I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of EA's fashion choices for our sims and I would really like to replace most of the game's default CAS content with more aesthetically pleasing custom content. But like most players I am worried about how it may affect game performance.

Recently I came across a site with fabulous default replacement clothing and hair. It replaces most of EA's defaults (including that stupid propeller hat and fugly pants) with styles that I can actually use.

I want to achieve a certain look for the town I'm working on and I'm afraid that trying to make my game more visually appealing could increase loading times and slow it down. I know that regular CC does this, but I'm not sure if default replacements have the same effect.

What's your experience with default replacements? Feel free to discuss other types too (roads, terrain, skintones, eyes), not just clothing and hair.

Seems to me if you're worried about loading times a better alternative would be hiders for that content. I know there's alot of them out there to hide most things, but I can't remember if there was just one site where they offered everything in a pick and choose style. I was thinking about doing the same thing for some of them and the file sizes for the hiders were smaller then the replacement CC.

Only defaults I use are for eyes and skin(which i'm currently making myself) and skin overlays for some supernaturals so it's more human. I'm good enough at recoloring that I can appreciate most of the maxis stuff if given a new color or alpha edited. I'll edit my post if I find that site that had the plethora of hider options as really it doesn't hamper your loading time in CAS or changing appearance/clothes in game.

I just checked my defaults folder and I have 412 files in it of hair, skin, clothes and now objects. I thought it might do something to my game, but it hasn't so far, and I could not find any information about defaults causing problems on the main forums-MATY, GOS, here, Insimenator. I've used defaults for some time, but 412 is the most ever for me. And I love the defaults, it's all I've talked about.

I wouldn't mind hiders either but it'd be nice to have more clothes and hairstyles to choose from instead of simply hiding the ones I don't use. Like, if I hide the gorilla costume from OFB, I would want a wearable everyday outfit to take its place without affecting the time it takes for the game to load.

Shedagirl - Really, 412 files? I haven't even come close...lol. So far my only replacements are roads by evansco, Idolatry of the Flesh skintones by HystericalParoxysm and Shady's Dazzling eyes.

And if any of you are interested, here is the link to the default database I came across: http://sims2-defaults.livejournal.com/

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when I go CC hunting. Does this mean that it wouldn't make a difference if I hid all EA clothes and hair?

Hiding the games default items will not increase the games load time much, because the game still has to load all those files, the only thing different now, is that the files will be hidden so now the game is loading useless files which don't even appear in the menus because you hid them.

Just thought I would throw this in here for future reference.

That's too bad. I was really hoping I could benefit from not having default content show up in CAS.

One other advantage to using hiders is that it keeps the game from using the clothes for any new Sims that spawn or when your Sims age up. If you don't play custom hoods with all the no spawn mods this would be a big plus.

On a side note: I'm not sure if I should thank you or not for posting that link to the defaults as I spent about 2 hours last night looking through them.

I've got lots of defaults but it's nice to have other options. Sometimes I just like to change in order to have different stuff and some of those defaults are seriously awesome. Quite a few of them are using CC I already have as defaults, which would allow me to get rid of the CC and lower my own load times.

Now I just have to sort out what I want and do a whole lot of file swapping.

lol...I spent longer trying to decide whether to download defaults from the database or not. I haven't yet but I am really tempted.

Does your game run the same with default replacements as it does without them?

To be fair I have a ton of CC beyond any defaults. I've never noticed any difference in load times or game lag when I've added them in though.

I think the earlier poster is probably correct in saying that the poly counts used in the default are what you have to watch for. I would really watch the hair defaults as some hairs have huge poly counts.

Some clothes defaults only make small changes to the existing outfit those are usually not large files at all. The ones that are using a completely different outfit and setting it as a default are the ones you should look at in terms of file size.

If you are talking about replacement clothing and hair my game does not run any differently with them than without them and have essentially default replaced everything I can. Fewer files decreases load times but performance is more dependent on your computer and graphics specs than it is on the number of defaults or non-default files in your game.

Things like your CPU speed, available RAM and having a good graphics card are more how you measure performance although you might notice a bit of lag if you have an older computer or a desktop with an integrated graphics card and a ton of default and non-default CC. I personally have 21,000 files in game and the only thing that it really affects is my load times. Of course I also have a higher end desktop with a decent CPU, a graphics card that can more than handle TS2, and a lot of RAM. I know people with upwards of 40,000 files of CC that have little problems with anything accept the amount of time it takes a game to load. High poly objects hairs and clothing also have an effect on performance on lower end computers as well so if you have a lower end desktop or laptop I don't recommend using to many high poly objects or hairs in game. As good as my computer is I only tend to use a few high poly custom objects per lot unless I am doing a decorating shot for my album.

If you search Free Sims Finds and Spring 4 Sims as well as the Default Replacement lists at Garden of Shadows you can find defaults that merely replace the texture of the skin, hair, or object rather than the mesh itself. Ja and Aquilegia have some fairly nice one's.

