Frustrated to tears..and EA refuses to help anyone!!

[violetlass]

To put my 2 cents into this debate, My game works fine, my CPU speed is 1.66 ghz and thats is lower than recomended. I think it all as to do with ram, I have 3g and it runs really quick, load time for CC is to a minimum.
Remember in TS2 when EA said you had to have at lest 256mb of ram to have 2 guest invited over for a party, I got 3g of ram and I could still only invite 2 people max.

 I think EA doesnt test the game on every computer avalible to see what works well. Every PC is different.

[kaoz666]

Off course not. EA tests their games on massive, 8 TB Alienware rigs that could run TS2 and TS3 at the same time. We're taking $5000 plus rigs. Computers that could end up become Skynet for crying out loud, lol. No way they test it on a mid-low range PC set-up to see how it works. And forget about Macs, they get no love period. That's one of the biggest flaws of the game. Most people are still using the PCs they started with from back in the early part of the decade. My PC is 5 years old. Mid-range as far as specs, and I have it's virtual ram set to my external HD. It moves slow when I have more then 5 programs open, but most of the time I only run 3 at the same time, which nets me normal performance still, so I have no complaints. As has been said in this thread, in order to properly run TS3, you need at least an upper-mid level rig. Which means for people like me, that means we'd have to pretty much by a new PC, because to upgrade the parts we have already (GFX cards, RAM, Sound cards, etc) we may as well just go and buy a new PC outright. Problem is we're smack dab in a recession. Who's going to go out and buy a spanking new $2000 PC just to play a game? Not many. And if you do have that kind of disposable income, you damn well shouldn't be worried about your PC not being able to run the game, lol. (I'd be on a beach in Cancun personally...) It's a sad state of affairs when a developer doesn't take such an important and intricate thing into account. But it's EA, what were you expecting?

My suggestion is that if you have an External HD, run your virtual memory through it and not your PC's partition. It should be double what your initial ram is. Meaning if your RAM is 512mb, you should set your virtual memory to 1024mb. I have mines personally set to triple my RAM, because it's a 500GB HD, so I've got space to burn. If that doesn't ease the strain the game puts on your PC, sadly the only other option is upgrading it...or just uninstalling TS3 taking one on the chin.

[violetlass]

My suggestion is that if you have an External HD, run your virtual memory through it and not your PC's partition. It should be double what your initial ram is. Meaning if your RAM is 512mb, you should set your virtual memory to 1024mb. I have mines personally set to triple my RAM, because it's a 500GB HD, so I've got space to burn. If that doesn't ease the strain the game puts on your PC, sadly the only other option is upgrading it...or just uninstalling TS3 taking one on the chin.

I do have an 500g External HD but I also have a laptop, so I really cant go around caring that.
But thats interesting how you did that. Help me please, I have an ACER and I need to srink my D drive to add to my C Drive and it wont let me do that. Messege me please I need a new tech guy!

[roerzman]

Some comparisons for those that use EA. system recommendations as a yardstick.
Sims 2 basegame recommended 256 mb. ram. 800 mghz. cpu.
Nightlife 256 mb. ram. 1 gig. cpu.
Bon Voyage 512 mb. ram. 1.3 cpu.
We all found out that those figures were unrealistic when having more than 3 sims active, and as we imported more families and CC. those min. specs were impossible.
Has anyone attempted sending a sim on vacation in BV. with 512 ram? The frame rate drops dramatically with 1 gig. of ddr2 ram. realistically you need 2 gig to stop from going crazy.
Now with sims 3 they recommend 1 gig.Using the sims 2 recommendations as a comparison imagine where you will be when when you start importing neighbourhoods,CC. patches and future EPs.
This is in no way intended to knock the game. This is to give people with marginal to mid range computers some indication of what they are going to have to deal with in probably six months time.
All I can say is shame on EA. for not being realistic and honest and telling the customers what they really require. A high end gaming pc.

[Chaavik]

The problem sounded more like three things: memory, hard drive space and video card.

She obviously has disk space on her hard drive to install the game, or she wouldn't be able to at least run the game. BUT there are probably a few reasons to want to have plenty of space on the hard drive:

1. Virtual memory requires a lot of space on the hard drive. Make sure you have at least 1 GB available for the machine to use that space for its virtual memory to run. Virtual memory is like an extra amount of memory the machine can use to load a program into and run without using the CD/DVD drive.

Sims 3 does not require the CD/DVD to run the game once you start up the game and load a family. You can take it out and put it away in its case.

This may be why her machine was running slow because there is probably not enough space in its virtual memory to run the game effectively.

2. Sims 3 content from the store vary in size with some being as much as 3 to 4 MB and others far less than 1 MB. The total size of the content being installed to use can really add up a lot. Be prepared to have at least up to 5 GB of free space on the hard drive just for the content alone. Not counting the mods at all for the game. Then for mods alone, another 2 GB would be an ideal amount.

That's about 10 GB, give or take, just for the content from the store, mods from various creators and virtual memory alone to run Sims 3.


If you don't have at least 1024 MB (1 GB) of actual physical memory (DDR2, DDR3 or some other type of memory used by non-Windows machines such as Macs), then you will experience slowness during game play, and that would suck horribly to watch Sims stand for awhile before they proceed to do something. This sounds like game lag that can really slow down an older machine.

