@BluebellFlora The new AMD is the RX 400 series that I was talking about having issues on desktop. Is R9 400 series the laptop version? I get so confused with AMD. A lot of their card numbers are similar from generation to generation. The integrated cards and dedicated cards have almost the same numbers. Nvidia cards are so much easier to follow in terms of series and year they came out.
@BluebellFlora The new AMD is the RX 400 series that I was talking about having issues on desktop. Is R9 400 series the laptop version? I get so confused with AMD. A lot of their card numbers are similar from generation to generation. The integrated cards and dedicated cards have almost the same numbers. Nvidia cards are so much easier to follow in terms of series and year they came out.
They have AMD Radeon Pro 455 or 460 in 15" MacBook Pros, AMD Radeon R9 M380, M390 or M395 in the 27" iMacs
@BluebellFlora The new AMD is the RX 400 series that I was talking about having issues on desktop. Is R9 400 series the laptop version? I get so confused with AMD. A lot of their card numbers are similar from generation to generation. The integrated cards and dedicated cards have almost the same numbers. Nvidia cards are so much easier to follow in terms of series and year they came out.
They have AMD Radeon Pro 455 or 460 in 15" MacBook Pros, AMD Radeon R9 M380, M390 or M395 in the 27" iMacs
The R9 300 M laptop series I know. I have not seen the pro 455 and 460. Im guessing these must be new or newer issued along the new 400 series desktop cards ?
@BluebellFlora The new AMD is the RX 400 series that I was talking about having issues on desktop. Is R9 400 series the laptop version? I get so confused with AMD. A lot of their card numbers are similar from generation to generation. The integrated cards and dedicated cards have almost the same numbers. Nvidia cards are so much easier to follow in terms of series and year they came out.
They have AMD Radeon Pro 455 or 460 in 15" MacBook Pros, AMD Radeon R9 M380, M390 or M395 in the 27" iMacs
The R9 300 M laptop series I know. I have not seen the pro 455 and 460. Im guessing these must be new or newer issued along the new 400 series desktop cards ?
According to Wiki, fountain of all knowledge, they're the professional oriented GPUs and the new 15" MBPs are the first to use the mobile version. I'm pleased Apple are using AMD again, they've always performed better than NVIDIA GPUs in Macs.
@BluebellFlora The new AMD is the RX 400 series that I was talking about having issues on desktop. Is R9 400 series the laptop version? I get so confused with AMD. A lot of their card numbers are similar from generation to generation. The integrated cards and dedicated cards have almost the same numbers. Nvidia cards are so much easier to follow in terms of series and year they came out.
They have AMD Radeon Pro 455 or 460 in 15" MacBook Pros, AMD Radeon R9 M380, M390 or M395 in the 27" iMacs
The R9 300 M laptop series I know. I have not seen the pro 455 and 460. Im guessing these must be new or newer issued along the new 400 series desktop cards ?
According to Wiki, fountain of all knowledge, they're the professional oriented GPUs and the new 15" MBPs are the first to use the mobile version. I'm pleased Apple are using AMD again, they've always performed better than NVIDIA GPUs in Macs.
Thanks. Another reason Mac is different than laptop PC . They might put AMD in lower end laptop but for gaming they use Nvidia. The AMD laptops heat up more. I'm glad that they put AMD in Mac if they perform better for Mac users. You should get the most for your money especially for what Mac charges.
@Tremayne4260 - But Parallels is a bit different, no? Since the hardware resources are shared between both operating systems at the same time, doesn't Parallels require the the game's recognition and use of the Parallels Display Adapter?
The what? Not sure what you're taking about. I got Sims 2 UC to work fine once I altered the graphics.sgr. It wasn't working before that as I'd get pink patches everywhere.
Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'til Morning.
@Tremayne4260 - But Parallels is a bit different, no? Since the hardware resources are shared between both operating systems at the same time, doesn't Parallels require the the game's recognition and use of the Parallels Display Adapter?
The what? Not sure what you're taking about. I got Sims 2 UC to work fine once I altered the graphics.sgr. It wasn't working before that as I'd get pink patches everywhere.
You have one graphics card (presumably). You are running OS X and it is using that card, even if you aren't actually running anything other than the operating system at the moment. You launch Parallels, so now you are running Windows as well. By way of the Parallels Display Adapter, you are "sharing" that card between two operating systems.
