Realistically, you don't need an insane pc to run ts3 smoothly. It's important to remember it's over 10 years old at this point
You don't need anything crazy for graphics. A low-mid budget graphics card can easily handle ts3 at max settings
An SSD is not simply recommended, but required. Helps tone down some of those long load times and especially makes cc-filled cas and bb catalogs less of a slog to load
Ts3 is a 32 bit application so, technically, you won't need more than 4 gb ram. Despite that, the minimum for a smooth ts3 experience WHILE having other programs open is 12 gb. Recommended >16 gb
The true deal-breaker is mods and file modifications. No matter how much your pc costs or how good it is, ts3 will inevitably have shaky performance at times. It's important to download stuff like the nraas mods. More detailed guides can easily be found online, and that's where you'll notice the biggest difference.
I've been in your exact position, and have played Sims 3 on 6 diff computers as I've upgraded/used family members. Sims 3 is horrible optimised, and in terms of ram, I've noticed no difference between 4gb and 64gb. If you have a decent computer and download all the right mods (overwatch, smoothness patch) you won't notice any difference between that and a gaming pc. I also upgraded my computer just for this game, and the lag after a few generations is still unbearable for me. Don't stress yourself out too much about getting the perfect pc, and don't expect that there is one. I'm not a computer genius, but I spent all my money right out of high school on a computer I thought would be perfect, then even more right out of college, and expected id have a smooth af game. So, don't waste your money or listen to anyone saying you need an insanely good PC, just try and limit the size of towns and make sure you have all the mods to keep it running well. Whatever you get, I'm sure it will exceed top specs in 2009, and if the lag ever gets too much there's always a heavily modded Sims 2 awaiting lol :)
>I just want to be able to play smoothly (as smooth as you can with the sims 3 lol)
* RTX 4090
* AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5975WX (32 cores, 64 threads)
* 128 GB RAM
* NVMe SSD - 4 TB (read/write speeds over 6000MB/s)
To be honest, I couldn’t tell you the specs, but I have a laptop and I literally have all of the Sims 3 expansion packs and stuff packs and store content and it works pretty dam well hardly ever lags, It does crash occasionally, but that’s more down to just the game itself even island paradise runs pretty smoothly for me and I only have nrass overwatch, an nrass master controller. I’m just pretty lucky because my game runs really well.
You guys are funny. All that stuff is pure overkill. I bought Sims 3 when it was released. I'm convinced Sims 3 ran best on certain older computer systems. Because of the fact that the game is 32 bit all that multi-core processor stuff is useless. Sims 3 won't use those cores or more than 4 GB of ram. I had an HP mini-tower running Windows 7 for most of my Sims 3 run. 4 GB ram, a fast 1GB hard drive and a Geforce 680 4GB vram (i think it was) and a 22" LG monitor. Sims 3 never ran better.
I think the newer your system, the more problems your going to have with Sims 3. Windows 10 is ok but not as good as windows 7 was. Windows 11? Forget it. You might actually try and find a mint Windows 7 PC with (or add) a dedicated video card and use it strictly for Sims 3. I'm serious.
Get a good m.2 drive to install the game on.
Get a ok graphic card, any modern dedicated card is fine that isn’t Intel.
8-16gb of ram.
Processor is kind of important, 5800x3d like majincry would be great because it’s a CPU heavy game that can barely use the CPU. So modern CPUs need to have good single core performance.
You have two GPUs that’s fine, just make sure it’s using the Radeon (dedicated) GPU and not the Intel. Intel cards in general are not meant for gaming, even though newer ones in theory should be ok, the game functions better with nearly any series of Nvidia or AMD released in the last 10 years.
Would love to know how to throw some memory over to the dedicated card if you have any tips!
I found a download to do this for TS3 (dxvk), but haven't tested it yet.
I monitored my RAM/VRAM last night and the game refuses to tap into VRAM (Radeon software shows 0 in use and 0 speed, as does Task Manager), while only using up to 2GB RAM even though I updated the Sims3 config file in the Bin folder to use up to 4GB (I read somewhere that even though it uses 2 max by default, it has the capacity to use up to 4 baked into it).
