Sorry Naus but that's moot considering 90% of the Simming community won't even play TS3 anymore due to the performance issues. Don't know if you've ever read the comments on a SimSupply, Deligracy or LilSimsie video but TS3 and the word "lag" are wholly synonymous. Those bottlenecks are at the software end and computing power's never going to be able to solve them. I'd like to see someone load the entire game and all its documents into active RAM to see what happens, but that would take somewhat more than 64 gigabytes of it and I don't think you'll yet find anyone running 128. So until we have the ability to load all the good bits into a recurring spiral of pure kinetic energy, and all the bad bits into a black hole, software optimization it is.

If you shut off memories and make a few other minor adjustments like replacing the featureditems folder with a file, there is no lag on decent machines

But at the end of the day, TS3 is the least popular of all the sims games? Is it not? Here, the most popular board is TS2 by a mile. On reddit and youtube most popular stuff seems to be TS4. I don't even watch that stuff, yet I get recommendations on YT. In fact, I cannot think of any stuff on youtube that is about TS3. Maybe some old lazygamereviewer vids. Can't say much for tumblr, but wouldn't be surprised if TS2 was the most popular one.

I do not want 64bit to get Sims 3 to run fine. In fact, having a decade old game that cannot run great on mid range laptop is beyond subpar. I remember just recently reading posts that if you want most of the EPs with medium to high graphics, prepare to spend $900 on a laptop!

The reason sims 3 runs just fine on majority of the worlds is because world creators put a lot of effort and make sure to use less detail. Otherwise we would have awesome stuff like Boroughsburg with heaps more fab CC on a large map. And let's not even go there how bad EA worlds are if you wanted to access all the EP stuff. I want to be able to have big detailed worlds, with all the EPs feautures with multiple generations across multiple families in one wolrd.

I am interested to try that PapaEmy method as well. Opening TS3 and a saved load takes a little over 1 minute all together, so it is not too bad. But even getting 10s off the loading time could help when testing CC. Closing and reopening the game adds up so quick.

Emmett, even with a decent machine, you still need Nraas and ellacharmed fixes or you will experience lag. Isla paradiso's routing is so bad. Unbeliable how that was never fixed by EA.

I don't want to break your hearts but (just like in the Skyrim case), no "patch" can repair the broken design. Yes, in theory (also in practice) there's nothing really deeply problematic with getting S3 source code, rebuilding headers and running it through 64-bit compilator (just screwing any core mod, and most C# based mods, but who cares, right? ); it would be placebo maybe worth a "Special Platinum Ultra Edition" just to charge fans once more, for a lot more. Again.

It actually won't do anything "good". Yes, the game (in theory) could work with greater memory, in theory doubling the registers would allow to better comply with excessive amount of data which always fails in the standard version. In theory. In practice, with exception of probably ability to clutter a game a bit more before it fall apart, there would not be any special gain for an average user.
The compilation is not a "problem". The mess in the project/design/code is.
And I suppose nobody there is that naive to believe in actually rebuilding the project from the foundation with 64b architecture in mind (maybe properly this time) and then, then compiling it as 64b. (Yeah, I'm just kidding)

Does an average user even play TS3 anymore?

It seems that even getting mods to work for the average user is too much/hard/complicated. I'd imagine that getting ellacharmed's world fixes would be far beyond an average user.

No, the average user moved on to TS4 circa 2015 because it's much easier to get running. The average user will have heard of TS3 and will be open to playing it, but will have bad memories of playing it.

I also believe that the other part of the average users never moved beyond TS2 in the first place. Pretty smart on their behalf, to be honest.

Ts3 consistently has more people on the forums than the others.

Like when? I just checked, TS2 has more viewers like it normally does. Also, it has far more posts per day and far more active threads. If I leave a question and get back to it next day, I usually have to go back a few pages to find my post in the thread.

The TS2 boards have more activity on an typical day because everyone who tries to play it needs more help than anyone else. Conversely, the TS1 and TS4 boards have the least activity because no one has time to discuss anything or needs to ask any questions. Those games are perfect, so their players are too busy playing to be on forums. We're just average regular folks here on TS3.


Disclaimer: Well, this is unusual for me. I just typed four entire sentences and didn't mean a single thing I said in any of them (just tossing this out there before the Disagrees start rolling in).

But seriously though, we've apparently hit the million download mark on mods since Nraas moved to our new site late last year. Someone must be playing this game.

This is unfortunately true- the 'casual' player who doesn't use mods or even CC (likely a significant proportion of the playerbase) has moved onto the next 'better', shinier thing, which is TS4. I call 'em the 'phone screenshotters.'

They'll move onto the TS5 when it's time as well, much like how sports game fans routinely buy the same product with a different number on it.

Those who stick with TS3 are a combination of those who can't live without its features, have modded the game to their liking, or some combination of the two.

@igazor That some cool data! Wonder how many individual players that makes? The top mod had 125,000 downloads, the addon for it, MasterController Cheats has 44,000. Who's is good at statistics? I wonder if an average sims 3 player uses CC or at least NRAAS mods.

I'm surprised to see that Errortrap didn't make it to the list. I have easily downloaded all my trusty mods more than 50 times this year alone because I backup my mods so poorly... I should stop abusing your bandwith.



My reading comprehension skills are being used at max here. What does this mean? Why do you keep talking about Yibs? And who has claimed that we should listen to them in the first place? This is off topic, but if we used a same potato to run TS3 and TS4, wouldn't TS4 still run better than TS3?

wow! disagree monster is back!

besides I suppose topic "this game is dying" needs it's yearly refreshments.