I'm sorry if this isn't the right spot, but I'm going crazy trying to make my game playable again and was hoping someone might take a look at this post. I have S3 + EPs Pets and Ambitions. The weird thing is that it used to work fine with tons of CC. Now suddenly I can’t run it for more than 20 minutes under the gentlest circumstances (no CC, lowest res, etc.) without it crashing. Most commonly, it crashes when I’m switching to CAS or Buy/Build modes, but it will eventually crash even if I avoid that and stay in Live. (I should also add that it doesn’t ALWAYS crash when I switch modes - just that that’s when it is most likely to happen.) 90% of the time, I know the crash is coming because the menu buttons become see-through. Sometimes they remain responsive for a short time if I can guess where they are, but it won’t be long before it crashes to desktop. Also, sometimes certain objects (like a house or a Sim’s body) will become that bright green/red/yellow right before the game crashes. When the game crashes, sometimes it does so fully and sometimes I have to force quit it. I don’t get an error message.
This happens without fail after ~20 minutes (or less if I play around in CAS/Build/Buy). The graphics are all on the lowest setting. The performance speed is actually OK, though. I did a clean uninstall/reinstall and am not using CC right now. I'm not even using my saved Sims or families. I’ve cleaned my cache and done all of the obvious things. I’ve had many Mac-related issues with S3 over the years and have always been able to fix them. This one is really bothering me.
I was very hopeful that tmethei's graphics fix for Intel Iris would work. After I changed the resolution settings in Options, the game started, but it crashed in CAS after the usual time (10-15 minutes). When I tried to edit the graphic card settings in my 2 EPs, neither had the same language as the base game so I didn't make any changes.
Anyway, here are my stats. Maybe it's a lost cause, but thought I'd try ...
Computer - MacBook Pro (Retina, 13”, Late 2013)
Processor - 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Graphics Card - Intel Iris 1536 MB
Memory - 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Operating System - OS X El Capitan
Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance for reading.
I'm sorry if this isn't the right spot, but I'm going crazy trying to make my game playable again and was hoping someone might take a look at this post. I have S3 + EPs Pets and Ambitions. The weird thing is that it used to work fine with tons of CC. Now suddenly I can’t run it for more than 20 minutes under the gentlest circumstances (no CC, lowest res, etc.) without it crashing. Most commonly, it crashes when I’m switching to CAS or Buy/Build modes, but it will eventually crash even if I avoid that and stay in Live. (I should also add that it doesn’t ALWAYS crash when I switch modes - just that that’s when it is most likely to happen.) 90% of the time, I know the crash is coming because the menu buttons become see-through. Sometimes they remain responsive for a short time if I can guess where they are, but it won’t be long before it crashes to desktop. Also, sometimes certain objects (like a house or a Sim’s body) will become that bright green/red/yellow right before the game crashes. When the game crashes, sometimes it does so fully and sometimes I have to force quit it. I don’t get an error message.
This happens without fail after ~20 minutes (or less if I play around in CAS/Build/Buy). The graphics are all on the lowest setting. The performance speed is actually OK, though. I did a clean uninstall/reinstall and am not using CC right now. I'm not even using my saved Sims or families. I’ve cleaned my cache and done all of the obvious things. I’ve had many Mac-related issues with S3 over the years and have always been able to fix them. This one is really bothering me.
I was very hopeful that tmethei's graphics fix for Intel Iris would work. After I changed the resolution settings in Options, the game started, but it crashed in CAS after the usual time (10-15 minutes). When I tried to edit the graphic card settings in my 2 EPs, neither had the same language as the base game so I didn't make any changes.
Anyway, here are my stats. Maybe it's a lost cause, but thought I'd try ...
Computer - MacBook Pro (Retina, 13”, Late 2013)
Processor - 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Graphics Card - Intel Iris 1536 MB
Memory - 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Operating System - OS X El Capitan
Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance for reading.
Caitlin
Uninstall Ambitions and see if it makes a difference.
Don't know if this has been answered but does anyone know if there is a fix for the 2016 macbook pro. The graphics are all set to low as standard and the ground textures are awful!!
