Hey friends! Long time no see. I've had to take a bit of a break from computer games for a while due to a. not having a viable gaming computer and b. getting a new job. I've recently made the conversion to Mac computers and ordered a Macbook Pro with Retina Display. Specs will be listed below.

Anyway, I've configured the computer specifically so that it would be able to play games like the Sims (and also Blender, Adobe Photoshop etc) the only problem is that it's a 128GB laptop. That is not going to be enough with all the EP, CC, save-game files, art projects and side projects I intend to use this baby for. My plan is to use iCloud for most of my non-sims related items. I also plan to get a 1T external hard drive which uses USB 3.0. I know there are some draw backs to using an external hard drive (slower load times, always having to plug it in, etc etc) but all the information I'm seeing in my research seems to be outdated or geared towards Windows computers. Do you guys have any thoughts or tips on how to set this up for success?

Additionally, should I replace all my hard CD copies of the Sims with Origin copies?

13" Macbook Pro with Retina Display, 3.1GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, 16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM, 128GB PCIe-based Flash Storage, Intel Iris Graphics 6100.

I intend to use LaCie 1TB Porsche Design External Hard Drive as well as Apple's USB SuperDrive for the initial installation.

As I am sure you already know, installation on a USB external is not a supported or recommended configuration. It works okay for some, not so much for others (sorry for the wishy-washy answer thus far). In addition, TS3 for Mac is limited to using 2 GB of RAM no matter what you do or how much RAM you actually have due to the way in which EA arranged its Cider based implementation vs. doing a proper port to OS X like it has done for every other title in the series. But you actually have a much bigger problem ahead of you than those issues and the disc vs. Origin install question, as thus far those are related to performance issues. You might not be able to play the game at all on that MBP.

The Iris/Iris Pro graphics cards are newer than TS3, the game is not meant to run on those, and the likelihood that EA will ever patch in some kind of compatibility for those has become essentially zero. There are some workarounds available, but for many if not most players it's become an exercise in futility. Take a look at this thread, just as an example, from the EA forums and the Iris graphics specific link provided near the end.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/dis...-my-macbook-pro

I'm afraid that particular MBP is just not the right tool for the job, sorry to have to say.

.... huh. Thats interesting, actually because I was able to get the Sims to run on a Macbook Pro that was about half the power horse my new mac is going to be. The problem was of course, that the graphics card was using a Navida that was 2 generations behind. Everything, even Sims 2 was SUPER GRAINY which is not ideal for the way I play the games. Nothing I've read mentioned incompatibilities with the new Intel Graphics cards -- in fact when I was toying with designing my own PC, I figured as long as it was using a graphics card 7500 or higher I was good to go. (lol, so much for there being no cons to Future Proofing your computer). I guess that was a misunderstanding on my part. I'll try editing the graphic card file text as the links you provided mention when I receive the computer.

So I followed the directions in your link, and it seems to work! I'm able to play at high settings for the entire game. The one thing that will not work properly is the Edge Scrolling Feature. When that is enabled or turned on AT ALL I get sketchy vibrant lines out of a pop art piece. Probably, that's the key in the incompatibility. I'm not really sure what the Edge Scrolling does, and don't see any disadvantages to having Edge Scrolling off so I plan to leave it off. At the moment, I have the Sims 3 game installed on a 1TB hard drive (linked in the first post) and will be installing the rest. My computer runs it just fine when I get the graphics themselves to work. The heat is minimal and it's no slower than it was on my Windows 7 computer back in 2008. I think I'm really going to enjoy getting everything back up again. Here's to hoping it doesn't crash!

Thanks a ton for your help and input Igazor, I appreciate it!

I'm glad it worked for you. Everyone seems to be having different experiences with these new graphics cards. For the ones that can't get the workaround to do what it needs to, it's not that portions of their game look funny. They can't even start it up.

As you play further and install more EPs (if I am understanding what you mean by installing "the rest"), remember there are limitations to what you can do with TS3 for Mac on any system because the game cannot utilize more than 2 GB of RAM without crashing or erroring out (Error12) on saves. But that doesn't mean it's unplayable, just more fragile than its Windows counterpart. This guide has helped many along, especially the part about purging/resetting RAM frequently throughout play which is necessary practically no matter which graphics card or configuration you have once you get beyond base game play and/or an ongong game into its 2nd generation or so.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/dis...ted-27-07-14/p1

Happy simming!