I absolutely LOVE the Sims 3, way more than 4, but if there's anything that drives me away from it after a while, it's how badly the game can run at times. I know there's been lots of talk of the Sims 3's engine being too bloated, not being coded properly, or the code not accounting for the tons and tons of packs and addons through the years, but I'm really curious - what makes this game stutter so badly?I have a friend who got me into the game who claims his game never hangs, stutters, get FPS drops or anything - He was surprised at how stuttery my game can get at times. I found out he had an 8-core processor while I still had a quad core (?) (It was a Phenom (II), a test website for Mirror's Edge: Catalyst straight up told me it was bottlenecking my gpu lol) But when I upgraded to an 8 core i7, while the other games improved so much, the Sims 3 only marginally improved. The biggest performance drops are switching between build/live mode, and it takes ages to load the CASt textures and has horrible bouts of stuttering. Not unplayable, just bad performance.Here's what got me really wondering about this however; I'm editing the base camp in China and the game is running... smooth. Surprisingly smooth, CASt is loading almost instantly with no frame drops, stuttering, nothing. It's astounding how good it's running. It really makes me wonder, does anybody know for sure what's going on at a technical level?

As far as I know there are several causes for stuttering and hanging. Routing issues (helpful are: resetsim *, NRaas Overwatch, Errortrap and sometimes making adjustments in the world when the source of the routing issue is known, like in China and IP) Too much CC and mods (helpful: clear your cache files before playing, I forgot today and bam, a crash / don't install everything but keep backups in Documents and just install what you really use) When your game crashes, make sure to empty the Current Game folder before restarting your game And of course your rig matters as well

1.Bad CC or too much CC.2.Computer doesn't meet requirements3.Graphics settings to high, your FPS isn't capped etc.4.Stuck sims, cars etc.Tips:Clear the game's cache between each session.Disable memories.Remove all screenshots from the screenshot folder.Run your save through a save cleaner.

I'm going to be a bit blunt here. TS3 is a mess. It's not really a game the way I see it, none in the sims series are, it's a way of life platform for creativity, design, and storytelling but the platform is cracked in many places. From a programming standpoint, it's a horrible mass of spaghetti code slapped together and expanded upon by various disjointed development teams in such a way that a bunch of five year olds with attention deficit disorders could have done a better job.That doesn't mean many of us don't love it, have a lot of fun working with it, and have much respect for the often berated over-extended game engine and many of the things EA did with it. But it does explain why we have to give it such a strong environment on which to run compared to what it "should" take in order to get decent performance on longer running ongoing games and especially with all or nearly all EPs in play.I can't say exactly why CASt for example runs so much better for you on a WA world than your homeworlds except to point out that the WA worlds are typically lightly populated by comparison and even with mods we don't usually progress the resident population there through their lives and their careers (if they really have any beyond the marketplace vendors) as we do elsewhere, so the game engine does have much less to do on those vacations even when things are temporarily standing still for a design session.

I've always figured one reason is the open world, and that's the reason EA decided to introduce the semi-open world in TS4 so it would perform better. All the Sims games are buggy, but TS3 is hands down the most. I've played TS3 on several machines of various specs and haven't had too many issues other than mild lag. I probably haven't played it enough to experience anything major, though. Out of 2, 3, and 4, I've played 3 the least.With TS2, TS3, and TS4 all installed on my current computer, I prefer TS4 because of its performance. It runs so much smoother, but the game itself is less complex (obviously a major complaint of TS4 players and the reason a lot choose to play TS3 instead). I think they tried adding too many features to TS3, which set the bar high for simmers. Now they're focusing on performance to allow more people to play on lower end machines.

