Windowed mode on a 15 inch MBP

Annikaperi

I'm sorry if this has been answered before, but after three pages of Forum post lists, I'm still confused by this and I don't want to mess it up. I want to make windowed mode bigger, as big as you can get it and still be able to switch apps if the game crashes. I am on a 15 inch Macbook Pro, so that is 1280 x 800? Does this mean that the default 1024 x 768 in Options is as big as it will go, or can I just put it on the actual 1280 x 800 setting and it will be bigger? In other words, are the selections for your actual full screen size, or the size you can have in windowed mode? It seems like the default would be bigger, but it's not. And should the dock be hidden before you do this? I would like to know how to get it as large as possible without getting a wrong ratio, and I would like to still be able to switch as CAS keeps threatening to freeze on me lately. It looks so nice in fullscreen, but maybe it's not possible to get a size close to that. Anybody with a 15 inch MBP know offhand how it's done?

Tremayne4260

Go to the first page of this thread. You'll find links to the three most helpful threads. I'd read BlueBellFlora's thread first.

http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/748338/a-mac-users-best-friend-please-read-before-posting-any-new-problem-threads#latest

BluebellFlora

Windowed mode is better because sometimes you can't always tab out of the game if it freezes in full screen mode.

I'm on a 15" MBP and always play in windowed mode. These are my Game Options and desktop, hope it helps

Annikaperi

Thank you for your response, Tremayne, Sorry this is so much later, I have been catching up on some sleep. Yes, I have seen those threads. I do delete cache files, etc. Nothing seems to quite address this problem. I found this thread:

http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/432706.page
Unable to Resize in Windowed Mode

I have the same problem as the poster. I did not see the setting BluebellFlora mentioned, despite the fact that she is also using a 15 inch MBP. Playing with the settings that were there did not change the screen size. All it did was turn my Sim black and threaten to crash CAS. Fortunately I was able to quickly put it back and save the lovely Sim I was working on. I was not able to get the beautiful resolution that she shows in her last screenshot. There is no 1344 x 840. I also could not find this when I wasn't doing anything (not in CAS or a game). I don’t know if anyone has a fix for this -- I might just have to play smaller.

@BluebellFlora, yes I understood from your posts that it was safer to use windowed mode, I'd just like to make it a little larger. I was also surprised to learn that if you are forced to do a hard restart that you could damage your harddrive. Fortunately I have not had to, except for one time when I forgot to connect the power supply and ran out of power while in the application. I found this post:

http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/Sims3-Screen-Resolution-problem/td-p/1498791

Crinrict says:

. . . Ok. then let's try the manual method.
 
Close the game
Go to this file: Documents\electronicarts\thesims3\options(.ini)
Open the file with a text editor
Find the line for the screen resolutions and change it to what you want
save the file
Start the game.


Good Luck and Happy Simming
Crin

Everyone says to change this, but they don’t show exactly how it should read. My file says: "resolution = 1024 768 0". I wasn’t sure how to change this, what the third number should be. I also didn’t know if there was anything different one should do if on a Mac. How does your .ini file read?

Thanks, guys, for all your help.

Tremayne4260

I just got home from being away for a week. No worries. I don't play in windowed mode personally, but I think has to do with your resolution? Just upgraded to Yosemite and I'm still trying to figure things out.

BluebellFlora

@Annikaperi - what is the resolution of your Mac showing in System Preferences? Mine is 1440x900.

Annikaperi

I am using Mavericks. Under Displays, Resolution: Best for display is selected. When I click Scaled you see:

1680 x 1050 1280 x 800 1152 x 720 1024 x 640

1680 x 1050 is selected.

BluebellFlora

Annikaperi wrote: »

I am using Mavericks. Under Displays, Resolution: Best for display is selected. When I click Scaled you see:

1680 x 1050 1280 x 800 1152 x 720 1024 x 640

1680 x 1050 is selected.

Ah, you have a Retina MBP? Which one? The one with integrated graphics or integrated and dedicated? If it's the one with just integrated Iris Pro then you may be out of luck as the game has known problems with those graphics and sadly EA have never bothered patching it. You should be able to choose a higher res. window though

Annikaperi

@BluebellFlora, Sorry about the long wait for a reply; things got hectic around here. Yes I do have the retina display. It is an early 2011 (but with i7) 15-inch MacBook Pro with an AMD Radeon HD 6490M and an Intel HD Graphics 3000 built-in. I found out that my resolution is probably 2880 x 1800. So I did the math. I figured that if 1440 x 900 = 1344 x 840 in windowed mode, then 2880 x 1800 would equal 2688 x 1680.

