@DanishLighthouse I'm not going to comment on the pricing for Sims 4 stuff. But I just wanted to pop in and say that Sims 3 runs great for me, in Windows 10. Sure, I made some small adjustments, but nothing more complicated than capping fps and changing read permissions on a couple of files. And yes, I own all expansion packs and a few stuff packs. I did buy most of them on sale, but for all the enjoyment I've gotten out of it, I feel like the game still would have been more than worth it at ten times the price.
If you don't want any advice on how to make the game run better, I won't bother writing it out. It's really not that hard to get the game running smoothly these days though. There are many people who are still happily playing now, on everything from older mid-range laptops to high-end gaming machines.
But what do I know—I've only been playing since 2010, and supporting TS3 on this site pretty much by myself for the last year and a half.
@puzzlezaddict wrote:@DanishLighthouse I'm not going to comment on the pricing for Sims 4 stuff. But I just wanted to pop in and say that Sims 3 runs great for me, in Windows 10. Sure, I made some small adjustments, but nothing more complicated than capping fps and changing read permissions on a couple of files. And yes, I own all expansion packs and a few stuff packs. I did buy most of them on sale, but for all the enjoyment I've gotten out of it, I feel like the game still would have been more than worth it at ten times the price.
If you don't want any advice on how to make the game run better, I won't bother writing it out. It's really not that hard to get the game running smoothly these days though. There are many people who are still happily playing now, on everything from older mid-range laptops to high-end gaming machines.
But what do I know—I've only been playing since 2010, and supporting TS3 on this site pretty much by myself for the last year and a half.
I have never played the The Sims 3 on Windows 10 I only recently upgraded from Windows 7 and I honestly can not remember if I ever bothered to try get it to run on Windows 7. I have had plenty of futile conversation with EA support that didn't help anything at all but I think that that were probably back in 2013 ? (not sure about the year - I would have to check all old email) and I think that I used Windows XP back then.
Anyway , I won't discuss your experience because unlike you I know that they are yours. But *MY* experience is that after I had played some hundred (?) hours with all expansions many maps a lot of inventory and what not , then the game at last ran so slow and were so unstable that it finally could not even save the game. No matter your 'experience' then that is still *fact* as well as it is fact that it was memory shortage related and not something that anyone at all could fix.
As the The Sims 3 is running on a 32 bit engine then nothing can make it use more than what memory is available under that condition (though there probably is some memory 'bank switching' in Widows using 'virtual memory') - hence the development of the 64 bit OS.. And while I have spent a hell of a lot of time trying to get the game to run back then then then I really do not want to spend time whipping what I believe is a dead horse just because someone wants to both question me and act as if better than all support staff...
Back then then one of the problems were a Windows problem if one had too much graphics memory because Windows XP only could address address the 32 bit of memory address space so there were some memory space sharing or something) (ref. : XP : https://config9.com/windows/why-does-windows-only-show-about-3-5-gb-of-my-4-gb-of-ram/ , ref. : Vista : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929605/the-system-memory-that-is-reported-in-the-system-inf...
and I am sure that at least 64 bit Windows 10 is not the same when running a 32 bit program. Also the 'Virtual memory driver may have been improved a lot on Windows 10 compared to Windows XP which could explain some of your experience. But it still remains that 'experience' may change considerably if one is running the game in the way I did - game play time wise with same 'sim' , inventory, travel wise and so on... (I am not sure at this point but I think that I had played the game some 200 or some 400 hundred hours when game problems started to occur...
I am sure that I got all my old save games from back before the problem started to occur so if I ever feel like wasting a lot of time then I might try it on Windows 10 - but don't hold your breath ;-) 😃
As is then I think that EA has finally 'seen the light' now I don't know how many years after I started telling them to upgrade the game engine to 64 bit !
@DanishLighthouse I wasn't expecting you to take my personal experience as fact; that's why I mentioned all the other people who play Sims 3 with no significant issues. That goes for people who've posted at AHQ in the last year and a half, and all the people who happily post about their games on various sites but never need to ask for tech help. My point is that I don't think EA screwed its customers or owes anything to us for how TS3 turned out.
I'm not saying that the game didn't and doesn't have its issues, just that many of us have found that they can be worked through without too much trouble. Sure, TS3 can be finicky, and stubborn, and occasionally a bit annoying, but I've never seen it as unplayable on at least a reasonable mid-range system. That's a far different take on the game than you posted, which is why I replied.
It's unfortunate that you couldn't play in Windows XP, but yes, running on a system with 4 GB RAM or less (whether in a 32- or 64-bit OS) will make TS3's memory use much more difficult to manage. It's still not impossible though—there are some people still playing in macOS, where the game was never even patched to be large address aware and therefore can only use 2 GB RAM total. Again, there's a difference between a game that needs extra help to run and one that's unplayable.
This is normally the point where I'd offer to help, but, like you said before, you're not interested. So I'll just leave it at that.
@puzzlezaddict, I am sure that you can find plenty of topics supporting your claim as I could maybe find many supporting mine had I wanted to waste my life keeping arguing with you .
Anyway , I took a look at a few pages that Google threw me at a search , and I think that the discussion on the following page rather well mirrors the situation on hand here with you where different people makes different claims , so I find it a real waste of time to try to make you stop second guessing my experiences on a PC system that I ran years ago and that you have absolutely no knowledge of (same goes for you second guessing anyone's present computer system and software configurations ability to run a The Sims 3 game - you not knowing what they have and what the configuration is) :
The sims 4 plays better than sims 3 :
https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/discussion/913952/the-sims-4-plays-better-than-sims-3
Also you presume to have the right to expect that the 'general' user / customer should spend an extra ordinary amount of time doing all sorts of stuff (and modifications) that EA should have done - if it should be done at all - I read the page and people list all sorts of 'rules' they want kept to get the game to run stable , including but not limited to : All saves have a separate folder , only installing additional store content and custom content as needed and what not...
I mean seriously what load of '*' to have to keep arguing about when anyone reasonable would see that I am right and that the game were impossible to keep running under the circumstances given and back then....
@DanishLighthouse I never said anything about how Sims 4 runs, much less that it runs worse than Sims 3; I have no idea where you got that. Nor did I say anything about your system directly, but I did notice that the two articles you linked both referenced issues related to 32-bit OSs reporting less than the installed 4 GB memory. Even without knowing your particular configuration, the point stands: a system with 4 GB RAM or less is going to have problems with Sims 3, that's just how it is.
As for the specs of other players, I do know something about that, since most people who respond to threads about system issues start by asking for a dxdiag. I would never make assumptions about a system without seeing one, much less base my opinion about how a game runs on those assumptions.
For the record, I didn't do anything extraordinary to get or keep my game running, certainly nothing like the post you linked. When I installed on this computer, I had to do was download an app to limit framerates and deny read permissions on a couple of files. Sure, it would have been nice if TS3's fps limiter worked, but that's not the kind of thing that was necessary in 2009. The other trickery in that thread seems like overkill, or the kind of thing that people only have to do if they install >10 GB of custom content. All my saves, store content, and mods have always lived in the same folder, and the only time I ever have a second game folder is when I want to test something.
So no, the game was not impossible to keep running at any point during its development, nor has it been impossible to play in the six years since then. It may have been impossible on your system, and that's unfortunate, but that has certainly never been the case for everyone. And to my original reason for replying to you, I don't feel that EA screwed TS3 players or owes us anything for how the game turned out.