I'm sorry if this isn't the right spot, but I'm going crazy trying to make my game playable again and was hoping someone might take a look at this post. I have S3 + EPs Pets and Ambitions. The weird thing is that it used to work fine with tons of CC. Now suddenly I can’t run it for more than 20 minutes under the gentlest circumstances (no CC, lowest res, etc.) without it crashing. Most commonly, it crashes when I’m switching to CAS or Buy/Build modes, but it will eventually crash even if I avoid that and stay in Live. (I should also add that it doesn’t ALWAYS crash when I switch modes - just that that’s when it is most likely to happen.) 90% of the time, I know the crash is coming because the menu buttons become see-through. Sometimes they remain responsive for a short time if I can guess where they are, but it won’t be long before it crashes to desktop. Also, sometimes certain objects (like a house or a Sim’s body) will become that bright green/red/yellow right before the game crashes. When the game crashes, sometimes it does so fully and sometimes I have to force quit it. I don’t get an error message.
This happens without fail after ~20 minutes (or less if I play around in CAS/Build/Buy). The graphics are all on the lowest setting. The performance speed is actually OK, though. I did a clean uninstall/reinstall and am not using CC right now. I'm not even using my saved Sims or families. I’ve cleaned my cache and done all of the obvious things. I’ve had many Mac-related issues with S3 over the years and have always been able to fix them. This one is really bothering me.
I was very hopeful that tmethei's graphics fix for Intel Iris would work. After I changed the resolution settings in Options, the game started, but it crashed in CAS after the usual time (10-15 minutes). When I tried to edit the graphic card settings in my 2 EPs, neither had the same language as the base game so I didn't make any changes.
Anyway, here are my stats. Maybe it's a lost cause, but thought I'd try ...
Computer - MacBook Pro (Retina, 13”, Late 2013)
Processor - 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Graphics Card - Intel Iris 1536 MB
Memory - 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Operating System - OS X El Capitan
Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance for reading.
Caitlin
Uninstall Ambitions and see if it makes a difference.
Bluebellflora, thanks so much for your response. I uninstalled Ambitions and managed to design a Sim and pet in CAS, but the game did its thing when I was trying to put furniture in my house and crashed when I was trying to save.
@Tremayne4260 - But Parallels is a bit different, no? Since the hardware resources are shared between both operating systems at the same time, doesn't Parallels require the the game's recognition and use of the Parallels Display Adapter?
The what? Not sure what you're taking about. I got Sims 2 UC to work fine once I altered the graphics.sgr. It wasn't working before that as I'd get pink patches everywhere.
You have one graphics card (presumably). You are running OS X and it is using that card, even if you aren't actually running anything other than the operating system at the moment. You launch Parallels, so now you are running Windows as well. By way of the Parallels Display Adapter, you are "sharing" that card between two operating systems.
Ah, ok. Thanks for explaining. The game was acting weird giving me Pink patches all over the place. Found out that I needed to edit the Graphic.sgr file, but it still doesn't run right. Was going to try copying the files from my Aspyr version of Sims 2 and see if that helped.
Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'til Morning.
Just in case anyone was wondering, I managed to edit my GraphicsRules and GraphicsCards files which fixed my ground textures problem. This however created a whole new problem... Whenever I enter the game none of the settings can be changed (graphics and ageing which is off by defult). The map view is also a strange grey colour! I feel like when I solve one problem another one appears .
I now realise that the issue is based on the fact that my deviceconfig.log is empty . I am currently working on a solution to this. Will these issues ever end!!!
I learned The Sims Medieval doesn't have this problem but The Sims 3 still does. The reason of the crash is likely due to newer Intel processors not being supported. The Sims 3 has not been updated to account for newer processors past Ivy Bridge (3rd Generation) as looking at the GraphicsCards.sgr file, the highest valid Intel card is Intel HD Graphics 4000. When The Sims 3 is played on a newer Intel CPU, the game is going to try searching for a video card of Intel HD Graphics 530 but it won't find it since that card is not included causing the game to display Warning: Unrecognized Video Card. While OS X/macOS will crash when played on newer Intel CPUs primarily Intel Iris, TS3 on Windows will not crash and the game runs without problems.
