the sims 3 framerates are horrible! i need help

adamzaid

hello so my game is preforming badly i can play it and all but i was expecting for my pc to run the game with no problem at all! if i can run gta 5 on high-very high settings so why not the sims 3? i get alot of framedrops it goes from 70 to 20 or 90 30 which causes lag! i tried v-sync from the nvidia control panel but it was worst somehow. and i tried tons of other things too like put alot of the nrass mods it helped but the game is still horrible any help would be appreciated!

my specs are

cpu:i5-6200u 2.3ghz to 2.8ghz
gpu:nvidia gtx 960m
ram:8gb ddr3l memory
hdd:1tb

igazor

Your frame rates need to be capped to at or below the refresh rate of your monitor. For most this is 60 Hz (so 60 fps), but some do have special monitors with higher refresh rates. This is not optional, uncapped frame rates will overwork your card to the possible point of overheating and can do damage to both your game and your hardware. Unlike newer games, TS3 does not have a built-in fps limiter.

NRaas mods don't have anything to do with frame rates, at least not directly.

If the Nvidia Control Panel isn't going to lock the fps rates in with vsync, and note when it does work it only works in full screen mode, not windowed, the next tool to try would be Nvidia Inspector.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-profile-inspector-download.html
(beware of rogue ads on that page if you don't have an ad blocker, the real download links are about 2/3 of the way down within the page text)

As for sudden drops when things do get locked in, the higher end cards will stutter when the game is played on high speeds and sometimes just by swinging the game camera around quickly. There is no fix for that. It's also made worse for many players by High Detail Lots in Game Options being set to higher than 2.

adamzaid

igazor wrote: »

Your frame rates need to be capped to at or below the refresh rate of your monitor. For most this is 60 Hz (so 60 fps), but some do have special monitors with higher refresh rates. This is not optional, uncapped frame rates will overwork your card to the possible point of overheating and can do damage to both your game and your hardware. Unlike newer games, TS3 does not have a built-in fps limiter.

NRaas mods don't have anything to do with frame rates, at least not directly.

If the Nvidia Control Panel isn't going to lock the fps rates in with vsync, and note when it does work it only works in full screen mode, not windowed, the next tool to try would be Nvidia Inspector.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-profile-inspector-download.html

As for sudden drops when things do get locked in, the higher end cards will stutter when the game is played on high speeds. There is no fix for that. It's also made worse for many players by High Detail Lots in Game Options being set to higher than 2.

omg @igazor thx so much i watched a full tutorial on it and figured out my game is going between 55-60 frames now ! i cant thank you enough the worst i have seen it was 49 i think and thanks so much again!

elanorbreton

igazor wrote: »

TS3 does not have a built-in fps limiter.

Does that thing in the settings not do anything then? I always pick 60 fps in the game options - is there no point doing that?

xitneverendss

elanorbreton wrote: »

igazor wrote: »

TS3 does not have a built-in fps limiter.

Does that thing in the settings not do anything then? I always pick 60 fps in the game options - is there no point doing that?

That's just your monitors refresh rate, not fps. You have to do as igazor said above in order to limit fps.

elanorbreton

Oh. What's the difference? (trying not to sound too thick and probably failing abysmally lol).

Maera

The refresh rate on your monitor is the amount of times your monitor or tv is refreshing the image on the screen. Typically this is 60hz (though larger monitors have higher refresh rates) which is 60 frames per second. Frames per second is how many frames the game is displaying, depending on your video card (and other hardware/software options). If your FPS is set higher than the refresh rate, your monitor will not be able to display all of the frames your computer is producing. So limiting your fps to the refresh rate essentially sets a cap for your fps.

igazor

It's not really the size of the monitor that drives refresh rates, it's the way it's made. In the US, more expensive monitors at 75, 144, and beyond Hz are available in all kinds of sizes. Laptop monitors are always 60 Hz. So are the incredibly huge over the top professional monitors that Apple used to make themselves and those they now sell from other parties.

To check the fps rates you are actually getting in-game, Ctrl + Shift + C to bring up the cheats console and type fps on (enter). As you play and move the game camera around, the fps rate displayed should never go much your refresh rate which again is 60 for most of us. To stop the display, cheats console again and fps off.

Maera

I had just always assumed it was size, because until I got a bigger monitor (currently 75hz refresh) all of them had been 60. Thanks for teaching me something

elanorbreton

I did the 'fps on' thing in my game today and generally it is reading at between 120 and 150, only occasionally dropping down to 50/70 ish. When I go into cas it shoots up to over 220... so this is bad news?

I have the nvidia control panel and also the geforce experience thing and have searched in them both for a way to cap the fps, but I don't see anything. But, then again, I have had this computer for a couple of years now and didn't know about fps problems - I have always just played my games at max settings and left it at that.

Edit: oh I have a thing called Thundermaster too, which seems to be something to do with my graphics, no idea what it is but it pops up sometimes when I play sims 3 and it looks kinda cool so I admire it for a bit before closing it down

06Bon06

@elanorbreton You need to cap the FPS at 60 Fps or it will cause the GPU to heat up and cause damage.

You'll find the fps setting by right clicking on your desktop and the opening nvidia control panel. On the left choose Manage 3D settings.
The program setting and find tsrw.exe or tsr.exe if you have patch 1.69. If you can't find it in the drop-down choose the add button

Go down the list and set vsync to on or if you have the option adaptive. If this doesn't work to you'll have to download nvidia inspector

igazor

@elanorbreton - I have to add something to what @06Bon06 describes, which is the correct procedure to try first. Thundermaster is an attribute of the GeForce Experience program that involves clocking speeds. I'm sure it looks amazing when it pops up (my card is AMD so I'll have to take your word for it).

Generally speaking, GeForce Exp makes a mess of TS3 and gets in the way more than anything else. It's just not equipped to deal with this iteration of the game properly. Those who have contacted Nvidia about it are either told not to play old games (shakes head) or contact EA for support, which isn't going to be very helpful either. We usually recommend uninstalling the program entirely unless the player has a need for it outside of TS3 and getting their future card updates through their computer's manufacturer or, if necessary, from Nvidia itself directly.

ChelleJo

06Bon06 wrote: »

@elanorbreton You need to cap the FPS at 60 Fps or it will cause the GPU to heat up and cause damage.

You'll find the fps setting by right clicking on your desktop and the opening nvidia control panel. On the left choose Manage 3D settings.
The program setting and find tsrw.exe or tsr.exe if you have patch 1.69. If you can't find it in the drop-down choose the add button

Go down the list and set vsync to on or if you have the option adaptive. If this doesn't work to you'll have to download nvidia inspector

Isn't it ts3w.exe or ts3.exe?

igazor

@ChelleJo - Right. Must have been a typo, there is no tsr.exe (the sims resource, maybe?)
ts3w.exe for Patches 1.67 and below
ts3.exe for Patch 1.69

06Bon06

igazor wrote: »

@ChelleJo - Right. Must have been a typo, there is no tsr.exe (the sims resource, maybe?)
ts3w.exe for Patches 1.67 and below
ts3.exe for Patch 1.69

Right lol I didn't catch that weird typo but I was busy looking at other stuff XD

elanorbreton

Thanks, guys (or gals), I have removed Geforce Experience and set the vsync on and then I tested my fps in my game again and it stuck at 60 - yay (sometimes a little lower, never higher than 61). I notice it is not as smooth when I pan around, but not terrible. Also, my fans in my pc are no longer having heart attacks