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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 12:22 AM
Default Lets Talk Hardware and Sims 3
So I'm taking a break from trying to troubleshoot my current mod project because if I go any further I'll definitely start pulling my hair out and its got me thinking, you know? Thinking about computer hardware, to be specific. I've stumbled across plenty of Sims threads that had people listing their hardware, most of the time to help or provide perspective to someone else, so I thought "Hey, why not ask simmers what computer hardware they play Sims 3 on?" and now here I am. At the current point in time, I'm playing on a laptop that has a GTX 1050 and i7-7700HQ along with 16GB of ram and 1TB of storage. At the time, it seemed like a good buy. I needed a new computer very desperately, and it quickly became clear that I had made a dire mistake. Now I'm getting ready to build a new computer to game on. It will have a Ryzen 3700X and an RTX 2070 Super, also with 16GB of ram and 1TB of storage. This will be the first computer I've ever built myself and I'm quite excited about it.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
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Field Researcher
#2 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 1:25 AM
I love playing Sims 3 on my 2006 iMac, it runs so nicely
Mad Poster
#3 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 1:49 AM
Hahaha, but not like really, right? I have an old gaming rig from 2006 with an actual dedicated GPU and like 4 whole gigabytes of RAM and it won't even run TS2 entirely nicely.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Inventor
#4 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 2:01 AM
I'm playing on a desktop. CPU: i5-4690K 3.5 Ghz. GPU: Gigabyte GTX 960 4 GB Windforce OC. RAM: 8 GB DDR3. Storage: SSD Samsung 850 EVO (+ 6 TB HDD but I don't use it for The Sims 3).
My games runs smooth 99% of the time (except in Island Paradise, which has the occasional stuttering). Create-A-Style also lags from time to time, but it's usually fixed by saving the game or switching to live mode and back again.
Undead Molten Llama
#5 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 4:11 AM
Heh. My Simming computer is an older machine "optimized" for TS2, so it's got some older hardware. But TS3 likes it well enough, too. It's a desktop. Once upon a time I Simmed on a laptop, but now I and my old eyes like my nice big 32" monitor. So: Windows 7, 3.0GHz Core2Duo processor (State of the art in 2009, woo!), eVGA 4GB NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti, 8GB of RAM (DDR3...I think). It's got 1 500GB HDD, 1 1TB HDD (which is where TS3 and my "My Documents" folder reside; it's a bit newer/faster than the 500GB, which has Windows and TS2 on it), and one 5TB external HDD. The latter has, among other things, all the 500 billion screen shots I've taken as well as a copy of all the crap I've downloaded in sims3package format because I seem to be under the impression that I'll convert them to package files one day before I die.

I wanna get an SSD one of these days because maybe it'll help a bit with the bottleneck from the older CPU. But I'm not in a rush. And it might not help anyway. But it's not too bad either way. My graphics card lets me run the game at highest settings + external NVIDIA tweaks (i.e, 8x antialiasing and such), and it doesn't lag unless I try to stuff a giant, heavily-populated, densely-built world down its throat. So...I don't do that. I like playing small, rural worlds better, anyway.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Mad Poster
#6 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 4:14 AM
An SSD will absolutely help, and probably by a lot if you're not used to having one.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Undead Molten Llama
#7 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 3:26 PM
Yeah, I imagine so. My husband's gaming rig has an SSD, so I see how fast it loads things up and all that, and I'd like to get one for both of the machines I use regularly, including this Simming one. I'm waiting until the ones that have more capacity, like 2+TB, come down in price a bit, though. I'm a bit on the frugal side and find it hard to justify purchases that I don't really need, and this is one that I just haven't been able to justify to myself yet. I'll get there eventually.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Forum Resident
#8 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 7:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by LittleCheshire
So I'm taking a break from trying to troubleshoot my current mod project because if I go any further I'll definitely start pulling my hair out and its got me thinking, you know? Thinking about computer hardware, to be specific. I've stumbled across plenty of Sims threads that had people listing their hardware, most of the time to help or provide perspective to someone else, so I thought "Hey, why not ask simmers what computer hardware they play Sims 3 on?" and now here I am. At the current point in time, I'm playing on a laptop that has a GTX 1050 and i7-7700HQ along with 16GB of ram and 1TB of storage. At the time, it seemed like a good buy. I needed a new computer very desperately, and it quickly became clear that I had made a dire mistake. Now I'm getting ready to build a new computer to game on. It will have a Ryzen 3700X and an RTX 2070 Super, also with 16GB of ram and 1TB of storage. This will be the first computer I've ever built myself and I'm quite excited about it.


