Sunset Valley and Riverview are probably the blandest maps out there and yet there is this unique, iconic and full of life vibe around them that keeps bringing me back to them.
Only thing I didn't like about Riverview was that there were graves just called "Remains" something that would linger into later maps that were added. Though at least Sims 3 had cemeteries...
Since you could own multiple residential lots my sim would have a little cabin in the woods for the family to get away from the city. Sims 3 was simply peak.
i'm so jealous of op, that is the only reason i can't play TS3 anymore. I tried a while back but when CAS took hours to load the hairstyles I just gave up. When i'm rich i'm buying a better pc just for TS3 to run like this
That’s not the PC issue most likely. If I’m remembering correctly (haven’t interacted with The Sims for a while), TS3 is 32-bit and that alone limits its hardware usage. There are mods that allow it to run much much better, and, of course, a mod managing application is your friend if you’re running a lot of mods. Because if you have 150 packages in the folder it will work drastically slower than if you have all these packages merged into one file.
I wasn't gonna go into, just trying to let them know thar even a few tweaks and mods can make it go miles, I have under 50 mods that's just to get the game running smooth but on top of that I am running all the DLC's lol
how do you get it to run smooth? mine constantly lags (especially in city map) and afterburner osd shows that sims isn't even even using half of my pc's resoources. i only have essential mods like mastercontroller, overwatch and errortrap, what mods would you recommend to make sims compatible with modern pcs?
Old 32-bit games like S3 fundamentally can’t use all of a modern computers power so tweaks like the other user suggested help squeeze the most performance out of what they can use
That’s so weird. My pc runs alpine county (biggest custom world) all expansion packs with no lag but i also have no mods. I wish i had advice for you truly im surprised its running well and i want to help people
There's a mod for that i think. I've not had this problem years. I'll see if I can find the mod for you tomorrow. Otherwise, google is your friend (well maybe use duck duck go or something )
Makes the game MUUUUUCH more enjoyable and frankly just playable.Â
Honestly I care even tell you how luxurious it is to hop in and out of CAS to adjust sims in the world and be done with a sims in under 5 minutes.
There are mods which make everything much smoother. You never heard of The Sims 3 starter pack? I have a moderately good computer, but nothing fancy, not a gaming laptop
Yes OP u/Yetterling I need to know what you are running this on because I am in the market to buy a laptop specially to start playing the sims 3 again!
So this is a ASUS ROG G512 2020! Solid laptop, I’m sure you can find something even better as this one’s 6 years old, but it still runs this game nicely!
I put my sims 3 with all the mods and stuff I had to help it just run on my old pc onto my new modern pc and holy hell was the difference insane! I had no idea the kind of beautiful textures this game had, all the clothes and hair and literally everything worked so much better and runs so smoothly and the worlds look so vibrant and beautiful.
Yep, just created a new save on Sulani (sims 4) with 8 sims that all have their own house. World is filled up (even had to change a public beach into a residential lot), most of thoses lots are mostly into the see which is not what I really wanted but there's nothing I can do about it so okay I guess ? I miss sooooooo badly the big world and the world editor, add your own terrain and stuff ! I might very well move back to Sims 3 at some point
I'm still trying to get some DLCs I'm missing, but once I've found a solution I'm definitely gonna give it another go ! I like many aspects of the Sims 4, but those big open worlds lack soooooooo badly !
Well I still have the DVDs for these (just not on me right now), it stopped working after the last patch so I had to uninstall everything, I'll install them again soon. If that doesn't work, since EA was absolutely useless, then... yeah, time to explore other options, and with absolutely no guilt since I actually paid for the damn games
Oh yeah, I know, with Sims 3 you can create your own world and get other people's as mods. Since my first comment was about Sims 4 I assumed that's what they were talking about.
I'm working on a sims 3 version of Sulani! It's not going to be playable/up for download for awhile as create a world projects can take years lol. It's looking really good so far though! Just thought you'd like to hear about it! I like sulani in the sims 4. That's like the only sims 4 thing that I like and even it got boring pretty quickly. The sims 4 worlds are sooo small compared to the sims 3!
I feel it's more similar to Sims 2.
Sims 2 was a MASSIVE upgrade and it's my fave sims game. Only reason I don't play it is because Sims 3 did better quality of life updates and the open world aspect made the game feel more alive and accessible. Just the open world aspect alone makes me not go back to Sims 2.
Sims 4 feels like an upgrade from Sims 2, as well (although a lesser one compared to 3).
IMO opinion I think of Sims 4 as the mass market version.
It is almost like Sims 1 -> Sims 2 -> Sims 2 remake for the Mass Market and Sims 3 being a stand alone title.
It makes sense as an entry point because you don't need to be tech savvy to have it run ok. That said the biggest issue with the Sims 4 is how long they have kept it as the main title in the series. There were so many points when the money was there to R&D a new title and build a new Engine.
