playing the sims 3 in 2020

"Zei;c-17520224" wrote:

"InfraGreen;c-17398976" wrote:
TS3 is one of the few games that truly benefits from using an SSD. I actually made a 512GB one my priority with building my desktop. SSD for speed, space for all the saves (I also have a storage drive but it's a regular HDD and older)

Agree with this. Also learn how to (if you don't already) enable the game to use more RAM by tweaking the config files. (by default, it uses only 2GB no matter how much RAM your PC has).

Here's a helpful guide.

That´s wrong. The game was updated, you don´t have to tweak this anymore and it would be better not to suggest this kind of "help" to players. The game can now use more than 3 GB of RAM, depending on your computer specs from 3.3 GB to 3.6 GB.
So dont use this guide, it´s not neccessary anymore!!!!
@igazor can explain it better than me, so I hope he´ll see this. (Thanks in advance for the help igazor!)

When the game was released in 2009, it could only make use of 2 GB of RAM (this is still true only of the Mac version). That was fixed when the game became Large Address Aware (LAA) with Patch 1.17 released alongside of Late Night.

@Zei - I'm afraid that link is indeed not helpful and what it is instructing players to change is really the upper limit of the game's script heap which is set to 20 GB by default (not 2 GB). That setting should really be left alone, the developers must have had a reason for choosing 20 GB as a default value there and it has nothing to do with RAM usage.

There is most certainly no way to get the game to use 8 GB like that guide says. The one who posted it so many years ago should have known better, and quite possibly did but posted this anyway and players have unfortunately been taken in by it ever since. :/

"igazor;c-17525776" wrote:
When the game was released in 2009, it could only make use of 2 GB of RAM (this is still true only of the Mac version). That was fixed when the game became Large Address Aware (LAA) with Patch 1.17 released alongside of Late Night.

@Zei - I'm afraid that link is indeed not helpful and what it is instructing players to change is really the upper limit of the game's script heap which is set to 20 GB by default (not 2 GB). That setting should really be left alone, the developers must have had a reason for choosing 20 GB as a default value there and it has nothing to do with RAM usage.

There is most certainly no way to get the game to use 8 GB like that guide says. The one who posted it so many years ago should have known better, and quite possibly did but posted this anyway and players have unfortunately been taken in by it ever since. :/

Oh my god, I'm very very surprised by this information. But it did make my game run much faster, how did it do that then?

@Zei - I don't mean to be overly dismissive, but possibly this was a Placebo Effect? Or maybe you changed/improved something else at or around the same time that did have a positive impact?

"igazor;c-17527109" wrote:
@Zei - I don't mean to be overly dismissive, but possibly this was a Placebo Effect? Or maybe you changed/improved something else at or around the same time that did have a positive impact?

Well... I did enable V-sync around the same time... Would it make that much of a difference in performance really?

And do you think I should change that setting to its original value now? It wouldn't do more harm, would it?

"Zei;c-17527115" wrote:

"igazor;c-17527109" wrote:
@Zei - I don't mean to be overly dismissive, but possibly this was a Placebo Effect? Or maybe you changed/improved something else at or around the same time that did have a positive impact?

Well... I did enable V-sync around the same time... Would it make that much of a difference in performance really?

In a word, YES! :)

"Zei;c-17527115" wrote:
And do you think I should change that setting to its original value now? It wouldn't do more harm, would it?

I would advise setting it back to 20 GB. In theory, a script heap that is too large or too small can be neutral at best or lead to instability at worst. It won't really be a night and day kind of difference either way, though.

"igazor;c-17527137" wrote:

"Zei;c-17527115" wrote:

"igazor;c-17527109" wrote:
@Zei - I don't mean to be overly dismissive, but possibly this was a Placebo Effect? Or maybe you changed/improved something else at or around the same time that did have a positive impact?

Well... I did enable V-sync around the same time... Would it make that much of a difference in performance really?

In a word, YES! :)

"Zei;c-17527115" wrote:
And do you think I should change that setting to its original value now? It wouldn't do more harm, would it?

I would advise setting it back to 20 GB. In theory, a script heap that is too large or too small can be neutral at best or lead to instability at worst. It won't really be a night and day kind of difference either way, though.

Thanks Igazor, you're the best!
Let me edit my posts so that others don't make the same mistake I did with those config files.

"AlexaKry;c-17525739" wrote:

"Zei;c-17520224" wrote:

"InfraGreen;c-17398976" wrote:
TS3 is one of the few games that truly benefits from using an SSD. I actually made a 512GB one my priority with building my desktop. SSD for speed, space for all the saves (I also have a storage drive but it's a regular HDD and older)

Agree with this. Also learn how to (if you don't already) enable the game to use more RAM by tweaking the config files. (by default, it uses only 2GB no matter how much RAM your PC has).

Here's a helpful guide.

That´s wrong. The game was updated, you don´t have to tweak this anymore and it would be better not to suggest this kind of "help" to players. The game can now use more than 3 GB of RAM, depending on your computer specs from 3.3 GB to 3.6 GB.
So dont use this guide, it´s not neccessary anymore!!!!
@igazor can explain it better than me, so I hope he´ll see this. (Thanks in advance for the help igazor!)

Hey @AlexaKry, I'm truly sorry about this. Thanks for giving me the heads up. I enabled V-sync around the same time and thought the RAM thing had done the magic to my game instead of V-sync. Just wanted to share what I thought was helpful information, I edited the posts now so no one should try it.

@Zei : No problem!
It´s good that you´ve mentioned it and that igazor could correct the information!
Because like you did, people could think that this advice is still valid, so they try it out and can corrupt their game. And don´t know that this correction they made could cause their game to stutter or crash. And then they tell everybody that The Sims 3 doesn´t run good and is a bad game and whatever. :s
Perhaps by bringing this up again some people see it and they can be prevented to change Memory Usage. :)

I've actually just trialled sims 4 and I did enjoy it but there's so many things that were missing for me like, you can straight age up a baby and there's no needs for the baby as well :\ I did enjoy not having to wear ugly clothes whilst pregnant. I also don't know how to get up stairs lol.

https://i.ibb.co/GCM7dKW/06-07-20-1-40-03-PM.png

I think I enjoy Sims 3 more as it just goes with the flow, doesn't give you sub-challenges alongside challenges and I really like the fact that you can just go somewhere and not have to wait for a loading screen (wasn't that long but it does get a bit boring if you're going there quite frequently. I also know how to get up stairs (lol) and you know the needs of babies and such.