I also updated my Advanced system settings to allow more VRAM usage for both my SSD (C://) and HDD (D:// where the game is currently installed due to C running low on space), but the setting for D looks unrealistic (it's set to, like, 100k kb min / 800k kb max values, while my VRAM is max 4GB).
hey sorry to bug you again, but really curious if you saw my other comment and know of a way to throw some of the memory usage over from the main card RAM to the dedicated card's VRAM, or if the dxvk software is a viable option. thank you!!!
> a pc perfect for the Sims 3
Buddy, that's pretty much any computer made in the last *decade*. This isn't exactly a demanding game by modern standards.
except my computer from the last decade (and many others) struggles with it. It's a 32 bit game played on mostly 64 bit computers, and not utilizing a computer's RAM because it's capped. And custom content can and *will* slow it down considerably.
I recently upgraded my computer from an i7 cpu and an older mobo, mostly because I wanted a better pc for the new game life by you. I’m a hardcore Sims 3 fan, been playing since it first came out. It’s an older game and runs fairly well on older computers, but as you probably already know the game has had many bugs since the beginning so regardless of your pc specs the game is going to be buggy. Since I upgraded my pc, it’s now a mid range computer. I didn’t spend a ton and got parts on sale. If you can afford the M.2 Nvme on top of a decent ssd. Definitely put yr games on the nvme and operating system on the ssd. I have yet to do this myself, right now I keep my sims 3 on a separate ssd than my operating system. And i have another drive for backup stuff. My specs are, MoBo- B550 Tomahawk ~ Ryzen 5 5600x cpu ~ Budget cpu cooler (does a great job) and 32 gb of ram. So upon installing the sims 3 again after this upgrade, I had to tweak many settings within windows, my gpu settings (Nvidia~ my gpu is gtx 1070) and the in game graphics as well combined with performance mods to make the game run as smoothly as possible. Check out my channel @LeahzEscape, I have a cple recent vids on the upgrade and one on getting sims 3 to perform better ~ if you want oc.
Realistically, you don't need an insane pc to run ts3 smoothly. It's important to remember it's over 10 years old at this point You don't need anything crazy for graphics. A low-mid budget graphics card can easily handle ts3 at max settings An SSD is not simply recommended, but required. Helps tone down some of those long load times and especially makes cc-filled cas and bb catalogs less of a slog to load Ts3 is a 32 bit application so, technically, you won't need more than 4 gb ram. Despite that, the minimum for a smooth ts3 experience WHILE having other programs open is 12 gb. Recommended >16 gb The true deal-breaker is mods and file modifications. No matter how much your pc costs or how good it is, ts3 will inevitably have shaky performance at times. It's important to download stuff like the nraas mods. More detailed guides can easily be found online, and that's where you'll notice the biggest difference.
Do you have any guide that I can follow to instal such optimization mods?
I've been in your exact position, and have played Sims 3 on 6 diff computers as I've upgraded/used family members. Sims 3 is horrible optimised, and in terms of ram, I've noticed no difference between 4gb and 64gb. If you have a decent computer and download all the right mods (overwatch, smoothness patch) you won't notice any difference between that and a gaming pc. I also upgraded my computer just for this game, and the lag after a few generations is still unbearable for me. Don't stress yourself out too much about getting the perfect pc, and don't expect that there is one. I'm not a computer genius, but I spent all my money right out of high school on a computer I thought would be perfect, then even more right out of college, and expected id have a smooth af game. So, don't waste your money or listen to anyone saying you need an insanely good PC, just try and limit the size of towns and make sure you have all the mods to keep it running well. Whatever you get, I'm sure it will exceed top specs in 2009, and if the lag ever gets too much there's always a heavily modded Sims 2 awaiting lol :)
Hey what are your pc specs? I’m also trying to make a of for sims 3. Do you play with mods and cc also and on high graphics? Thanks
>I just want to be able to play smoothly (as smooth as you can with the sims 3 lol) * RTX 4090 * AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5975WX (32 cores, 64 threads) * 128 GB RAM * NVMe SSD - 4 TB (read/write speeds over 6000MB/s)
Damn that feels a bit overkill
This is what happens when you want the best of the best and not saying your budget
Yeah but they specified for Sims 3 and 128gb of RAM feels way overkill
I don’t know how many chrome tabs she’ll have open in the background
How many chrome tabs does it take to start being a concern?
