Having been on this forum for months, and months, answering general development questions and doing my level best to help reassure people that delays like this are normal, I would just like to say that I am so glad that the new 64-bit and metal version of Sims 3 is out and having played it for the last 12 hours or so? It is SO amazing, especially compared to the 32-bit version. The 32-bit version is terribly buggy and while there are still content-level bugs that exist in the game, I think playing the Sims 3 just got a lot more enjoyable for Mac simmers. And given the amount of flak the developers have gotten about this, I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. ... Have I been playing The Sims 3 for 12 hours? Yes.Could I have done this without a single crash, Error 12, save corruption, etc BEFORE this 64-bit version was created? Absolutely not. If I ever thought about playing The Sims 3 for hours and hours on end like this, I learned from past crashes that saving frequently can save you a lot of pain and heartache. While I think it's too early to say in any definitive sense, I honestly think EA just did the work to make The Sims 3 inarguably the best version of the Sims on the Macintosh. I sincerely hope that EA/Maxis takes the charm and magic of The Sims 3, learned very helpful lessons from the failures in The Sims 4, and puts it forward to create a much better Sims 5. But enough of that, thank you for making one of my favourite games playable on my Mac once again.

@VeroniqueBellamy and @Arual7296 How much RAM is the game using? You can check the Activity Monitor's Memory tab (the AM is in Applications > Utilities). It would be interesting to know how much memory a save can use without becoming unstable. As for the NPCs, the old version of the game often incorrectly rated the CPUs in Macs and therefore had a lower cap as to the number of inactive sims pushed to lots. Looking at new deviceconfig.log files confirms that this is no longer an issue.

@Arual7296 I think you're right. IN fact, I had to figure out a way to wait out a couple of Sims that were waiting in front of a doorway. I guess being able to engorge itself on 16gb of memory instead of just 2gb, the game feels okay unleashing ALL the NPCs!

@VeroniqueBellamy I finally got my game to work, and I too have been playing for hours on end. Really, the developers responsible for this 64-bit update deserve a huge thank you for making this gem of game playable for us again. It has been running pretty smoothly for me too - no crashing, no major bugs. The game feels fast and responsive compared to before, however it does get a little choppy from time to time. This happens especially if my sim is on a community lot, where the game runs fine for a minute and then freezes for around 30 seconds. I hear that others have been experiencing something similar. I hope this is something that can be fixed as it can get a little annoying to play with. As a longtime Sims 3 player, I am used to having the game be laggy, but this constant freezing is a bit frustrating at times tbh. But will it stop me from playing it? Absolutely not.Another thing I noticed is that there are way more sims present on community lots in general - the lots don't feel empty and deserted like before (at least compared to when I have played it on PC). I have not seen anybody mention this, so I was wondering if anybody else has made the same observation?

@Arual7296 The game can use more RAM, or at least we hope it can. It actually seems to be using less for me than it used to: a save in Isla Paradiso with all expansions installed topped out at 1.67 GB even when I threw a party. That was just a new save for testing though. It would be good to figure out whether overstuffed households living on overly cluttered lots in overloaded worlds do in fact go over the old RAM limit, but it's apparently going to take some real effort to get there.

My game takes ~2,15-2,5 GB and sometimes it has sth like memory leak and freezing my whole computer. But I'm okay with that - I do sooo many saves and even with this the gameplay is the best of all my gameplays before updpate.

I <3 the new 64-bit and Metal Sims 3

12 Replies

Arual7296
5 years ago
@VeroniqueBellamy I finally got my game to work, and I too have been playing for hours on end. Really, the developers responsible for this 64-bit update deserve a huge thank you for making this gem of game playable for us again.
It has been running pretty smoothly for me too - no crashing, no major bugs. The game feels fast and responsive compared to before, however it does get a little choppy from time to time. This happens especially if my sim is on a community lot, where the game runs fine for a minute and then freezes for around 30 seconds. I hear that others have been experiencing something similar. I hope this is something that can be fixed as it can get a little annoying to play with. As a longtime Sims 3 player, I am used to having the game be laggy, but this constant freezing is a bit frustrating at times tbh. But will it stop me from playing it? Absolutely not.
Another thing I noticed is that there are way more sims present on community lots in general - the lots don't feel empty and deserted like before (at least compared to when I have played it on PC). I have not seen anybody mention this, so I was wondering if anybody else has made the same observation?
VeroniqueBellam
5 years ago
@Arual7296 I think you're right. IN fact, I had to figure out a way to wait out a couple of Sims that were waiting in front of a doorway. I guess being able to engorge itself on 16gb of memory instead of just 2gb, the game feels okay unleashing ALL the NPCs!
Arual7296
5 years ago
@VeroniqueBellamy Yeah, I think so too. Having to figure your way out of a crowd in the Sims 3 was definitely not a common occurrence before.
I have only been playing with the base game so far, but it would be very interesting to see if the clubs in Late Night are more full now. That would be a massive improvement!
spookyorca
5 years ago
@VeroniqueBellamy can you post a screenshot of your graphic settings?
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago
@VeroniqueBellamy and @Arual7296 How much RAM is the game using? You can check the Activity Monitor's Memory tab (the AM is in Applications > Utilities). It would be interesting to know how much memory a save can use without becoming unstable.

As for the NPCs, the old version of the game often incorrectly rated the CPUs in Macs and therefore had a lower cap as to the number of inactive sims pushed to lots. Looking at new deviceconfig.log files confirms that this is no longer an issue.
VeroniqueBellam
5 years ago
@spookyorca I can do you one better. Here's my Options.ini file.

https://gist.github.com/kawaiidesune/a5f19ea85ee43980251507bb734a54a6
Arual7296
5 years ago
@puzzlezaddictWhile playing I did not see the game use more than 1,5 GB of RAM - it mostly varied between 1,2 GB and 1,4 GB.

This is quite a small amount of RAM, right?

I have 16GB RAM available on my mac and I thought that the game would use more than just 1,5 GB now that it isn't limited to just 2 GB...
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago
@Arual7296 The game can use more RAM, or at least we hope it can. It actually seems to be using less for me than it used to: a save in Isla Paradiso with all expansions installed topped out at 1.67 GB even when I threw a party. That was just a new save for testing though.

It would be good to figure out whether overstuffed households living on overly cluttered lots in overloaded worlds do in fact go over the old RAM limit, but it's apparently going to take some real effort to get there.
MarRezKermi
5 years ago
My game takes ~2,15-2,5 GB and sometimes it has sth like memory leak and freezing my whole computer. But I'm okay with that - I do sooo many saves and even with this the gameplay is the best of all my gameplays before updpate.
Arual7296
5 years ago
@puzzlezaddictInteresting that your game is using less RAM than before. I don't know that much about computers, but I find it a bit odd that our RAM usages are so similar, although the circumstances are quite different. For context, I got the 1,5 GB usage when playing just base game in Sunset Valley in a save game that was just a couple of hours old (few objects, few sims) and no parties.
Do you think the gameplay would be less choppy if the game used more RAM? Or are those things unrelated?