I don't think TS3 is the least popular. The youtuber Red Plumbob does these Sims 2 vs 3 vs 4 and occasionally 1 videos and the viewers then vote based on what they saw in the videos. And Sims 3 gets a good response and has won on a lot of categories. So I wouldn't say the community hates it. Sims 3 does get hate from people who couldn't run it properly. I started playing pretty late when Sims 3 was already over but before that I know that some patches and expansions caused a lot of glitches. Thankfully most of those have been fixed now but those who faced those glitches remember them well. Also some of the Sim youtubers like Lilsimsie and Carmen King have been doing Sims 3 videos lately. There's also Onlyabidoang. Sims 4 will have more videos it's the latest version and will have more focus but 2 and 3 are not forgotten. The Nraas site still gets a lot of visitors, the script mods in MTS for sims 3 also get decent downloads.

Edit:- BTW I just checked and there are 220 people viewing sims 3 forum, 209 for sims 2 and 130 for sims 4. So I think 3 may be more popular than you think.

I don't have access to the data myself, I'm afraid. But since we do not require accounts/logins to download, we would have to rely on IP addresses, browser specific cookies, or something like that to calculate unique downloads and that would never be accurate. For all we know right now, you were responsible for 500 of those downloads and some single crazy person for the other 999,500. But that still means at least three of us are probably playing plus maybe a handful of others who didn't require fresh downloads this year or (shudders at the thought) play without our mods entirely.

@Puddingface, I just checked, TS2 had more than 30 viewers than TS3, like it usually does. The times I have now checked, TS3 had more views maybe twice, otherwise TS2 always won. Anywho.didn't nitromon just allude that the viewer count doesn't work? It would make sense since TS2 community is way more active. Just go look the number of posts made there vs here. If you go on reddit, most people post about TS4 so I do stongly believe that TS3 is the least popular sim game, atleast among casual players that is. I do not think anybody here on this thread is a casual sims player. Also, didn't Pi just get snark for mentioning youtube comments so why would that fact now support that TS3 is more popolar than TS2 or TS4?

Igazor, yes, There are dozens of us! I never claimed that nobody played nor TS3 didn't have its fans. I truly hope the average sims 3 player uses the mods, can't imagine having a very good experience without them. Actually now, kinda wanna aks people who play/ or how long did they manage play vanilla.

I do realize that. Aren't answering questions that have never been asked or disputing things that have never been stated required activities on the Internet? Could have sworn I read that in a rule book someplace, or at least it seems many others have.

My sense from dissecting observing and chatting with vanilla players on the EA forums is that it takes a lot of patience, forgiveness for never otherwise fixed flaws, and for long-running ongoing storylines, having to pass the active family through the household bin and into a new world (or Move Worlds the EA way which amounts to the same thing) and "start over" on a somewhat regular basis.

I didn't talk about youtube comments at all what do you mean? I was talking about votes. The viewers in Red Plumbob's videos vote. There are 3 comments Red Plumbob makes with a vote for so it's like a poll. Also I just checked again Sims 3 has 285 currently viewing, Sims 2 has 244 and 138 for sims 4. I can show you screenshots if you like. Not saying you are wrong about 2 having more viewers at other times. Idk if Nitromon's comment about inquiry of the view system is proof that it doesn't work. If the views system was increasing the views for sims 3 it would do so for 2 and 4 as well.
As for casual player I don't think they use forums at all. Maybe to ask for glitches and stuff. But the casual player would just play for like a year or two and then uninstall. Casual players for 2 and 3 have left long ago. Though right now the forum posts sims 2 are higher than 3 and 4. The non MTS forums seems to be all about 4 with people bringing up 2 and 3 there to compare with 4 and then complain.

Edit:-The viewers for sims 2 forum are now higher at 273 and sims 3 is 248.
Edit_2:- Now the Sims 2 has 261 and 3 has 256. 4 is at 122. Ok now I am getting too attached to the view counter. This is the last update

Idk, TS3 being more popular than TS2 is dodgy (dubious, if that ain't word). I mean, often the threads are interesting there but that could be just me.

The Sims 3 can definitely be difficult when it comes to getting it to run smoothly, but I think it's a genuinely super fun and enjoyable game once you've gotten the necessary mods(and computer) for it.

I have and PC from 2K12 with 8GB RAM a Quadcore Phenom II CPU at 3Ghz and a newly replaced graphics card (Nvidia GTX 1050 OC). I have installed alll EPs and SPs and nearly the whole Store and some mods (mostly nraas).
It took me around 4-5 min to load a savegame. A new game took nearly 10 min to load. The installation is on an SSD and I use Win7.

It's the best I can get out of this, but I think on Linux it will be faster (tried this some years ago with my older Nvidia 450 GTS).

The average player has never heard of MTS.

But yeah I have a pretty different rig in terms of hardware but it's in the same broad category in terms of being high-end but not the latest and not the greatest.....4-5 minutes if I leave the game open the whole time and 10 if it needs to set up an entirely new save. Everything's on SSDs which helps a bunch but in the future I want to experiment with RAMdisks. I have 16 gigs now which doesn't give me a lot of breathing room.....in fact, it causes me plenty of issues with editing video, but I can get by with it. As soon as I'll have 64 gigs I'll want to streamline my game install and see if I can load the whole thing into RAM. Might not do much but I like the idea of it and no one can stop me.

like seriously? Maybe among victims of S4
This site was literally 1st where I landed while searching for stuff for TS2 when in unique moment of glory EA give us S2UC for free (well, for the price of Sims 3, but still).

I think you greatly underestimate the amount of people who play The Sims, and how little most of them have to do with the game's community.