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Bluebellflora's avatar
Bluebellflora
Hero+
10 years ago
Solved

[CURRENT ISSUE] The Sims 3 - Issues playing on newer (post 2013) Macs

Users with post-2013 model Macs with integrated Intel graphics, possibly 15" with AMD GPUs too, are reporting a variety of issues which render their Sims 3 games unplayable. The following issues are ...
mac
technical issues
  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    10 years ago

    Hi everyone,

    We would like to invite players who are experiencing issues with running The Sims 3 on recent Mac models to download and install this version of Origin:

    https://eaassets-a.akamaihd.net/Origin-Client-Download/origin/forum/34349/Origin.dmg

    This should help with general compatibility and stability issues.

    If you are still unable to launch or play the game after that, please come back to us.

    Please note that this solution will not work if the incompatibility issues are due to hardware.

    MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR THE SIMS 3

    Spoiler

    FOR WINDOWS XP
    • 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
    • 1 GB RAM
    • 128 MB Graphics card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
    • The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
    • Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
    • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

    FOR WINDOWS VISTA
    • 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
    • 1.5 GB RAM
    • 128 MB Graphics card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
    • Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
    • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

    For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows, the game requires at least:
    • Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
    • 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU (Windows Vista), or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (Windows XP Service Pack 3)
    • 0.5 GB additional RAM
    ORIGIN REQUIREMENTS FOR WINDOWS PC
    The Origin client needs to be able to run on your system in order for you to play The Sims 3. You can download it here.
    • 150MB of available disk space
    • Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
    • 1GHz processor
    • 512 MB RAM

    FOR MAC OS X
    • Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
    • Intel Core Duo Processor
    • 2 GB RAM
    • ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100.
    • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games
    • This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated graphics cards.
    ORIGIN REQUIREMENTS FOR MAC
    The Origin client needs to be able to run on your system in order for you to play The Sims 3. You can download it here.
    • 150MB of available disk space
    • OS X 10.6.8 minimum
    • Intel Core 2 Duo processor

    Windows Supported Graphics cards

    NVIDIA GeForce series
    FX 5900, FX 5950
    6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
    7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
    8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
    9300, 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
    G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150
    GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295

    ATI Radeonâ„ĸ series
    9500, 9600, 9800
    X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
    X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
    2400, 2600, 2900
    3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
    4850, 4870
    IntelÂŽ Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
    GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series

    Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly.

    Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants may default to settings that are higher than what would be optimal for them. Graphics settings can be lowered to improve performance.

    The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.

    MAC OS X Supported Graphics cards

    NVIDIA GeForce series
    7300, 7600
    8600, 8800
    9400M, 9600M GT
    GT 120, GT 130

    ATI Radeonâ„ĸ series
    X1600, X1900
    2400, 2600
    3870
    4850, 4870

    IntelÂŽ Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
    GMA 3-Series
Bluebellflora's avatar
Bluebellflora
Hero+
10 years ago

@applebrynn

The game is not compatible on your Mac due to the graphics card not being supported. Please read the opening post in the stickied thread on this forum specifically related to newer Macs.

Locking this thread but feel free to post in the above linked one should you need any further help.

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
10 years ago

Hi everyone,

We would like to invite players who are experiencing issues with running The Sims 3 on recent Mac models to download and install this version of Origin:

https://eaassets-a.akamaihd.net/Origin-Client-Download/origin/forum/34349/Origin.dmg

This should help with general compatibility and stability issues.

If you are still unable to launch or play the game after that, please come back to us.

Please note that this solution will not work if the incompatibility issues are due to hardware.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR THE SIMS 3

Spoiler

FOR WINDOWS XP
  • 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 128 MB Graphics card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
  • The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
  • Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
  • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
  • 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
  • 1.5 GB RAM
  • 128 MB Graphics card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
  • Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
  • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows, the game requires at least:
  • Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
  • 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU (Windows Vista), or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (Windows XP Service Pack 3)
  • 0.5 GB additional RAM
ORIGIN REQUIREMENTS FOR WINDOWS PC
The Origin client needs to be able to run on your system in order for you to play The Sims 3. You can download it here.
  • 150MB of available disk space
  • Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
  • 1GHz processor
  • 512 MB RAM

FOR MAC OS X
  • Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
  • Intel Core Duo Processor
  • 2 GB RAM
  • ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100.
  • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games
  • This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated graphics cards.
ORIGIN REQUIREMENTS FOR MAC
The Origin client needs to be able to run on your system in order for you to play The Sims 3. You can download it here.
  • 150MB of available disk space
  • OS X 10.6.8 minimum
  • Intel Core 2 Duo processor

Windows Supported Graphics cards

NVIDIA GeForce series
FX 5900, FX 5950
6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
9300, 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150
GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295

ATI Radeonâ„ĸ series
9500, 9600, 9800
X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
2400, 2600, 2900
3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
4850, 4870
IntelÂŽ Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly.

Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants may default to settings that are higher than what would be optimal for them. Graphics settings can be lowered to improve performance.

The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.

