Re: Poor Origin shop discount options for The Sims 4

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@puzzlezaddict wrote:

@DanishLighthouse  I'm not going to comment on the pricing for Sims 4 stuff.  But I just wanted to pop in and say that Sims 3 runs great for me, in Windows 10.  Sure, I made some small adjustments, but nothing more complicated than capping fps and changing read permissions on a couple of files.  And yes, I own all expansion packs and a few stuff packs.  I did buy most of them on sale, but for all the enjoyment I've gotten out of it, I feel like the game still would have been more than worth it at ten times the price.

If you don't want any advice on how to make the game run better, I won't bother writing it out.  It's really not that hard to get the game running smoothly these days though.  There are many people who are still happily playing now, on everything from older mid-range laptops to high-end gaming machines.

But what do I know—I've only been playing since 2010, and supporting TS3 on this site pretty much by myself for the last year and a half.

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I have never played the The Sims 3 on Windows 10 I only recently upgraded from Windows 7 and I honestly can not remember if I ever bothered to try get it to run on Windows 7. I have had plenty of futile conversation with EA support that didn't help anything at all but I think that that were probably back in 2013 ? (not sure about the year - I would have to check all old email) and I think that I used Windows XP back then.

Anyway , I won't discuss your experience because unlike you I know that they are yours.  But *MY* experience is that after I had played some hundred (?) hours with all expansions many maps a lot of inventory and what not , then the game at last ran so slow and were so unstable that it finally could not even save the game.  No matter your 'experience' then that is still *fact* as well as it is fact that it was memory shortage related and not something that anyone at all could fix.

As the The Sims 3 is running on a 32 bit engine then nothing can make it use more than what memory is available under that condition (though there probably is some memory 'bank switching' in Widows using 'virtual memory')  - hence the development of the 64 bit OS..  And while I have spent a hell of a lot of time trying to get the game to run back then then then I really do not want to spend time whipping what I believe is a dead horse just because someone wants to both question me and act as if better than all support staff...

Back then then one of the problems were a Windows problem if one had too much graphics memory because Windows XP only could address address the 32 bit of memory address space so there were some memory space sharing or something) (ref. : XP : https://config9.com/windows/why-does-windows-only-show-about-3-5-gb-of-my-4-gb-of-ram/ , ref. : Vista : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929605/the-system-memory-that-is-reported-in-the-system-inf...

and I am sure that at least 64 bit Windows 10 is not the same when running a 32 bit program.  Also the 'Virtual memory driver may have been improved a lot on Windows 10 compared to Windows XP which could explain some of your experience.  But it still remains that 'experience' may change considerably if one is running the game in the way I did - game play time wise with same 'sim' , inventory,  travel wise and so on...   (I am not sure at this point but I think that I had played the game some 200 or some 400 hundred hours when game problems started to occur...

I am sure that I got all my old save games from back before the problem started to occur so if I ever feel like wasting a lot of time then I might try it on Windows 10 - but don't hold your breath ;-)   😃

As is then I think that  EA has finally 'seen the light' now I don't know how many years after I started telling them to upgrade the game engine to 64 bit !

@DanishLighthouse  I wasn't expecting you to take my personal experience as fact; that's why I mentioned all the other people who play Sims 3 with no significant issues.  That goes for people who've posted at AHQ in the last year and a half, and all the people who happily post about their games on various sites but never need to ask for tech help.  My point is that I don't think EA screwed its customers or owes anything to us for how TS3 turned out.

I'm not saying that the game didn't and doesn't have its issues, just that many of us have found that they can be worked through without too much trouble.  Sure, TS3 can be finicky, and stubborn, and occasionally a bit annoying, but I've never seen it as unplayable on at least a reasonable mid-range system.  That's a far different take on the game than you posted, which is why I replied.

It's unfortunate that you couldn't play in Windows XP, but yes, running on a system with 4 GB RAM or less (whether in a 32- or 64-bit OS) will make TS3's memory use much more difficult to manage.  It's still not impossible though—there are some people still playing in macOS, where the game was never even patched to be large address aware and therefore can only use 2 GB RAM total.  Again, there's a difference between a game that needs extra help to run and one that's unplayable.

