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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 12:49 AM
Default Is there a PC spec that allows the game with all EPs and CC work flawlessly?
Basically, just curious at this point. My PC is pretty solid, but the FPS in game is nothing to write home about using the settings taken from one very lovely guide. http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/G...ms3performance/ this one it was, I think. I have a lot of CC ,all eps, and a bunch of mods, mostly NRaas bajingalings and a few too many custom hairstyles/clothes/furniture hoarded from here and TSR.

The game is playable (the fast forward speed is not impressive though lol), but I have to wonder, CAN it actually run smoothly on a better PC? Or will it just hit a wall with in-game engine limitations no matter what computer is used?
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 1:10 AM
Sims 3 runs very well on my desktop which is about 5-7 years old now. I have everything installed except K Perry which I did not get. I have tons of CC I have used. So yes, it can run well on some setups. I have never checked the fps on this. I should. I think I will do that now out of curiosity.
Mad Poster
#3 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 1:11 AM Last edited by GrijzePilion : 20th Nov 2017 at 1:21 AM.
Yeah.
You'll want an NVIDIA 1000-series for a graphics card, preferably a 1070 or a 1080 (or an AMD equivalent). Or get two if you're not quite sure about it.
Or if you have money to waste, get four Titan XPs and put them in an SLI.
As far as CPUs go, you'll want whatever the latest i7 is. Although I believe they actually have an i9 these days, so get that one to be on the safe side.
Now, the motherboard is irrelevant. As long as it looks really angry and sinister and has LEDs in it, you'll be alright.
If you get at least 64 gigs of GDDR7 SDRAM or another type of RAM that isn't on the market yet, you'll be able to install the game plus all expansions and your documents folder right into your RAM. In theory, this means that your savegames will load within SECONDS after the game is done doing absolutely nothing for about 43 minutes.

Now if you get all of this right, you'll get a TS3 that runs well enough to remind you that it is a videogame and not a really confusing slideshow...for less than the price of a family hatchback.

But to be serious for a moment. The best PC to play TS3 on is the best one you can afford right now. It's that simple.
TS3 will never run perfect because it's just not built to do that, but even nowadays a beefy PC can go a long way in making it sufferable. You could throw a 24th century positronic warp flux holocomputer at TS3, and it'd still manage to lag like a bitch in CASt. So be sensible, get something that's good enough to run all your other games, and leave it at that.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
#4 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 1:35 AM
I just checked. My game took 6 minutes to load. My fraps crept up from 25 to 80 in 7 minutes of play. As I kept playing it kept creeping up higher and higher. I am not sure where it would max out?
Mad Poster
#5 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 3:48 AM
At the risk of (re)stating the obvious, this game is over eight years old now and it never ran perfectly from the beginning. Many of us cut TS3 a lot of slack in the performance department both consciously and subconsciously because we still love the game so much and find it very entertaining to play and use as a platform for our story telling, design creations, etc. The most we can do is give it the best (financially feasible) possible environment in which to run and take steps to avoid some of its known glitches and pitfalls.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips+Fo...ame+Performance

As for the frame rate question, no one should be getting constant drops to 5 or 10 fps unless their game/computer or saved game in particular is totally overwhelmed or they are simply playing on hardware insufficient to handle what is being thrown at it. But no one should be getting wild fluctuations of 80+ fps and into the high hundreds either, unless they are working with a monitor whose refresh rate is higher than the more typical 60 Hz. Unlike more modern games, TS3 does not have a built-in frame rate limiter. This is not optional, for graphics cards that are strong enough to produce wildly high frame rates, which are digital noise that the monitor cannot possibly interpret, that fps must be capped using an external tool such as Nvida Control Panel, Nvidia Inspector, RivaTuner (especially helpful for AMD cards), or MATY's FPS Limiter program if on Patch 1.67 (won't work on 1.69). This isn't a First Person Shooter game, there is no benefit to supporting wildly high frame rates. Left uncapped, the fps rates can cause lag, graphics glitches, screen tears, crashes, and can even ultimately overwork and burn out the graphics card.
Mad Poster
#7 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 12:10 PM
Honestly, I think I currently have it running about as good as it gets. My current save loads in 2-3 minutes and never exceeds 2100 megs. Framerate is a stable 30.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Lab Assistant
#8 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 1:44 PM
Nothing can run Sims 3 with lots of EP and CC smoothly.
Here are my past experience.
2500K @ 5Ghz , 3770K @ 5.2Ghz , 4670K one at 4.8Ghz and one at 5Ghz , 4770K @ 4.5Ghz , 6500 @ 5Ghz , G3900 @ 4.5Ghz , G4560 (can't overclock) all produce the same stutter. But clock speed WILL affect loading time.
RAM 2GB = $hit , 4GB is still $hit but 8GB vs 16GB is no different because the game is 32 bit. However memory speed and timings WILL affect loading time.
Lots of GPU in my hand 5770 , 7870 , 7870 XT , lots of 7970 , 280X , lots of 290 , 290 unlocked to 290X , 290X Crossfire , 780 Ti , 970 , 980 Ti all produce the same stutter.
SSD is no better. Just make game load faster but not help with stuttering. Still one thing that I didn't try is "Will NVME SSD (especially the new Intel 900p) faster than normal SATA SSD in Sims 3 ?"

