The Sims 3 CPU multiplier experiment and help needed

Hello! I’ve been experimenting with the adjustedCPU calculation in The Sims 3’s GraphicsRules.sgr, and I noticed an unexpected change in how quickly textures loaded with all graphic settings turned up to their maximum (except edge smoothing).

I am interested to see if anyone has tested the same in The Sims 3, have any tips for object rendering, or would be interested if EA would create 64bit windows version of the Sims 3

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The Test:

My DeviceConfig showed a CPU Speed of 3072, an Adjusted CPU of 3696, and a CPU rating of 4/Uber (I had to force this cpu class tier, as it was originally marked as a 3). By “default” the graphicsrules file multiplies my CPU Speed by 1.3334 then subtracts 400.

Editing the graphicsrules file, I first removed the old 400-point Windows penalty, bringing the Adjusted CPU value to 4096. Once live gameplay was tested and visually unaffected in terms of negative performance, with the adjustedcpu value of 4096 being reported in deviceconfig, I then began increasing the multiplier.

At a multiplier of 2, the game remained smooth and texture pop-in seemed slightly faster. At 4, texture loading seemed progressively faster, yet still yielding very minor improvements to the speeds of object rendering of mold/models, then each of their textures. Increasing it to 8 produced little to no additional improvement over 4.

I also tested a ridiculous multiplier of 20,000,000,000, which caused the value to overflow and appear as -2147483648. For my reported CPU Speed of 3072, the largest whole-number multiplier that kept the calculated result below the signed 32-bit integer limit was 699,050. That produced an Adjusted CPU value of approximately 2,147,481,600, and texture pop-in again appeared noticeably fast during testing.

I am not claiming that an enormous number magically gives the game more processing power to communicate with. My system was already classified as Uber, so increasing the value had no effect on the basic CPU tiered ratings of 1-4. Another part of the engine may reference adjustedCPU speed, but the difference could also come from cached textures, repeatedly loading the same save, or ordinary testing variance/phenomenon from the higher adjustedcpu speed. Nonetheless, tests were conducted on an existing game save, with objects loading faster regardless of caches being cleared through Regul save cleaner or not.

Would be interested to see if anyone else notices similar improvements.

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My current specs:

I am playing The Sims 3 on a Lenovo Legion Pro 5i with an Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 275HX Processor (E-cores up to 4.60 GHz P-cores up to 5.40 GHz), 32 GB DDR5-6400MT/s (CSODIMM) - (2 x 16 GB), Solid State Drive 1 TB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe Gen4 TLC, NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5070 Ti Laptop GPU 12GB GDDR7.

All graphic settings found in the game’s options menu are turned all the way up. Edge smoothing is off. Object hiding is off. Advanced Rendering and Animation Smoothing is on.

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Other quality vs performance tweaks and mods:

Before this test, I have played around with various values in graphicsrules and downloaded every notable mod to increase the performance and quality of The Sims 3, yet i still experience lag when it comes to lots being triggered to load with their active level of detail (LOD), objects loading on their lots (grey object molds/models then textures popping in), the camera panning faster than distant objects loading, and slight hitching with camera movement.

The biggest annoyance is the objects loading slowly… I hate having to wait for the gray furniture to finish being upholstered, regardless if it only takes a few seconds.

In graphicsrules, I have…

1.) tweaked graphicsrules texturememory to both 4096 and 8192, finding that 8192 tends to be more stable with objects loading fairly decent and no visual glitches.

2.) tweaked graphicsrules high texture quality, changing texturesizethreshold 2048 to both 1024 and 4092. No major performance changes between 1024 and the default 2048. Objects seemed to load slightly slower with the default 2048 changed to 4192, but loaded more objects at one time. Texturesizethreshold was reverted to 2048.

3.) tweaked graphicsrules high texture quality, changing rttsizesmall and rttsizelarge from their default values of 256 and 512. Rttsizesmall and its default value of 256 increased to 512 showed some negative impact on objects rendering. Rttsizelarge and its default value of 512 increased to 1024 showed little to no negative impact. Rttsizesmall was reverted to 256, rttsizelarge reverted to 512.

4.) Tweaked graphicsrules high texture quality, changing TrilinearEnabled and AnisoEnabled to false. I use the settings through my nvidia control panel for gpu optimization.

5.) tweaked graphicsrules very high simquality, changing CASLightMapWidth from default 1024 to 2048. No performance changes. CASlightmapwidth was reverted to 1024.

6.) tweaked graphicsrules very high simquality, changing CASRenderTargetSize from default 2048 to 4096. Not sure if due to existing save file or high quality default replacement cc, but default 2048 caused visual glitching primarily of default hair replacements.

7.) tweaked graphicsrules very high simquality, changing the RenderSimTextureSizes from default 2048, 2048, 512, 12 to 2560, 2048, 512, 12 and 2560, 2560, 512, 12 and 2560, 2048, 1024, 512, and etc., for increased rendering of sim level of detail during live gameplay. Major visual glitching occurred with all changed values, resulting in clay-like poor resolution sims being shown in the world and sim portrait seen in the UI click-bubble popup. RenderSimTextureSizes were reverted to default 2048, 2048, 512, 12. However changes to the RenderSimLODDistances are still viable in exchange for negative performance impacts and possible large memory crashes.