This is normally the point where I'd offer to help, but, like you said before, you're not interested.  So I'll just leave it at that.

@puzzlezaddict, I am sure that you can find plenty of topics supporting your claim as I could maybe find many supporting mine had I wanted to waste my life keeping arguing with you .

Anyway , I took a look at a few pages that Google threw me at a search , and I think that the discussion on the following page rather well mirrors the situation on hand here with you where different people makes different claims , so I find it a real waste of time to try to make you stop second guessing my experiences on a PC system that I ran years ago and that you have absolutely no knowledge of  (same goes for you second guessing anyone's present computer system and software configurations ability to run a The  Sims 3 game - you not knowing what they have and what the configuration is) :

The sims 4 plays better than sims 3 :
https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/discussion/913952/the-sims-4-plays-better-than-sims-3

Also you presume to have the right to expect that the 'general' user / customer should spend an extra ordinary amount of time doing all sorts of stuff (and modifications)  that EA should have done - if it should be done at all - I read the page and people list all sorts of 'rules' they want kept to get the game to run stable , including but not limited to : All saves have a separate folder , only installing additional store content and custom content as needed and what not...

I mean seriously what load of '*' to have to keep arguing about when anyone reasonable would see that I am right and that the game were impossible to keep running under the circumstances given and back then....

@DanishLighthouse  I never said anything about how Sims 4 runs, much less that it runs worse than Sims 3; I have no idea where you got that.  Nor did I say anything about your system directly, but I did notice that the two articles you linked both referenced issues related to 32-bit OSs reporting less than the installed 4 GB memory.  Even without knowing your particular configuration, the point stands: a system with 4 GB RAM or less is going to have problems with Sims 3, that's just how it is.

As for the specs of other players, I do know something about that, since most people who respond to threads about system issues start by asking for a dxdiag.  I would never make assumptions about a system without seeing one, much less base my opinion about how a game runs on those assumptions.

For the record, I didn't do anything extraordinary to get or keep my game running, certainly nothing like the post you linked.  When I installed on this computer, I had to do was download an app to limit framerates and deny read permissions on a couple of files.  Sure, it would have been nice if TS3's fps limiter worked, but that's not the kind of thing that was necessary in 2009.  The other trickery in that thread seems like overkill, or the kind of thing that people only have to do if they install >10 GB of custom content.  All my saves, store content, and mods have always lived in the same folder, and the only time I ever have a second game folder is when I want to test something.

So no, the game was not impossible to keep running at any point during its development, nor has it been impossible to play in the six years since then.  It may have been impossible on your system, and that's unfortunate, but that has certainly never been the case for everyone.  And to my original reason for replying to you, I don't feel that EA screwed TS3 players or owes us anything for how the game turned out.

@DanishLighthouse, I also had a very bad experience with TS3.  I still loved the game because it was a Sims game, but I was disappointed in it compared to TS2 (which is still my favorite version of the Sims! 🥳)  .  I have a much better experience with TS4 🙌  compared to TS3!   I had every TS3 EP and SP.  It ended up being pretty much unplayable, and only the fact that I love the Sims and that I'm pretty stubborn did I continue to "play" TS3.  If you can call it playing by the end with all the expansions and stuff packs. 😢 I did more reading than playing when I "played" TS3. 😞

However, I don't find this a rip off on EA's part. Some people were able to play it and they really love it. I did get some enjoyment from the game; it was just difficult to do so.  My computer was probably mid-range. So, I was happy that TS4 was not an open world, and it still perplexes me why people are so angry that it isn't. 🤔  I'd rather have a few short loading screens than wait for 20-40 min for my game to decide to run (if it doesn't completely stop).  The only thing I thought was a rip off was the TS3 Store! 😬  I'm so glad that is gone! 🙌

But keep in mind I'm not as tech savvy as it sounds like you are or as @puzzlezaddict is! 😳 I could probably get TS3 to run decently on my computer now, but I've soured on the expierince and would rather play TS4. 🙂 

As for bundles, those weren't even offered to TS4 until right after I finally had gotten all of the packs that were available at that point! 😞 So I never got the discounts some of you later people have gotten. ☹️  But I did get some SPs on sale , they were just separate. 😇

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@puzzlezaddict wrote:

So no, the game was not impossible to keep running at any point during its development, nor has it been impossible to play in the six years since then.  It may have been impossible on your system, and that's unfortunate, but that has certainly never been the case for everyone.  And to my original reason for replying to you, I don't feel that EA screwed TS3 players or owes us anything for how the game turned out.