I'm sorry if this isn't the right spot, but I'm going crazy trying to make my game playable again and was hoping someone might take a look at this post. I have S3 + EPs Pets and Ambitions. The weird thing is that it used to work fine with tons of CC. Now suddenly I can’t run it for more than 20 minutes under the gentlest circumstances (no CC, lowest res, etc.) without it crashing. Most commonly, it crashes when I’m switching to CAS or Buy/Build modes, but it will eventually crash even if I avoid that and stay in Live. (I should also add that it doesn’t ALWAYS crash when I switch modes - just that that’s when it is most likely to happen.) 90% of the time, I know the crash is coming because the menu buttons become see-through. Sometimes they remain responsive for a short time if I can guess where they are, but it won’t be long before it crashes to desktop. Also, sometimes certain objects (like a house or a Sim’s body) will become that bright green/red/yellow right before the game crashes. When the game crashes, sometimes it does so fully and sometimes I have to force quit it. I don’t get an error message.
This happens without fail after ~20 minutes (or less if I play around in CAS/Build/Buy). The graphics are all on the lowest setting. The performance speed is actually OK, though. I did a clean uninstall/reinstall and am not using CC right now. I'm not even using my saved Sims or families. I’ve cleaned my cache and done all of the obvious things. I’ve had many Mac-related issues with S3 over the years and have always been able to fix them. This one is really bothering me.
I was very hopeful that tmethei's graphics fix for Intel Iris would work. After I changed the resolution settings in Options, the game started, but it crashed in CAS after the usual time (10-15 minutes). When I tried to edit the graphic card settings in my 2 EPs, neither had the same language as the base game so I didn't make any changes.
Anyway, here are my stats. Maybe it's a lost cause, but thought I'd try ...
Computer - MacBook Pro (Retina, 13”, Late 2013)
Processor - 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Graphics Card - Intel Iris 1536 MB
Memory - 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Operating System - OS X El Capitan
Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance for reading.
Caitlin
I have the same MacBook but with 8Gb of RAM and have it updated to Sierra(though that doesn't matter in my case). Either way, I run my Sims in Parallels and I had experienced the same issue as you for a while, even though it worked perfectly before with most of the EP's installed. Now, I understand that we are running our games in different setups despite having essentially the same laptops, but I think this might be worth a shot - at the end of the day, my setup is far more resource-intensive since it runs Windows within Mac OS, I have more EP's and I have about 1 Gb of CC, so there shouldn't be an issue of your laptop not being able to handle it. What solved the issue for me(after I've spent countless hours trying to fix it) was installing ErrorTrap mod from Nraas. I think there was something that was happening in the game itself that was breaking it(though in my case I was safer staying in Buy mode or CAS). Maybe also get Overwatch just to be safe... I can't guarantee this would work of course, but I think it's worth trying
@Tremayne4260 - But Parallels is a bit different, no? Since the hardware resources are shared between both operating systems at the same time, doesn't Parallels require the the game's recognition and use of the Parallels Display Adapter?
The what? Not sure what you're taking about. I got Sims 2 UC to work fine once I altered the graphics.sgr. It wasn't working before that as I'd get pink patches everywhere.
You have one graphics card (presumably). You are running OS X and it is using that card, even if you aren't actually running anything other than the operating system at the moment. You launch Parallels, so now you are running Windows as well. By way of the Parallels Display Adapter, you are "sharing" that card between two operating systems.
Ah, ok. Thanks for explaining. The game was acting weird giving me Pink patches all over the place. Found out that I needed to edit the Graphic.sgr file, but it still doesn't run right. Was going to try copying the files from my Aspyr version of Sims 2 and see if that helped.
If you're going to copy the graphic.sgr file from your Aspyr version of Sims 2(so the one that was made for Mac) they aren't going to help with your Graphic's card being recognised by Windows ran in Parallels... At least I highly doubt that. What Parallels does is replace the name of your video card(for example for me it is Intel Iris) with "Parallels Display Adapter" and the vendor is shown as blank on the windows side of things, so the game using Aspyr's graphics's card files would still not be able to match the card as the name and vendor name are different... If you still can't get it to work, send me a message, I'll try to help you out with that
At the risk of sounding like a broken record throughout this thread (and others), I would not recommend Parallels or any other form of virtual machine for a resource intensive game like TS3. Some do have success with this, but the overhead of running one operating system on top of another and sharing hardware resources is huge. Don't get me wrong, Parallels is great for what it can do but there are limits to how practical it is to use, which again vary by user.