I currently have 2 GB of DDR2 memory installed. I can run the game at Medium settings with no issues. 1 GB is enough if you don't have a lot of money to blow on 2 GB memory sticks which can run for higher than 70 dollars or more at various stores.

3. Video cards can slow down the game if the card cannot have more than 256 MB of onboard memory or even has less than that.

You can easily buy a new video card with 512 MB of onboard memory for around 60 to 70 dollars at a store like Best Buy. The video cards are becoming cheaper to shop for now that most companies are already gearing up for Christmas with newer products. Summertime and early Falltime (before November) are usually good times to shop around online or at the stores in your area.


Those are my observations from what I read here. I did recall that she took the test awhile back to see if she could run Sims 3 on her machine, and she said that she could.

Anyway, we have yet heard from her about the problem she's having, so let's see what she has to say.

[vanessa]

I'm playing it since 2 days,I love the game!
Had some considerations in the beguining but now I feel fine.

[Llial]

There are some small things, what every player should do when he/she gets a new game. Defragging the hard drive and updating all the drivers.

[pico22]

Defragging yes, updating the drivers no. First one should try the game out; if it runs fine do not touch them. If you have problems: only when all other possibilities have been eliminated start fooling around with them.

Spoken from personal experience. Luckily at the time I still had my old driver and it put all my problems to rest. It must be 3+ years old by now and still working perfectly, TS3 included.

[Llial]

nvidia drivers a pretty icky and the need to be updated often. Yes there was one driver years ago that was better you left it untouched, but just for the sims2. Other games had not problems with new updates. Because of the problems with sims2 and nvidia cards I changed over to ATI-Radion.

[SimGirl20]

Hello all,

I'm sorry I have been neglecting this thread, I've just been so angry that my game won't run, that I have kind of strayed from insim for a couple of nights. I have read your replies to my issue, and would like to say thank you for taking the time to mull out the problem for me and trying to help. I read your very informative post kaoz666 about changing my virtual memory. I think this is a really good idea and I would like to give it a go, but so I am understanding correctly is this how I would do it? okay so I have 448 MB of RAM which that would be my total physical memory, correct? if not STOP me now! but if so, I'll continue. So if I'm right I would multiply my PM by 2 which would be 896 and then again by 2 which would be 1792 correct? and then put them into the custom VM boxes? I hope that will get my game running a little better, seeing as my PC wouldn't be in such a strain to run the game at 664 MB of VM. Hmm, also I have a cruddy graphics card which would be an NVIDIA 6150 LE (don't laugh ) I have never bought a GC for this computer since I got it 3-4 years ago. I have also noticed through my dxdiag report on my computer that my drivers are out of date three years! 5/9/2006 to be exact. I thought about updating my drivers with the newly released NVIDIA update 185.5 which will most likely take me from 10:00 P.M. to 7-8 A.M. on my shitty dial-up connection UGH! before I go to these lengthes should I do the update? also my sound card driver is out of date by the respective 3 years, like the video card. I'm not really sure if its my available RAM that is slowing my game so tremendiously, or because my drivers are out of date, but one thing is for sure I certainly don't have the money to go out and buy a whole new PC to run this stupid game on, and I refuse to if I did. I just feel really privliged that I can even RUN the game, but what's the point when you can't even play it?! I need to get some more RAM and I think I can hold 2 GB in my tower, but not sure...


Once again I thank you all for trying to help, I have just been so damn angry that I can't get the game to run. It just really bothers me, because you know 50$ is hard to come by nowadays, atleast it is for me, and I am just so ashamed that I wasted that much money. I am certain that EA has released a screwed up game, that hundreds of people can't even run nor play (considering they have higher end computers) according to the BBS on the offical site. I don't know whats going on. I read this one guy had like a really top notch rig, and his game wouldn't even cooperate with him. I'm not sure if he was lying or not..but why is that many people going to lie about how their games perform? but on the other hand there are hundreds of more people that are having no trouble at all, running them on crappy, generic, low end rigs. So I just want to know what the hell is going on in that department?

Calling all idiots at EA: SimGirl20 along with 130 pages of people of the technical forum demand a friggin' patch A.S.A.P.!

[kaoz666]

See my post HERE. It's a step by step tutorial on how to increase your virtual memory and create a Non-Dynamic paging file, as well as information on what exactly a paging file is. I also posted a link to how to do the same thing on Vista at the bottom of the page. It should add a little more juice to your PC.

[SimGirl20]

I read it all kaoz. I was just wondering if I did the math right inorder to put a new estimate in the custom virtual memory boxes? Do I have to use that number I got by multiplying my PM 448x2=896x2=1792? or could I multiply again to make my computer run even faster? Just wondering.

[Chaavik]

448 MB of RAM? That's really low, really low, even for TS2. Are you sure it's not 512 or 1024 MB of RAM?

[EKozski]

Her grahics card might be integrated like mine is. Technically, I have 512MB of memory, but since my video card is integrated, I only end up with 448. Just like her.

[Llial]

Girl, I think you need RAM, RAM and RAM. Your OS is eaten up the most of that little bit of RAM you have. I'm really surprised that you even could play the Sims2. I had to upgrade my older PC who is now 4 years old to 2Gigabyte of Ram to play it.

For the Sims3 to run a had to buy a new PC, because my older one was maxed out on all his upgrades.