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Actually the game is *IS* impossible to keep running for at least some people and others knows that, you just keeps persevering as if you knows better than everybody else.    

Since the original problems for me were lags , freezes and and inability to save game without corruption (I think) then I looked into that and I have found this The Sims 3 thread about lags and freezes  from 2012 :

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/FAQ-Lags-amp-Freezes/td-p/646

User clearly among other states that : "Large Savegames. Games that have been played very long tend to bloat. Especially all the relationship information take up a lot of space."

*AND* if you would care to read my initial post then I clearly stated at bottom of post :

please notice that anyone not being able to recognize the problems described with the The Sims 3 game can only be persons that either did not have all the expansions and so on or did not play the game for long enough time with enough stuff in inventory and so on !!!

Also in my last before this post I wrote :

anyone reasonable would see that I am right and that the game were impossible to keep running

I have all the time stated directly that issues were related to long play time and a lot of in game 'content' and in game inventories   (By the way , just for the record then I never ran the game other than 'Vanilla' and never used any content that were not either bough from EA at the Sims site or hosted by EA and download from same site !!)(also I have never downloaded very much user created stuff that has been very little in fact but I bought much stuff from the Sims 3 site as I remember it)

Not that it is any of your business but then even to this day I have transported most of my old save games with me to my newest PC - that I am using here - so it has been very easy to check my The Sims 3 save games !    My  '.sims3.backup' directory for *ONE* save game is 891 MB and the '.sims3' directory is 862 MB of which the 'TravelDB.package' is 613 MB   (My 'Sim' lived in Bridgeport but did extensive traveling to China , France and Egypt) which is all reflected in the saves....  (you can go and compare if you want - it won't change anything for me as I know how it has been *FOR ME*)

And if you go back and look I also from the start made clear that I had played the game for *HUNDRED OF HOURS* with same 'Sim' - not that I can remember exactly for how long at this point..

Also your statement that "Sure, it would have been nice if TS3's fps limiter worked, but that's not the kind of thing that was necessary in 2009. " , only serve to show your lack of insight into PC tech and the problems with some games , fact is that Intel released following CPUs in 2008 : Core i7 desktop processors and  i7-920, the i7-940, and the i7-965 Extreme Edition,   And problems with *some games* related to some speed of some PC internals started many years before that (I won't claim that I have seen it often but it is a problem that has been known to exist for many years)

Anyway , this is becoming rather tiresome that you persists acting as if you knows better than everybody else all over this forum (with little to no room for anything other than your own opinion)....

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Just because someone *claim* to not  be part of EA's business doesn't mean that they are not going out of their way to always try make it their business

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@PugLove888 wrote:

However, I don't find this a rip off on EA's part. Some people were able to play it and they really love it. I did get some enjoyment from the game; it was just difficult to do so.  My computer was probably mid-range. So, I was happy that TS4 was not an open world, and it still perplexes me why people are so angry that it isn't. 🤔  I'd rather have a few short loading screens than wait for 20-40 min for my game to decide to run (if it doesn't completely stop).  The only thing I thought was a rip off was the TS3 Store! 😬  I'm so glad that is gone! 🙌

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Thank you very much for the kind and well balanced answer. Your personal opinions are only fair even though you do not 'feel ripped off' which I must confess that I do because that EA support promised me that buying the The Sims 3 would solve the problems that I had with the The Sims 2 which it obviously did not.  (Also our personal opinions *of course* are related to our personal experiences which again of course varies....)

