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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 2nd Jul 2020 at 4:13 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Island Paradise, Into the Future
Default Sims do not load entirely and look like TS1
Hi everybody,
ever since I decided to play The Sims 3 again a few weeks ago, I had been dealing with this:



The textures of Sims do not entirely load, it takes minutes to load. They look like ones from The Sims, even though everything (lots, objects, etc.) quickly load, there are no glitches while playing... I tried everything I found online, including deleting cache or getting the game to recognize the graphics card (I didn't succeed with this one though). My graphics card is Intel UHD Graphics 620 and my processor is Intel Core i5-8265U CPU. I have some mods and default skin replacement downloaded, but removing them from the game doesn't change anything.
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 2nd Jul 2020 at 6:47 PM
This may sound dumb, but is your sim detail turned up in your options, or is it on low?

Also, you said you weren't successful at making the game recognize your graphic card? Does that mean your Deviceconfig in documents says either [Found 0 Matched 0] or [Found 1 Matched 0]?
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 2nd Jul 2020 at 7:27 PM
It's turned up to the highest option... it says "[Found: 0, Matched: 1]"
Top Secret Researcher
#5 Old 2nd Jul 2020 at 8:11 PM
It seems your graphics is an integrated GPU? It doesn't surprise me that it takes a while to load them. Could you post your other DeviceConfig info? Only the first few lines about your system.
But just from what you wrote, your system is not that great and running so many EPs will be taxing.
It helps to set the HighDetail lots to a small number and overall set your graphics options lower but it also may help to uninstall one or two EPs.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#6 Old 2nd Jul 2020 at 9:42 PM
=== Application info ===
Name: Sims3
Version:
Build: Release
=== Rating info ===
GPU: 3 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 1 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 1800 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 2000 RAM: 8037 Adjusted RAM: 7525 Cores: 4
=== Machine info ===
OS version: Windows 7 6.1.7600
OS prod type: 0
OS major ver: 6
OS minor ver: 1
OS SP major ver: 0
OS SP minor ver: 0
OS is 64Bit: 1
CPU: GenuineIntel
Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8265U CPU @ 1.60GHz
Family: 6
Model: 14
Cores: 4
HT: 1
x64: 0
Memory: 8037MB
Free memory: 3294MB
User: 48515
Computer: LAPTOP-IU19D6N0
=== Graphics device info ===
Number: 0
Name (driver): Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620
Name (database): Mobile IvyBridge GT2 [Found: 1, Matched: 1]
Vendor: Intel
Chipset: Vendor: 8086, Device: 3ea0, Board: 39eb17aa, Chipset: 0000
Driver: igdumdim32.dll, Version: 25.20.100.6577, GUID: D7B78E66-7DE0-11CF-AB6D-8F19BBC2D435
Driver version: 6577
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY1
Texture memory: 1024MB
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1

I'll set the HighDetail lots to a smaller number and let you know if it gets better.
In the Arena
retired moderator
#8 Old 3rd Jul 2020 at 11:23 AM
Quote: Originally posted by dackus
=== Application info ===
...
CPU: GenuineIntel
Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8265U CPU @ 1.60GHz
...
=== Graphics device info ===
Number: 0
Name (driver): Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620
...
Ultrabooks with that undepowered CPU and with integrated graphics won't run the game well; this laptop is not intended to be running 3D games, especially not Sims 3.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 3rd Jul 2020 at 9:51 PM
Every other month or so I get "attacked" (if you can call it that) by players on the official EA forums for my disagreeing with statements like "Any player on any computer today built after 2012 or so can run TS3 and all EPs just fine" and explaining why. These players come to this conclusion because it works fine for them and their cousin, or something like that, sites like Can You Run It? tell them so, and because they have no understanding of and some refuse to accept the differences between meeting 2009's Minimum Requirements as stated by EA for an unpatched base game only on Win XP or Vista vs. what they are really trying to run today and what their expectations for the game are. Some of these players just cannot be reasoned with.