"CheesySimsLover;c-16857097" wrote:I've always figured one reason is the open world, and that's the reason EA decided to introduce the semi-open world in TS4 so it would perform better. All the Sims games are buggy, but TS3 is hands down the most. I've played TS3 on several machines of various specs and haven't had too many issues other than mild lag. I probably haven't played it enough to experience anything major, though. Out of 2, 3, and 4, I've played 3 the least.With TS2, TS3, and TS4 all installed on my current computer, I prefer TS4 because of its performance. It runs so much smoother, but the game itself is less complex (obviously a major complaint of TS4 players and the reason a lot choose to play TS3 instead). I think they tried adding too many features to TS3, which set the bar high for simmers. Now they're focusing on performance to allow more people to play on lower end machines.I’d say Sims 4 by now is a very close second, if not the new leader where bugs are concerned. There is a difference of course between performance and bugs. Performance for me has always been fine in Sims 3 (granted, I do start new saves every few generations, throw everyone important back in and continue playing). I prefer the complexity myself, I can deal with the hiccups. Was playing this morning. One sim made her homework, one sim practiced martial art, both boring to watch but no problem, I had a third simmie who had to catch butterflies for school, so I followed him around. In the end I sent him to the science lab, a rabbithole building. Much hated by many, because you “can’t follow your sim inside”. True, he disappeared inside but I didn’t have to sit there and wait, I went home where the daughter had finished doing her homework and appeared to be playing on the swing in the garden, while her mother had stopped practicing martial arts, had had an autonomous shower (hygiene was maxed) and was now talking to her best friend, a roommate living on the same premises (I made an apartment complex). I ordered the girl to go buy some books and mom to cook. By the time she was finished her son had returned home (an instruction I had given him after entering the RH) and so had the daughter with the books. Dinner was ready so they all ate and after that went to bed.This is the kind of set up no smoothness in the world can replace for me.

What exactly makes the Sims 3 perform so poorly?

20 Replies

astridentanja
7 years ago
As far as I know there are several causes for stuttering and hanging.

Routing issues (helpful are: resetsim *, NRaas Overwatch, Errortrap and sometimes making adjustments in the world when the source of the routing issue is known, like in China and IP)
Too much CC and mods (helpful: clear your cache files before playing, I forgot today and bam, a crash / don't install everything but keep backups in Documents and just install what you really use)
When your game crashes, make sure to empty the Current Game folder before restarting your game
And of course your rig matters as well
graceymanors
Legend
7 years ago
1.Bad CC or too much CC.
2.Computer doesn't meet requirements
3.Graphics settings to high, your FPS isn't capped etc.
4.Stuck sims, cars etc.

Tips:
Clear the game's cache between each session.
Disable memories.
Remove all screenshots from the screenshot folder.
Run your save through a save cleaner.
igazor
7 years ago
I'm going to be a bit blunt here. TS3 is a mess. It's not really a game the way I see it, none in the sims series are, it's a ~~way of life~~ platform for creativity, design, and storytelling but the platform is cracked in many places. From a programming standpoint, it's a horrible mass of spaghetti code slapped together and expanded upon by various disjointed development teams in such a way that a bunch of five year olds with attention deficit disorders could have done a better job.

That doesn't mean many of us don't love it, have a lot of fun working with it, and have much respect for the often berated over-extended game engine and many of the things EA did with it. But it does explain why we have to give it such a strong environment on which to run compared to what it "should" take in order to get decent performance on longer running ongoing games and especially with all or nearly all EPs in play.

I can't say exactly why CASt for example runs so much better for you on a WA world than your homeworlds except to point out that the WA worlds are typically lightly populated by comparison and even with mods we don't usually progress the resident population there through their lives and their careers (if they really have any beyond the marketplace vendors) as we do elsewhere, so the game engine does have much less to do on those vacations even when things are temporarily standing still for a design session.
starrcheese
7 years ago
I've always figured one reason is the open world, and that's the reason EA decided to introduce the semi-open world in TS4 so it would perform better. All the Sims games are buggy, but TS3 is hands down the most. I've played TS3 on several machines of various specs and haven't had too many issues other than mild lag. I probably haven't played it enough to experience anything major, though. Out of 2, 3, and 4, I've played 3 the least.

