When I first got the Sims 3 not long after launch date, despite having more than the minimum requirements the game ran a geriatric 50-a-day smoker.

Supposing now I was to install every EP, SP and most of what the store had to offer; how much would my system need to handle. Game says one thing but the reality is very different. 4ram, 8? 10? What would I be looking to for a decent level of performance?

I just looked and I have 8 on an about 5 year old i7 desktop. I have every EP and every SP except K Perry installed. I have used a lot of CC but have broken my CC into groups depending on what world I am playing so not all of my way too many items are in at once. I convert everything to packages so can do this. My game plays well.

8GB RAM and an SSD work well.

I'm looking for a laptop that will play Sims 3 as well.
I have a Dell Inspiron Gaming laptop, but in reading the Amazon reviews, the same problem I have with mine - the case falling apart if you actually use it to play games, is a common problem that Dell wants ~ $300 to "fix", that is, return it to the same bad design that is going to break again. Which is why my laptop is held together with glue and duct tape.. Well, not right now I need to re-glue and re-tape.
Looked at the ASUS reviews - their shoody as well. I had an ASUS and they are less than honest about their warranty. The USB port breaks and shorts out the computer. I again fixed it with duct tape bu ASUS just laughs if you ask them to fix it. They've apparently not improved in customer support and push crappy products as well.
Not sure what the real requirement to play Sims 3 well is, I do know that my daughter's computer can't do the sims, mine can but it burns up.

At least an i5 or an i7, third gen or up, 8 gigs of RAM or more, a 500-series Nvidia card or AMD equivalent, and also make sure to have an SSD.

It really depends what you call "enough", good Drive->memory transfer (SSD is the best bet) is the key, additional processing power won't hurt (though calling i7 "necessary" is a bit overkill taking that lightly), 8GB RAM is bare essential today I suppouse.

Yeah that was my thinking too, but the best I could do was 16. But unfortunately my game install is 42 gigabytes, so it's really only something worth considering if you've got 64 gigs or more. Assuming you hoard EPs, that is. And then of course you need to find a way to only have TS3 loaded on your RAMdisk when you're playing it, because no matter how much you like TS3 you're just NOT gonna let it permanently occupy 42 gigabytes of RAM. And don't even get me started on the game documents folder.

Still, it's a hell of an idea and as soon as it's feasible, I'll let you guys know the results. See you in 10 years.

* 8GB RAM minimum if you play with all EPs, SPs and CC. If you install only the base game and patches, 4GB is enough.
* A dual core CPU with at least 3 Ghz of clock speed per core (CPU speed per core matter A LOT in TS3).
* GPU: a 550TI or better will suffice. If you have a better GPU, you can use extra features outside the game such as Anisotropic Filtering and Ambient Occlusion as well as higher resolution for skin textures and shadows.
* An SSD is a MUST if you shorter loading times (30 seconds up to 1:30-2:30 with ALL EPs and tons of CC, and instant loading of lots (no gray textures).

I have i3, Nvidia GT 730, 8GB RAM, no SSD and RamDisk and The Sims 3 runs very well. Lags a little bit since I have Twallan's Story Progression and only crash when it comes to bad custom contents. If you want to play The Sims 3 in full HD, you may want to get a better graphics card.

IMHO.. explaining what TS3 real requirements is like explaining the difference between the two words COMPLETE and FINISHED.

Some people say there is no difference, but there is, like for example.. when you marry the right woman you are COMPLETE! When you marry the wrong woman you are FINISHED!! And if you marry a woman who likes shopping you are COMPLETELY FINISHED!!

TS3 is the woman who likes to shop a lot!!

Well if you want the COMPLETE complete collection you'll need a PC at least as powerful as mine - 6th gen i5, 16 gigs, GTX 1070 and two 500 gig SSDs for documents and game installs, respectively.

8-12 is standard for an average computer now. But not even technically fully utilized with The Sims 3. 32-bit application. 3.4 GB usage limitation. Then crashy crashy to desktop.