I tried Crinrict’s method of changing the .ini file, not sure if I was doing it right (what do you do with that 0 on the end?), but this only resulted in a disc authorization failure - so I had to put it back to what it was. By which time I noticed the glaring, new red iTunes icon. (If anyone knows how to safely return to the blue icon, please let me know.) I have avoided updating to Yosemite because I prefer the Mavericks icons, so I went looking for threads on Yosemite. I figured that if people were still having problems with it, this would be another reason not to upgrade to it. I found the thread:

Sims 3 crashing after Yosemite upgrade
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/795896/sims-3-crashing-after-yosemite-upgrade/p1

I found Tremayne’s instructions to go to Options as soon as you can, go to windowed mode, and then change and save your resolution. I was able to get past the disc authorization failure after two or three tries. Alas, the desired resolution did not appear. However, I was able to successfully change it. It was set at 1024 x 768 (4:3), which is small. 1680 x 1050 (16:10) yielded a page that was kind of too big (screen stretching under the dock), but 1280 x 800 (16:10) gave a better window. Not as nice as the one you are using, but large enough that I may not be tempted to play in full screen mode. Maybe I am dense, but somehow I couldn’t get this before.

So, if anyone is having the same problem of a too small window (15-inch retina screen using Mavericks - not sure if Yosemite offers any different resolution choices), try Tremayne4260’s suggestion to skip playing with the .ini file (or delete it if you want it to regenerate in its default state). Start your game. Go to Options as soon as you get to the screen where you can choose a neighborhood. Then Command - Return into windowed mode. Then choose 1280 x 800. That is the best choice the game will give you. Click Accept and you will have a better windowed mode size than the default one.

Thanks, guys, for all your help.

GreenDay

BluebellFlora wrote: »

Windowed mode is better because sometimes you can't always tab out of the game if it freezes in full screen mode.

I'm on a 15" MBP and always play in windowed mode. These are my Game Options and desktop, hope it helps

This is totally unrelated to the original topic, but BluebellFlora, how do you play with such high graphics settings?! I have a 2013 15" MBP (2.3GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512 MB graphics) and I can only play on low/medium settings and even in a small world I get ridiculous amounts of lag with many crashes. Enough that the game is basically unplayable. I don't use any CC and I have all EP's except for Into the Future. I also have the first 4 SPs. I have a few pieces from the store, but not that many. How many EPs/SPs do you have?

I use your technique of purging the unused processes and having activity monitor open, but it never gets up high enough to be of any concern.

Tremayne4260

First of all, I never connect my game to the internet. I turn off all options that would allow the game to do so (like turn off the in game store mode, do not allow it connect to social media, do not connect when I launch the game). I regularly clean out all my caches and thumbnails. Also make the "Featured Items" folder read only and clean it out. You should find some improvement in your game performance.

GreenDay

@Tremayne4260‌, thanks for the suggestions! I have read through some of your help threads in the past. I do the same, and never connect my game to the internet. I delete caches every time I launch the game. For Thumbnails, do you just mean deleting the stuff that is in the Thumbnails folder? And I did make my Featured Items folder read only a while ago, I really haven't noticed much improvement and still get crashes. I also recently did a full reinstall about a month ago following the BluebellFlora's steps, but it didn't seem to help.

BluebellFlora

@GreenDay - Doesn't yours have the NVIDIA 750M card in it, with 2Gb VRAM? Mine's the 2012 model non-retina with the 650M 1Gb VRAM.

I have no CC and all EPs except for Showtime. I regularly purge RAM.

GreenDay

@BluebellFlora‌ Nope, the graphics card is the 650M. I guess my model would be the mid-2012 non-retina. I received this computer as a free replacement for my mid-2009 MBP due to the extended warranty stating that having 4 major fixes within the 4 year warranty period would give me a brand new equivalent replacement at no extra cost. According to the gentleman who was responsible for the repairs of my old computer, the constant need for the major repairs in the first place was likely due to TS3 causing it to overheat and damaging the parts of the computer! I always played with a cooling pad but I guess that wasn't enough. Anyways, due to it being an equivalent replacement of the 2009 model, they basically gave me the lowest end model at the time which came with 4GB RAM, but due to career requirements (using high end graphics programs) and my love for TS3, I upgraded it to 16GB of RAM.

BluebellFlora

@GreenDay - Aah yes, that makes more sense. We have the same MBPs but slightly different specs, 2.3Ghz/2.6Ghz and 650M 512/650M 1Gb. It maybe that with the EPs you have installed the graphics card is struggling on high settings.

TS3 wouldn't have been responsible for your Mac overheating, unless you were playing on a surface where air couldn't circulate underneath it and/or you were covering the vents along the hinge. Even then, your Mac would have shut itself down if it was overheating. It is a very hungry game so the processor and graphics usage is very high when playing. I play on an iLap which really helps. The aluminium casing of your Mac dissipates heat - you don't need a cooling mat with fans - so long as the air can circulate under it