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Any feedback on how The Sims 4 is running on Mac??

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  • hrt365hrt365 Posts: 2 New Member
    edited February 2015
    Im so pumped that the sims is out for mac, but I'm on a mac book pro and I took it off of laptop mode so mirrors could work and overall the game would look better but after I reloaded the game the title screen is all black, I can't click anything and I have to restart my computer manually to make it go away. I have already tried reinstalling it, anyone have any idea what to do?

    Also my mac book is

    MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)
    2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
    4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
    Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
  • southaltansouthaltan Posts: 152 Member
    I played for about an hour. It played beautifully for me. I didn't mess with the settings or anything and saved a few times. It's nice to play, since I got my Mac 4 years agom, and only tried to run the sims 3..
  • BrownBlossomsBrownBlossoms Posts: 7 New Member
    So I'm having some of the same issues that a few other folks have mentioned; for some reason, attempting to play with the settings set to "high" leads to really choppy gameplay on my Mac. To contrast this -- I played using high settings on my bootcamped Windows partition and it plays like a dream; smooth as butter and literally no lag! My specs:

    MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
    Processor: 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
    Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
    Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M
  • halzillahalzilla Posts: 1 New Member
    Mine is having graphic issues. The sims in create a sim- the clothes and hair are basically see-through. They just have some grainy flashing color of what it is supposed to be. Any suggestions!?
  • JferleykoJferleyko Posts: 1 New Member
    edited February 2015
    My Sims 4 was installing for over 6 hours, and only at 42%, So i figured there was a problem, so i logged out of origin and logged back in, now my game says download error and won't resume the download. What do I do? has anyone had this problem? Im reinstalling origin in hopes that it will work faster the second time around.
    Also my internet connection is fine
  • jmt313aerojmt313aero Posts: 17 Member
    edited February 2015
    @Jferleyko‌ I'm having the same exact problem matter of fact mine was on 42% too! It was for 6 hours as well and now I have the download error so I'm going to try later tonight Ive been so frustrated with Origin.
  • jessi114jessi114 Posts: 37 Member
    Okay-so I've just emerged out of game for the first time since 7pm! A couple issues:

    1. The colored glasses on Sim display (I restarted the game and it resolved itself)
    2. SOME of the hair shades in CAS looked like they were highlighted with grey? I just opted out of those colors but still a little strange.
    3. My mid 2011 Macbook Pro played beautifully with settings on medium, I didn't want to push it, especially with some of the things i'd heard before downloading.
    4.I downloaded both TS4 and Outdoor Retreat at the same time, and downloaded at the same time. When I went in game the first time I had Outdoor Retreat, and when I exited and went back it, it was ALL GONE. It was as if I didn't even have Outdoor Retreat. Any solutions to this one???
  • southaltansouthaltan Posts: 152 Member
    @jessi114 I had the same issue with the Outdoor Retreat and Holiday packs, as well all the DLC content gone after going back into my game.
  • ErikTheRodErikTheRod Posts: 47 Member
    Just thought I'd do a little benchmarking for those curious on the latest 2014 Retina iMac (5K screen). My model has the Core i7 (4.0 GHz), M295X (4GB), 24 GB RAM, and 1TB Fusion drive.

    As you might imagine, I was very curious to see how the Sims 4 would look at 5K resolution (5120x2880). I was also a bit pessimistic about performance, as that is a lot of pixels to be pushing for a mobile GPU. Upon first launch, the game defaulted to Ultra settings at 2560x1440 (Retina). The 3D details were passable in this resolution, but the UI really was blurry around the edges... it would bother me too much to use half my native resolution scaled up.

    For my benchmarks, I decided to use the "High" presets at 5120x2880 (Retina ON, V-Sync OFF). I restarted the game so that they could take full effect. I used the "FPS On" cheat (Ctrl+Shift+C) to gauge my frame-rate in the game (including create-a-sim).

    Create-A-Sim (CAS) was pretty flawless and gorgeous at 5K, constant 60 frames per second (FPS). The only time it dipped was when I was customizing my Sim's physical appearance (dragging body structure), and that was only a 5-10 frame dip for a fraction of a second. Hardly noticeable and would not impact my gameplay at all. Oh did I mention it looked absolutely stunning?