Come to think of it then EA support at some point also claimed that I had to buy another PC with specs like this or that to fix then problems with the The Sims 3 , which I of course did (video editor software editor company Pinnacle Systems also often blamed the PC back then so I were used to it) but when I bought a PC that clearly fulfilled the specs - including the OS - then that *OF COURSE* did not solve the problem either , but this is about 6 years back I think and a lot of this were communication over the phone so I would have to rely on fragments of memory popping up from time to time to reconstruct it all

You write that you do not consider yourself as tech savvy as some others, but in my opinion then then one that can see their own limitation is so much wiser than the 'know it all'.   I used to spend a lot of time fixing peoples computer problems of which some were hardware related and some were software related  and I were considered to be very good at fixing stuff for people and some had the attitude that I fix anything.  But only a total idiot will think that they can fix everything when it comes to PC related problems. Even the manufactures of hardware , games and software can not or will not fix everything.   I have been in direct contact with more very well known companies over the years and have even been forced by one company to ship a motherboard to Taiwan (or China ?) to have a serious BIOS related OS level hard disc controller problem related to file copying fixed only to be told that they did not intend to fix the problem once they finally were willing to recognize that they actually had the problem. 

Nobody can fix everything , and in the PC 'world' especially it is a great problem that so much is not documented and so much important information about 'stuff' is either not available to others than manufactures or it will take like forever to gain a high enough level of understanding of enough for it to matter in connection with fixing something that is normally 'beyond your control' which lets face it most of the stuff that we use are in the sense of having been made or how it is made or put together - if you know what I mean....

Anyway , like you I much prefer less of something that actually works rather than plenty that does not...  , On that note , then I just read this article about the Sims 4 : https://www.thegamer.com/sims-4-dlc-plan-schedule-ruining-game/      (I think that EA should concentrate on making stuff that works rather than too much that does not! or has problems)(I personally am experiencing a bug at the moment where harvestables vanishes from inventory when saving the game , ref : inventory: [OPEN] Harvestables disappearing from sims' inventory and chest inventory (Daemonten)

Have a very nice day , thank you :-)

@DanishLighthouse  Of course there isn't much point in continuing this.  But there are a few things I would like to say for the sake of accuracy:

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@DanishLighthouse wrote:
Actually the game is *IS* impossible to keep running for at least some people and others knows that, you just keeps persevering as if you knows better than everybody else. 
[...]

Also in my last before this post I wrote :

anyone reasonable would see that I am right and that the game were impossible to keep running

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I know someone who's been playing the same one TS3 save for eight years, with 16 interconnected worlds (some via EA travel mechanisms, most via mods), and all packs for several years now.  It runs pretty well to hear him tell it, certainly nothing like the "impossible" you've repeatedly cited.  I know a number of others with similar experiences, but I'm not trying to measure anything, merely provide a counterexample to a sweeping statement presented as unassailable fact.

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My  '.sims3.backup' directory for *ONE* save game is 891 MB and the '.sims3' directory is 862 MB of which the 'TravelDB.package' is 613 MB   (My 'Sim' lived in Bridgeport but did extensive traveling to China , France and Egypt) which is all reflected in the saves....  (you can go and compare if you want - it won't change anything for me as I know how it has been *FOR ME*)

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There's a tool called Kuree's Save Cleaner that would have cleaned that up for you.  Plenty of people prefer not to use outside tools, and that's certainly a valid decision, but it is a choice; they're not stuck with a game that's impossible to fix.

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Also your statement that "Sure, it would have been nice if TS3's fps limiter worked, but that's not the kind of thing that was necessary in 2009. " , only serve to show your lack of insight into PC tech and the problems with some games , fact is that Intel released following CPUs in 2008 : Core i7 desktop processors and  i7-920, the i7-940, and the i7-965 Extreme Edition,   And problems with *some games* related to some speed of some PC internals started many years before that (I won't claim that I have seen it often but it is a problem that has been known to exist for many years)

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Framerate limiters are intended above all else to control the output of and therefore protect graphics cards, not processors.

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*AND* if you would care to read my initial post then I clearly stated at bottom of post :

please notice that anyone not being able to recognize the problems described with the The Sims 3 game can only be persons that either did not have all the expansions and so on or did not play the game for long enough time with enough stuff in inventory and so on !!!