Thanks, I guess I'll only get defaults for clothes and hairstyles that I never use, like the propeller hat for females.

Would you mind posting a link to that? I wouldn't mind removing some of my hiders in favor of adding default replacements.

The only time I've gotten default replacements was when I downloaded a replacement eye and skin pack. I immediately deleted it.

Julieryc, I think that one is from le-plat-du-jour on LJ.

I was going to suggest le-plat-du-jour anyway, since Marja always posts the polygon counts of the hair that she uses for replacements. Anything below 3,000 is low; 5,000 is mediumish, and above 8,000 is high. Above 10,000 is just ridiculous IMO, but you see it all the time with a lot of Asian creators with beautifully silky-looking hair.

If you want to replace the textures but not the meshes, which would keep the low Maxis poly counts, Javiera @ Dreamwidth has replaced the textures (not the meshes) of just about all the expansion pack hairs, and Aquilegia @ Dreamwidth has done the same for base game hair.

Here is the link to the propeller hat replacement: http://sims2-defaults.livejournal.com/116330.html and you can find the rest here: http://sims2-defaults.livejournal.com/

Metatwaddle - Thanks for sharing those numbers. I had been meaning to ask what counts as low poly. According to the LJ page the hair I wanted was around 2900 so I guess I can afford to have it in my game. By the way, I checked out Aquilegia's texture replacements but after looking at the previews it seems like she only replaced red hair and not the rest. I hope I am wrong though.

Watching the poly count is a good point. I don't have every hair in, but mostly the low-poly ones. I consider anything under 6,000 low-poly.

The sims 2 default database on LJ is a good jumping off point. I scoured them over the past few weeks. Marja over on le-plat-du-jour.livejournal.com has a ton and a couple of tutorials and she also started the sims 2 default database. Garden of Shadows had a Defaults as a theme. MTS' selection isn't bad, either.

Here are the places I got my 412. These are the ones I have the most, but there are a lot of people on LJ that do defaults. The database covers a lot but it misses the most recent ones, like a lot of Dhearest's.

http://www.digitalperversion.net/ga...p?topic=15817.0
http://le-plat-du-jour.livejournal.com/
http://dhearest.livejournal.com/tag/defaultreplacements
http://javiera.dreamwidth.org/tag/defaults
http://witheredlilies.livejournal.com/tag/default

Thanks for the links, Shedagurl. I've been to most of them except for the last one which I will check out once I'm done typing this. And speaking of Dhearest, I am in love with her default clothing replacements. She manages to make previously fugly outfits wearable.

EDIT: I finally caved and downloaded Aquilegia's default hair retextures and it turns out she retextured all hair colors and not just red! Here's the link to her page: http://aquilegia.dreamwidth.org/20320.html

Shedagurl and Alley Gaytor (great name btw):

Thanks a lot for all the links. I've just spent the last 2 days revamping my entire clothing default file. I found some amazing stuff through those links for outfits that I have always hated and never allowed in my game. With the new defaults though they will become some of my favorites. Plus just updated some of the ok outfits to something more modern or even just different. I feel like I've got a whole new game. Since I literally changed 85% of the maxis clothes I don't think I'm going to dread when a Sim ages up nearly as much anymore.

FYI my game is not running any slower and I added about 400 defaults to it. Of course I took some away and I also was able to drop some CC that I no longer needed but over all I still increased my DL file size by at least half a gig. It is a bit slow on the first load as it does have to replace the thumbnails I deleted so the new content will show but after that no real difference at all. I did not however download any hairs. I've got so many CC ones that my townies use that the thought of having to go through and give out makeovers if I were to delete some is just to daunting a task at this point.

You're welcome, Clashfan. I'm glad you were able to update your clothes. I did the same thing last night and I'm happy with the replacements I've got so far. My favorites are by Dhearest, Marja and Javiera. I did intend to replace hair as well but after downloading Aquilegia's and Javiera's retextures, I realized that it wouldn't be possible to replace every single one (from the base Game and EPs) and even if I did manage to, I'd have to find facial hair and eyebrows to match. I also found retextured blonde hair too faded for my taste (black and red look fantastic though).

My game hasn't slowed down *knock on wood* since I added the 102 MB folder of default clothing. Mostly for adult males, adult females, some for teen females, an untucked top for teen males and new shirts for children. Now I just need to find hiders for the outlandish outfits that I haven't been able to replace (rave kimono from Nightlife and the gorilla costume).

Imagine all the time and effort that could have been saved if the game had been shipped with better clothing. Some of the base game clothes just make me wonder what they were thinking when they created them. If it isn't the pattern it's the mesh that ruins an outfit, like the hoodie/slippers number from the base game and the baggy t-shirts for men.

Thank God for default replacements (and the H&M Stuff Pack)!