The Sims (Complete Collection)

Note: This widescreen hack requires a cracked exe. If you don't have one of those, or don't know what it is, you'll need to get one. Cracks are perfectly legal if used with something you actually bought to remove DRM that requires a CD in your disc drive, causes worse performance, etc. In this case, the crack allows us the ability to edit hexadecimal values in the game's executable file. I won't link it here because it might be against whatever terms of service I've agreed to.

So, that's pretty awesome, eh? I bet you never thought you'd play The Sims in HD, did you? Apart from The Sims 2. And The Sims 3. And The Sims 4...

Well, it isn't exactly practical to do this, but it sure is nostalgic. So fire up your "Netscape" and download The Sims Generic Resolution Patch*. Then, well, it's pretty self explanatory (The "Spank Me" button does all the editing for you). Don't make the mistake of doing it the hard way like our friends at WSGF. Let that be a lesson to you kids, don't just use the first Google search result.

*The original link does not work properly, so I'm mirroring the file here.

Anyway, carefully choose the two resolutions you want, click the button, and direct it to your Sims.exe. There! You're done! Unless you chose one of the resolutions that doesn't work. The only resolutions that have worked for me are 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x900, and 1920x1080. Resolutions such as 1280x720 and 1366x768 do not work, in my experience, but feel free to experiment around with obscure resolutions like 4200x1337 if you feel like it. Just back up your Sims.exe, it won't change the already modified version.

Some issues include a funky looking neighborhood select screen and the settings menu being transparent for some reason. Luckily, everything plays just like the original.