Which mods should I instal for my game? [New TS3 playrer]

We can easily point you to some great write-ups of the most recommended and favored mods out there. For some reason what we offer at NRaas keeps making high marks on these lists, can't imagine why (like maybe quality, support, the good looking NRaas moderators, who knows...)

But first there is something about the wording of your post that is ringing an alarm, I'm afraid. There is no such thing as the "Complete Edition" of TS3 from legitimate sources and the pirated edition of the game by that name that can unfortunately be found on sale for unbelievably low prices in certain darker corners of the web does not run correctly and from all accounts cannot be patched properly nor modded.

Did you mean Complete in a more conversational sense rather than a formal one, like you just purchased the base game and all of its EP/SPs, and is your game installed from and managed by Origin, Steam, or by way of the original retail store discs manufactured by EA? If so, then none of this applies and we can return to the original conversation. :)


Edit: Ah, those sneaky marketing folks over at Steam have called this year's TS3 Holiday Bundle the "TS3 Collection." That, of course, is totally fine. But it's not really referred to as a Complete Edition like the bogus one is.

@Sthenastia - Aha! And apologies for any misunderstanding. Fellow TS3 Steam player here as well, but the discount I got on all EP/SPs years ago was only around or just under 75% off so you got a much better deal. Congrats on that and where's my extra discount money? I want it now (not really). :)

Here's a good place to begin. To be fair, we at NRaas had some input and made suggestions for this list, but it's very EA and player friendly.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-3-Common-Game-Fixing-Mods-Hero-Approved/td-p/9836847

Mods like Error trap, Overwatch, Master control, Traveler and Traffic (all from Nraas) are basically essential to play this game. Before having them, I was spending more time trying to fix bugs and glitches than playing the game. Dont know about the supposed « great looks » of the moderators but I can tell you that the quality of their mods is very high and they are very helpful.

Other things you should know is to turn off memories, always use « save as » (not save and quit) and keep backup saves, dont add tourist sims to your household, always fully quit the game if moving between saves (dont go to main menu), dont use cheats to delete sims, get a save cleaner and have fun exploring this game !

Wouldn't "Complete Collection" include everything from The Exchange and the worlds as well?

To answer the question, I'd recommend the NRAAS Overwatcher mod for better game performance and less lag, it removes unroutable Sims and other things that clog up the game. Another mod - a lightning mod since the game tends to have really bad lightning - namely Frozen Lighting Mod. I haven't tried it personally, but from what I researched, there's more than one "make lightning better" mod.

My copy is totally legal :) Currently a bundle of all expansions is discounted on Steam.

I recently re-installed ts3 after having a bad time with it a while back (bc I had no idea you had to tweak the game to get it to work on modern computers). I followed this video by acottonsock and now my game runs like a dream!

I have to agree with the others NRaas has the best mods. You might watch some YouTube videos on how to maximize your game as well.