Graphical Glitches on Sims 3 64-bit Mac

@BongoMan1235  Please list the full specs of your Mac: everything under About This Mac including the operating system and except for the serial number.

Please also post a screenshot of your in-game graphics options.

Finally, the next time you see this, please take a screenshot using C, and let me know whether the screenshot looks normal or has the same issue as what you see on-screen.  It would be best to restart your computer before taking a look at the screenshot just in case the problem with graphics rendering is extending to to the rest of the system.

@puzzlezaddict attached is my graphics settings, my laptops specs (I'm running MacOS Ventura 13.4.1), and an ingame screenshot of the glitches happening - this problem is not system wide as it only happens while playing Sims 3, and no other game (including Sims 2 and 4!!).

I've restarted a few times and each time this glitch occurs it is the same. Thank you for your help.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that my game runs completely fine before this glitch happens. I don't get any frame rate drops and it runs pretty smooth for Sims 3 standards right up until it freezes (about 15 mins after opening, every time (I thought it was 30 but I timed it and it was 15 each time)) and everything on my screen except the UI turns white/glitched.

@BongoMan1235  While your Mac meets the minimum requirements for 64-bit Sims 3, I think your graphics options might be a bit too high, especially with only 8 GB RAM installed and no dedicated graphics card with its own video memory.  But the 15-minute interval before this happens seems a bit weird to me—I'd expect more variability, depending on what lot you were playing on and other random details. if this were merely a hardware issue.

The first thing to try is playing Sims 3 with nothing else running in the background.  Restart your computer and don't open any other apps.  Put Origin into offline mode before pressing Play, and disable the Origin in-game overlay, under Application Settings > Origin in-game.

If the same thing happens, repeat the above, including restarting your computer, except this time, disable the wifi after taking Origin offline and before launching Sims 3.

Let me know whether this makes any difference, not only if the glitch doesn't happen but if it happens somewhat later.

If the above makes no difference, or it only postpones the glitch, try turning down the graphics settings to the minimum.  Disable Advanced Rendering too.  Do so at the Main Menu, then quit to desktop (and restart your computer for good measure) before loading a save.  The point is not to play this way going forward but to find out whether any changes help.  If they do, you can raise the settings again, one or two at a time, and see whether the glitch comes back.

@puzzlezaddict all of these made no difference, however, it made me realise that the glitch does randomly occur, and when i had timed it was a coincidence.

i appreciate your help, however, do you know of any other solutions?

i can assure you having my graphics on high works fine on my system, as on sims 4 and other more modern games i can usually run my graphics at mid to high with no problems, and on sims 3 it runs with no dips in fps whatsoever and reducing graphics settings makes no difference.

@BongoMan1235  It's not a common problem, and I'm not really sure why this is happening.  When you reduced the in-game settings, did you also play in windowed mode on a low resolution?  Even if the game feels unplayable that way, it's worth testing for a few reasons.  One of them is that a lower resolution decreases the amount of video memory the game needs, and as I mentioned, your graphics chip has to borrow from the limited main memory rather than having its own VRAM.

One other thing you could try though is reinstalling macOS.  This doesn't mean wiping your data; you'd be reinstalling the current OS, and only that, while keeping personal files.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/reinstall-macos-mchlp1599/mac

This would address any issues with the graphics driver or other related software.  The fact that other games run fine isn't conclusive here—Sims 3 might different resources, or the same resources in a different way, than any other game you have installed.  After all, it's a game released in 2009 that never had a proper Mac version (just the Windows version with a kind of VM wrapped around it) until someone put together a compatibility update in 2019.  It's kind of its own special snowflake, to borrow the name of one of the game's books.

@puzzlezaddict yes i did try that and unfortunately it made no difference. it happens on every world and every sim i play at random intervals and its often very frustrating.

while it may not make much difference - i did find someone on here with the same problem as me, weirdly in 2017 before the 64-bit version was ever even released... 🤔

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/TS3-White-Screen-After-Loading-Game-Please-help/m-p/6186193

i tried the solution proposed in that post, however, the glitch still occurred and now my settings were all reset. its strange that the glitch occurs on such different machines - the op having a 2011 macbook, and i have one from 2017.

ill try reinstalling macos, but i dont think it will make much difference. ill come back and let you know how it goes later today.