Bootcamp, although annoying in that one has to reboot to get from OS X to Windows and back again, does tend to work out much better for most of us who can arrange it.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record throughout this thread (and others), I would not recommend Parallels or any other form of virtual machine for a resource intensive game like TS3. Some do have success with this, but the overhead of running one operating system on top of another and sharing hardware resources is huge. Don't get me wrong, Parallels is great for what it can do but there are limits to how practical it is to use, which again vary by user.
Bootcamp, although annoying in that one has to reboot to get from OS X to Windows and back again, does tend to work out much better for most of us who can arrange it.
Yep. Nothing new is being posted and the same old problems being repeated. The workarounds and solutions remain the same. Running the game in Windows, preferably via Boot Camp so the graphics cards are properly recognised, has always been the best solution, as documented in threads going back to 2009......
Let me just add in for good measure - the game has not had an update since January 2014 when the current OS was 10.9 Mavericks. That was 3 years ago. I'm not really sure why people are still surprised that the game doesn't always work (it never really has properly
At the risk of sounding like a broken record throughout this thread (and others), I would not recommend Parallels or any other form of virtual machine for a resource intensive game like TS3. Some do have success with this, but the overhead of running one operating system on top of another and sharing hardware resources is huge. Don't get me wrong, Parallels is great for what it can do but there are limits to how practical it is to use, which again vary by user.
Bootcamp, although annoying in that one has to reboot to get from OS X to Windows and back again, does tend to work out much better for most of us who can arrange it.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record throughout this thread (and others), I would not recommend Parallels or any other form of virtual machine for a resource intensive game like TS3. Some do have success with this, but the overhead of running one operating system on top of another and sharing hardware resources is huge. Don't get me wrong, Parallels is great for what it can do but there are limits to how practical it is to use, which again vary by user.
Bootcamp, although annoying in that one has to reboot to get from OS X to Windows and back again, does tend to work out much better for most of us who can arrange it.
While I do understand what you are saying and do agree that Boot Camp is a better option long term, I don't agree with the statement that Parallels is not good for Sims 3(I won't recommend any other VMware though since none of them would work well enough with it). I think it has to do a lot with how you play a game - if you're someone who wants to have tons of CC and go on for many-many generations then Boot Camp would certainly be the way to go. But if you're like me and only play sims occasionally using a relatively small amount of CC and not including all of the EPs then there is no significant difference in performance for Sims 3 between Parallels and Boot Camp provided that your machine has a minimum of 8 Gb RAM and 1024Mb video card... Though realistically anything under that might struggle running Sims 3 with certain expansions in Boot Camp as well. Over the years Parallels have gotten much better with resource usage, so it's not putting that much strain on the system anymore.
I have played a lot of different games&worked in a lot of programs using Parallels, including ones that are more resource-intensive than Sims 3 and never had real issues with it, at least not ones stemming from using Parallels either way. All of my Sims 3 problems came from the actual game itself, so it wouldn't matter if I had it installed on a BootCamp partition or on an actual PC, they'd still be the same. As I said, I agree that Boot Camp is a better long-term option, but for some of us it's simply not feasible, especially for those with newer MacBook Pro's who already have limited amount of storage due to Apple switching to far more expensive SSDs and don't want to lock a decent chunk of it away for long periods of time. Obviously Parallels is not a magic pill and it won't make Sims 3 work on 2016 MacBooks or MacBook Airs or anything, but it's not as big of a problem most make it out to be
@ArielGrint - I must be missing something as I have not used Parallels myself since a much older version. But don't you have to devote pretty much the same amount of drive space to the Windows partition and its install and programs as you do with Bootcamp or are the partitions more dynamic than that, can they grow and shrink over time, for example?
Anyway, it's great if you can make it work well and to match your play style but for simmers who play more ... shall we say intensively (just a description of user demands, not being judgmental) either now or will do so in the future, it's more likely to be disappointing to them. We have quite a few players here on this forum who tried out Parallels on insanely high end Macs with tons of RAM and drive space but they ended up with Bootcamp eventually anyway.
I do like the part, as its been explained to me anyway, where you can Parallels from OS X into an existing partition that Bootcamp uses just to check on something when you weren't really intending to play. That sounds really convenient, either we didn't have that back when I was using it or my Mac at the time (an Intel Mini, nothing to do with Sims) wasn't supporting it.
