Hi everyone!

I'm an independent developer and a heavy macOS/Linux user. Windows is something I only occasionally use inside remote VMs for development and testing.

I'm also a big fan of **The Sims 3**. Recently, I installed the Windows version of The Sims 3, including the base game and all DLCs, on my Apple M4 Mac using a macOS Wine environment. My setup runs through **Rosetta 2 + D3DMetal**.

Since Macs use Retina displays and The Sims 3 was obviously designed long before modern HiDPI displays became common, getting everything to look right took me roughly half a day of experimenting.

I eventually got Wine, the game's UI, text, and cursors working nicely at Retina resolution, so I'm sharing my setup here in case it helps anyone else trying to do the same thing.

## Before You Start

My Mac is currently still running **macOS 15**. I personally don't like macOS 26, so I haven't upgraded to it, although I may consider moving to macOS 27 later.

There is one important thing Apple Silicon users should be aware of.

Apple has confirmed that full Rosetta support will remain available through macOS 27. Starting with macOS 28, only limited Rosetta functionality will remain for certain older, unmaintained games that depend on Intel-based frameworks.

Because of that, **compatibility of this Wine + Rosetta setup on macOS 28 and later is uncertain**. Unless Wine or the surrounding compatibility stack gains sufficient native ARM64 support, the Windows version of The Sims 3 may no longer work through this method in future macOS releases.

## Who Is This Guide For?

This guide is specifically for people who:

**run the Windows version of The Sims 3 through Wine on macOS.**

It is **not** intended for the native macOS version of The Sims 3.

The goal of this guide is simply to make the Wine version of the game work properly with an Apple Retina / HiDPI display.

Installing the Windows version of The Sims 3 through Wine is outside the scope of this guide. Depending on whether you're using Wine directly, CrossOver, Whisky, or another Wine-based environment, please refer to the appropriate installation guides elsewhere.

---

**IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT COMMANDS**

I originally wrote this guide in Markdown, but Mod The Sims does not use Markdown formatting. As a result, you may see backtick characters (`) around some commands.

**The backticks are NOT part of the commands. Do not type or copy them into CMD or PowerShell.**

For example, if you see:

`pwsh`

type only:

pwsh

without the surrounding ` characters.


---



# Step 1: Enable Wine Retina Mode

Wine's macOS driver has a native high-resolution Retina rendering mode, but it needs to be enabled through the Wine registry.



Open `regedit` inside your Wine prefix and navigate to:

`HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver`

Create a new **String Value** named:

`RetinaMode`

and set its value to:

`Y`

Alternatively, you can import the following `.reg` file:

```reg
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver]
"RetinaMode"="Y"
```

After enabling Retina Mode, open `winecfg`:

1. Go to the **Graphics** tab.
2. Change **Screen resolution** to **192 DPI** — exactly 2× the default 96 DPI.
3. Apply the settings and restart the relevant Wine applications.



Wine applications should now render their Windows UI and text at a scale that better matches a standard 2× Retina display.

---

# Step 2: Install PowerShell

Tiny UI Fix for The Sims 3 uses PowerShell, so you'll need a working `pwsh` inside your Wine environment.

There are two ways to install it.

## Option 1: Install with Winetricks



Install:

`powershell_core`

using Winetricks.

**This is the method I recommend.**

Winetricks normally handles the environment configuration for you, which means you should be able to simply run:

`pwsh`

from a Wine command prompt afterward.

## Option 2: Install PowerShell Manually

You can also download a Windows x64 build of PowerShell directly from:

`https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/`

For example, I've used a 7.4.18 `PowerShell-7.4.18-win-x64.zip` build successfully.

Extract it somewhere inside your Wine prefix, for example:

`drive_c/Program Files/PowerShell`

which corresponds to:

`C:\Program Files\PowerShell`

inside Wine.

If you install PowerShell this way, you'll normally need to configure the `PATH` environment variable yourself, or launch `pwsh.exe` using its full path.

For that reason, I'd recommend using Winetricks unless you have a particular reason not to.

---

# Step 3: Install and Run Tiny UI Fix for The Sims 3

Download **Tiny UI Fix for The Sims 3** from Mod The Sims:

`https://modthesims.info/d/681624/tiny-ui-fix-for-the-sims-3.html`

Download:

`tiny-ui-fix-for-ts3.zip`

and extract it somewhere under your Wine `drive_c`, for example:

`drive_c/tiny-ui-fix`

which will appear inside Wine as:

`C:\tiny-ui-fix`

## Wine-Specific Script Issue

With my current Wine setup, I ran into some issues in the upstream Tiny UI Fix PowerShell script that causes the patcher to fail.

