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How many The Sims 3 packs do you play with at the same time?
waterywatermelon
Posts: 473 Member
Generally speaking, the more packs you have, the more load your computer has to work with.
I only own The Sims 3 Seasons, Pets, and my recently purchased World Adventures & Generations Bundle pack. I am still new to the World Adventures & Generations Bundle, since I bought that one today and tested it out in-game.
I have not tested out the World Adventures EP yet, because my current save file only runs on the other three EPs.
I have seen some Simmers apparently playing with multiple packs at the same time.
Is there a way to find out how much your computer can take on before you make the pack active, or do you have to test it out?
I only own The Sims 3 Seasons, Pets, and my recently purchased World Adventures & Generations Bundle pack. I am still new to the World Adventures & Generations Bundle, since I bought that one today and tested it out in-game.
I have not tested out the World Adventures EP yet, because my current save file only runs on the other three EPs.
I have seen some Simmers apparently playing with multiple packs at the same time.
Is there a way to find out how much your computer can take on before you make the pack active, or do you have to test it out?
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in my experiences there is no differences in performance with or without all ep installed, the lag is usually caused by routing issue in the world, if you played only in sunset valley or custom world you'll likely be fine with it.
My laptop is a budget (Vivobook) PC and it severely hates my guts right now.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
The two Expansions that cause the most trouble are Seasons and Pets. Others don’t seem to create as much work for your computer.
It depends on your computer. Some can run everything and others will barely cope with the base game only.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
I have all EP's/SP's/Store Content plus some mods installed and the game runs fine on a computer that is overkill for TS3. A shame TS3 isn't 64-Bit, anyway the majority of my issues that do show up are mod related. All my settings are maxed out except high detail lots which I leave at 1 unless I really want to take a decent picture out in the neighborhood.
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter”
Screenshotting is a different beast though. I have most EPs on and ITF is a must for dressing up my daemons (who rarely cross over into gameplay)
outrun / blog / tunglr
I just compared the minimum requirements as reported on EA's website and my computer's hardware, and it looks like my hardware is sufficient.
The game is running smoothly, even with all 4 expansion packs installed and active at the same time. Hmmm... now, I may consider on buying another Sims 3 EP. LOL. My next Sims 3 EP on the wishlist is Ambitions because of the great expansion to the careers, then maybe University Life for the expansion of the Young Adult life stage. Then, I am just going to stop right there, because those EPs seem to cover the core life simulation. I may consider Late Night/ShowTime/Island Paradise/Into The Future/Supernatural EPs later... or perhaps, never.
It is fairly stable. Never had Error Code 12. Ever since I downloaded some helpful mods and followed a couple of tips and tricks to optimizing the game, my Sims 3 game has become virtually lag-free. Even Create-A-Style feels so much faster!
These are my typical graphical settings:
- Enable Object Hiding
- Enable Animation Smoothing
- Enable Advanced Rendering
- Mirrors Only [I am used to The Sims 2 graphics, so I don't really care about having reflective waters or super waters in The Sims 3.]
- Edge Smoothing Low [I used to do no edge smoothing at all, but then when I switched to playing in fullscreen mode which would allow me to cap the fps to 60, I raise the bar a bit. The game seems to be doing well, still running smoothly. Plus, the anti-aliased smoother edges look better.]
- Visual Effects Medium
- Lighting and Shadows Medium
- Tree Detail Medium
- Draw Distance Low
- High Detail Lots Low
- Texture Detail Medium
- Sim Detail Medium
[I personally like to set my settings to Medium, and for Draw Distance and High Detail Lots, to Low. I think Medium is a good middle-ground - having tolerable graphics and not overworking the graphics card. I am used to Sims 2 graphics, so I don't mind the low-quality lots in the distance. The Sims 2 uses LotImposters, and they still create a realistic neighborhood experience.]
I don't remember my settings now, but the settings look similar to the user above. Only slowdown is on the loading screen and when there are unroutable sims (afaik). My computer should be able to handle it as per the minimum requirements.
Sub blogs: #01 Sunset Valley. #02: Lake Onebega #03: Sprottenham #04: Bewickton
Be careful as the minimum requirements are not really enough to play with.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
Sounds good. Though there may be issues later down the line as minimal requirements may mean the game should play but doesn't mean it will play at peak performance. Unfortunately, The Sims Studio never gave any recommended system requirements for the best performance.
If you do eventually want more EP's other than Ambitions, it might be a good idea to try one at time to check gameplay performance. There are 3 EP's that may cause performance issues in computers below system requirements or computers with incompatible hardware. Such as one might have a gaming graphics card and good CPU but if the motherboard and RAM is not also geared towards gaming or at the very least can keep up with the same or near same performance level then the GPU and CPU gets limited and cannot perform to its fullest potential which will affect a games overall performance. Pre-built gaming computers are not all the same and one should know what's inside and do their own research on the brands and hardware being used. As well as the quality and performance from reputable reviews.