With TS2, TS3, and TS4 all installed on my current computer, I prefer TS4 because of its performance. It runs so much smoother, but the game itself is less complex (obviously a major complaint of TS4 players and the reason a lot choose to play TS3 instead). I think they tried adding too many features to TS3, which set the bar high for simmers. Now they're focusing on performance to allow more people to play on lower end machines.
TadOlson
7 years ago
I found that playing my game heavily Modded and having story progression tuned to run like the TS2 story progression in an open world with my games being in empty custom worlds with mostly manual mode story progression and the town population growing slowly made it far more stable.I found that the EA bugfest led to a lot of Error 12's and crashes in overpopulated towns and schools got overcrowded a lot which is also why I started playing with both NRaas Mods and awesomemod to disable the automated school assignments which led to overcrowded schools.I play my entire town rotationally like it's an open world Sims 2 game and let story progression take care of inactives because time still passes even for inactives.I do use the NRaas Mod version of story progression insead of that train wreck known as the EA bugfest and also Modded out another train wreck know as automated school assignments which are also game-breaking.
astridentanja
7 years ago
"CheesySimsLover;c-16857097" wrote:
I've always figured one reason is the open world, and that's the reason EA decided to introduce the semi-open world in TS4 so it would perform better. All the Sims games are buggy, but TS3 is hands down the most. I've played TS3 on several machines of various specs and haven't had too many issues other than mild lag. I probably haven't played it enough to experience anything major, though. Out of 2, 3, and 4, I've played 3 the least.

With TS2, TS3, and TS4 all installed on my current computer, I prefer TS4 because of its performance. It runs so much smoother, but the game itself is less complex (obviously a major complaint of TS4 players and the reason a lot choose to play TS3 instead). I think they tried adding too many features to TS3, which set the bar high for simmers. Now they're focusing on performance to allow more people to play on lower end machines.

I’d say Sims 4 by now is a very close second, if not the new leader where bugs are concerned. There is a difference of course between performance and bugs. Performance for me has always been fine in Sims 3 (granted, I do start new saves every few generations, throw everyone important back in and continue playing). I prefer the complexity myself, I can deal with the hiccups. Was playing this morning. One sim made her homework, one sim practiced martial art, both boring to watch but no problem, I had a third simmie who had to catch butterflies for school, so I followed him around. In the end I sent him to the science lab, a rabbithole building. Much hated by many, because you “can’t follow your sim inside”. True, he disappeared inside but I didn’t have to sit there and wait, I went home where the daughter had finished doing her homework and appeared to be playing on the swing in the garden, while her mother had stopped practicing martial arts, had had an autonomous shower (hygiene was maxed) and was now talking to her best friend, a roommate living on the same premises (I made an apartment complex). I ordered the girl to go buy some books and mom to cook. By the time she was finished her son had returned home (an instruction I had given him after entering the RH) and so had the daughter with the books. Dinner was ready so they all ate and after that went to bed.

This is the kind of set up no smoothness in the world can replace for me.
Deshong04
7 years ago
"Does anybody know for sure what's going on at a technical level?"

No, because I'm sure it is not exactly the same cause(s) for each and every case. From what I observe being the common reasons are an incompatible computer or the computer meets minimal system requirements but some try to play as if a computer that can handle a lot of mods/cc/EP's or the graphics card is not even being recognized for whatever reason (I wonder if some even have their computer connections in the right place...you know actually connected to the dedicated graphics card by VGA/DVI/HDMI cable and not the motherboard which may be by default to use its own integrated graphics) or mods/cc in general and being ignorant of how it affects game performance concerning poly count, being badly made/containing errors, not coordinating the same patch level for mods/cc, hidden conflicts with other mods/cc, etc or trying to play the game with settings that the computer cannot handle.