    Next was my Sim (just a single guy household) in the empty Potter's Splay lot. Here was I averaging between 15-25 FPS depending on zoom level (15 at max zoomed out, 25 when zoomed in really close). It was tolerable... but not really ideal. After all, we hadn't even built a house yet!

    I decided a better test would be to visit the neighboring house, Brook Bungalow (house to the left). Interestingly enough, it stayed between 15-20 FPS here, depending on zoom level similar to before. I was expecting more of a frame drop here. Unfortunately, no Sims lived here so I decided my next test would be an actual household.

    To better test a real family with a properly furnished household, I played the pre-made Faust family who lives at Brook Bungalow. I averaged 15 FPS regardless of zoom level, which was playable but not necessarily enjoyable.

    So I was faced with a real dilemma: Do I play at half resolution (2560x1440) with far better frame-rate (30-60fps) but blurry-looking UI... or do I have an amazingly crisp game at 5K with slower frame-rate?

    Being unable to get over how amazing the iMac's 5K display is... I decided to try and get best of both worlds. After all, that's what customizable video settings are for, right? Surely I could keep the game looking "quite good" while bumping up my frame-rate to an acceptable level at 5K. I was determined.

    After tinkering with several of them (and restarting the game, many... many times)... I came to a realization. "Edge Smoothing" (known as Anti-Aliasing or AA) is used to reduce the jaggedness of polygons by composing several offset frames and sampling them together. At 5K resolution, each additional frame rendering was costly, and likely not giving me too much benefit since the resolution was so high to begin with.

    So I turned Edge Smoothing OFF entirely... and saw huge performance increases! The empty lot with my lone Sim was now 20-33 FPS. Back at the Faust family was now averaging 20-30 FPS. It was not 100% ideal but it was definitely far more playable and no "jaggies" visible. The UI looked crisp and I had a ton more room on screen.

    For those other Mac users who are playing at their native Retina resolution, I highly recommend turning Edge Smoothing off. At that high of a resolution, AA is somewhat unnecessary and only hurting your frame-rate.

    That all said, the game plays amazing at 5K resolution and I'd say that's quite a feat for *any* modern game right now, regardless of platform and system specs. Thoroughly impressed with the 5K iMac and the Sims 4 Mac initial release performance.
  • flabbyface9flabbyface9 Posts: 5 New Member
    the downloading process is INCREDIBLY SLOW. i started the first atempt to download off of origin earlier today and 4 hours later i was only at 89% and then it completely stopped and wouldnt download at all so I then had to re-start the entire process and its still snail like and i didnt get to play at all today *crying* :'( :'(
  • Simfan923Simfan923 Posts: 5,551 Member
    I noticed a major difference from my bootcamp partition. It might have to do with not having any mods or CC but I'm okay with that for now. I couldn't do high graphics on bootcamp but I can on the Mac side and it is running FLAWLESSLY. Like never have I ever played a sims game that ran as smooth as TS4 is now. I did notice some slight lag during loading screens but I think the time it took between loading screens went down to maybe 40 seconds at least. Might not seem a lot to some people but to me it's a whole other game right now. I can't wait till GTW comes out :smile:
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  • ErikTheRodErikTheRod Posts: 47 Member
    > @EAfan99 said:
    > I noticed a major difference from my bootcamp partition. It might have to do with not having any mods or CC but I'm okay with that for now. I couldn't do high graphics on bootcamp but I can on the Mac side and it is running FLAWLESSLY. Like never have I ever played a sims game that ran as smooth as TS4 is now. I did notice some slight lag during loading screens but I think the time it took between loading screens went down to maybe 40 seconds at least. Might not seem a lot to some people but to me it's a whole other game right now. I can't wait till GTW comes out

    If you have a Fusion drive, there's a good chance this is the reason you're seeing such a huge reduction in load times.

    When OS X creates the BootCamp partition on a Fusion drive, it places it on the traditional, spinning disk drive. This makes Windows unable to reap the benefits of the Fusion drive's solid state disk cache. However, as a native Mac application, OS X can utilize the solid state disk cache and optimize your Sims 4 load times.