The Sims 3 needs a memory hack. Faux multiple instances and system memory manipulation. Ole' Yeller without the shotgun. It also needs an external scripting wrapper. An .asi equivalent. Local bug exterminator. No more nasty critties in my swamp.

Even if TS3 itself can only use 3.4, you definitely need at least 8 GB to reach that limit. The OS and other background processes take up quite a lot of RAM.




In fact, after thorough testing I found out it's actually faster to use an SSD (even though RAM is 10x faster than any SSD).

Indeed. That's why I suggested eight.

Shame that guy who was working on a 64 bit wrapper went quiet. We need a more in-depth solution for streamlining game performance. Clearly removing hardware bottlenecks and keeping our game data isn't enough. Anyone have any useful insights on single-core performance? TS3, being an archaic piece of shit, only benefits from extra CPU beef if the individual processor cores are better than the one you had before.

Sims 3 needs a real CPU to take care of all characters. We need a cpu that has unlimited cores .

Nah I don't think so, I've described it above with an analogy like when a man wants to marry a woman he loves, this requirement thing is sensitive thing when it comes to TS3 because TS3 is so much loved, just like a woman, can't live with them, but don't don't wanna live without them, just look what I got there


Alright then let's get back straight to the point with the subject and let's be real with the truth about TS3's major issues, even with the newest line-up and more powerful Core i9 with tons of RAMs SSDs GTX1080 etc, TS3 will screw them with lags and freezes if the user don't understand where the real causes of the problems lies, forget 64 bit version of TS3, the problem is with how TS3 was designed, it's an open world real life simulation game, isn't it obvious? We don't have the technology to handle all of that "ideally" with the current computer machines that we have now, because there's no limit if the goal of the game is to simulate the open world with real life in it.

So no matter what anyone would suggest, is not going to be enough for a single computer machine to handle all of them if the expectation as ideal as possible, suggesting to get this or that kind of computer to play TS3 is not going to be enough, but that doesn't mean there's no workaround to make it works. And that workaround is to fit TS3 to what the computer capable of, not the other way around.. to find the computer that could satisfy what TS3 wants.

I have personally tried playing a "complete" TS3 with tons of CCs and mods with i7 4960X with X79 motherboard 32Gb RAM SSD and my GTX680 vs i7 3770K with Z77 motherboard 32Gb RAM SSD and my GTX680, and there's no difference for the final results, TS3 would still lags and freezes, and that's TS3 major issues. The 6 cores 12 threads i7 4960X processor and 32 GB RAMS only helps TS3 loads faster, nothing else, it didn't solved TS3 major issues which are lags and freezes. Even with cleaning up the corrupts conflicts and duplicates that generated by every patch level with S3PE would only help TS3 loads faster, it does help reducing lags and freezes but they are only small bits compares to the lags and freezes generated by the complexity and over populated world.

So the workaround is to compromised how we play TS3 in our machine, simplified the world, don't get over populated and etc, that would fit TS3 to what the computer is capable of, even playing island Paradise (+ Pets and Seasons installed) in a custom or self made simplified world with CAW, the game didn't lags or even freezes at all, the default EA's worlds are just too complex and over crowded even with a new game start.

But of course there's a price that we must pay when playing with clean or simplified custom self made houses buildings or worlds, it may not look realistic as the EA's premade worlds, if we want to keep the more complicated and realistic worlds then there is a possible solution imho, but TS3 don't have that feature, which is to play TS3 (at least) by LAN, that would split and ease the workload on the computer, even better if TS3 one day became a MMO or MMORPG, because technically that would massively split the workload on each computer, but would EA do that?? Based on what happened to Need For Speed World Online (2010-2013), I doubt that.., but I do hope that someday someone of the mod creator here or elsewhere can mod TS3 to be able to play by LAN.

Without the workaround and compromise, there's no way TS3 can be play "ideally" as anyone would expect even with the most powerful computer that we have today, and that's why TS3 is the most loved imho compares to TS1 2 and 4.

