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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 25th May 2020 at 9:03 AM
Default We can add stuff with mods... but can we remove?
Hi all,

I am new to both the forum and the idea of modding. I would like to get into it, but there is an important question I need to ask before getting into it. So I understand with mods we can add functionality, objects, functional objects, etc. but can we also remove things from the original game?

With all expansions and such Sims3 gets laggy and needs a powerful computer to run decently, even with lower graphics settings. So I would like to get into modding to remove some functionality some items that I personally always considered unnecessary in the hopes that it will make my game run a little smoother.

Do you guys think this is possible?
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Senior Moderator
staff: senior moderator
#2 Old 25th May 2020 at 10:45 AM
Hi there,
Welcome to the modding community

What kind of things are you thinking about removing?

From what I understand of modding, the answer probably depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it.
It's certainly possible to remove interactions from objects and likely whole other features too, but whether that will reduce performance I'm not sure.
I am most experienced in script modding, which is where your code is run "over" the game code, so things can be added, things can be changed, some things can be removed, but performance wise, I doubt it will make the game performance better than without the mod, and quite often it will make it worse.
Say you have a bunch of items with interactions that you want to remove, with script modding, you can have those interactions removed from the objects by looping through all the ones in the world and removing the interaction, and also when a new object is placed down. This will actually be worse for performance because you will be executing more commands.
I don't know if objects with fewer interactions in the first place are less performance heavy or not, maybe someone more experienced can answer, but if it is the case then you'd probably have to do it with a core mod
Core mods are more complicated and I don't really have much experience with them, but I imagine that core modding is the way to go if you want to significantly change features without taking the performance hit of changing them after loading the original features.
Even then, how much it will help performance I am not sure about, as I don't know exactly which features are performance heavy and which aren't.

If you're struggling with a lot of lag, have you tried nraas mods such as overwatch and error trap? They are great at cleaning up the town and catching problems that could cause lag or crashing.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 25th May 2020 at 11:15 AM
Quote: Originally posted by zoe22
Hi there,
Welcome to the modding community

What kind of things are you thinking about removing?

From what I understand of modding, the answer probably depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it.
It's certainly possible to remove interactions from objects and likely whole other features too, but whether that will reduce performance I'm not sure.
I am most experienced in script modding, which is where your code is run "over" the game code, so things can be added, things can be changed, some things can be removed, but performance wise, I doubt it will make the game performance better than without the mod, and quite often it will make it worse.
Say you have a bunch of items with interactions that you want to remove, with script modding, you can have those interactions removed from the objects by looping through all the ones in the world and removing the interaction, and also when a new object is placed down. This will actually be worse for performance because you will be executing more commands.
I don't know if objects with fewer interactions in the first place are less performance heavy or not, maybe someone more experienced can answer, but if it is the case then you'd probably have to do it with a core mod
Core mods are more complicated and I don't really have much experience with them, but I imagine that core modding is the way to go if you want to significantly change features without taking the performance hit of changing them after loading the original features.
Even then, how much it will help performance I am not sure about, as I don't know exactly which features are performance heavy and which aren't.

If you're struggling with a lot of lag, have you tried nraas mods such as overwatch and error trap? They are great at cleaning up the town and catching problems that could cause lag or crashing.


Thank you for answering. Yeah just after writing this I was wondering how the modding works whether its modifying the original game code, or as you said "running over it".. Sounds like what I am looking for would be core modding assuming that's the version where you alter the game's source code.. I am thinking about removing a lot of clothing, hair, skin tone, breast size etc. options, and simplifying the design creator tool, and for example. I love some items that come from the Supernatural extension, but I hate its core of having all these weird unreal characters, similar sort of thing with into the future.. probably this is the least problematic.. (just uninstall the pack and get the items from mods) but yeah I am trying to get an idea of the limitations first before coming up with a list of stuff I want to do.
Senior Moderator
staff: senior moderator
#4 Old 25th May 2020 at 4:42 PM
Yeah so I think removing stuff should be possible with a core mod?
Though honestly I'm not sure it would be worth the work.
I would think a lot of the features that come with expansions are only going to affect performance if they are actually in the save. Like with the occult lifestates, if you already play in saves without them, and don't have any story progression options that would add them in, performance shouldn't be any worse.
So from a gameplay feature wise, I'm not sure how much removing features from the game will actually help performance if they weren't really present in your save beforehand.

I'm guessing you mean create-a-style when you say designer tool, I couldn't comment on if it's possible to remove it. I imagine it would be very difficult to do so.

Removing clothing and hair could reduce loading times in CAS, not sure how you'd go about doing that. Probably looking in the game files for the packages that include CAS items, though deleting specific stuff might be hard. Definitely make backups before messing with your game files

Stuff like sliders and skintones I don't think would make much difference as adding custom ones doesn't seem to add much to loading times in CAS?

These are just my thoughts on what you've suggested, and I could be wrong about what will/won't make a difference, but to be honest I feel like even if it is possible to remove big features (which I suspect would be a big job or insanely complex) I have doubts that it would really save performance significantly, especially when there are already things you can do to improve it.
For example, using nraas mods, using smaller worlds and smaller populations, not having too many harvestable plants in your world, merging your cc...
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 26th May 2020 at 11:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by zoe22
Yeah so I think removing stuff should be possible with a core mod?
Though honestly I'm not sure it would be worth the work.
I would think a lot of the features that come with expansions are only going to affect performance if they are actually in the save. Like with the occult lifestates, if you already play in saves without them, and don't have any story progression options that would add them in, performance shouldn't be any worse.
So from a gameplay feature wise, I'm not sure how much removing features from the game will actually help performance if they weren't really present in your save beforehand.