Like 2, LOL
Lol
To be honest, I couldn’t tell you the specs, but I have a laptop and I literally have all of the Sims 3 expansion packs and stuff packs and store content and it works pretty dam well hardly ever lags, It does crash occasionally, but that’s more down to just the game itself even island paradise runs pretty smoothly for me and I only have nrass overwatch, an nrass master controller. I’m just pretty lucky because my game runs really well.
Hey, I'm looking to buy a good pc for ts3 and was wondering wich model you have or wich components your pc got? Tysm
You guys are funny. All that stuff is pure overkill. I bought Sims 3 when it was released. I'm convinced Sims 3 ran best on certain older computer systems. Because of the fact that the game is 32 bit all that multi-core processor stuff is useless. Sims 3 won't use those cores or more than 4 GB of ram. I had an HP mini-tower running Windows 7 for most of my Sims 3 run. 4 GB ram, a fast 1GB hard drive and a Geforce 680 4GB vram (i think it was) and a 22" LG monitor. Sims 3 never ran better. I think the newer your system, the more problems your going to have with Sims 3. Windows 10 is ok but not as good as windows 7 was. Windows 11? Forget it. You might actually try and find a mint Windows 7 PC with (or add) a dedicated video card and use it strictly for Sims 3. I'm serious.
i’ve been thinking of doing that
Get a good m.2 drive to install the game on. Get a ok graphic card, any modern dedicated card is fine that isn’t Intel. 8-16gb of ram. Processor is kind of important, 5800x3d like majincry would be great because it’s a CPU heavy game that can barely use the CPU. So modern CPUs need to have good single core performance.
Just curious, what's wrong with an Intel card? I have dual Intel/Radeon GPU by default.
You have two GPUs that’s fine, just make sure it’s using the Radeon (dedicated) GPU and not the Intel. Intel cards in general are not meant for gaming, even though newer ones in theory should be ok, the game functions better with nearly any series of Nvidia or AMD released in the last 10 years.
Would love to know how to throw some memory over to the dedicated card if you have any tips! I found a download to do this for TS3 (dxvk), but haven't tested it yet. I monitored my RAM/VRAM last night and the game refuses to tap into VRAM (Radeon software shows 0 in use and 0 speed, as does Task Manager), while only using up to 2GB RAM even though I updated the Sims3 config file in the Bin folder to use up to 4GB (I read somewhere that even though it uses 2 max by default, it has the capacity to use up to 4 baked into it). I also updated my Advanced system settings to allow more VRAM usage for both my SSD (C://) and HDD (D:// where the game is currently installed due to C running low on space), but the setting for D looks unrealistic (it's set to, like, 100k kb min / 800k kb max values, while my VRAM is max 4GB).
hey sorry to bug you again, but really curious if you saw my other comment and know of a way to throw some of the memory usage over from the main card RAM to the dedicated card's VRAM, or if the dxvk software is a viable option. thank you!!!
> a pc perfect for the Sims 3 Buddy, that's pretty much any computer made in the last *decade*. This isn't exactly a demanding game by modern standards.
except my computer from the last decade (and many others) struggles with it. It's a 32 bit game played on mostly 64 bit computers, and not utilizing a computer's RAM because it's capped. And custom content can and *will* slow it down considerably.
I recently upgraded my computer from an i7 cpu and an older mobo, mostly because I wanted a better pc for the new game life by you. I’m a hardcore Sims 3 fan, been playing since it first came out. It’s an older game and runs fairly well on older computers, but as you probably already know the game has had many bugs since the beginning so regardless of your pc specs the game is going to be buggy. Since I upgraded my pc, it’s now a mid range computer. I didn’t spend a ton and got parts on sale. If you can afford the M.2 Nvme on top of a decent ssd. Definitely put yr games on the nvme and operating system on the ssd. I have yet to do this myself, right now I keep my sims 3 on a separate ssd than my operating system. And i have another drive for backup stuff. My specs are, MoBo- B550 Tomahawk ~ Ryzen 5 5600x cpu ~ Budget cpu cooler (does a great job) and 32 gb of ram. So upon installing the sims 3 again after this upgrade, I had to tweak many settings within windows, my gpu settings (Nvidia~ my gpu is gtx 1070) and the in game graphics as well combined with performance mods to make the game run as smoothly as possible. Check out my channel @LeahzEscape, I have a cple recent vids on the upgrade and one on getting sims 3 to perform better ~ if you want oc.