@ArielGrint - I must be missing something as I have not used Parallels myself since a much older version. But don't you have to devote pretty much the same amount of drive space to the Windows partition and its install and programs as you do with Bootcamp or are the partitions more dynamic than that, can they grow and shrink over time, for example?
Anyway, it's great if you can make it work well and to match your play style but for simmers who play more ... shall we say intensively (just a description of user demands, not being judgmental) either now or will do so in the future, it's more likely to be disappointing to them. We have quite a few players here on this forum who tried out Parallels on insanely high end Macs with tons of RAM and drive space but they ended up with Bootcamp eventually anyway.
I do like the part, as its been explained to me anyway, where you can Parallels from OS X into an existing partition that Bootcamp uses just to check on something when you weren't really intending to play. That sounds really convenient, either we didn't have that back when I was using it or my Mac at the time (an Intel Mini, nothing to do with Sims) wasn't supporting it.
@igazor
You can set the partition to be dynamic, so for example you can initially allocate 64Gb to the VM and then if Parallels notices that you are only actually using 20Gb out of that it will offer you to shrink it down(and you can do it on your own whenever of course ). And if you suddenly need more space then you can also just increase the size of the VM without having to re-install the whole thing. They give a warning that it might lead to data loss, but I've never had it occur to me(we had a few Macs with Parallels at my old work and it never went wrong on those either, so the success rate is very high). I really appreciate that cause when I need to use my MacBook for things like editing a lot of heavy video footage for work I definitely want plenty of space available and then I can shrink my VM to basically the size of Windows+Sims 3 install and then give it a bit more breathing room when I am done with that.
I think overall Parallels works very well for people who need only Windows for specific tasks, like playing certain games or using some programs that aren't available for Macs. I really enjoy being able to access files from both systems without having to reboot constantly
But in general I'd say people who wanna play Sims 3 actually intensively(really long legacies, gigs upon gigs of CC, etc.) should invest in a separate PC for it... You'll need some quite impressive specs for that and getting a Mac with those specs would cost you an arm, a leg, a liver and your left lung probably. Plus with a game as unstable as Sims 3 I think you don't need any extra instability that Boot Camp can introduce
@ArielGrint - Bootcamp does not introduce any instability that I have ever been aware of, not sure where that was coming from. Inconvenience yes, because of the need to boot back and forth and the lack of a dynamic partition as you have described, but not instability. I've been playing my intensive long running legacy game on it for years, it's exactly the same as it would be on a PC with similar hardware, and my iMac at time of purchase did not require the sacrifice of quite that many internal organs (I was going to buy the same iMac anyway with or without TS3). Yes, it was more expensive than a PC might have been, but the specs are very good overall, I need/want the Mac side for other uses, and after over five years it is not really showing much in the way of aging. I know that's just me, but I am basing this comment on stability on the large number of other Bootcamp users we have worked with both here and at NRaas over the years; we already know that Macs generally outlive PCs as they age under similar user conditions.
If we are talking about Mac users with Intel Iris or Iris Pro integrated chips, or those even lesser, then yes there could be performance issues on the Windows side as there would be with any other integrated chip. But the ones with dedicated cards and strong enough processors, the i5s and i7s at 2.4 GHz and higher, fare much better.
The only odd thing about Bootcamp and TS3 is that I don't get to use exactly the same Windows drivers for my AMD graphics card that PC users do, and am reliant on the very few updates that AMD/Apple provide for us. But that hasn't seemed to have any real impact on the game at all. Oh, and I did have to use a third party tool, Rivatuner Stats Server, to cap my fps rates as Catalyst wouldn't do it and Crimson is not for us, but many AMD users face that issue.
I will try to open my mind a bit more to the possibility of recommending Parallels, but it's going to be a struggle to do so (in my mind, I mean) in that we really cannot interview potential users here to accurately gauge their usage of the game now and in the future.
Comments
Edit - the R9 480 has but that's it....
Yes I know its native and glad they gave you that warning. Now they need to fix your TS3 issue.
They have AMD Radeon Pro 455 or 460 in 15" MacBook Pros, AMD Radeon R9 M380, M390 or M395 in the 27" iMacs
The R9 300 M laptop series I know. I have not seen the pro 455 and 460. Im guessing these must be new or newer issued along the new 400 series desktop cards ?
According to Wiki, fountain of all knowledge, they're the professional oriented GPUs and the new 15" MBPs are the first to use the mobile version. I'm pleased Apple are using AMD again, they've always performed better than NVIDIA GPUs in Macs.