I've made a fix for this.

Until the fix is merged by the original author, **just-harry**, or an equivalent fix is included upstream, you can download my modified version of:

`Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1`

from:

`https://github.com/Molay/tiny-ui-fix-for-ts3/blob/latest/TinyUIFixForTS3/Patcher/Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1`

and use it to replace:

`C:\tiny-ui-fix\Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1`

If you're reading this guide at a later date and upstream Tiny UI Fix already includes the necessary fix, you can of course skip this workaround.

## Running Tiny UI Fix

Open Wine's `cmd` and run:

```bat
cd C:\tiny-ui-fix
pwsh
```

Once you're inside PowerShell, run:

```powershell
./Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1
```

Then follow the instructions provided by Tiny UI Fix:

`https://modthesims.info/d/681624/tiny-ui-fix-for-the-sims-3.html`

For a normal 2× Retina setup, I recommend starting with:

* **UI Scale:** `2`
* **Text Scale:** `2`
* **Cursor Scale:** `2`

You can then fine-tune these values depending on your display size, game resolution, and personal preference.

Enable any additional Patchsets / mod compatibility options that are appropriate for the Mods you have installed.

### Important: Back Up Resource.cfg

Tiny UI Fix may modify:

`Mods/Resource.cfg`

inside your The Sims 3 user data directory.

I strongly recommend backing up your existing `Resource.cfg` before running Tiny UI Fix for the first time, especially if you already have a customized Mods setup.

It's also a good idea to run Tiny UI Fix again after adding, removing, or updating Core Mods, Script Mods, or other Mods that affect the game's UI, so that the generated package remains consistent with your current setup.

---

# Step 4: Configure The Sims 3

Now launch The Sims 3 and open the graphics options.

1. Enable **Windowed Mode**.
2. Select a game resolution that gives you a comfortable window size on your Mac's display.
3. If necessary, fine-tune the game resolution and the Tiny UI Fix scaling values until you find the combination that works best for you.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend choosing the highest resolution available. The goal is to find a good balance between **image sharpness, UI size, and the actual usable size of the game window**.

Once everything is configured, you should have a much sharper and more comfortable The Sims 3 experience on a Retina display — including properly scaled UI, text, and cursors.

Enjoy!

Hi, so this guide is honestly exactly what I've been looking for! However, I'm having issues with running the commands -- it just keeps saying that it can't recognize if it's an external or internal command, or a bat file. Was hoping you might be able to help me figure this out since you seem much more knowledgeable on this subject than I. But thank you again for this --- seriously!

Hi! I'm really glad the guide was useful — and yes, I'd be happy to help.

That error usually means Wine's `cmd` can't find one of the commands you're trying to run.

Could you let me know **exactly which command gives you the “not recognized as an internal or external command” error**? That should make it pretty easy to narrow down.

In the meantime, there are two common possibilities:

1. **If `pwsh` is the command that isn't recognized**, then PowerShell is either not installed correctly or its folder hasn't been added to the Wine `PATH`.

If you installed `powershell_core` through Winetricks, `pwsh` should normally be available automatically.

If you installed PowerShell manually, try launching `pwsh.exe` using its full path instead, for example:

`"C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\pwsh.exe"`

The exact folder may be slightly different depending on where you extracted it.

2. **If `./Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1` is the command that isn't recognized**, make sure you've actually entered PowerShell first.

From Wine `cmd`, the sequence should look like this:

`cd C:\tiny-ui-fix`

then:

`pwsh`

At that point the prompt should change from the normal Windows command prompt to a PowerShell prompt. Only then run:

`.\Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1`

(`./Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1` should also normally work in PowerShell, but `.\Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1` is the more traditional Windows/PowerShell syntax.)

You can also bypass the PATH issue entirely by running the script directly with the full PowerShell path, something like:

`"C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\pwsh.exe" -File "C:\tiny-ui-fix\Use-TinyUIFixForTS3.ps1"`

If you paste the exact commands you're running and the full error message, I can probably tell you exactly where it's going wrong.

I prefer to write posts in Markdown format, so I used `some commands` to indicate that this is a command.
There should be no backticks (`) before or after any of these commands.

Oh my gosh, you are my HERO! I finally got it to work! I've been trying to do this for days! Thank you so much for these concise directions, I figured out that I was trying to basically open tiny-ui-fix and PowerShell at the same time, so while I feel kind of like a ditz, finding your post was downright serendipitous. Thank you SO much, breaking it down like this helped me figure out exactly where I was going wrong!