Sims 1 Terminology

In the Sims community, CC means Custom Content – any file made by a player (not Maxis/EA) that adds something visual to the game. This includes custom clothing, hairstyles, skin tones, furniture, wall coverings, floors, and objects.

CC is the catch-all term for things that change how the game looks without changing how it plays. A new outfit is CC. A custom sofa is CC. A wall pattern is CC.

⚠️ Sims 1 CC vs The Sims Complete Collection (also abbreviated CC)

This is the main source of confusion. The Complete Collection was the original boxed set of The Sims 1 with all expansion packs included, released in 2005. Players and stores often abbreviated it to "The Sims CC" or just "CC".

If you're reading an old forum post or mod readme from the early 2000s and it mentions "CC", the author might mean the Complete Collection rather than custom content. A line like "works with Sims CC" most likely means the Complete Collection. A line like "drop this file in your CC folder" means custom content.

A mod is a file (or set of files) that changes how the game behaves. In Sims 1, this usually means a modified .iff file that alters an object's price, the carpool timing, how relationships decay, how quickly skills are gained, or similar gameplay values.

The distinction between a mod and CC gets blurry in Sims 1. A custom chair that looks different but works the same as the base game chair is really CC. A chair that's been edited so Sims gain Body skill by sitting in it is a mod. In practice, the community often uses "mod" and "CC" interchangeably for any downloaded file, so don't read too much into which word someone uses.

In the Sims community, "hacking" has nothing to do with breaking into systems or doing anything illegal. It refers to opening and editing the game's object files - specifically .iff files – to change how objects work.

When someone says they've "hacked" an object, it means they've opened it in a tool like IFF Pencil 2, modified the values or scripts inside, and saved a new version. A "hack" is the resulting modified file.

The term comes from the earliest days of Sims modding when this kind of editing was novel and required genuine technical knowledge. It stuck even as the tools became much easier to use. Today "hacking" and "modding" are used interchangeably when people talk about editing game objects, even if no coding is involved.

So when you see "object hack", "gameplay hack" or a site calling itself a hacking resource – this is normal Sims community language for creating or editing gameplay mods. Nobody is doing anything untoward.

An .iff file is the core file format for Sims 1 objects. Every buyable item, piece of furniture, interactive object and most gameplay modifications exist as .iff files. The format is actually quite old – it was developed by EA and used across many of their games in the 1980s and 90s before The Sims adopted it.

An .iff file is essentially a container that holds multiple different resources bundled together:

• Sprites – the images that make the object look right at every angle and zoom
• BHAV scripts – the code that tells the game what the object does
• Constants – price, skill gain rates, comfort values
• Text – the object's name and catalog description

When modders talk about editing an object, they mean editing the contents of its .iff file.

A .FAR file is a bundle that contains multiple .iff files packed together. Think of it like a zip file, but one the game can read directly without you needing to unpack it. Many older mods and all of the Sims 1 expansion pack content is distributed as .FAR files.

Most modern mods come as loose .iff files rather than .FAR files, but you may still encounter them. Both go in the same Downloads\ folder and the game handles them the same way.

In Sims 1, "skins" refers specifically to the image files that make a Sim look the way they do - their clothing, body shape appearance, facial features and hair. These are bitmap (.BMP) files that get painted onto the 3D Sim body and head models.

Unlike later Sims games where clothing and hair are separate items with meshes, in Sims 1 the entire Sim is essentially one texture. A "skin" for an outfit means a complete body image – top, bottom and shoes all in one file. Hair is painted directly onto the head texture rather than being a separate item. This is why skin files must go in GameData\Skins\ with no subfolders – the game scans that one directory directly at load time.

When you see "skin download" on an old Sims 1 site, it means a new outfit, hairstyle or character appearance – not a separate mesh or item.

Everything the game needs to know about a skin is encoded in its filename. The first letter tells the game what clothing category the skin belongs to - which dresser drawer it appears in, whether it's buyable at a clothing rack, and which expansion unlocked it.

After the type prefix, the rest of the filename encodes (all run together, no spaces): mesh number (3 characters, e.g. 001, 300), gender (F = female, M = male, U = unisex), age (A = adult, C = child), body type (Fat / Fit / Skn / Chd – bodies only, not heads), skin tone (lgt / med / drk – BMP only, not in CMX/SKN), then an underscore and the identifier. Example: L300FAFitlgt_MySleepwear.bmp = Lingerie, mesh 300, female adult, fit body type, light skin tone.

Note on H: Both High Fashion and hand files start with H. The game distinguishes them by context – hand files are referenced directly in character files, while High Fashion skins appear in the clothing rack like other buyable types.

