First things first, this guide provides you with an extensive list of performance improvements and mods you can use for that. If you want a vanilla game with better performance, you can stick to this and this only.

I use Sunset Valley 2020 to integrate all the EPs into the original SV and their site also has some useful game fixes/game tweaks meant to help with basic things. If you don’t need anything else, you can stop here. Consider this a tl;dr. :)

FYI, most of the mods you’ll find above are individually linked at the bottom of the list.

Now, below you’ll find an exhaustive list of what’s in my mods folder.

My Mods

1. Nraas (they’re very easy to find, so I won’t link them.)

   • Essentials: Overwatch, Errortrap, Master Controller, Register, Traffic
   • QoL: Woohooer (I use it so each woohoo has a pregnancy chance), Traveler, Dreamer, Tempest

2. Default Replacements

   • Eyes: these ultra plain contacts by tamo for humans and these animal eyes (cats+dogs by traelia and horse ones by corapntr)
   • Feet with toes! (bloom’s sexy feet for all ages)
   • Simarex trees default skin (I like it because it matches the base game tones and has a monolid option.)

3. Other Mods (buckle up!)

   1. Aesthetic (Packages)

      • brntwaffles blue skies & sunshine lighting mod + Island Paradise water (makes the sky look like the screenshot I posted)
      • wasset’s enchanted environment (better sun, moon & stars)
      • lyralei’s snow but better (higher quality textures)
      • shimrod’s no blurry terrain paints → requires sign-up
      • world loading screen overhaul by gamefreak (makes the loading screen background match the world you’re playing; very minor mod)

   2. Aesthetic (Overrides)

      • more expressive UI poses (changes the selected sim portrait panel so their emotions are more exaggerated, similar to the sims 4; you can also make it so sims have a neutral or simply a slightly modified pose)
      • simbouquet’s walk cycle edits (fixes facial expressions while walking)
      • simbouquet’s facial expression conversions (from the Sims Medieval)

   3. Money

      • 4 mods by madamdoofie: minimum wage (reduces pay/hour for early career levels), more expensive boarding school, more expensive university and higher grant money (to match the more expensive uni)
      • I used to use ani’s no free work performance, but i find it too unbalanced in combination to the minimum wage. I recommend taking a look at ani’s mods and seeing if you like them, my favourites are no fridge shopping and shop for clothes.

   4. Gameplay

      • autonomous fun in the sun by icarus allsorts
      • the Children Can series by kapaer (expands the list of activities children can do, such as gardening, paying bills, playing instruments etc.)
      • arsil’s extra toddler activities
      • more negative moodlets (my sims are always elated so I wanted a mod that makes the negative moodlets hit harder. now I can actually see them uncomfortable, angry and sad! this pairs up great with the UI poses mod.)
      • retuned attraction mod (I got tired on every other sim hitting on mine so I wanted something to make attraction more realistic and special)

   5. Performance & Bugs (most of these overlap with the ones mentioned in the beginning guides)

      • twoftmama’s route fix (I use flavour 4) → requires sign-up
      • no route fail tantrum (when sims can’t find their way to something)
      • no foot tapping (while waiting on other sims)
      • enabler for interaction on sloped terrain
      • lazyduchess’ random sim fixes (i strongly recommend also downloading their smooth patches using the beginning guide)
      • no more crying over dead plants
      • sunbathing fix (so sims only sunbathe in warm and sunny weather)
      • shimrod’s resort revamp → requires sign-up
      • no limos by simlogical (i think this can be done with traffic, too)
      • fix for some faulty speech bubbles from the Univeristy EP
      • no camera zoom for the university mascot or time travel portal