I'm confused, though I don't know much about your specific laptop but it seems like a capable gaming laptop with those specifications. Seems to be more than enough for TS3 and since this topic is called "Let's Talk Hardware and Sims 3" I'm not taking into account other PC games here...yet. Anyway, TS3 is a mostly CPU intensive game and trying to create mods and/or use mods that are also CPU intensive that obviously rely heavily on the CPU will be fighting with each other over the CPU's attention. And because of that, that will most likely cause poor performance regardless of how powerful the gaming laptop/desktop is. Poor performance that is in no way the game's fault as it is being overloaded with tasks it was not meant to handle. Not to mention, this game engine is from 2009, therefore outdated and will not take advantage of most current PC technology. Sidenote: Though there had been some major tweaks to the game engine in terms of expansion packs such as Seasons, Pets and Island Paradise.

Of course, the mod you are trying to create I don't know and could be more visual/GPU based but doesn't mean that too cannot be overkill. In any case, I sometimes wonder if it is some irresponsible modder's attempt at being overly ambitious on such an outdated game engine. Whatever the issue may be, I don't know, but I'm going to guess that it's not computer related in this case if basically what you are saying is TS3/mod creation, testing won't play like you want and think the computer is at fault.

===

There are two reasons why I got a new gaming desktop.

1. My old motherboard died in my previous desktop I built sometime after 6 years.
Win 7 64-Bit
8 GB RAM
NVidia Geforce GTX 660
Intel Core i7 3770K @3.5 GHz
1 TB HDD

2. I already was interested in a new computer with an interest in real-time ray tracing and Cyberpunk 2077 though I was happy and content with my build. Eventually I would like to get a new compatible motherboard.
Win 10 64-Bit
16 GB RAM
NVidia Geforce RTX 2070
Intel Core i7 9700K @ 3.6 GHz
250 GB SSD
1 TB HDD

TS3 doesn't really play any better than the gaming desktop I built. The only difference I really notice is the higher resolution and 144 fps. I also have TS3 installed on the HDD because the whole complete game takes up a lot of space and I don't really care about loading speed as loading was never really much of an issue for me. I guess this new gaming computer you are building won't be just for TS3? Because if so, personally, I think it would be a waste of money for such an outdated game that cannot perform any better than what the game engine is capable of.

There is a third gaming system, a decade old more or less laptop, I have and although it plays well with all EP's/SP's/Store Content it doesn't perform well with certain and/or too many mods that push the game engine to the limit. My other gaming computers could handle more mods but still performance, for me, mainly seems to not be the best when using certain mods yet runs smoothly with little to no mods.
Win 7 64-Bit
Originally 4 GB RAM but I upgraded and installed 8 GB RAM
NVidia Geforce GTS 360M
Intel Core i5 M450 @ 2.4GHz
500 GB HDD

Previous Game: Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition (100% riddles completed; now I know why I've always been fascinated with The Riddler, lol.)