Yes, the game will run to some extent on the OP's hardware and they should be able to have fun with it up to a point if they can keep the system's temperatures low enough, no that laptop was not designed to carry games like this especially with the heavier EPs in play, and sorry but no amount of arguing, Disagreeing, or marking such observations as Unhelpful is going to change that. Sims and objects being a bit slow to render from their base appearance as the game camera moves around or focuses in on a scene should be the least of their worries.
Mad Poster
#11 Old 4th Jul 2020 at 2:57 AM
If that last post was meant to be directed at me (and am not entirely sure if it was), I thought and still do find your advice to the OP to be on topic quite valuable and had nothing further to add to it in a technical sense. I never once compared their or most any other system to excrement, nor did I lecture or tell them to go buy a new computer, which of course not everyone can just go do, as I am sure it is great at that which it was designed for.

The points I do try to get a across when players are on lower end hardware (note that's lowER end, a comparative, not low end) are what levels of performance are to be expected and how happy they should be if they are able to exceed those levels. Many players honestly do not understand what integrated graphics do or how they work. They see other players with smoother looking experiences on highly developed and progressed worlds on videos or discussed in other game threads, they want that too, and we certainly can't blame them. The system advice is meant to be objective and informative so they know what to expect and when they are already ahead of the curve, not a matter of judgment. It's only when they really have no hope of running the game at all without ruining their system that they should be advised to not try -- the OP's specs are at least a few levels above all that, which is why I said they should be able to run the game and have fun with it.

That being an example of not what "our job" is here and not being "helpful" is a matter of opinion and probably where we at least to some point disagree. And we should be able to live with that disagreement as long as it doesn't on either end of it kick up really bad, unrealistic advice or hurt anyone.
Forum Resident
#12 Old 4th Jul 2020 at 1:56 PM
The reality of the situation is needed to know so the person asking for help understands that the problem they are experiencing is due to running TS3 on a computer that is either incompatible or just meets minimal system requirements and should not be overworked with most or all EP’s and/or mods/cc.

PC video games have system requirements for a reason and anyone playing without meeting it should not be surprised when the game does not run in its better or best possible performance. I too, at the time, didn’t know much of anything about system requirements but learned a lot more to understand the kind of performance I could expect with whatever the current PC I have. So now I better understand the difference between what is a computer related issue or a game issue.

Now I haven’t read or studied too much into the difference between turbo mode and the base GHz. However, from what little I did read is that turbo mode is not meant to entirely act as if it was at that higher GHz speed endlessly. Or else what would be the point of turbo mode? The base GHz is mainly the important specification to look at because that is what the computer will mainly run by default.

For example let’s say turbo mode can go up to speeds of 4.0 GHz instead of 1.2 GHz default. However, there is more to that from what I read such as turbo mode not being consistent as if it were the default base GHz and with laptops it can only be enabled when plugged into the outlet to be able to consume the kind of extra power it needs. But even then, like I said, I read it’s not really the same experience or performance compared to a higher default GHz in the long run.

In this case, TS3 must meet 2.4 GHz as its default GHz, not through turbo mode. Though, it’s very possible that nowadays that feature could have improved but in any case I would suggest for you to do your own homework to understand the kind of laptop you have and the kind of performance you can expect and how much of TS3 it can handle. Which in my opinion, you do not meet minimal system requirements.

While TS3 is an older game, an integrated video card will not showcase the best performance. TS3 is the only game in the series that has real-time simulation and is the most CPU intensive.

According to this reviewer, this is what they have to say under the performance paragraph. "In our tests, the UHD 620 is most suited for casual games like Team Fortress 2, Rocket League or Farming Simulator 17."
-https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-UHD-Graphics-620-GPU-Review-Benchmarks-and-Specs.239936.0.html

Also, a later integrated video card in the series, the Intel UHD 630 according to this is not necessarily compatible with all EP's/SP's. Some maybe's and one no. Sidenote: I've used this chart among others to build my first gaming desktop and have had no issues whatsoever on the validity of the specific data I was looking at. However, it is always good to do your own research and do not take any one person's word. Do your own homework.

