While many Sims enthusiasts were eager to relive the nostalgia of these classic The Sims 1 & The Sims 2 titles, bugs and performance problems became a common frustration. Thankfully, many fixes have helped to remedy these issues. The most recent set of patch notes was released on March 14, 2025, helping to further smooth out problems.
When it comes to the problems that this particular set of patch notes helps remedy, there are a few notable issues. From the Tragic Clown causing game-breaking shower problems, to Eco Guru Sims gaining the power of invisibility upon returning home from work, there are plenty of little tweaks and fixes made in this update.
Details regarding the March 14 patch notes for The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 have been outlined below.
The Sims Patch Notes – March 14, 2025
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 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
The Sims 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.
The Sims 2 Patch Notes – March 14, 2025
Fixed Issues:
- General stability and performance improvements
- There are significant frames per second (FPS) drops in various scenarios including multiple Sims in Ultra Speed, various complex lots, camera panning, etc.
- If Windows shortcuts (Win+Shift+ArrowKey, etc) was used to move the game window from one monitor to another the player could end up with a plain blue window in the new location
- The Sims 2 might crash if a custom beach lot is placed in Belladonna Cove
- The Sims 2 minimizes if it is not the foreground application
- Pets can not be scolded or encouraged (e.g. to train a dog not to urinate indoors, or to discourage cats from sitting on counters)
- A Sim returning from work as an Eco Guru will sometimes become invisible
- On screens with resolution higher than 1080p the pie wheel options sometimes go off screen
- Sometimes when a family tries to travel to a community lot only the family dog will travel
- On 2k and 4k monitors selecting the “More” option will sometimes result in the mouse pointer jumping off the screen
- After running for long periods of time (generally 2 hours or more) the player is sometimes prevented from interacting with the game
- Multiple uses of Alt+Enter could cause the game screen to eventually move off the bottom of the screen
- Multiple uses of Alt+Enter could sometimes cause the game to scale the window incorrectly
- The CAS UI does not scale/arrange well on displays with extreme aspect ratios (e.g. ultra-wide displays)
- If the computer has two displays of varied resolution capabilities (e.g. 4k + 1080p) the game window could jump from one screen to the other when making Resolution selections
Improved Functionality:
- The Sims 2 now uses a borderless window to provide the fullscreen experience
The Sims 2 General notes:
- There are recurring problems being reported on Intel Arc systems. Please see previous patch notes for more information
- Due to the way the underlying graphics layer that The Sims 2 depends on works, when switching between Full Screen and Windowed mode with Alt+Enter there can sometimes be a substantial delay (many seconds) while the scene is recalculated and rendered
Keep an eye out for more updates on all things The Sims, and don’t forget to explore the site to stay informed on the latest news and announcements.