And that's why imho, my analogy TS3 is just like a man marrying a woman who likes to shop a lot and he can't say no or even stop her, is not by any mean to insult any woman, because when a man loves a woman, she's everything to him, but spoiling her? That's a bad idea.. lol, and that's why i believed why you guys still hanging out here discussing or making new mods or whatever to a 9 years old game day and night.

So Nitromon.. I don't think it's one of the TS4 guy, it just TS3.. yeah.. is that awesome after 9 years and still with the same problems.. lol

It isn't possible to have unlimited physical CPU cores with our current technology. Though it is an interesting idea.



Being an open-world game has less important than many think and is not absolute cause, being open world only contributes a small fraction to cause. The Sims 3 issues are mostly in due to its poor system memory management, poor utilization of more than 2 cores paired with an antiqued scripting engine. A 64-bit rewrite would rectify the memory issue by allowing more than 3.4GB of memory to be dedicated to the application which can have the effect of reduced loading times,reduced stuttering and reducing the frequency of CTDs caused by memory bloat. The performance faults with the Sims 3 lie more in its engine. The Sims 3 doesn't follow the techniques other open-world games like Skyrim do. The Sims 3 doesn't scan every actor in the world space and then initiate scripts on only a single actor when a script event is called upon. Instead, The Sims 3 does "pushes".

When the game does its "push" instead of doing a for a single Sim, it does one giant universal push for all actors at single time. The more Sims and objects there are in the world, the more the game has to scan, and more script initiations that need to be made when the game "pushes". This puts stress on the script engine and tends to clog CPU cycles. Sims with routing problems cause the engine to re-scan it all again and re-initiate its scripted "push" event because the events previous attempt failed to fully complete. The rabbit holes were EA's way of help relieving this stress by removing an actor from the world space temporarily to reduce the amount of script initiations needed to be performed by the engine when it does a "push".

Imagine putting a large amount of food in your mouth at a single time instead of taking small bites. Kind of difficult to chew and swallow now? Exactly how The Sims 3 works.

The CASt requires the game to constantly keep unique textures for every object stored in the memory instead of actively allowing these textures to be unloaded when they serve no use in the current scene. This also means CASt system will make several duplicate versions of the same texture instead of sharing a single texture for multiple objects. This has an effect of causing memory bloat. Ever wondered why The Sims 3 gradually increases its system memory usage whenever you use CASt, instead of staying at a relatively consistent amount of usage or reducing usage when finished with CASt? This is why. This is why we CTD if we use CASt too much.

This is why EA went to a quasi-open world with The Sims 4 and removed CASt, because there are less scripts that need to be run and less scans needed to be made. And memory can be utilized more effectively. Thus increasing performance and stability.

The original poster is seeking decent performance, not ideal/perfect. TBH I get tired of hearing the absolute generalizations folks make that Sims will lag and freeze. What occurs for one person does not hold true for everyone. I am playing on about a 5-6 year old desktop that is a dinosaur by today's standards and I do not have those problems with everything except K Perry installed as I did not get it. It can take large lots a few seconds to render the items, CAS can lag a bit, but freezes and lag in actual gameplay are so minor I would have to look for them. They are so minor I get far more than acceptable performance.

I do use some Nraas mods such as overwatch to do some cleanup. When I have used a lot of CC I have used some merged package files.

Some of us can play this game and play it quite smoothly with doing pretty much nothing to enhance that.

No I don't think so, even with better memory management and utilization, it still has a limit, the concept of TS3 is unlimited. I understand with the comparison you made with other open world games, like I did in the past with Company of Heroes (CoH), but the characters in CoH all have the same goal, it's whether A vs B or B vs A, even with allies it's not A vs B vs C, it's either A+C vs B or vice versa, there are only two sides who against each other, and even so.. CoH still capped the maximum characters that can be play in CoH, and CoH can utilize more than 3 Gb RAM (that capped by the 32bit OS), CoH with 64 bit OS can utilize 4 or 8 or 16 Gb RAMs, but it still capping the characters population, because it is necessary in order the game to be stable or playable, and that's not the case with TS3, and this is why TS3 has unlimited possibilities just like in the real world.