https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?ti...em_Requirements

Additionally, this issue with rendering is not necessarily a computer issue and sometimes a game issue I believe. I've had this before if I play too long, sometimes use CAS/CASt too much in my modded game. Not 100% sure the cause but I suspect it has something to do with some sort of memory leak. I don't get this problem when playing without any mods or minimal mods so this is how I know the more mods and/or the more CPU/GPU intensive mods does greatly affect the performance of TS3. In my more modded game, sometimes Sims don't ever load in and then usually the game crashes to desktop. So when I see that happening which isn't too common I now just save if I can and quit. In my modless or minimally modded game I can literally go in and out of CAS and use CASt as many times as I want and thus far the game never crashed or had rendering issues but it did slow down a bit after many hours of me not turning the game off. So I think I tested that theory for about 3 days without any major issues. TS3 isn't as fragile when it doesn't have all this extra stuff to account for. It always makes me question my use of most mods.

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
Forum Resident
#14 Old 5th Jul 2020 at 1:28 AM
"NO, you don't need a 2.4GHz min. Don't be ridiculous. You can test this one yourselves by lowering your CPU power down to 50% etc... run it at 1.5GHZ, the game WILL run and quite smoothly depending on your GPU setting, your town size, mods, etc..."

Right, let's ignore what the game developers have to say because they clearly have no idea how their own game is supposed to run. Common sense says it may be possible to run TS3 on an incompatible system not meeting system requirements but not without messing with things according to you, which most may not even understand what they are doing nor may know the full extent of their actions. That's fine if some don't mind doing this or that to get TS3 to work on their computer at their own possible risk. Personally, when I found out initially my desktop was incompatible I just put TS3/WA aside until maybe someday I could get a compatible computer.

"I'm so sick and tired of listening to a bunch of snot-nosed people posting things they read about but never take the time to actually do the tests. Remember when all of you screamed about how TS3 can't run on Intel HD?"

The only snot-nosed person here is you. Everyone must agree with you because you are the only one right and you are the only one with all the answers. Isn't that right, know-it-all? Again, it is common sense that it may be possible for TS3 to run on lower-end computers but I go by the system requirements instead of trying to force a computer to play a game it is not intended for. But hey, people are free to choose however they want to proceed. It's their choice, not mine.

"Always the same shit with some of you. It is all about who is right and who is wrong instead of the actual facts and evidence. The shear arrogance and ignorance of humanity."

This has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong. Only goes to show where your mind is. But since you can't tell where my mind is, is just that I have a differing POV than you and I agree to disagree while you would rather be disrespectful as usual and get bent out of shape instead of having a diplomatic discussion with varying opinions. Or at the very least if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all. Of course, I don't have to play nice when others don't play nice first. Fair game.

"People can't accept truth not because they can't mentally understand and reason. They can't accept the truth because they they can't emotionally accept they're wrong. It is always the same damn shit with people. That's why the world is the way it is right now with idiots out there being brainwashed by the media and their politicians."

Sounds a lot like your own attitude being falsely projected to "people". In particular, you can't accept the truth that there are differing POVs and you can't emotionally accept that fact so then you have all of these trivial hissy fits because you are the only one who has all the answers and everyone else doesn't know what they are talking about including the developers apparently.

The world the way it is? In a nutshell: God vs Satan/Spiritual Warfare/Kenites/People Ignoring God/The Last Generation of this 2nd Earth Age since Israel became a nation in 1948/"The Invisible Enemy" (But God always takes care of his own.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MZxf-lQD-o
Those who know the truth of God's Plan have nothing to fear. We already know what's going on in the world, why and how it all ends. Some of us are called and some of us are chosen before the foundation of the earth. We know this by God's direct intervention in our lives. I pray that all who are going to wake up do so before it's too late. There is no greater love I have experienced than from God himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8SPwT3nQZ8

"How many people play TS3 in this world? Yet, "I" alone discovered improvements with core unparking, with using ramdisks for cache performance. How? Because I keep pushing it. People tell me something is impossible, I say "FU" and I try and push. This is how innovation gets created. I don't think I'm some genius or something, but sure damn a lot of people here is making me look like one."

