Any news on Sims 3 eventually getting the 64bit update?

The only news is that an update is coming for the Mac version of the game. Here's the announcement from back in October:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/An-announcement-for-The-Sims-3-players-on-Mac/td-p/8271641

The official EA position has always been that it's coming some time in early 2020. I've always taken that to mean some time between May 2020 and never. I guess we'll see.

It should be noted here that we have no idea whether the upcoming Mac version update will really give us a game that can address more RAM than the current Mac version already does on Mojave and prior. We hope that it does, but such has never been mentioned. All we do know is that the new version has been promised to somehow, in some form, run on Catalina whereas the current version cannot.

And, as this also tends to cause some confusion among players, there have been no plans whatsoever announced for a 64-bit version of the game to run on Windows.

"JUSTIN12566532;c-17402622" wrote:
This is news to me! So wait, does that mean the game is only limited to 4GB of RAM? Even if you have more? @igazor

TS3 for Mac is currently 32-bit only, is further crippled by the way in which its implementation on the macOS was done, and can only address 2 GB of RAM no matter how much the player has installed. We do not yet know how/if this will change when the new Mac version or patch is released later this year.

TS3 for Windows is 32-bit only but is also as of Patch 1.17 long ago Large Address Aware, so it can only address 4 GB of RAM (the real upper limit is ~3.7 GB due to some overhead) no matter how much the player has installed. There has never been an announcement about that changing.

Part of the game, so to speak, becomes keeping RAM usage below either of the above limits at all times throughout gameplay. One spike above the danger zone, which will be a bit different for different players but on Windows that's usually somewhere above 3.5 GB, and the game will crash or Error 12 upon trying to save which is just as bad -- no one would want to play a game that they cannot save. This is also why there is such a strict limit, that again will vary by player as there are so many variables, as to how large, complicated, and populated our individual worlds can be.

@igazor Wow, well thank you for explaining this. Honestly this is something i never was aware of. :open_mouth:

I saw the announcement back in October about a update being released as a patch for 64-bit early 2020 but still no news. Shame really as I want to update my Mac but I do not want to lose sims 3

"kevdayray;c-17432823" wrote:
@igazor Is there anyway to 'un'update my mac so that I can play? And is it true that we can play TS3 from Origin?

TS3 for Mac on recent operating systems (but not updated to Catalina) almost has to be an Origin install. The systems starting with El Capitan and those that came after will not recognize the retail store discs for authentication and there is no Steam option. The game doesn't need to be started by way of Origin like it now does on Windows, it's just needed to manage the installation and the authentication that used to be done by way of having the disc of the base game or most recently released expansion/stuff pack in the drive.

In theory you should be able to downgrade your Mac to Mojave or High Sierra by formatting the boot drive and installing that instead. But that will wipe everything you have off your drive, all applications and all data. Another way would be to have a second boot drive or a bootable removable device with Mojave or High Sierra on it and boot up from that instead. I'm not sure I've seen anyone report back after trying those options though, perhaps others here might.

This is going to depend on the Mac in question, but I wouldn't bother with any of those strategies given how crippled TS3 for Mac is. An arguably better way to enjoy the game would be to Bootcamp Windows onto it and then install TS3 for Windows through Origin, retail store disc, or repurchase the game on Steam. Then the Catalina issue goes away because you aren't running the macOS anymore whenever you wish to play. But your Mac does need to have enough drive space for the Bootcamp partition, a retail standalone purchase of Win 10 would be required, and you would need enough patience to manage two independent operating systems. How well the game performs on Windows would then be a matter of the hardware specs on the Mac you are working with.

"discoduck227;c-17433593" wrote:
I am glad I found this topic! I tried redownloading my Sims 3 game so I could play and didn't realize the game was 32 bit and my Windows 10 is 64. I was disappointed that I couldn't play it again. I would love to see them upgrade it.

You could still possibly play it.I play on a windows 10 laptop, and its 32 bit.It all depends on your computer.

"discoduck227;c-17433593" wrote:
I am glad I found this topic! I tried redownloading my Sims 3 game so I could play and didn't realize the game was 32 bit and my Windows 10 is 64. I was disappointed that I couldn't play it again. I would love to see them upgrade it.

That is not correct, 64-bit Windows systems can still run 32-bit applications and will be able to do so for an extremely long time to preserve backwards compatibility. There has been no noise coming from Microsoft whatsoever about this changing. This is why we have a Program Files folder and a Program Files (x86) folder side-by-side. The "regular" one is for 64-bit applications and the (x86) one is for 32-bit applications. When an application is installed, Windows puts in the correct folder for us automatically.

In fact, we would never recommend a 32-bit system for TS3 or much of anything else today because even though they are still officially supported, they can't address more than 4 GB of RAM total. And Windows can hog up so much of that for itself that there isn't enough left to service a game.

This is strictly a macOS issue right now. The macOS had already been 64-bit for ages, but what they did with its most recent version was remove the backwards compatibility. Most players on Win 10 64-bit can run the game just fine, or fine as they ever could anyway.

"ramon475;c-17433981" wrote:
They actually announced an official update to 64 Bit for Mac users last year somewhere but they haven't said anything about it since...

What they announced was an upcoming fix to make the game function in some way in a 64-bit only environment on the macOS. That's not the same thing as updating or enhancing the capacity of the program, it would just be to make it run quite possibly exactly as it does now on pre-Catalina systems, though that of course remains to be seen.

An EA Staff person reported on Answers.HQ just a couple of weeks ago that this effort is still very much a work in progress on their end.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/the-sims-3-64-bit-amp-metal-release/m-p/8820136#M6265

Does anyone know any updated news about it since the coronavirus is now here and they still working on it?