Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#26 Old 19th Dec 2016 at 10:52 AM
You can't separate out load from temps and wear like that. Sure, in ideal conditions with appropriate, fully working hardware, excellent cooling and no dust buildup, cards should be able to handle very very high loads. But that's not particularly helpful in the real world: in the real world, most cases have imperfect or no dust filtration, people use old hardware until it dies because replacing it is expensive and involved - that applies both to cards and to fans etc. - cooling setups are mediocre, people live in hot climates or heat their homes to an extent that it affects cooling efficiency, people use their laptops on their laps or in bed, no-one ever reapplies thermal paste to their GPU because they don't know how, etc. Of course most cards do have failsafes to stop acutely dangerous levels of heat, and it is rare nowadays to see anyone who is regularly tripping safety switches, but you don't necessarily need to reach temperatures at which failsafes kick in to damage a card, especially if you're playing long sessions on a regular basis.

Add to this the fact that a lot of sims players are teenagers with limited funds, or people who don't consider themselves gamers; there's a much higher incidence of "I bought this Dell laptop for €200 and I'm going to play all EPs on it! I love Alesso hairs!" in this community than there is in most other gaming communities.

All the advice you gave above - keep your machine clean, install dust filters and protect air vents, install monitoring and/or fan control utilities - is very good advice and it's advice that we've been giving simmers for a very long time. But the fact is most people don't follow it nearly as well as they should, and knowing that, it's generally not helpful to give advice based on the premise that everyone's playing on a suitably specced and well maintained machine.

(My comment about 9 graphics cards in 8 years was indeed meant more as a joke than as a serious criticism)

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Advertisement
In the Arena
retired moderator
#27 Old 19th Dec 2016 at 2:50 PM
Well, perhaps we should also remember most people are gaming on laptops these days, and as Manufacturers have this crazy idea that thinner is the ideal, most new laptops (or at least 2 year-ish and below) don't have many moving parts for us to worry about. They also don't have the ideal heat dissipation mechanism that a desktop has, just because the design of a thin and flat slate is just that - thin and flat.
Thus, advice for the "general" 'yes Sims 3 can fry a graphics card' above is mainly aimed at the laptop gamers, I feel, as most laptops have a weak or at most an integrated graphics chip. Most Simmers (even after many many evidence of us providing from the sheer volume of threads like these, just on MTS alone) are not willing to accept that their new fancy shiny laptop with an integrated graphics chip still cannot run a 7-year-old DirectX 9.0c game. It is totally nothing against that shiny new laptop, it is just the way the game is coded.
Lab Assistant
#28 Old 20th Dec 2016 at 3:36 PM
I don't want to get into the debate because I DO know that overheating can completely wreck a computer. (Had it happen once when the pc's fan died without me knowing.) But I am a bit worried about this fps issue.

I have a desktop and I notice that sims 3 can actually cause my computer fan to get really loud. If the in-game fps displayer ("fps on") is accurate, the game never goes over 90, which is probably not enough to cause any damage, but I heard the game runs better with a FPS limiter. Is there one? I found one for sims 3 but it seems to require 3booter to work, and I don't even need that part. (I don't have issues with the game crashing.)

I have AMD graphics without the catalyst control center so I haven't actually found a way to limit fps via my drivers.
Top Secret Researcher
#29 Old 20th Dec 2016 at 4:18 PM
I've been using RadeonPro for a few years now with my AMD HD7900. No issues. It serves me well as a launcher and keeps my fps at 60 and monitors my GPU temperature.

You need to create a profile that then points to (triggers) TSW3.exe
Main features for the profile:
Overdrive: Select your graphics card
Launcher: None,
Tweaks: Check Triple buffering, Display Refresh rate: 60, dynamic frame rate control: 60.

It does require 1.67, I don't think it works with 1.69 since that can only load with the EA launcher.
Test Subject
#30 Old 21st Dec 2016 at 4:40 PM
Okay well now I'm a little worried, this is an low end (But newer?) Graphics card I have GT 610 (Now rebranded as a GT 520s if you get them now?), I've never seen the FPS go above like 20 FPS, and it averages between 15 and 17 (Yes that is still playable... to me at least.) Do I still need to get a Limiter? I can't use Nvidia Inspectors I don't think because the last Driver for my system (Vista) seems to be a really bad one that finally got the big glitch fixed AFTER they stopped supporting Vista, (Or maybe it was the card?). Anyways TL;DR

I have a GT 610 max FPS I ever see is probably 17, do I still need to get a Limiter?
Site Helper
#31 Old 21st Dec 2016 at 5:04 PM
If you have typed "FPS on" into the cheat box and confirmed that it already never goes above 20 FPS, you probably don't need to worry about getting something to keep it from going over 60 FPS. It's doing that all by itself.

I am Ghost. My husband is sidneydoj. I post, he downloads, and I wanted to keep my post count.
Group for Avatar Makers* Funny Stories *2017 Yearbook
Instructor
#32 Old 22nd Dec 2016 at 7:12 AM
Wow, I never knew about that :o

I wonder, what fps limiter should I use, since I've got an integrated graphic card from Intel on my laptop ? It's an Intel(R) HD Graphics.
Mad Poster
#33 Old 22nd Dec 2016 at 8:17 PM
Quote: Originally posted by linesa
Wow, I never knew about that :o

I wonder, what fps limiter should I use, since I've got an integrated graphic card from Intel on my laptop ? It's an Intel(R) HD Graphics.