Thanks. Another reason Mac is different than laptop PC . They might put AMD in lower end laptop but for gaming they use Nvidia. The AMD laptops heat up more. I'm glad that they put AMD in Mac if they perform better for Mac users. You should get the most for your money especially for what Mac charges.
The what? Not sure what you're taking about. I got Sims 2 UC to work fine once I altered the graphics.sgr. It wasn't working before that as I'd get pink patches everywhere.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
I'm sorry if this isn't the right spot, but I'm going crazy trying to make my game playable again and was hoping someone might take a look at this post. I have S3 + EPs Pets and Ambitions. The weird thing is that it used to work fine with tons of CC. Now suddenly I can’t run it for more than 20 minutes under the gentlest circumstances (no CC, lowest res, etc.) without it crashing. Most commonly, it crashes when I’m switching to CAS or Buy/Build modes, but it will eventually crash even if I avoid that and stay in Live. (I should also add that it doesn’t ALWAYS crash when I switch modes - just that that’s when it is most likely to happen.) 90% of the time, I know the crash is coming because the menu buttons become see-through. Sometimes they remain responsive for a short time if I can guess where they are, but it won’t be long before it crashes to desktop. Also, sometimes certain objects (like a house or a Sim’s body) will become that bright green/red/yellow right before the game crashes. When the game crashes, sometimes it does so fully and sometimes I have to force quit it. I don’t get an error message.
This happens without fail after ~20 minutes (or less if I play around in CAS/Build/Buy). The graphics are all on the lowest setting. The performance speed is actually OK, though. I did a clean uninstall/reinstall and am not using CC right now. I'm not even using my saved Sims or families. I’ve cleaned my cache and done all of the obvious things. I’ve had many Mac-related issues with S3 over the years and have always been able to fix them. This one is really bothering me.
I was very hopeful that tmethei's graphics fix for Intel Iris would work. After I changed the resolution settings in Options, the game started, but it crashed in CAS after the usual time (10-15 minutes). When I tried to edit the graphic card settings in my 2 EPs, neither had the same language as the base game so I didn't make any changes.
Anyway, here are my stats. Maybe it's a lost cause, but thought I'd try ...
Computer - MacBook Pro (Retina, 13”, Late 2013)
Processor - 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Graphics Card - Intel Iris 1536 MB
Memory - 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Operating System - OS X El Capitan
Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance for reading.
Caitlin
Uninstall Ambitions and see if it makes a difference.
Thanks!!
Bluebellflora, thanks so much for your response. I uninstalled Ambitions and managed to design a Sim and pet in CAS, but the game did its thing when I was trying to put furniture in my house and crashed when I was trying to save.
Caitlin
Ah, ok. Thanks for explaining.
Does anyone have any advice or fixes?
I have the same MacBook but with 8Gb of RAM and have it updated to Sierra(though that doesn't matter in my case). Either way, I run my Sims in Parallels and I had experienced the same issue as you for a while, even though it worked perfectly before with most of the EP's installed. Now, I understand that we are running our games in different setups despite having essentially the same laptops, but I think this might be worth a shot - at the end of the day, my setup is far more resource-intensive since it runs Windows within Mac OS, I have more EP's and I have about 1 Gb of CC, so there shouldn't be an issue of your laptop not being able to handle it. What solved the issue for me(after I've spent countless hours trying to fix it) was installing ErrorTrap mod from Nraas. I think there was something that was happening in the game itself that was breaking it(though in my case I was safer staying in Buy mode or CAS). Maybe also get Overwatch just to be safe... I can't guarantee this would work of course, but I think it's worth trying
If you're going to copy the graphic.sgr file from your Aspyr version of Sims 2(so the one that was made for Mac) they aren't going to help with your Graphic's card being recognised by Windows ran in Parallels... At least I highly doubt that. What Parallels does is replace the name of your video card(for example for me it is Intel Iris) with "Parallels Display Adapter" and the vendor is shown as blank on the windows side of things, so the game using Aspyr's graphics's card files would still not be able to match the card as the name and vendor name are different... If you still can't get it to work, send me a message, I'll try to help you out with that
Bootcamp, although annoying in that one has to reboot to get from OS X to Windows and back again, does tend to work out much better for most of us who can arrange it.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Yep. Nothing new is being posted and the same old problems being repeated. The workarounds and solutions remain the same. Running the game in Windows, preferably via Boot Camp so the graphics cards are properly recognised, has always been the best solution, as documented in threads going back to 2009......