As for loading time (all EPs SPs installed) the game doesn't load all of every single item from package in deltabuild and fullbuild package files, it likes creating an index on what next to be put into the game, that's why if you put all the game installation files into ramdisk, it can be load in 1-3 minutes from TS3 start menu to the game screen started, and about a minute or less from dead start to TS3 main menu (assuming TS3 Launcher is bypassed and with no intro mod).

So yes 64 bit might help, but it just a matter of time until the game reach the limit the 64 bit can handle, because TS3 has no limits, it's an awesome concept of the game actually, but it cannot be achieved as the game concept is unlimited but there's a limit with the machine playing it.



Is not generalization imho, because I considered stuttering is also lags, tiny bits of lags, and ideal is not perfect, it's not the same as perfect because perfect is faultless, ideal in this matter is differ from one to another standard, maybe for you stuttering is not considered as lags and acceptible, but from my view as I understand it with trying to play it with an empty world as an experiment, with all EPs SPs tons of clean CCs and Mods, the game didn't even stuttering, it starts stuttering when it gets too complex and crowded, the same thing can be test when only BG is installed with no patch no CCs no mods.

We all may have different opinions, but I'm just trying to point the game has unlimited characteristic concept just like in the real world, and by testing with empty world or even BG only, there's no lags or freezes started without stuttering at first, so if we can understand the concept of the game has unlimited characteristic and possibilities, then we can see that the major problems were not because of computer real requirements, yes there's minimum requirements to be met, but without understanding what the goal of TS3 which is simulating the real world, then anyone may still have a question why my computer is never enough for TS3 but all fine with other games?

I don't get that. You say The Sims 3 has limits but it's unlimited? Even in concept it's still limited. We can talk about the game concept all day, but the game's concept is not important to how the game works internally. How that concept is implemented and made a reality, essentially. These internal workings is the general subject of this thread.

The reason why 32-bit is such a problem in The Sims 3 is because of the poor memory management. The game does not unload every texture in an efficient manner and also had a tendency to store numerous duplicate references/copies of the same texture in the system memory which causes the game to have memory bloat and reach its 3.4 GB/32-bit limit quicker and easier than other 32-bit games. A 64-bit rewrite may not rid the game of limitations and fully solve this poor memory management, but it can help give more room to work with, so it won't reach its memory limit as quickly.


I don't use a ramdisk and have no experience with them. But, I'm not talking about the package files themselves, I'm talking about how the game takes the content in those files and processes them after indexing them. How the game uses the system memory and how the scripts in the game are processed through the CPU. I'm not sure how much more clear I can honestly be here.


The big picture is important, but we shouldn't make that main focus because the small details that go on behind the scenes form together to make the bigger picture. If this were a philosophical discussion I'd be completely on your side talking about the bigger picture, but this is a thread about a video game's internal workings.

I'd wager that if TS3 was fully 64 bit we'd be able to have the entire game world loaded at once. As far as I can tell your average lot adds little more than 50 megs in memory usage, and that's assuming said lot contains many assets that aren't already loaded in elsewhere. So assuming 16 gigs of RAM, and the fact that having 8 lots loaded in at once usually costs less than a gig of memory usage, there'd be very little loading to do in that scenario.

TS3 hardware requirements are not that high if looking at the kind of cheap PC you can buy today. But in the case of TS3 you have a limiting factor to what hardware can bring to the table. The way saves games can become corrupt and the way EA's own worlds can slow your PC down to a crawling speed after a while because of bad routing, is all due to TS3 (and being 32bit) itself. The moment you start using CC, CASt will have its very slow moments too during building (there is some weird stuff going on with that, I suspect memory leak)

So imo, go for decent hardware like others here suggested, but also invest some time into research about which mods help performance too. There are improved EA worlds here wth fixed routing and some of the NRAAS mods (Overwatch, Errortrap etc) help a lot too. Then there are the programs to clean your savegame (forgot the name). And when starting with CC, you might want to look up the guides here on this website on how to check them for errors and how to combine them into bigger packages.

TS3 is one of those games that simply requires certain mods to play nice imo. Great game, but shitty software.