MAC OS X Supported Graphics cards

NVIDIA GeForce series
7300, 7600
8600, 8800
9400M, 9600M GT
GT 120, GT 130

ATI Radeonâ„ĸ series
X1600, X1900
2400, 2600
3870
4850, 4870

IntelÂŽ Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
GMA 3-Series
  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    10 years ago

    @EA_Zoe

    Amazing! Thank you so much.

    For those of you using this update, please take a moment to provide feedback on this thread. It really helps others and EA. Thanks 🙂

  • AnthonySilvia99's avatar
    AnthonySilvia99
    10 years ago

    This did not work! I downloaded origin in which I Tried to Update it through and it had no option too!

  • AnthonySilvia99's avatar
    AnthonySilvia99
    10 years ago

    After "installing" the update My game glitches the gam itself takes longer to load. the UI is Fine in Live mode. But the Live mode is just not usable at all.

    • Bluebellflora's avatar
      Bluebellflora
      Hero+
      10 years ago

      @AnthonySilvia99

      - Did you download Origin through the Origin website or did you download it from the link @EA_Zoe provided?

      - Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game since updating Origin?

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    10 years ago
    @EA_Zoe wrote:

    Hi everyone,

    We would like to invite players who are experiencing issues with running The Sims 3 on recent Mac models to download and install this version of Origin:

    https://eaassets-a.akamaihd.net/Origin-Client-Download/origin/forum/34349/Origin.dmg

    This should help with compatibility and stability issues.

    If you are still unable to launch or play the game after that, please come back to us.

    have just done complete uninstall and reinstalled with this new origin installer. when i opened the launcher It asked me if i wanted to update and i clicked later, when i clicked play it crashed and gave the same error as last time, thaat the sims 3 unexpectedly quit. ( it may work if i restart now and update? ) 

    I am on a Mac book pro retina 13" early 2015 model running yosemite, with the intel iris 6100 graphics card. I had the issue that the game would not run past the green start up icon and then if you quit it says the game is still open! 

    I have been searching around, and  you can play if you partition your harddrive with bootcamp and run the game on windows. There is no other solution for this issue. 



    • Bluebellflora's avatar
      Bluebellflora
      Hero+
      10 years ago

      @yummypasta12

      You still need to be patched up to 1.67. When you uninstalled did you cleanly uninstall and go into the hidden folders to get rid of all residual files? Or did you just use the Uninstaller?

      • Anonymous's avatar
        Anonymous
        10 years ago

        i just patched up to 1.67 and updated it all, and yes i followed your instructions on the sims forum and trashed all hidden files, the error still occurs  â˜šī¸  @Bluebellflora

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    9 years ago

    Yes so I downloaded the version of origin and now when i open Sims 3 it says the game is already running?

    @EA_Zoe wrote:

    Hi everyone,

    We would like to invite players who are experiencing issues with running The Sims 3 on recent Mac models to download and install this version of Origin:

    https://eaassets-a.akamaihd.net/Origin-Client-Download/origin/forum/34349/Origin.dmg

    This should help with compatibility and stability issues.

    If you are still unable to launch or play the game after that, please come back to us.

    @EA_Zoe wrote:

    Hi everyone,

    We would like to invite players who are experiencing issues with running The Sims 3 on recent Mac models to download and install this version of Origin:

    https://eaassets-a.akamaihd.net/Origin-Client-Download/origin/forum/34349/Origin.dmg

    This should help with compatibility and stability issues.

    If you are still unable to launch or play the game after that, please come back to us.



    • Bluebellflora's avatar
      Bluebellflora
      Hero+
      9 years ago

      @Faithy9786

      Thanks for the feedback. Have you tried editing the graphics card files as linked to in the opening post?

  • shannonlouise7's avatar
    shannonlouise7
    5 years ago

    Hi Zoe

    I have just tried to download that version of Origin onto my Macbook Air Early 2015 13inch and it struggles to load Origin. It bounces at the bottom of my screen in the dock but doesn't launch the application. 

  • toxicClowder's avatar
    toxicClowder
    4 years ago

    I still can't get mine to work, I don't have any expansions installed and I'm using a 2011 macbook pro, it does have el capitan installed though. When I launch it it immediately shoots back a "unknown error occurred"

    • puzzlezaddict's avatar
      puzzlezaddict
      Hero+
      4 years ago

      @toxicClowder  Please post the full specs of your Mac: everything under About This Mac except for the serial number.   Please also let me know whether you've ever had other packs installed on this computer.

      • toxicClowder's avatar
        toxicClowder
        4 years ago

        @puzzlezaddict Thank you so much Puzzle. MacBook Pro (15in Late 2011), Processor - 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 4GB memory 1333 MHz DDR3, Macintosh HD Startup Disk, Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 3000  384 MB

        I had installed other packs like years ago, but I have factory reset-ed the computer since. I did install Origin again and on that account I have Supernatural, Late Night, Ambitions, Generations, Pets, University Life and World Adventures but I haven't tried to reinstall those yet. I have all on disk still so I could install them by whatever way works best.

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