Let me just add in for good measure - the game has not had an update since January 2014 when the current OS was 10.9 Mavericks. That was 3 years ago. I'm not really sure why people are still surprised that the game doesn't always work (it never really has properly
While I do understand what you are saying and do agree that Boot Camp is a better option long term, I don't agree with the statement that Parallels is not good for Sims 3(I won't recommend any other VMware though since none of them would work well enough with it). I think it has to do a lot with how you play a game - if you're someone who wants to have tons of CC and go on for many-many generations then Boot Camp would certainly be the way to go. But if you're like me and only play sims occasionally using a relatively small amount of CC and not including all of the EPs then there is no significant difference in performance for Sims 3 between Parallels and Boot Camp provided that your machine has a minimum of 8 Gb RAM and 1024Mb video card... Though realistically anything under that might struggle running Sims 3 with certain expansions in Boot Camp as well. Over the years Parallels have gotten much better with resource usage, so it's not putting that much strain on the system anymore.
I have played a lot of different games&worked in a lot of programs using Parallels, including ones that are more resource-intensive than Sims 3 and never had real issues with it, at least not ones stemming from using Parallels either way. All of my Sims 3 problems came from the actual game itself, so it wouldn't matter if I had it installed on a BootCamp partition or on an actual PC, they'd still be the same. As I said, I agree that Boot Camp is a better long-term option, but for some of us it's simply not feasible, especially for those with newer MacBook Pro's who already have limited amount of storage due to Apple switching to far more expensive SSDs and don't want to lock a decent chunk of it away for long periods of time. Obviously Parallels is not a magic pill and it won't make Sims 3 work on 2016 MacBooks or MacBook Airs or anything, but it's not as big of a problem most make it out to be
Anyway, it's great if you can make it work well and to match your play style but for simmers who play more ... shall we say intensively (just a description of user demands, not being judgmental) either now or will do so in the future, it's more likely to be disappointing to them. We have quite a few players here on this forum who tried out Parallels on insanely high end Macs with tons of RAM and drive space but they ended up with Bootcamp eventually anyway.
I do like the part, as its been explained to me anyway, where you can Parallels from OS X into an existing partition that Bootcamp uses just to check on something when you weren't really intending to play. That sounds really convenient, either we didn't have that back when I was using it or my Mac at the time (an Intel Mini, nothing to do with Sims) wasn't supporting it.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
@igazor
You can set the partition to be dynamic, so for example you can initially allocate 64Gb to the VM and then if Parallels notices that you are only actually using 20Gb out of that it will offer you to shrink it down(and you can do it on your own whenever of course
I think overall Parallels works very well for people who need only Windows for specific tasks, like playing certain games or using some programs that aren't available for Macs. I really enjoy being able to access files from both systems without having to reboot constantly
But in general I'd say people who wanna play Sims 3 actually intensively(really long legacies, gigs upon gigs of CC, etc.) should invest in a separate PC for it... You'll need some quite impressive specs for that and getting a Mac with those specs would cost you an arm, a leg, a liver and your left lung probably. Plus with a game as unstable as Sims 3 I think you don't need any extra instability that Boot Camp can introduce
If we are talking about Mac users with Intel Iris or Iris Pro integrated chips, or those even lesser, then yes there could be performance issues on the Windows side as there would be with any other integrated chip. But the ones with dedicated cards and strong enough processors, the i5s and i7s at 2.4 GHz and higher, fare much better.
The only odd thing about Bootcamp and TS3 is that I don't get to use exactly the same Windows drivers for my AMD graphics card that PC users do, and am reliant on the very few updates that AMD/Apple provide for us. But that hasn't seemed to have any real impact on the game at all. Oh, and I did have to use a third party tool, Rivatuner Stats Server, to cap my fps rates as Catalyst wouldn't do it and Crimson is not for us, but many AMD users face that issue.
I will try to open my mind a bit more to the possibility of recommending Parallels, but it's going to be a struggle to do so (in my mind, I mean) in that we really cannot interview potential users here to accurately gauge their usage of the game now and in the future.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net