The L, F, S, W and H prefixed skins are "buyable" - they don't appear in your Sim's home dresser but are instead purchased from a clothing rack on a community lot (introduced in Hot Date). This means your Sims have to visit a shopping lot to buy them, just like in real life.

In the original game and older installation guides, buyable skins were told to go in a separate SkinsBuy\ folder rather than the main Skins folder. In the Legacy Collection, this folder exists at ExpansionShared\SkinsBuy\.

The Complete Collection was a boxed retail version of The Sims 1 released in 2005 that included the base game and all expansion packs available at the time. It was later updated to include Makin' Magic. Most players who played Sims 1 in its original era will have had the Complete Collection rather than individual discs.

Because it was abbreviated as "CC" or "Sims CC", this causes confusion when reading old modding guides that also use CC to mean custom content. If you're reading an old forum post or mod readme from the early 2000s and it mentions "CC", the author might mean the Complete Collection rather than custom content. A line like "works with Sims CC" most likely means the Complete Collection. A line like "drop this file in your CC folder" means custom content.

The Legacy Collection is the 2025 re-release of The Sims 1, available on Steam and the EA App. It includes the base game and all seven expansion packs, updated to run on Windows 10 and 11. This is the version this guide is written for.

The internal save file folder is named "The Sims 25" (referencing the 25th anniversary), which is why some paths on this guide reference that name. The Legacy Collection is functionally identical to the Complete Collection for modding purposes – the same folders, the same file types, just different root paths.

Maxis Match is a style of custom content that deliberately matches the visual style of the original game assets – same colour palette, similar texture quality, comparable level of detail. CC described as "Maxis Match" looks like it could have shipped with the base game or an expansion pack. It fits naturally into the game world without standing out as obviously custom-made.

The opposite of Maxis Match is sometimes called "Alpha CC" or "high-res CC" – content made with much higher texture quality and detail than the original game. In Sims 1, because the base game uses 256-colour indexed bitmaps, most CC is inherently Maxis Match by necessity. The term becomes more relevant when looking at content that's been converted from later Sims games, which may look sharper or more detailed than the originals.

When browsing Sims 1 CC sites, "Maxis Match" or "MM" in a description or tag means the creator aimed to keep their work visually consistent with what Maxis produced – a useful shorthand for knowing whether a download will blend into your existing game.

Vulkan is a modern graphics API (Application Programming Interface) – the layer that sits between software and your GPU. The Legacy Collection replaced the original game's DirectDraw renderer with Vulkan, which is why Legacy requires a Vulkan-compatible GPU when the original could run on ancient hardware.

Most players never need to think about this unless the game refuses to launch with a "Vulkan Initialization Failed" error. This means either your GPU doesn't support Vulkan (older Intel integrated graphics) or your drivers need updating. See the Game Troubleshooting page for fixes.

"Get Cool Stuff" was a section on the official Maxis/EA Sims website from 2000 to around 2003. It offered free official downloadable content – objects, skins, tools and pre-made houses – created by the Maxis team. These were never bundled with the game disc and had to be downloaded separately.

The Legacy Collection does not include this content, and the original .exe installers won't work because they look for the game at the old registry path. The community has archived all of it. See the About Legacy page for working download links.

Creating or editing the 3D geometry (the shape) of a Sim's body, head, or an accessory, rather than just repainting its texture. Sims 1 body and head CC uses real 3D mesh files (SKN format) that get wrapped with a BMP texture. Objects (furniture, décor) are different – they are pre-rendered as 2D sprites, so object "meshing" means editing those sprite images rather than a 3D file.

For body and head CC, mesh editing requires tools like Blender + TS1 Blender IO (free) or MilkShape 3D + SKN2OBJ (classic paid tool). See the Custom Clothing Meshes guide for the full workflow.

A plain-text configuration file that links a skin texture to a 3D mesh and attaches any accessory meshes. Every Sim body, head, or accessory needs a matching CMX for it to appear in the game. You can open a CMX in Notepad and edit it by hand – no special tools required – which is what makes things like duplicating, renaming, and moving outfits between categories possible without re-exporting from a tool.

The name written on line 5 of the CMX must exactly match the filename on disk, or the game will ignore the file silently. See the Editing CMX Files section for the structure and worked examples.

The Windows bitmap image format used for every skin texture in The Sims 1. BMPs have to be saved as 8-bit Indexed with a 256-colour palette or fewer – 24-bit (truecolour) BMPs will show up as a solid white silhouette in Create-A-Sim. Common sizes:

• 256×256 for adult body textures
• 128×128 for head textures
• 64×64 for hand textures
• 32×32 for small accessories

Non-square BMPs will not display – the game rejects them without an error.