There should be a way to do this with a built-in Intel control panel as well, at least for some of them. But typically integrated graphics are not going to kick up wild frame rates like the ones we have been talking about. These will happen with the more powerful Nvidia and AMD dedicated graphics cards.

If you check your actual frame rates with the fps on cheat code in-game as mentioned and they stay below the refresh rate of your monitor (usually 60), as I expect they would, then there is nothing to worry about here.
Instructor
#34 Old 22nd Dec 2016 at 8:52 PM
Ah, that's cool then, Igazor :D

Thanks for the tip ^^

I checked with the fps on, and I'm way below the 60fps, I'm around the 20/30 fps at max if I remember correctly ^^
Test Subject
#35 Old 16th Aug 2017 at 6:06 PM
I have an AMD Card and want to know how to limit it. I don't want my little baby to die. xD
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#36 Old 16th Aug 2017 at 7:09 PM
Here's the third google result for "AMD FPS limiting": http://www.pcworld.com/article/2942...eon-gamers.html

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Mad Poster
#37 Old 9th Sep 2017 at 3:44 PM
Quote: Originally posted by greatyu
It killed my mother board at least two times. Because I was trying to bypass the memory limits using tweaks lol

Don't know how much memory you had installed or how much you were expecting a 32-bit application like TS3 to use, but so far this sounds like more of an example of the user killing their own motherboard rather than the game being responsible.
Mad Poster
#38 Old 15th Sep 2017 at 1:20 PM
@greatyu - The Memory document you are linking to is very much outdated. Only those on 32-bit systems should give it any attention after Patch 1.17 made the game Large Address Aware automatically, and chances are the prospects of getting the game to run well on a 32-bit system today are pretty low. The Minimum 1.5 GB RAM total EA stated requirement is for the base game alone, unpatched as it was upon product release in June 2009, on Win XP (maybe Vista?) as today the game will attempt to utilize up to 4 GB of RAM for itself as it needs to, if the RAM is available for it to use, with no tweaks needed by the player. So yes, if these events took place eight years ago on a 32-bit operating system then I could see a path that might have led you to them.

I realize that not everyone has a high-end gaming rig within reach, and high-end by today's standards is not at all necessary, but some basic requirements do need to be met. Forcing the game to run on insufficient hardware will indeed run the risk of overworking and damaging system components. Thanks for the lecture, though.
Instructor
#39 Old 15th Sep 2017 at 3:24 PM Last edited by PapaEmy : 15th Sep 2017 at 7:19 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by greatyu
It killed my mother board at least two times. Because I was trying to bypass the memory limits using tweaks lol


If what you meant bypassing the memory limits using tweaks is overriding the 3Gb maximum limit on Windows 32 bit OS with PAE enabled, that has nothing to do with TS3 killing your motherboard, your motherboard died maybe because of hardware incompatibility to support PAE, click here for more details.

I think on this motherboard subject, it is more because of what may happened if overriding 3Gb maximum limit with PAE enabled on Windows 32bit OS rather than TS3 were to blamed.

And back to the subject of TS3 destroying graphic card, in my opinion I think it's not suppose to be taken as TS killed the GPU chip, like as in the example of overclocking processor and then somehow the processor fried/died. Yes the tips to prevent overheating may help in many cases, but in the case of TS3 destroying graphic card is not as straightforward as if the user overclocking the processor and then it failed and the processor fried/died.

From what happened to my old GTX280 and playing TS3 without FPS Limiter for about 2 years, up until the last time it was still in my possession, it didn't died, it still useable and powered up as normal, as a graphic card it didn't died, and its GPU chip also didn't died, but as a whole graphic card unit.. it was damaged, and some of its functions failed that's why it's lagging badly because some of its VRAM were burnt. I put the blame on TS3 because there's no other games installed besides TS3 at the time because there's no space left in my HDD to install my other games back then, and in that 2 years period, TS3 was the only game that actively being played almost everyday (if not every day) by my daughter or me, so it took time for TS3 withoput FPS Limiter to damage the graphic card.

TS3 doesn't work like test software such as stress test software as Furmark, Prime95, ATI Tool etc that may killed hardware almost instantly, the purpose of the subject is to remind the others to the consequences of playing TS3 without limiting its FPS. So if anyone would argue or debate the subject like.. oh this is wrong or misleading or that is right or whatever etc.. , that would be irrelevant to the subject, because that's not how TS3 may put some damages to hardware particularly the graphic card unit, but because of TS3 is lacking in the area of subject then it may leads to hardware damage. It is more or the same like what happened with laptop user that constantly experiencing overheating and thought it was normal and then suddenly the laptop just died, it doesn't mean its processor died, or one of its ram died, it could be anything that may be failed in the consequences of constant overheating without realizing what's going on in the background.
Instructor
#40 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 4:44 AM
What the heck??? Is there some wikia page or something that lists this kind of stuff?

I just checked with FRAPs and my FPS was way over 900! My computer never seemed to act any differently when playing Sims.

I might one day finish my Zanes Hollow project, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Until then, you can see what I'm up to on my Simblr!
Page 2 of 2
Back to top