Next Game: Batman Arkham City GOTY Edition
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#9 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 8:07 PM
This laptop doesn't have an SSD, so I can only assume it has a hard drive. I've never tried or seen the effect SSD's have, so putting a NVME SSD in my new computer should be an Experience. But to be honest, I've only gamed above 40 FPS once, so the whole desktop is probably gonna be an Experience.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#10 Old 7th Apr 2020 at 8:31 PM Last edited by LittleCheshire : 7th Apr 2020 at 11:59 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Deshong
I'm confused, though I don't know much about your specific laptop but it seems like a capable gaming laptop with those specifications. Seems to be more than enough for TS3 and since this topic is called "Let's Talk Hardware and Sims 3" I'm not taking into account other PC games here...yet. Anyway, TS3 is a mostly CPU intensive game and trying to create mods and/or use mods that are also CPU intensive that obviously rely heavily on the CPU will be fighting with each other over the CPU's attention. And because of that, that will most likely cause poor performance regardless of how powerful the gaming laptop/desktop is. Poor performance that is in no way the game's fault as it is being overloaded with tasks it was not meant to handle. Not to mention, this game engine is from 2009, therefore outdated and will not take advantage of most current PC technology. Sidenote: Though there had been some major tweaks to the game engine in terms of expansion packs such as Seasons, Pets and Island Paradise.

Of course, the mod you are trying to create I don't know and could be more visual/GPU based but doesn't mean that too cannot be overkill. In any case, I sometimes wonder if it is some irresponsible modder's attempt at being overly ambitious on such an outdated game engine. Whatever the issue may be, I don't know, but I'm going to guess that it's not computer related in this case if basically what you are saying is TS3/mod creation, testing won't play like you want and think the computer is at fault.


Oooh yeah, you bet this bad baby is gonna be for way more than just the Sims 3, I wouldn't build this machine otherwise. It's gonna be playing AAA games at 1440p. So I see and understand your point about using very, very modern hardware on a game that can't really appreciate it. As for the mod I'm working with, it is purely visual, and at the current point in time it's just an XML tuning type of mod. It works 85% of the time and I'm busy trying to get the other 15% to work. And I'm pretty sure the code isn't any more CPU intensive than it was before I went and changed a few numbers. I also see and understand your point about this laptop being a decent gaming laptop, but it just...isn't. Before I had this laptop I had a different laptop, an Acer Predator with a GTX 970M with G-SYNC built into it's display, and playing on that machine was literal bliss. I had many, many mods on that machine too and it worked itself out beautifully. Very, very unfortunately, it self-destructed a day later and I was desperately in need of a new machine. Now I'm here, and I admit that I'm the type that wants to crank their settings to eleven and then not have to think about it at all later, and with this laptop...I just can't do that. The new machine I'm gonna build will do what I want and then some.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
Lab Assistant
#11 Old 8th Apr 2020 at 5:53 PM
My setup is pretty modest in comparison to most:
Windows 10 64-bit
12 GB RAM
512 GB SSD
Intel Core i5 @ 4.1 GHz
The graphics are integrated, but it gets the job done. Runs the game with all expansions, stuff packs, and most of my mods/cc smoothly and loads way faster with the SSD.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#12 Old 14th Apr 2020 at 5:19 AM
Was just thinking about this and I find it fitting to voice my thoughts in this thread; it seems that alot of Sims 3 simmers play their game on pretty modest hardware as they either don't play anything else other than Sims 3 or they also play other casual games that don't require a lot of quote on quote, horsepower. So I was wondering if there were any other simmers out there that are also planning on building an entirely new computer, like me for example, or just upgrading their components in their existing machines.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 14th Apr 2020 at 10:43 AM
Well before I ever get mine working again, I'll definitely be looking into that 3000 series of cards NVIDIA is shitting out this year. But that's assuming the issue is in the GPU. I'm not getting any output at all from the internal GPU on the motherboard so chances are I'll be shopping for a new motherboard so it'd better be something worthwhile. And I'm not making the mistake again of getting some cheap mid-range CPU. I spent €250 on that, I think? It craps itself just thinking about having to do actual work.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Field Researcher
#14 Old 14th Apr 2020 at 11:13 PM
Quote: Originally posted by GabyPurpleB
I love playing Sims 3 on my 2006 iMac, it runs so nicely