I guess the lastest and most expensive i9-7980XE @ 5Ghz + G.Skill 32GB DDR4-4400 + Titan XP will still give the "same" experience.

Here are my advice.

P.S. that graphics guide is quiet old. With modern and decent hardware (I mean Pentium G4560 or Ryzen 3 1200 plus GT 1030 or RX 550) you can turn on all graphics setting to max except...

If you don't have SSD then you MUST turn off high detail lots. It work like extended distance scaling in GTA V or extra details in Watch Dogs 2 but those 2 games use CPU to calculate better details at far distance. Sims 3 use "disk" to give you better details instead. If you have SSD you can turn on this option. But in huge map you may still need to turn this down.

If you use lots of CC on markup / hair you may want to consider reduce Sims details to "LOW". It sound terrible but as I test the game run much smoother. However I and my wife agree that we will not sacrifice Sims details for smoothness lol.

Don't play Sims more than EA's default 8 Sims. Mine love to play 24 Sims in one house but I have to accept terrible stuttering because it is fun lol.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 2:41 PM
I don't have an SSD, but I find that setting the high detail lots to 2 is completely sufficient for my style of play. On the 1 recommended by the guide it's really stupid though, for instance if sims are on a beach and you move the camera around a bit you might clip the outside of the beach and it goes back into low detail lot making for a horrible experience On 2 it's all good though.

Thanks for detailed responses and what can be made better/cannot. I guess I'll have to make do with the stutter then, loading times are neither great nor problematic, I just wash a plate or something during those few minutes.

Here's to hoping the Sims 5 will be everything TS3 is, but better. I have no interest in the cagey world of TS4.
Top Secret Researcher
#10 Old 20th Nov 2017 at 2:58 PM
Hi @nitromon -
Quote:
So now I have to refix my homeworld again! Port every resident and lot, replot them back to a new game. Then I have to hunt down that broken vacation world and fix that too.


Would this possibly help you or are you already using Fix Homeworld?
On occasion when loading up the homeworld after a vacation, the game isn't loading the homeworld properly. Some effects are, inactive Sims not going to work, carpool system broken, not getting mail and other various problems. Whenever you arrive home from a vacation use:
CityHall / Computer> Nraas> DebugEnabler> Options: CityHall / Computer> Sim> Fix Homeworld
Top Secret Researcher
#12 Old 21st Nov 2017 at 1:46 PM
@nitromon .. RATS, was hoping that would work for you. You are doing the fix upon returning to the world; not after playing for awhile or after saving? Just a thought

Quote:
For the technical info. Basically when you load a game, open the "currentgame" folder. In about 2-3 mins, it will copy the save into that folder, then take another 2 mins to load. The part that it gets stuck is during the time before it copy the save. It is stuck reading the save... and takes 7-8 mins (40 at one point) and then it copies the save.

I might be misunderstanding this: are you saying you have the game folder open when loading or playing? Some folks will advise it is harmless but my experience as well as the experiences posted by other simmers is it causes all kinds of problems. If a game crashes the files in the Currentgame folder should be deleted yes? I've never been able to use those without causing all kinds of other problems.
Mad Poster
#14 Old 21st Nov 2017 at 6:29 PM
There are elements of the entire TS3 user game folder that Windows Explorer can lock if the player has them open while the game is launching. I can't remember if CurrentGame is one of them. It doesn't happen every time to every player and usually the problem isn't what's described here, it's the cryptic "A Serious Error Has Occurred" message and then the game shuts down from wherever it was on launch but it's possible there is something related happening. I remember being totally surprised by this after switching over from the Mac version because I used to have my game folder open almost all of the time and, for all of the flaws that TS3 for Mac has, the OS X Finder never behaved on it this way.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 22nd Nov 2017 at 4:32 AM
I have a 6 or 7 year old Toshiba laptop and my game can take anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes to load. But after that, it runs relatively smooth. Not perfect, by any means. But it's good enough.

The Receptacle still lives!
Mad Poster
#16 Old 22nd Nov 2017 at 6:18 AM
I should put it on my laptop and see if it runs at all! LOL When I played 2 I think it was on my Pentium 4 and with 40000 CC items it took over 20 minutes to load. So loading times for 3 and 4 that I have are fine with me.
Top Secret Researcher
#17 Old 22nd Nov 2017 at 5:54 PM
Yep, I have yet to be bothered by Sims 3's load times, because I had 20-30 minute load times for Sims 2! (I'm a CC pack rat. Yep.)
Mad Poster
#18 Old 22nd Nov 2017 at 7:00 PM
At one point my TS3 took 15 minutes to load. I'd been used to bad performance and awful loading times, but 15 minutes was just too damn much. I had it happen twice and that's when I reinstalled my entire PC and started off with a clean TS3. I'm fine with TS3 taking some time, but to a limit. I've managed to keep it under 5 or so minutes since and I have no intention of ever allowing it to take longer.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
#19 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 3:02 AM Last edited by lil bag2 : 23rd Nov 2017 at 3:16 AM.
Wow. It'd be a dream come true if my worlds loaded in five minutes XD

Funny enough, despite all my CC, I've NEVER had load time troubles with TS2 like the kinds you guys have been describing. The longest it's ever taken me to load in that game has been like...a minute and a half. Maybe two minutes.

The Receptacle still lives!
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