From my understanding, the most common issue concerning TS3's performance is on the user's end. There's so many different configurations of computers and ways for TS3 to function well or not. That's the whole point of the system requirements is to showcase and tell what is and is not compatible with the game. Unfortunately, TS3 didn't have any official recommended system requirements for the best experience and only provided the minimal. But is it really that difficult to figure it out? No. For one, there's enough information from people with certain graphic cards/CPU's/etc to research performance capabilities. Two, TS3 lifespan was from 2009-2013, however, I am not sure they added any more updates concerning addition of compatible hardware in 2013.

Which brings me to this observation. What if newer hardware and features/operating systems/newly released computers are not even compatible with TS3? Again, there is a reason why system requirements are used and are important to follow for the best experience for any game unless officially stated otherwise. Because computers have so many different configurations, I think that is the main reason why some have issues with TS3 because of their lack of understanding about computer hardware, how it all works and affects game performance among other things.

And yes, TS3 works fine without a gaming desktop or laptop but no one said that all EP's/SP's/Store Content/Mods could all be installed too and still run okay. Computers have a limit to what it can handle and games have a limit to what it can handle. That's the whole point of improvements, advancements in upgrades.

Is TS3 horribly programmed/coded? Actually, that can be subjective or objective depending on the actual expertise of having worked on games and done a lot of coding to know what is good vs bad and the why something is done the way it is. Sometimes it's because of a logical reason like limitations, etc. Subjectively, I think TS3 is fine as gameplay without mods/cc because performance-wise it runs at its best in my personal experience. I rarely nowadays, if ever, get error code 12 or crashing to the desktop which are the most two annoying issues I constantly have when using mods/cc. Everything loads up a lot faster without mods/cc putting an extra strain on the CPU/GPU. However, I try not to go crazy with mods so my game performance is still mostly minimal to no lag, however, with the unexpected two most annoying issues.

The game has glitches of course, but most I encounter are minor and/or have workarounds for it whether with or without mods. Most, if not all, of the major game breaking issues from patches, etc have been addressed. Or so I haven't come across anything recently.

===

@CheesySimsLover

If that were true about TS3, then there's no way anyone could have a positive and good experience with the game. I'm sure there are many who can deny that claim about the open world bringing down performance. Specifically, those who don't use mods/cc and are knowledgeable about their own chosen hobby. It is true that TS3 is the most ambitious Sims game ever created, however, not at the expense of performance for the most part. If that were the case and as bad as some claim it is, I wouldn't be still playing 9+ years. And I'm the type to easily get frustrated when games don't work like they should. Not to mention, if it were so bad I highly doubt it would have continued to outsell TS2. Because word of mouth is quite effective, don't you think? So effective, that even misinformation gets spread about like truth for those who don't do their own research and just accept whatever they read and hear as truth. Or just accept their own experience as the truth that everyone has the same exact performance issues. It's the open world's fault, huh? It's all programmed/coded so poorly I can't even play and enjoy the game as is without mods and all EP's/SP's/Store Content installed and all in-game settings maxed out. :trollface:

https://youtu.be/MZfGDCoFf2U
https://youtu.be/RecjZIs6N-E
https://youtu.be/eGZxSsm5sUc
starrcheese
7 years ago
"Deshong04;c-16857298" wrote:
"Does anybody know for sure what's going on at a technical level?"
===

@CheesySimsLover

If that were true about TS3, then there's no way anyone could have a positive and good experience with the game. I'm sure there are many who can deny that claim about the open world bringing down performance. Specifically, those who don't use mods/cc and are knowledgeable about their own chosen hobby. It is true that TS3 is the most ambitious Sims game ever created, however, not at the expense of performance for the most part. If that were the case and as bad as some claim it is, I wouldn't be still playing 9+ years. And I'm the type to easily get frustrated when games don't work like they should. Not to mention, if it were so bad I highly doubt it would have continued to outsell TS2. Because word of mouth is quite effective, don't you think? So effective, that even misinformation gets spread about like truth for those who don't do their own research and just accept whatever they read and hear as truth. Or just accept their own experience as the truth that everyone has the same exact performance issues. It's the open world's fault, huh? It's all programmed/coded so poorly I can't even play and enjoy the game as is without mods and all EP's/SP's/Store Content installed and all in-game settings maxed out. :trollface:

https://youtu.be/MZfGDCoFf2U
https://youtu.be/RecjZIs6N-E
https://youtu.be/eGZxSsm5sUc