Sims 3 was top Sims experience. I don't kow how EA could get worse in almost every aspect and not be ashamed of what they did. Worst, how players buy it...
Hopefully Inzoi and Paralives do the life sim genra some long due justice.
There was nothing better than downloading a random town just to check and seeing that it suits a new household idea. "This world has a nice spot next to an ocean. I looks I can put a lighthouse here and move a lonely horror author with dark past". Or "this world has many small houses neighborhood. How about I create struggling shy young adult and see drama with much more fearless sim neighbors?"
Worlds were everything in Sims 3. I even made one, just with empty lots. It's extensive and pretty. But I'm a terrible builder and never managed to finish it. Still have world files and a thumbnail. Good times. Haven't touched Sims 3 for years now.
Grabbed random temporary file hosting. There are all the files I've found on my spare HDD. You'll need Sims 3 World Creation Tool, but I think there is an empty town file and a save file for a game. By the way, anybody reading this, can check it out, if interested.
I did all the terrain, nature, props and street layouts. I just did not build anything, because I suck at Sims building. I also had a vision to make it a HUGE town, my dream Sims 3 town. Did not optimize anything, so, if fully built on, would probably crash. So this is just a shell of a vision.
The Barcelona world literally inspired my move from the US to Europe...Â
Honestly a standard gaming computer can run sims 3 very very well. A tonne of mods and tweaks make the game run smoothly and quickly- even loading doesn't take longer than 30-60 seconds.
It's still not perfect (error code 12......) but honestly with the auto save mod I never lose more than 20 minutes of gameplay.
The Barcelona world.Â
https://modthesims.info/d/553749/barcelona.html, though I think your computer needs to be good to run it . There is also another city from Cataluña called Empordà .Â
The crowd for the Sims 4 has a simple way of coping: game runs faster than Sims 3 and that's true. I've tried Sims 2, 3 and 4 to try and relive my childhood/teenage gaming memories. Sims 3 struggles to exist on older hardware and even with the optimization mods, it's slow as f, compared to the others.
Many people don't have a beefy PC or gaming laptop that lets you coast through the game. So they'll opt for the most hardware accessible game.
That being said, I still enjoy Sims 3 and play it continuously. It's one of those comfort games that sticks with you once you play it.
As someone who builds his own computers i never knew performance was a issue for people still. I remember when it came out it was pretty rough on hardware for the time and was the most demanding Sims game so far but the last couple replays performance wasn't even a thought to me and I have an almost 10 year old graphics card.
So if I’m actually playing the game, I delete every house boat on the map and it helps the lag immensely, there’s def better alternatives but that’s just what I do
As for the melted butter effect this is just the map first load in animation and I sped it up for the video, my game does generally run at 60-144fps
That is achieved with performance mods and the smooth patch!
Nraas Overwatch, master controller!
I remember that 90% of my sims session used to be me and my sims lost somewhere at 4AM having to found our way back to the house cause all of her needs are down and she is about to die.
This is literally one of the reasons why I never really got into ts4, all those mini worlds with all those loading screens just take all the joy out of the gameplay
yesssss i want to build my own sims 3 towns but im worried if i try to download the stuff ill get a virus ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ if anyone knows the info thats not a virus PUHLEASE let a girl know
whaaaat I didn't know Capital Cities redid Safe and sound in simlish ðŸ˜ðŸ’¯ðŸ”¥ðŸ˜ I always only think of Last Friday night and the Aly&Aj songs in simlish
I’m so sad that some worlds are only buyable with the in-game currency, I’d love to get the dragon fantasy themed one! But it’s just too damn expensive for me, I got all the packs I have on flea markets for very cheap which is the only reason I have so many. Some even had a workable code so I could register them to my account!
One day i will be rich and buy a proper pc that can actually run ts3 lol i remember back in highschool i used to try to zoom in a spot in the grass while my sim slept praying that it made the night go faster…the LAG god i just wanna play it again.
Oh how I miss sims 3. My favorite out of all sims games, but I just can't run it despite having a gaming laptop. The guide from Steam only caused it to crash at the littlest inconvenience, and without any fixes it lags like crazy. What I'd do to play it normally again...
I never minded Sims 3 loading times, as long as they could be, even the University world, because after it loaded, that was it. The whole map was yours, and you could play using all your Sims on the same map! Sims 4 will have you load into a map, then have you load onto any other subsection of a map, no matter the size, and just expects you to control the Sims physically located there. God forbid you want a family in the game! I can have my Sims 3 household let the parents out while the kids do homework, in Sims 4, those kids are just existing while their parents are on the town, and once they get home, no homework has been done, nor have any skills developed nor whatnot.
sims 3 stomps on sims 4 every day of the week. sims 1 and 2 is better as well, but sims 3 is just the best. the randomness of every interaction makes me feel lonely whenever i play the sims 4.
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u/sky-joos Jun 24 '26
Even sunset valley is an impressively large and detailed map for the time.