I don't know if you're joking or not but i've been playing TS3 on my shitty 2007 iMac for years and it doesn't run badly at all - that's with 7 expansion packs installed LOL.

why did i pick this username
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#15 Old 15th Apr 2020 at 3:09 AM
See, I'm hella interested in the 3000 series Nvidia is going to be releasing too. I'm way more interested in those cards than I am in the current 2000 series cards, but the 3000 series is supposedly going to be released around August and I really, really can't wait that long even though it would probably be the wise thing to do. So, RTX 2070 Super it is.

As for Sims 3 and Mac computers...I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in Macs, or any Apple products for that matter. So, I can't really speak on how good they are for gaming, generally.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
Mad Poster
#16 Old 15th Apr 2020 at 3:23 AM
Quote: Originally posted by LittleCheshire
As for Sims 3 and Mac computers...I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in Macs, or any Apple products for that matter. So, I can't really speak on how good they are for gaming, generally.


I have had 2 ipods and have a mini ipad that is fabulous. I love it. But for computers I stick solely to PCs also. No Macs.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#17 Old 24th Apr 2020 at 1:43 AM
I think that's to be expected, honestly. I don't know anyone who games on a Mac, nor do I know anyone who would even want to. Personally, I just really don't like Apple products, to be frank. While I'm talking about brands I genuinely wonder how people feel about AMD, especially with their comeback recently. I know some people who swear by Intel products and while I don't know many of their reasons I respect their choices. I know my plan was to get an RTX 2070 Super but their prices have been fucking outrageous, so I've been eyeballing AMD's 5700XT even though I probably shouldn't. I really don't want to deal with fussy drivers, but that 440$ price point is really tempting.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
Top Secret Researcher
#18 Old 24th Apr 2020 at 3:46 AM Last edited by 310175 : 24th Apr 2020 at 5:08 AM.
I built my first desktop (mainly to play TS3) in 2014 (or was it 2013?). I forget. ASUS board, AMD FX 8350 processor and AMD graphics card (Radeon HD 7970). No issues. I recently upgraded my graphics, nothing too outrageous (Radeon Rx 570) but still, it runs overall cooler than my old one. Could also be because it has less dust on it. After so many years, it becomes difficult to keep it clean. Over time I added more RAM (16GB) and an SSD to run things from.
I don't know why people worry about AMD, I never had any problems. But I really only need a decent machine for TS3, the few other games I play are even older. And I'm not an expert, maybe a lucky amateur.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#19 Old 30th Apr 2020 at 1:45 PM
You may be lucky, AMD's driver issues are legendary. But I've heard they've gotten better, so the 5700XT might be worth it. If all else fails, I could just send it back and get a different graphics card.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#20 Old 14th Aug 2020 at 11:42 PM
So, Simmers and Gamers in general, how we all feelin' about this?

The Ultimate Countdown

The Clock is Ticking

RTX 3000 Series, 24, 20, and 10GB Variants?

I bet y'all 2,000$ that the 3080 TI is gonna be 1,500$.

Oh c'mon. There better be a point to all this stress I'm under.
Test Subject
#21 Old 29th Aug 2020 at 12:51 AM
Presently, I have:
AMD Ryzen 3700X
NVidia GTX 1050ti
16 GB RAM
1 TB SSD
Windows 10

I started out with an AMD FX-8320, 8 GB of ram, and regular HDD. First GPU in there was an AMD R7 240, and although it did ok (did not have many expansion packs then), it did not run Seasons well at all. I then got the 1050ti, and it was alot better. While on this build, I had gotten all expansion packs along with stuff packs. I had all NRAAs mods including Story Progression.

