Hi
Most Macs have more than enough horsepower but unfortunately the way the Sims 3 was coded for Macs means that it doesn't make good use of that power. For example my iMac has 16 GB of RAM, but the game can only use 2 GB because of the coding. So, to play on Mac, sometimes you need to use a few tricks.
Unfortunately a lot of TS3 players encounter problems when playing the game on their Mac. These can include crashing and freezing. A lot of these issues can be avoided or at least improved by the following measures.
Firstly, manually reset your RAM while playing. See BluebellFlora's guide on how to do this: http://bluebellflora.com/the-sims-3-on-a-mac/resetting-ram-during-gameplay/
I restart my computer before I play TS3. The memory used as seen in Activity Monitor is at about 3GB after the restart. If I open the Launcher it goes up to around 11 GB (that's all I've done - just opened the Launcher!). At this point I reset the RAM. Then I hit play and get through the opening sequence. I then press cmd-return to put the game in windowed mode from time to time while playing (and always before saving or using CAS). That way I can keep an eye on the memory and reset RAM if necessary. Being in windowed mode also allows you to close the game using force quit if it freezes up - it's better to crash the game than your whole computer.
Second tip is to save frequently. I save at least once per sim day. Use the option to Save or Save As, rather than the combined Save and Quit.
Make sure you are patched up to date. The 1.63 patch included fixes for Mac simmers that did actually improve the stability of the game on our operating systems, so it is well worth updating.
Caspin
Hi Caspin,
Thank you so much for your reply.
I do indeed use a small app called Memory Clean and constantly reset the memory during gameplay, never letting it go under 4 Gb of free memory... I also save the game every 2 sim-days as I've noticed if I take too long without saving the game gets slower and I have the latest patch. Unfortunately, these issues don't seem to be related to the CAS crashes, as it keeps happening virtually everytime I go into CAS... Like I said, before installing the last (or the previous) expansion pack everything worked fine...
Thanks again!
Sofia
