Reshade 4.0 for the Sims 2 (Fix + Guide)
After enabling Reshade for Sims 2, I've eliminated the need to go into Fraps/photoshop at all. This guide will hopefully save you a lot of hours of trial and error and frustration.
Things you will need:
Latest version of Reshade (At the time of writing this, it was 4.0) / You can use 3.0 or the latest. It's up to you!
Xenos Injector (Registration needed or Google it.)
Very Important (!) :This guide uses the Sims 2 Ultimate Collection through Origin. It will not work without launching the game through the Origin Browser Window. I tried all the methods available (even the NoCD patch) and Reshade just wouldn't load up at all. Even launching the game through a shortcut or the Tsbin folder itself will not work.
Installing Reshade
1. Launch Reshade_Setup.exe and click on 'Select Game' and navigate to your TSBin folder (for the latest EP) In my case: D:Program Files (x86)Origin GamesThe Sims 2 Ultimate CollectionFun with PetsSP9TSBin
2. Next, you need to choose the rendering API. Select Direct3D 10+ (Direct3D 8/9 crashes on Neighborhood.)
3. Finally, it will ask you if you want to download the latest effects from GitHub. Click 'Yes' and once it is finished, close the Reshade_setup box as we are done with it.
3A. Optional: If you are not on the latest version of Reshade, it will say 'Unable to download archive'. That's okay! Grab the folder from here and rename reshade-shaders-master to reshade-shaders and drag that to the TSBin directory.
4. Inside the TSBin folder, we now have a folder called reshade-shaders and dxgi.dll
Injecting dxgi.dll with Xenos Injector
Xenos_2.3.2_[unknowncheats.me]_.7z needs to be extracted. There are two files Xenos.exe (32-bit) is what I'll be using. For easy access, drag Xenos.exe to the TSBin directory.
The game, for some reason, doesn't recognize our dxgi.dll. Xenos Injector bypasses this problem by injecting the file when the game launches.
5. Launch Xenos.exe > Manual Launch > Select > Sims2EP9.exe
6. Add dxgi.dll > Inject
It will ask you to now manually launch the game. Let's do that.
7. Head over to your Origin Browser game and launch the Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. Reshade 3.0 or 4.0 (depending on the version) will show a notification bar at the top. If you are using 4.0, you can use the [home] button to open the menu.
I've tested this method with extensive gameplay and have experienced no crashes on my end. I use a modified LUT with Reshade to brighten + color pop. The result can be seen below.
Important Notes
Xenos Injector must be launched during every session (with the settings shown above)
The game must be launched through Origin Game Browser.
I'm not a modder, just a casual (but very determined) simmer.
Credits/Resources Visited
The process is mentioned here and further details can be found here.