantly it slows and crashes your sims 2 hope this help ask if you need any thing else

I have all sims 2 games i started to realize the slow down by the 5th game but that is just because we only have 1 rm but it is not completely slow now it just takes 10 minutes to load body shop and 3 minutes to load Sims 2 only when sims 2 is up things get laggy but the only way for Sims 2 to get really laggy and the hands get clamped together is when you download. Trust me when you download stuff the 1st or 2nd time but it gets really laggy i know because it happend to me and i had to uninstall all my games my point is it does not get really laggy only if you download stuff on the game

It depends on your computer. I had sims 2, uni, seasons, open for business, and freetime. After I got freetime my computer would freeze, so i uninstalled university.... :-( I lost a lotta cool clothes and furniture I liked,,, AND i don't get to make my sims misbehave in dorms anymore ,....haha ;-S :-D Emily :-D

Hi, Well i have Pets Nightlife and Freetime and ive got a 2 GB System memory and mines fast But, Seasons is 3GB for your Vista:C or XP:C so that might slow it down abit. I went into pc World and they said that Computers and Laptops Work in stages so as soon as games have fully loaded its much quiker. Hope this helps :D

Just depends on how fast your computer is. I have ALL of the expansion packs and 3 of the stuff packs, and mine is still pretty good. I mean, the sims has never been FAST for me at all, it occasionally lags for a second but its not bad :)