As someone who's been out of Simming for years, honestly, I played The Sims 3 for the first properly just last week in years. The last time I played before that was 2014, and before that probably 2011. I bought the game when it initially came out in 2009, just before heading off to college and leaving my games with my kid sister. I haven't read online forums, news, etc., on the Sims since the VERY beginning of the Sims 3, so my posts are merely based off my own personal opinion and limited knowledge of how games work (I majored in business, so I am mainly see the marketing perspective and the desire to draw new players with lower-end computers in). I have heard many have issues with The Sims 3, my little sister included - but she has never played the game on a decent spec computer until recently either. I played on an Asus laptop with 4 GB of RAM and a mid-range graphics card, and I played at top settings with little lag and little glitches/bugs. I've played both TS3 and TS4 recently over the past couple weeks and have yet to experience once glitch, bug, etc., on The Sims 4 (not saying it's not coming, because I'm sure knowing the games it will). The Sims 3 performs outstanding on top graphics, with an occasional glitch here and there - that's been my experience with the game.
JayedTSkier
7 years ago
I feel like I should've mentioned that I use Nraas mods and know some of the fixes to increase performance. My computer specs are by no means outdated, too x3

I just kind of wondered what went wrong with the game, so thanks so far guys!
astridentanja
7 years ago
"CheesySimsLover;c-16857310" wrote:
"Deshong04;c-16857298" wrote:
"Does anybody know for sure what's going on at a technical level?"
===

@CheesySimsLover

If that were true about TS3, then there's no way anyone could have a positive and good experience with the game. I'm sure there are many who can deny that claim about the open world bringing down performance. Specifically, those who don't use mods/cc and are knowledgeable about their own chosen hobby. It is true that TS3 is the most ambitious Sims game ever created, however, not at the expense of performance for the most part. If that were the case and as bad as some claim it is, I wouldn't be still playing 9+ years. And I'm the type to easily get frustrated when games don't work like they should. Not to mention, if it were so bad I highly doubt it would have continued to outsell TS2. Because word of mouth is quite effective, don't you think? So effective, that even misinformation gets spread about like truth for those who don't do their own research and just accept whatever they read and hear as truth. Or just accept their own experience as the truth that everyone has the same exact performance issues. It's the open world's fault, huh? It's all programmed/coded so poorly I can't even play and enjoy the game as is without mods and all EP's/SP's/Store Content installed and all in-game settings maxed out. :trollface:

https://youtu.be/MZfGDCoFf2U
https://youtu.be/RecjZIs6N-E
https://youtu.be/eGZxSsm5sUc

As someone who's been out of Simming for years, honestly, I played The Sims 3 for the first properly just last week in years. The last time I played before that was 2014, and before that probably 2011. I bought the game when it initially came out in 2009, just before heading off to college and leaving my games with my kid sister. I haven't read online forums, news, etc., on the Sims since the VERY beginning of the Sims 3, so my posts are merely based off my own personal opinion and limited knowledge of how games work (I majored in business, so I am mainly see the marketing perspective and the desire to draw new players with lower-end computers in). I have heard many have issues with The Sims 3, my little sister included - but she has never played the game on a decent spec computer until recently either. I played on an Asus laptop with 4 GB of RAM and a mid-range graphics card, and I played at top settings with little lag and little glitches/bugs. I've played both TS3 and TS4 recently over the past couple weeks and have yet to experience once glitch, bug, etc., on The Sims 4 (not saying it's not coming, because I'm sure knowing the games it will). The Sims 3 performs outstanding on top graphics, with an occasional glitch here and there - that's been my experience with the game.

Oh they’re there, they’re there ;) This topic is about performance though.