Okay I am running a Windows 7 Home Premium (Completely up to date, service pack 1, all drivers have been updated). I have 4.00 GB RAM and my graphics card information is in one of the screen shots below. I am getting weird black patches in build mode and the loading screen. The come and go. My game occasionally crashes. Screenshots of the black patches are attached. I have repaired the game, updated everything I could get my cursor on, tried with less expansion packs and moved the CC out. No difference. Does anyone know what I should do here? Thank you!

Which expansion packs are we talking about and which ones remain in play?

Sorry to say that 4 GB of RAM is really tight, after Windows grabs what it needs there typically isn't going to be enough left to service the game. If any other applications like web browsers (or really anything else) are running, those should be quit entirely before attempting to play. Also am afraid your graphics card is not strong enough to typically be able to carry more than the base game and maybe one or two of the earliest released expansions and not on much more than the lowest of graphics settings in Game Options...maybe a medium one here and there. Can't comment on your processor as we would need more system specs than what is showing to get the full picture.

I have Pets, Island Paradise, World Adventures, Generations, Ambitions, Showtime, Supernatural and High -End Loft Stuff. I did try running just the base game. I just looked up the requirements for running the game (including expqnsions). Considering it requires 1.5 GB, I am not sure that's the problem. After reading this, I did check the Task Manager to make sure the RAM wasn't getting eaten by other programs. Everything seems okay and I have run this on 4 GB with other computers. Is there anything else that could cause this?

A Sony Vaio, 2012 made for photography students, meaning heavy programs like Photoshop and Lightroom. Aside from the issues I mentioned the game runs with next to no lag and considering the last expansion pack, Into the Future, was released in 2013, that manufacturing year should be alright.

I will post processor specs a little later.

No disrespect meant to the original poster, but you asked what might be causing the problem, and you were given a very honest and thorough answer. I come to MTS for advice and assistance because most people that respond know what they are talking about. I would take that answer to heart, and determine how you can improve game performance with more RAM, and an updated video graphics card. Not every machine suitable for one task (photography) will be suitable for other tasks (TS3). Good luck resolving your issues!

Thank you. I did not intend to be disrespectful either, I am just trying to find out if there is any other reason for this issue. According to the requirements, it should work and honestly I cannot afford to get a new computer or try to upgrade this one.

Minimum specs/requirements are just that. The game runs, but poorly, and you could only improve performance by setting all your in-game graphics settings to low. If you want optimum performance and the highest graphics possible, the minimum specs are never sufficient. You will need more RAM and a better graphics card. I get how upgrades aren’t always in the budget, but sadly that’s the trade off - spend more money to get the system performing better, or live with the unfortunate glitches until you are in a place financially to do the upgrades. Again, good luck!

In some ways, a GT 310M may be worse than integrated. If expected to carry a load that is more than it can handle, it may cause the game to trip over itself and many operations it is supposed to carry out may just get skipped over -- sort of the reverse of classic bottlenecking when the CPU cannot keep up with what is being thrown at it.

But anyway, contrary to appearances I am not an equipment snob and that's not where my original comment came from. When TS3 was designed, the current operating systems were Win XP and Vista. Win 7 hadn't been released yet. The Minimum Requirements do not properly take into account the impacts on resource usage that Win 7 and higher carry, nor do they reflect all the years of patching and the subsequent EPs very well. And, as already stated, Minimum means the base game will run somehow, to some extent, with graphics options on the lowest possible and it just may not be very fun to play on a system that can barely handle it. When I first transitioned over to Win 7 from the Mac version, like so many others, I did run on 4 GB for a short while but with something like 85% RAM usage being the order of the day it became clear almost immediately that a RAM upgrade was needed. In my case, my graphics card and processor although also older were already adequate though.

It's great if one can run the game as they want to on lower-end hardware. But that doesn't change the real world expectations and one may not be able to sustain that level of gameplay (or indeed any suitable level) as the equipment ages and performance begins to degrade for that reason as well.