8.) tweaked graphicsrules resourcegroup resources memCacheBudgetValue, increasing default value to 3900000000. I saw this somewhere during one late night of game research, noticed performance improvements.

9.) tweaked graphicsrules high lighting quality, changing shadowmapsize default value to 4096. No performance impact noticed.

10.) tweaked graphicsrules high lighting quality, changing interiorlightprobecount default value to 20. Lighting takes a longer to fully load into a room but does make visual quality improvement.

11.) tweaked graphicsrules high general reflections, changing WaterReflectionAreaThreshold from its default value to 50. No major performance impact but does makes visual quality improvement.

In terms of notable performance mods, I have downloaded…

1.) NRAAS master controller, overwatch, errortrap, relativity, etc., pretty much very mod they have. One major performance impact other than overwatch and errortrap is the relativity mod! Slowing down the world time to 1/2 - 2/3 allows slightly more headroom for gaming simulations to take place. Think slower time, slower tasks, less to do actions, less possibilities for multiple sims to find something to do at once and so quick.

2.) The Sims 3 Setting Setter (S3SS) and Smooth Patch Package file. I normally set my ticks per second (TPS) to 960, and my frames per second to 60. I have nearly every performance setting on, including the experimental ones like the GC’s. I turned off the uncompressed compositor textures since using TurboTravel again… not sure there is much point and might cause computing bloat.

3.) DXVK. People swear by it so I tried it again. I put my maxavailablememory to 8192 and texturememory to 512. Yes, I know texturememory is recommended at 100 but noticed improvements with 256 and 512 since using TurboTravel.

4.) TurboTravel. This is less well known but made major improvements on my old laptop with a dual pentium 1.8 processor and integrated hd gpu. This application essentially decompresses all of the games core package files found in each of the EP folders. The idea behind this, from what I gathered, is by decompressing all the world assets and objects, your cpu does most of the major processing when first loading your save files.

5.) OhRudi’s less space routing mods. Your sims get less stuck, causing less back up on the game simulation.

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Personal Rant:

Please add your own comments into the mix, but EA seriously needs to release a 64bit version of The Sims 3 for windows. While I know the Mac 64 version has its own problems, the 32bit architecture is the games biggest hindrance. The common crashing from the memory load of default uber settings is not just a bug, it’s indicative that the game needed to be optimized before even being sold and needs it so much more now that high quality cc and gaming rigs are more than capable than the actual game itself.

Considering the only reason why The Sims 3 exists as a 64bit for mac is because of sales and profit vs technology compatibility, I am surprised that EA is still able to sell The Sims 3 for Windows PC devices. Other than the minuscule headroom of default uber settings against memory load crashing, the game was never updated to include new CPU and GPU’s, or even a better way to classify future ones.

The consumers who purchase The Sims 3 must rely on third-party, gaming community sponsored, aftermarket, and outside the means of original manufacturers/developers intended modifications in order for the game to launch, properly recognize computer components for normal gameplay not outside the consumers respective technology, and optimize its ability towards memory reading/writing and/or caching to prevent memory load crashing.

Not only did EA abandon its manufacturing/developer duty to ensure a properly functioning product unless otherwise noted long before technology outpaced sims 3 and EA fully switched over to ts4, most of their current expansions are simply piecemeal concepts of The Sims 3, featured 1 and 2 objects every so often, just available for much less stuff and more money…

With the craze behind inzoi and paralives, I really just think their gaming success is where EA fell flat between The Sims 3 and The Sims 4. Each game has their pro’s and con’s. Sims 3 was the peak of crazy fun real life gaming placed into an open world, never tapping into a 64bit architecture that could’ve led it to become even more iconic than a few years.

The Sims 4 closed gamers back to their neighborhoods, going against the whole original release behind its prequel that people leave their house to live life, tapping into 64bit technology to make visually better textures and animations; the exchange also being that consumers are ripped off to everything the community was once offered for their money, making their gamer experience extremely pay-to-play with more transactions with less stuff offered. Seems to be more geared towards Create-a-sim and Build/Buy rather than live gameplay…

Inzoi is really what the sims 3 could’ve been with an open world experience, just hyper realistic and with the oversimplification of life gaming seen with the Sims 4. Once you get to live gameplay, it’s not uncommon to get bored after so long. Also, why do we have an AI texture creator? Regardless of local or not, let’s really think about the rise of AI dependency within the gaming industry on both the creators and gamers side of things.

Paralives is giving the immersion that the sims 3 offered in live gameplay, but doesn’t feature much craziness. It picks up better on the diverse wants of gamers when it comes to building. In versus to Inzoi, it’s a more wholesome life game rather than hyper real.

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ANYWAYS lol

I would love to hear the opinions, advice, and other things people have done to make the sims 3 so much better, especially anything towards object rendering! Feel free to ask questions also.