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I read it the first time, and I only responded once, because it didn't seem worth the effort to compare experiences.  But I need to stress that this is what bothers me above all else.  You're entitled to your opinion, whatever it happens to be, and it's perfectly reasonable to argue for it to whatever lengths you wish.  However, this claim that anyone who disagrees with you does not have all the facts is completely unjustified.

Much as you tried to say to me, you cannot have the information about how others' computers run their games, and under what circumstances.  It may seem like an impossibility to you that any save could run for a long time, but that does not make it objectively impossible.  And to preemptively dismiss all other opinions as uninformed without any evidence to that effect makes it, well, impossible to have a reasonable conversation.

I've kept at this because I love Sims 3 and have for a long time, and so seeing someone trash it makes me want to provide a counterpoint whenever possible.  But I'm going to bed now, and when I wake up in the morning, I will hopefully have the good sense not to respond further.

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@puzzlezaddict wrote:

There's a tool called Kuree's Save Cleaner that would have cleaned that up for you.  Plenty of people prefer not to use outside tools, and that's certainly a valid decision, but it is a choice; they're not stuck with a game that's impossible to fix.

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Let's see , in your post before this you 'proclaimed that :

For the record, I didn't do anything extraordinary to get or keep my game running, certainly nothing like the post you linked. When I installed on this computer, I had to do was download an app to limit framerates and deny read permissions on a couple of files.

a remark which at that place were used by you as a tool to try to convince others that my claim about The Sims 3 were wrong , then in your next post you on the fly add that oh! yes , one also has to do this or that .

I can appreciate your 'love' for the The Sims 3 game and that you seem to sometimes wants to 'help' others but what you also are doing is to constantly lie to both yourself and others about who you are and what you do.  You constantly modify your claims to fit your own purpose which appear to be to convince other that you are always right and that you know everything.

You did the same to me in another thread where you first had to try assert yourself by making a remark that your suggestions are all better and when you finally find out that that is not so (ref. hard drive  2) then you suddenly slings out the excuse that the  better one that I suggested were not available at some site that you refer to - which I never claimed that it was , since all I did were to state an opinion which you did not like which in turn made you want to try to assert  yourself !

You constantly modify your claims to fit your own purpose and you are completely un-willing to follow anything but your own (bent) self serving 'logic'  !

My advice to you is to step down from your high horse and to live and let live .  Did I start to meddle in the other thread when the OP asked you about any AV program ? No ! , why not ?  Did I not have an opinion ? Yes I did , but you see , I do not have to assert myself all the time and I do not have to state my opinion everywhere even though I do not always agree with what other people writes.  You can not stand that anyone has an opinion that is not yours and you are willing to try to bend everything all the time to try to make it look as if you are right.  I do not want this discussion , I do not want to have to dissect what you are doing , what I would like you to do is to get off my back thank you !!!

Fact is that you can not keep playing the 'Vanilla' version of the The Sims 3 game for prolonged time under the circumstances as described by me earlier without  that the 'general' user / customer should spend an extra ordinary amount of time doing all sorts of stuff (and modifications) that EA should have done - if it should be done at all .

(If the game should be 'improved' this should have been done by EA.  As I wrote to start with the in my opinion then I think that it would have been proper action to offer a free or almost free 64 bit game engine upgrade to all The Sims 3 game owners that like me bought all the expansion packs only to find out that the game could neither run nor save after many hours of game play - a  64 bit game engine upgrade that would solve most all of the problems (if EA at the same time made a few adjustments and set some numbers  to have a max value)

(It's funny these days how so many companies issues so many new and upgraded versions of games (often called HD versions) where I do not see EA doing that with my favorite EA games (like the The Sims franchise and the C&C franchise (like Tiberian Sun & Red Alert 2)

I thank you for any 'advice' dispensed by you over the course of conversation , I would like to recognize that that I just actually *did* download the save game clean tool referred to by you to my the The Sims 3 download collection though I doubt that I will  want to use it both it seems unclear exactly what it deletes (seem to also depend on tool version) , plus I am not in the mood to start to tinker more with The Sims 3 now if can avoid it - though I must confess that I have been very upset for years that I could not play my The Sims 3 game to my heart's content....

Now ! , if you do not mind , please stop bothering me , thank you !

(Text last edited on December 12 , 2019 to correct a spelling error)