This is partly a question about installation and CC integration and partly a question about the best way to go about adding the HQ mod that I discovered:
here http://sclub.mktm.co.uk/en/2013/01/ts3-hqmod/
and here http://awtmk.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/s3hq.html

1. I've had the sims 3 installed on my mac desktop (it's only a couple of years old and one of the biggest/best models that was available at the time, therefore I'm assuming it should be strong enough to run it at high quality settings??), however, I got to a point where it would only crash on start up, even removing all the expansion packs and reinstalling from scratch will not get it to run properly. These leads me to believe it is either not enjoying being run on a mac system, and/or there is something in my probably convoluted CC folder causing it to crash (mind, I only use sims and item mods, not major structural changing mods like the one I'm wanting try next) . I'd be curious to know if anyone has seen evidence of it running a lot better on a windows system, as my new plan is to install just the base game with none of my previous CC onto my windows partition, then add newly downloaded CC to start building up a collection that I know won't crash the game.

2. I want to include the HQ mod I found above, however it confuses me a bit as to which file I should download and how it will work to install, plus how it may cope if I do end up re-adding my expansion packs later on. Are those the only HQ mods around, or are there simpler ones? Has anyone here had experience using them before? I'm not planning to game play much, I just want to design HQ sims and take pretty pictures of them Mostly using content from here http://sclub.mktm.co.uk/en/cc/mods/ . Previously, I tried to use a lot of that content and even with the highest quality settings, everything on sims was blurry and smudgy, so I'm hoping a HQ mod can help mine to look more like those CC previews do.

Sorry this is a bit derpy, the release of sims 4 has made me realise just how much I've always wanted to get the HQ details on sims working in sims 3, or get sims 3 running at all for that matter XD

Even the most expensive Macs are mostly weaker in gaming terms than a good high-end Windows or Linux machine, so to take a guess at your Mac's suitability for TS3 we'd need the system specs (my £600 Vaio laptop, for example, massively outperforms my Dad's £1300 Macbook Air for gaming, but he doesn't want to game, and he likes the design, OS and app compatibility enough that he was happy to pay the premium). The wrapper that EA used when porting the game to Mac is a bit crap, so you may indeed find that you have better performance on Windows with the same hardware, though I don't know how significant the improvement would be.

aWT's HQ program isn't Mac compatible as far as I know, but the S-Club version is much simpler - just dragging and dropping a file really, no different from installing regular .package files except that you put the file in a different place. Pick the version of the mod which matches your Sims 3 basegame patch version, which you can check in the game launcher.

I would suggest working on getting the basegame running - step one being to try taking out all of your CC - before you install the HQ mod though, as installing more stuff isn't going to fix it and has the slight potential to make things worse.

Thanks, I understand the mac hardware will not be as good as PC, but at the same time, I'm hoping it being a relatively new desktop (as opposed to a laptop that you mentioned in your example) will be enough to get this going, considering it's age, I'll provide the system details if/when I find them (I'm on the laptop at the moment, which I use for internet based stuff since I don't want to take the risk of getting viruses on the windows partition). It has proven to be very good with the adobe creative suite, and I've run photoshop with hundreds of layers and a long history memory and 5000px + size @300dpi documents, so I really hope the ability is in there once I fix the installation itself.

Yes, as I said, my plan is to install without any CC at all on the windows partition, and then try the mod with maybe one piece of CC that has HQ quality so I can see the effects are working (maybe something from here http://mahamudosim3.blogspot.com.au...p-revision.html ? ), and then try additional CC items after that, so that I know one at at time, what starts causing issues if any I think it will be better to start my CC collection anew so I know I'm using content that is still relevant (some of my old CC could be quite old/out of date I expect).

I found this http://pixelpixies.tumblr.com/post/...hq-mod-tutorial and the explanation makes it a lot simpler in my mind than when I first found it, I will try copy and pasting in like it does there C: It just took me off guard a bit to have to edit somewhere other than the usual mods folder, but I'm hoping I can manage what is essentially just a copy and paste :P