Windowed mode won't work for me at all; as command and enter does nothing. It's like my Sims 3 doesn't recognize as that being a command. I can get the cheat console to come up.
When I try changing changing the screen size to match my computer's resolution ( 5120 x 2880) only the options menu itself changes sizes. This is if I try any screen resolution from the drop down list. I've occasionally seen the red flash when trying to change resolutions as well. The only way I can leave fullscreen mode is to use my mouse to swipe left. And my computer's resolution stays at 4:3 (even outside of the game) until I completely quit The Sims 3.
The frame rate goes fluctuates between 55-75. Moving across the map in Sunset Valley, the way the map loads/renders reminds me if you were trying to film an old tv with a cell phone, it loads (depending on the direction I'm moving across the screen) in horizontal or vertical waves.
I don't see where you put a spoiler tag, so my device config file is attached as a text file.
@Rhazya Thanks for all the info. It's interesting that you can't use cmd-enter to switch to windowed mode; someone else with an iMac said the same. What you can do is edit options.ini, in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, to set fullscreen to 0. (Use cmd-f to search for the line.) When the game launches in windowed mode, try switching the resolution a couple times and see whether it works.
I wouldn't be surprised if the full resolution of your screen didn't work as an option though: it seems like in windowed mode, the game window takes up more space than it should given the chosen resolution. I'm not sure why. But try 2560x1440 and see how it looks. If you still can't switch it, you can try editing options.ini again: there's also a "resolution" line in the file.
For the way the map is rendered, I see that too, and I'm not sure how to fix it, except maybe to play on a different resolution. You might need to experiment a bit.
@Rhazya Edge scrolling doesn't work in windowed mode for me either, which is how I prefer it. In Windows, I have to disable it when switching to windowed mode or else the game camera keeps moving in the direction my mouse went when it left the game window to click on something else. I think this was also the case in the 32-bit version in macOS. I'm not sure it's a bug or glitch, probably more by design.
The GPU usage can also drive up the fans, since the cooling apparatus is attached to and (hopefully) attuned to both. When you were playing in fullscreen, you were also playing at a lower resolution than you presumably are now; fewer pixels to render means less work for the graphics card. I wouldn't worry about it, but if you want, you can download a monitoring app like iStat (there's a free 14 day trial) or Macs Fan Control (I think the free version doesn't expire) and see what your CPU and GPU temps look like when playing.
We still haven't figured out exactly how the game recognizes our cards—they're not in the .sgr files, which look like they haven't changed from the 32-bit version. But yes, it's nice not to have to edit the files manually.
My graphics are awful, i tried to set everything to low again because of the glitches i get on screen with it being high, but low is unplayable because everything meshes into one and you cannot see the actual details on anything so whether it is low, medium, high, or very high, i struggle with the game graphically and i have tried every mode. i have some screenshots of what my monitor looks like when the game is even loading (and it is like that to play as well) and how they look. this is unplayable.
@xMyNameIsMaddiex Your graphics chip is below the minimum requirement for the 64-bit version of Sims 3. While that doesn't mean you can't play, it does mean you can't really expect to be able to play on high, or perhaps even medium, settings without excessively taxing your hardware. I understand that the game looks bad on low settings, but that may be all your laptop can handle.
On the other hand, the static on-screen doesn't look great. Is there a chance you could get the laptop checked out at an Apple store? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, just that it's possible, and it might be worth asking someone to take a look in-person.
By the way, I hope you're not playing on battery. The game is quite demanding, and you should only play it while your laptop is plugged in.