I'm guessing you mean create-a-style when you say designer tool, I couldn't comment on if it's possible to remove it. I imagine it would be very difficult to do so.

Removing clothing and hair could reduce loading times in CAS, not sure how you'd go about doing that. Probably looking in the game files for the packages that include CAS items, though deleting specific stuff might be hard. Definitely make backups before messing with your game files

Stuff like sliders and skintones I don't think would make much difference as adding custom ones doesn't seem to add much to loading times in CAS?

These are just my thoughts on what you've suggested, and I could be wrong about what will/won't make a difference, but to be honest I feel like even if it is possible to remove big features (which I suspect would be a big job or insanely complex) I have doubts that it would really save performance significantly, especially when there are already things you can do to improve it.
For example, using nraas mods, using smaller worlds and smaller populations, not having too many harvestable plants in your world, merging your cc...


I have installed a few nraas mods, they haven't seem to made a difference so far.. my lag is worst when switching between 3x speed and normal speed.. the reason I thought about removing features and objects is because when the base game came out, it wasn't this laggy and flaky.. I am following a guy on youtube, he uninstalled all his dlcs and store content and played with the original game and its so much smoother. So the added content and features clearly had a performance toll.. yes I was thinking about create a style tool and that's one of the best example for lag, and it was not like that when the game came out. I also recently discovered blueprints... I have played with this game for 10 years and never realised they even exist.. that's how useless that feature is for me...
Anyway thanks for answering at least now I know which direction of modding to take. You mentioned merging cc... how do I do that?
Senior Moderator
staff: senior moderator
#6 Old 26th May 2020 at 3:08 PM
So if you have a lot package files it makes the game load and play a lot slower, so merging them into larger, fewer packages can help things a lot.
You can do it manually with S3PE, there are tutorials on YouTube which you can check out. But you basically open S3PE, create a new package, then import as dbc (I think) and select the packages you want to merge, save the final package with the name you want, and just wait a while for it to merge them.
You should make a backup of the packages you merge because it's not really possible to unmerge them.

You can also use cc magic, though I haven't used it myself so I can't help with that, but I've heard it's very good. It merges packages automatically and helps you organise your cc.

Yes, I do suppose having more packs installed will have an effect on performance, though if you do have a higher end pc, it shouldn't be too bad if you take proper precautions.

Sorry, I don't mean to be putting your idea down, and you might make a great mod that helps performance, so definitely look into it if it's something you want to do.
Personally, I can't help feeling like it seems like a lot of work and a difficult job for something that might not even be worthwhile, when if you have a good computer there are plenty of ways to optimise performance, even if it means just playing without packs that aren't necessary for that save.

One thing you could try is disabling all packs but base game and see how smooth it is, then add on a pack at a time and see when it starts to get laggy. Then you can look into that pack to see what features you might be able to get rid of to improve performance.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 26th May 2020 at 4:33 PM
Quote: Originally posted by zoe22
So if you have a lot package files it makes the game load and play a lot slower, so merging them into larger, fewer packages can help things a lot.
You can do it manually with S3PE, there are tutorials on YouTube which you can check out. But you basically open S3PE, create a new package, then import as dbc (I think) and select the packages you want to merge, save the final package with the name you want, and just wait a while for it to merge them.
You should make a backup of the packages you merge because it's not really possible to unmerge them.

You can also use cc magic, though I haven't used it myself so I can't help with that, but I've heard it's very good. It merges packages automatically and helps you organise your cc.

Yes, I do suppose having more packs installed will have an effect on performance, though if you do have a higher end pc, it shouldn't be too bad if you take proper precautions.

Sorry, I don't mean to be putting your idea down, and you might make a great mod that helps performance, so definitely look into it if it's something you want to do.
Personally, I can't help feeling like it seems like a lot of work and a difficult job for something that might not even be worthwhile, when if you have a good computer there are plenty of ways to optimise performance, even if it means just playing without packs that aren't necessary for that save.

One thing you could try is disabling all packs but base game and see how smooth it is, then add on a pack at a time and see when it starts to get laggy. Then you can look into that pack to see what features you might be able to get rid of to improve performance.


Thanks for all your answers I did install a few more nraas mods and followed some game clean-up instructions, I still need to look into merging my mods but I will get there, I actually am starting to see a difference so I have hopes, but I will still look into the modding, only.. I may not be that desperate for it now. I think I have a decent PC, it is 5 year old... but decent. I have an all in one, with nvidia geforce 960m and intel i7 so not the bestest newest but decent and it is struggling with Sims3 (and cooling) I am going to send it for upgrades and repairs soon, so hopefully all will be better after that anyway, but it is sad and awkward that the game is flaky and laggy if you don't have a good pc.. its an expensive game so you would want it to perform on a decent computer.. at least that's what I think (and here will I be told that my computer is a pos haha). I am interested in modding and coding anyway, we'll see what I can make of it .
Thanks again.
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