And what it all boils down to...ego.

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
In the Arena
retired moderator
#15 Old 5th Jul 2020 at 2:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
Every other month or so I get "attacked" (if you can call it that) by players on the official EA forums
They can attack me all the life long day. That is their opinion. And my life is not affected by them being snowflakes. They cannot change the facts of hardware. It is evidenced by all these laptops all failing after a few years, some within 2-6 months of overloading the system beyond its capability. And this has historically been the case since The Sims 1 days, it is not unique to Sims 3. And if they are not experiencing hardware failure, that is technology at work. The software+hardware is working hard to protect the user from having to deal with burns and fire hazards, by crashing and shutting down systems. The hardware failures than become accumulative, degrades over the months and years of being abused. That's why you get whines like "but it has been running fine for gajillion years". And so the abuse has come to bear fruit then, hasn't it?

I, for one appreciate what you, igazor do at the forums that you visit, for your patience and diligence and professionalism. Thank you!

Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
There's a difference between running the game and running it well.
There's a difference between loading running the game and running it well. One does not run the game well if the game is stuttering, or the graphics is shitty-looking and the laptop is overheating as a result. If nitromon wants to give advice contrary to what others are saying, it is up to the forum members to follow or not to follow, does not affect my livelihood or my enjoyment of the game in any way.
And lookie here my desktop that I built in 2010 specifically for Sims 3 with proper hardware is still running in 2020, I only doubled my RAM in 2016 and bought a new monitor last month...I rest my case. I don't have to prove anything else to anyone. You guys play how you want. I certainly am not the hardware police come into your houses and tsk tsking at your crappy hardware or whatever. It is your money, your game, your experience..

You all come into forums to get help and I offered mine. Take it or leave it.
** Although I am aware that it is not the OP that is the one voicing her or his displeasure.
Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#17 Old 7th Jul 2020 at 9:50 AM
... So @dackus , did changing the HighDetails work for you?
Undead Molten Llama
#18 Old 9th Jul 2020 at 8:59 PM
I'm not going to touch the argument above except to say that what is acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to another. Like, you can make the game run if you lower graphics settings and do this and that, sure, but, IMO, the game then looks like utter crap, and that would be completely unacceptable to me. Key words: TO ME. If you're just in it to play the game and don't particularly care what it looks like, then that's one thing, but if you want it to run AND look good (like if you want to take nice-looking pics for a story you're posting, for instance), then that's not a solution at all. (Yes, nitromon, I saw your tests, and while I completely accept your findings as true, the results that I saw wouldn't be at all acceptable to me. Again: TO ME.) The OP didn't say what they thought was acceptable from an overall aesthetic point of view, so we can't assume anything about that.

So, as a person who values prettiness as much as -- if not MORE than -- I value whether or not the game runs without lag and such AND who runs a full, somewhat tricked-out game (All EPs, plus a few ReShade shaders, sometimes with HD if I want to take especially pretty pics, plus some high-poly/high-res CC, etc.) on a desktop with older hardware -- a 3.0 GHz Core2Duo CPU, older and slower hard drives, only 8GB of RAM, but at least a decent non-integrated video card, namely an NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti) here are some observations and things that I find helpful to allow me to have my prettiness without the game being unacceptably clunky by my standards. (Which might be too clunky for others, of course.) I hope they might also help the OP.

1) Stick to smaller, less built-up worlds with smaller lots. For me, with the game loaded on an older/slower HDD, the main cause of the kind of rendering lag you're experiencing is not my graphics card but rather the speed of the hard drive. Slower transfer = slower rendering, even though the graphics card is more than capable. I find that if I stick to smaller, less built-up worlds, it's helpful because the game doesn't have to render as much all at once. I noticed that the pics you posted are taken in Oasis Landing. For me, much as I love that world and play in it often, it does render more slowly because it's bigger than the homeworlds I play and, I imagine, because it has all those big, smooth, round rabbitholes. I don't experience nearly the rendering lag that you're experiencing -- likely because I don't have integrated graphics -- but it's certainly more than I have in the smaller, more rural homeworlds that I play.