Moving on, The 3 EP's are Seasons, Pets and Island Paradise that may cause issues for computers who do not meet minimal system requirements or computers with incompatible hardware. Oh, actually there's one other thing to mention that's common knowledge but I'll say it anyway. Be careful with mods and know which ones are okay and still give good performance for TS3 because TS3 is a 32-bit application and some mods/cc likes to go overboard and really push the max limits of the game engine and also can give poor gameplay performance.
Seasons because of the weather effects upon the whole neighborhood.
Pets because animals add extra routing. Speaking of routing, from experience, the better the CPU then the better and faster the routing and also the more lively Sims are in general. But also routing depends on the player providing sufficient space for mobility.
You have those two already. But you may want to be wary of IP.
Island Paradise because of extra routing modes enabled for all worlds such as houseboats, jet ski's, etc. Plus, there are some world building/lot issues in Isla Paradiso that needs to be manually fixed before playing. There are other options like downloading a fixed world version but that never worked for me. This EP is really nice and compliments Seasons summer activities. I think it's also quite versatile with resorts and you can create or download all kinds of hotels/motels/resorts to own or stay at. Using the arcade building from the store, I turned it into a casino resort.
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter”
Most of the time I play only with:
University Life, Late Night, Generations and Ambitions.
I am currently doing a test run with The Sims 3 and all the packs I own (Seasons, Pets, World Adventures/Generations Bundle, Late Night, High-End Loft Stuff), with an absolutely clean The Sims 3 folder. (I just move my downloads, saves, screenshots, videos and mods to somewhere else on my computer and allow the game to generate anew.) The main purpose is to see how the game runs by itself. And the very first warning is that the game doesn't recognize my video card. Well, the game came out in 2009, and the whole The Sims 3 lifespan was from 2009-2014. My computer was purchased back in 2016, so that may be why.
ETA: Wow, I am pretty impressed with my test run! Great, now I am going to add in my old save files, screenshots, video shots and downloads (mostly stuff downloaded directly from TS3 Store and Official Website). As for mods, I really like the NRaas mods, like the Error Trap and Overwatch mods and the Tempest mod and the Master Controller and the Story Progression mod.
Sure.
Yeah, I think I am going to do a test-run of the game with all EPs I own (including my latest addition, Late Night). Then, I may consider on using some NRaas mods like the Error Trap mod and the Overwatch mod and the Tempest mod and the Master Controller and the Story Progression mod.
Island Paradise and Into The Future may be the only EPs out of the question - one for the excessive lagging that I see my Simmers complain about on YouTube, and the lack of replay value.
The game runs for me, however if you start downloading random CC all willy nilly, the game can get bottled down.
Cleaned up my CC and game runs great.
Yes, Isle paradiso is very laggy and I never play in that world.
But I can't live without the expansion pack, it comes with so many great features.
I download custom worlds that have the expansion items included in it.
https://graceymanorsims3.tumblr.com/
So here is BlueSpaarkle's post.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/discussion/comment/12449762#Comment_12449762
"Island Paradise
Isla Paradiso's World Fix for lag/stutter/freezing.
I had the same problem and I solved it. All you need to do is go to edit town and delete some houses. You need to delete houses of the households below:
Ichtaca
Scott
Los Amigos
Medina
If it still lags, then remove those houses as well:
The Romantic
The Prince
Just delete those houses and move sims living in them somewhere else. Or just delete the sims as well.
I hope this helped."
I also added The Angler Household because I noticed when this Sim resets sometimes he or others will be in an unroutable location in-between the ports.
I didn't even know I played that long...but timestamp around 19:30 is when the freezing starts and 31:00 after I fixed it. Quality isn't so great in windowed mode but doesn't matter, the point is to see the difference in IP as is, IP freezing and IP fixed.
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter”
I’d say test it out per pack if your computer has at least the minimum requirements. Keep adding packs if it’s still running fine.
It's one of those though, The Sims 3 isn't very well optimised, and worlds like Bridgeport or Isla Paradiso will probably tax your PC more. Personally I think the best way to go at it when seeing if you can run an expansion is your world, CC like Nraas and especially your config files. Trial and error more-or-less once you get the CC and config files sorted.
Like my gaming PC can run the game relatively well even, albeit it'll still lag on triple speed and freezes at 9am briefly sometimes, but I use fixed worlds to reduce lag since routing errors is your main performance murderer.
Things like Nraas' MasterController's CAS blacklist help reduce CAS lag/loadtimes since with all packs and especially with CC/store content your game will practically spend 10 hours loading a YA/A woman's outfit section, and longer with the shoes.