    Fear not, the Fusion drive has 128GB of solid state space (managed by the OS), plenty to cache your applications with.
  • Simfan923Simfan923 Posts: 5,551 Member

    If you have a Fusion drive, there's a good chance this is the reason you're seeing such a huge reduction in load times.

    When OS X creates the BootCamp partition on a Fusion drive, it places it on the traditional, spinning disk drive. This makes Windows unable to reap the benefits of the Fusion drive's solid state disk cache. However, as a native Mac application, OS X can utilize the solid state disk cache and optimize your Sims 4 load times.

    Fear not, the Fusion drive has 128GB of solid state space (managed by the OS), plenty to cache your applications with.


    I don't think I have a fusion drive.

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  • BluebellFloraBluebellFlora Posts: 7,110 Member
    @ErikTheRod - That's all really helpful for Retina users. Do you mind it I link to it in the help thread?

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  • virginblue4virginblue4 Posts: 40 Member
    Running very well for me so far all on ultra. My specs are:

    Late 2012 27" iMac
    3.4GHz i7 processor
    24GB RAM
    GTX 680MX 2GB VRAM
  • ErikTheRodErikTheRod Posts: 47 Member
    Feel free, just trying to help those scratching their head wondering why it doesn't work like it should!
  • tarynkaybtarynkayb Posts: 60 Member
    VERY disappointed, I was looking forward to not having to Bootcamp :( On Bootcamp I can run it flawlessly with all graphic settings on high, but on OS X, I'm stuck with low or it freezes.
  • Fonxi121994Fonxi121994 Posts: 457 Member
    edited February 2015
    Awful experience, my game runs nicely with High settings on BootCamp, but in OS X with medium-low setting it runs bad and laggy, unplayable.

    My specs:
    iMac 21,5" Late 2012 (Bought on July 2013)
    Intel Core i5 2,70GHz
    16 GB RAM
    NVIDIA GeForce GT640M
    The changes came slowly at first. Most didn't realize, or didn't care, and accepted them. They chose a comfortable life.
  • DennisAlexis84DennisAlexis84 Posts: 79 Member
    I'm curious, will an official statement about bugs, patches ect be posted on this forum or is there another place to get news? Are the Sims staff on this board?

    Would be comforting to know they are here and trying to solve these bugs. I haven't been very active on this forum until today, so that's why I'm asking. :) Thanks!
  • BluebellFloraBluebellFlora Posts: 7,110 Member
    Awful experience, my game runs nicely with High settings on BootCamp, but in OS X with medium-low setting it runs bad and laggy, unplayable.

    My specs:
    iMac 21,5" Late 2012 (Bought on July 2013)
    Intel Core i5 2,70GHz
    16 GB RAM
    NVIDIA GeForce GT640M

    Because it may be conflicting with other apps on your Mac. Please can you post on the help thread. EA have stickied it so they are reading it:

    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/816108/the-sims-4-help-troubleshooting-thread

    The opening post details what info we need to try and help :)
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  • Tremayne4260Tremayne4260 Posts: 3,126 Member
    I play some Windows games via Parallels and have not Bootcamped the computer. Sims 4 runs great on both versions and I had very little problems downloading Base game, Outdoor Retreat, the Holiday Stuff and accessing my saved games.

    However, I have a 27" 2012 iMac with a quad core so my computer has very little problems with some of the processing power needed to run either Sims 3 or 4. I ran Sims 4 yesterday on the default settings and didn't notice any difference between the Windows version and the Mac version. And since I was snowed in, I downloaded the Mac version right at 1pm US ET. Origin was experiencing some problems last night, but that appears to have been resolved.
    Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'til Morning.
  • Starkitty723Starkitty723 Posts: 1 New Member
    I played Sims 4 on PC when it first came out and didn't really like it. Now that I have it on my Mac, it is wonderful. Works great and no lag. :D
  • yunagarnetyunagarnet Posts: 417 Member
    My game has been running fine but I've noticed that even though I'm playing with Ultra settings my game doesn't look like it to me:

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    “Honestly, we didn’t meet player expectations at launch, and that was a difficult pill to swallow,” - The Sims 4 executive producer, Rachel Franklin.
  • BluebellFloraBluebellFlora Posts: 7,110 Member
    @yunagarnet - that's how the game looks, more cartoony and bulky than TS3. At least that's what it looks like to me :)
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