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Dummyinick's avatar
Dummyinick
5 years ago

Installing TS3 on an SSD? + more hardware related questions.

A few weeks ago, I gave in and bought a custom built gaming computer after my trusty old computer's hard-drive was beginning to fail and took over 10 minutes to boot up.

I forgot to realize by that buying a new computer, I would have to reinstall everything- and according to a quick Google search, TS3 can either be easy or difficult to install on Windows 10. I did manage to save my sims and my mods folder, however.

I'm definitely not computer savy, and I've been putting off installing TS3 since I got my new computer for this reason. I know my graphics card is too "new" for TS3 to recognize it without going in and changing the graphics settings manually. (Which, I have no idea how to do admittedly). I don't even know if my computer can run TS3 properly or if I should just keep my old computer for the Sims 3.

I know results may vary when it comes to specs. You could have an extremely beefy computer but not be able to run it properly, or vice versa.

Here are my specs:
Intel i7-7770k
4.20GHz
16 GB of Ram
64 bit
Windows 10
GeForce GTX 1080
1 TB of storage

I also have a 2 external hard-drives (both from old i5 Intel machines of mine) and an SSD, all which have 1 TB of storage.
If my machine is capable of running of running TS3, is it possible to install it on the SSD?

One of those hard drives has an extremely old TS3 folder on it, will I run into issues installing TS3 because of it? Should I unplug that hard-drive before installing just to be safe?

Do I just drag my saved sims folder and mods folder into TS3 folder when I'm done? Is it really that simple, or am I overthinking it?


Thank you for any help. I would love to get into playing again soon.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago
    There's no reason your hardware shouldn't be able to run Sims 3 on ultra graphics settings, of course as long as you take the necessary steps to get the same running smoothly. Is your SSD internal? You can and definitely should install Sims 3 on it; loading times will be much faster than if the game were on a mechanical drive or any kind of external drive.

    If your external hard drive has a Sims 3 user data folder (saves, mods, saved households, etc.) on it, there's no harm in having it plugged in while installing. And yes, you can transfer over your content once TS3 is up and running. The best practice is to install the game, launch it once to make sure everything is working, then add the content you want to the new folder. Here's a complete list of the subfolders inside the user data folder, including explanations of what each one contains:

    https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/01/faq-user-files.html

    I can help you get your graphics card recognized, once the game is installed. When you've launched it once and made sure it's working, please go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3, open the file labeled deviceconfig.log, copy the lines between "Graphics device info" (about 25 lines down) and "Options" (about 40 lines down), and paste it here.

    The other thing you'll need to do, once Sims 3 is running, is manually limit your in-game framerates. This is usually pretty simple, but there's not much point in trying until you can test in-game.
  • mooncosmics's avatar
    mooncosmics
    5 years ago
    I have an internal SSD and external harddrive for my laptop, but I personally don't see much of a difference in loading times between installing The Sims 3 on both of them. And to add onto what @puzzlezaddict said, I actually used a program made to change The Sims 3's config to recognize new graphics cards! It's called The Sims 3 GPU Add-on Support, I think? It's on Nexusmods. Good luck and happy simming! <3

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