I upgraded to the AM4 Ryzen platform last year starting out with the 2600x and then going to the 3700x. I still have the 1050ti in this but plan to be upgrading to a 2070 RTX soon.

Unlike with my previous build, the load/save times are a quite a bit better, and simulation lag isn't an issue as it was at times.
Mad Poster
#22 Old 29th Aug 2020 at 12:58 AM
An SSD works wonders for this game. My load time went from 15 minutes to a mere 3 minutes.

Because the earth is standing still, and the truth becomes a lie
A choice profound is bittersweet, no one hears Cassandra Goth cry

Mad Poster
#23 Old 29th Aug 2020 at 2:57 AM
I was in a really good place with TS3 when I built this PC originally, almost exactly 4 years ago now. I migrated all my CC and all my saves and all my crap over pretty much one-on-one and got it running as well as I could ever hope to get it.



Since then I've added a bunch of CC to the mix and I've started playing in a higher resolution. I've also started using Reshade which became very demanding at some point. But for some reason since I've primarily been playing in the Bigger Builder's World, it's become very slow again. I've had to go back down to 1080p and I've had to reduce the number of active lots, as well as regularly purging the save. I've also had to tone down the Reshade a fair bit. And I've had PC troubles, my lovely GPU died late March and temporarily took the entire PC with it. I replaced the power supply and tore out the GPU, replaced it with a spare I had lying around, a decently powerful GTX 960 thankfully.

I did lose an important HDD with all my screenshots and vacation pictures on it. I'm still looking into how to get that back without paying a small fortune for data recovery.

Anyway, the game's a mess. I've been having all sorts of Error 12s lately and after years of 3-4 minute loading times they've suddenly doubled, then tripled, and now probably quadrupled over the past year. In a mostly empty world! It's ridiculous. I don't know what to do. For the first time in years I'm reluctant to play the game at all, it's been crashing on me constantly since I got the PC fully working again a few months ago. Before the PC died I genuinely made a good attempt at analyzing and dissecting the ridiculous loading times, but to no avail.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Inventor
#24 Old 29th Aug 2020 at 4:26 AM
These are a few ways people ruin their game's performance:
- Download a bunch of CAS CC that's valid for random. The problem with most CC not made by EA is that it's just too high poly for the game AND it doesn't have good LODs. It's all fine it there's just ONE Sim wearing such poorly made CC. Now, if there's a bunch of Sims with super high poly meshes, no LODs, the engine will struggle to draw so many polygons at once. I've seen some CC accesories with 10K polygons and that's absolutely insane. Some CC makers have no idea what they're doing.
- Add too many script mods. A few script mods are fine. The problem is when you start adding to many of them, especially if they're poorly coded. A telltale sign that you have way too many script mods is if the game is not responsive upon loading. That's when most mods are loaded (OnWorldLoad).
- I personally believe that any POST processing / forced anything you do has a very negative impact on performance since it's not supported by the game's engine. This applies to reShade, forced ambient occlusion, forced anisotropic filtering, etc. At some point, if you start adding all those layers on top of the game, you'll experience performance issues. As of right now, I only have anisotropic filtering forced. Nothing else.
- Being lazy when it comes to cleaning up your save games. This is actually really important. No save game should EVER exceed 80-100 MB per world. And even then, it can probably be shrunk by deleting those nasty THUMBs. The game generates a thumb for every Sim in the world, for every outfit they wear, for every MOOD they're in, for every SMALL change you make to them. And the game doesn't EVER delete unused THUMBs. I tested this many times. In one of my saves, there were still THUMBs of one my Sims when she was a teen and now she's an adult. I personally prefer to clean my saves manually. I got tired of those automatic tools deleting my family pics.
Mad Poster
#25 Old 29th Aug 2020 at 4:33 AM
That's great and all Naus, but how does one clean their saves?

Because the earth is standing still, and the truth becomes a lie
A choice profound is bittersweet, no one hears Cassandra Goth cry

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