Can My MacBook Play The Sims 3?

"ScottDemon;c-17353427" wrote:

"igazor;c-17353420" wrote:

"ScottDemon;c-17353215" wrote:

"igazor;c-17353182" wrote:
A patch to address this has been announced by EA and will be forthcoming sometime in 2020.

Actually it's not patch but a completely different version of the game as it makes significant changes to the game. It'll be able to benefit from the 64 bit architecture allowing it to no longer be limited to the 32 bit RAM limit.

We do not actually know this, unless you have access to more information than I've seen released (of course I would love to be proven wrong here due to the huge benefits that would bring to the table). But it sounds to me like what they will be doing is wrapping the existing Mac version of the game with all of its limitations in a 64-bit wrapper of some kind so that Catalina and higher will run it. Nowhere have I read that they are re-engineering the Mac version to actually run as a 64-bit application would, or to even be the equivalent of Large Address Aware so that it can use more than 2 GB, although that would certainly be an improvement as well if it can even be done.

The 64 bit wrapper would require redoing many parts of the game engine most specifically to memory allocation as it would no longer be possible to maintain the 32 bit limitations.
Bethseda already tried that route with Skyrim as originally Skyrim SSE was only going to have updated graphics but have a 64 bit wrapper they found out it wasn't possible to keep the 32 bit limitions and had to redo the game engine.

Again with the understanding that I would very much like to be wrong here, I claim that TS3 for Mac is different because it currently runs within a Cider wrapper that emulates portions of Win XP and that's where its limitations begin. It is not natively coded for the macOS like a proper port would be and like TS1, 2, and 4 for Mac were done (by another party, not by EA). If they are undoing all of that, then great, but I'm afraid that still isn't what my ears are hearing. Or rather, eyes are reading. Unless they really started this effort years ago, being able to accomplish all of that on such a fast schedule as currently indicated would be pretty amazing.

"igazor;c-17353430" wrote:

"ScottDemon;c-17353427" wrote:

"igazor;c-17353420" wrote:

"ScottDemon;c-17353215" wrote:

"igazor;c-17353182" wrote:
A patch to address this has been announced by EA and will be forthcoming sometime in 2020.

Actually it's not patch but a completely different version of the game as it makes significant changes to the game. It'll be able to benefit from the 64 bit architecture allowing it to no longer be limited to the 32 bit RAM limit.

We do not actually know this, unless you have access to more information than I've seen released (of course I would love to be proven wrong here due to the huge benefits that would bring to the table). But it sounds to me like what they will be doing is wrapping the existing Mac version of the game with all of its limitations in a 64-bit wrapper of some kind so that Catalina and higher will run it. Nowhere have I read that they are re-engineering the Mac version to actually run as a 64-bit application would, or to even be the equivalent of Large Address Aware so that it can use more than 2 GB, although that would certainly be an improvement as well if it can even be done.

The 64 bit wrapper would require redoing many parts of the game engine most specifically to memory allocation as it would no longer be possible to maintain the 32 bit limitations.
Bethseda already tried that route with Skyrim as originally Skyrim SSE was only going to have updated graphics but have a 64 bit wrapper they found out it wasn't possible to keep the 32 bit limitions and had to redo the game engine.

Again with the understanding that I would very much like to be wrong here, I claim that TS3 for Mac is different because it currently runs within a Cider wrapper that emulates portions of Win XP and that's where its limitations begin. It is not natively coded for the macOS like a proper port would be and like TS1, 2, and 4 for Mac were done (by another party, not by EA). If they are undoing all of that, then great, but I'm afraid that still isn't what my ears are hearing. Or rather, eyes are reading. Unless they really started this effort years ago, being able to accomplish all of that on such a fast schedule as currently indicated would be pretty amazing.

Rewriting the game engine with the resources that EA has would only take around year or even less it's obvious to me that they started the project shortly after it was announced that Mac was no longer going to support 32 bit.

*Edit*
After reading the Annoucement you may have missed the most important part a change to the Minimum Specs which wouldn't be needed if it was just a 64 bit wrapper with all the 32 bit limitations which isn't even possible to keep anyway.

@ScottDemon - (puts hat on table) If you are correct, then this will be my dinner on the day of release. For those not familiar, "then I will eat my hat" was a very popular expression at one time, originating in the 90s. Er, that's the 1790s, of course. We really thought we were on the cutting edge (of something) back then. :)

In the meantime, out of respect for the OP I would say sorry that we have unintentionally hijacked this thread and we should continue this discussion elsewhere if we wish to. I think they have enough information now to gauge whether attempting a TS3 install on a MacBook Air running Mojave with a limited number of EPs is a good idea or if it would be better to take a wait and see attitude towards what may come.