2) Definitely crank down the number of high-detail lots. Again, less to render at once, less rendering lag. I keep mine at rendering two high-quality lots, unless I'm taking a more wide-angle pic, when I'll sometimes crank it all the way up to 8, if needed. But I don't leave it at 8 for normal gameplay.

3) Beware those fairies! I don't know what it is -- the glowy/sparkly effects? the semi-transparency? the round shapes? all of the above? -- but fairy wings seem to be resource-eaters. Which is a shame because I love fairies and play them all the time -- I have a whole world of nothing but fairies! -- but if I get a bunch of them on one lot flapping away, it does tend to slow down the rendering of everything else. And it seems the Sims render last in general. I'm guessing it's because they're the highest-poly things, so they take the longest? Especially if you also use high-poly custom hairs and whatnot.

4) This probably isn't possible for you, OP, since you're on a laptop, but maybe for others who might be playing on an older/lower-end desktop: If you have (or can add) an extra hard drive, installing the game on a drive that has as little other stuff on it as possible is helpful. An SSD would be better than an HDD, of course, but if an SSD isn't possible for whatever reason, a dedicated HDD (or at least one with lots of available space) would be preferable to one that's full of other stuff.

5) Eliminate other causes of lag to the extent possible. If you don't already have them, get NRAAS's Overwatch, ErrorTrap, and MasterController. With the first two installed (They just run in the background, looking for errors and things to fix), you'll get, for instance, notifications of Sims who are stuck due to route failures, and then you can use MasterController to un-stick them. If you accumulate stuck Sims, then that contributes to lag. Also, if you're playing EA worlds, make sure to get/install Ellacharmed's route-fixed versions of them. In other words, if you can alleviate other sources of lag, this can free up game resources to do other things more efficiently. Like, for instance, rendering graphics.

6) Overall, I'd just recommend cutting back. If you don't want to compromise on graphics settings (and I totally understand if you don't because I won't, either), then maybe consider not using the hardest-hitting EPs -- Pets and Seasons, I believe -- or at least turn off some of their "heavier" features. Like wild animals (If that can't be done unmodded -- I honestly can't remember! -- then NRAAS's Register mod will allow you to do this) and strays running around in the world and maybe turning off winter and/or snow. Maybe turn off autumn and its falling leaves, too. Those are easy/painless to do if you stick to worlds that ought to have tropical climates, at least.

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.
Test Subject
#19 Old 6th Jan 2021 at 10:26 PM
I recently had this same problem because I changed this setting in GraphicsRules.sgr (ts3/bin folder):

Quote:
setting $VeryHigh
prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimLODDistances "25, 50, 100, 1000"
prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimTextureSizes "2048, 2048, 512, 128"


to

Quote:
prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimTextureSizes "4096, 4096, 512, 128"


Thus making the sims skin textures 4k. But the game crashed every few minutes and also had the same problem with sims textures not getting loaded properly, so I put it as it was by default. It's intended to be used for screenshots only it seems.

I don't know if this solves your problem though, but I'll leave this here as a reminder.
Test Subject
#20 Old 4th Sep 2021 at 6:20 PM
I'm going to go ahead and say that the OP said Sims do not load entirely 'and look like TS1'. Now I'm not really sure if that means they don't like it, or just because the sims look bad quality, but I'm going to also say something I read somewhere in another forum about TS3 graphics:
'If you care about performance, you can make the graphics settings low if you want. However if you care about looks, make the settings high.' It's all about whether or not the OP wants good graphics. I wouldn't know if they wanted good graphics, but if they did, they might want to put their settings high. Of course (not saying their system is bad at all), if it does get too laggy, and I'm not saying it will, then they can try lowering some settings one by one until the game runs smooth enough. And you should only need to lower a few (most important is probably lot detail) to get good FPS. And there you go, I'm done.
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