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The Sims 3 |OT|

larvi said:
That website says it has a C2D processor, if that's true I think you will be fine CPU wise. The 2.00Ghz is based on a P4. I slower speed C2D will still outperform a P4. My concern would be memory if you have the stock 1GB. You need a minumum of 2 (1.5 for Vista and .5 extra for integrated graphics).

That P4 specification is BS though, the game is unplayable on a single core rig.
 

Downhome

Member
larvi said:
That website says it has a C2D processor, if that's true I think you will be fine CPU wise. The 2.00Ghz is based on a P4. I slower speed C2D will still outperform a P4. My concern would be memory if you have the stock 1GB. You need a minumum of 2 (1.5 for Vista and .5 extra for integrated graphics).

I just had her run the test here:

http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/index.aspx

And she told me it says that she only has 1024 MB.

Ugh, I'd hate to tell her she can't play the game.

It's pretty much a negative for her I guess, right?
 

larvi

Member
brain_stew said:
That P4 specification is BS though, the game is unplayable on a single core rig.

Yeah, actually the specs are higher for integrated graphics as you mentioned so it sounds like it does need more horsepower. From canirunit.com:

[If built-in graphics chipsets then 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent.]


Downhome said:
I just had her run the test here:
http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/index.aspx
And she told me it says that she only has 1024 MB.
Ugh, I'd hate to tell her she can't play the game.
It's pretty much a negative for her I guess, right?

Between the cpu/memory and having the barest minimum support graphics chip I would't recommend it. Memory could be upgraded fairly cheaply but the cpu/graphics you are pretty much stuck with.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Oh I just realized - if you have a proper screen resolution, it should make the game run fine.
 
Patch is out. You can get it using the the updater in the launcher. Date says 06/15/09 but I'm pretty sure it just got released today.


Latest Update for: 1.2.7
06/15/09
Complete list of changes:

* Addresses some issues with Speed 2 and 3 moving too slowly. Some machines will have better results when using Speed 2 and 3 now.
* Fix to story progression on/off selection toggle.
* Fix for a possible crash with audio code.
* Fix for babysitter routing off lots with babies.
* Addresses some issues with Vsync and refresh rate problems.
* Addresses some issues with DVD authentication errors and drive compatibility on startup.
* This update deals with some issues on Mac systems that can crash the game while connecting to AFP servers.
* Fix for a freeze that can occur when Sims attempt to clean out bad food from the fridge.
 
Really quick question, I've built a house using the "buy/build" option after clicking on an empty lot. I finished the house (which costed me no money while building it, oddly), and now I can't move a sim into it. How does one go about doing this?
 

Juice

Member
Downloading patch now. Am excited to see Sims not crash every thirty minutes. Haven't played for a few weeks b/c of this.

Edit: :lol, I just realized how much I love Sims game patch notes. They always are sure to document shit like, "Repairman can no longer be electrocuted and die on your lot when repairing electronics"
 

Retro

Member
disappeared said:
Really quick question, I've built a house using the "buy/build" option after clicking on an empty lot. I finished the house (which costed me no money while building it, oddly), and now I can't move a sim into it. How does one go about doing this?

Sounds like you were just building an empty house. If it's very large, your sims may not be able to afford it. Do you have a family selected?
 

898

Member
I'm trying to find some upgrades to get this to run on a Compaq SR1920NX for a friend's daughter. If anyone who has the game on an older machine can tell me if it will be frustrating for a 10yr old girl?

Compaq SR1920NX Specs
AMD Athlon 64 2.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE
512 MB (DDR SDRAM)

I figured upping the RAM to 2gb and maybe a GeForce 8400 GS 512MB would be enough to run this at a half decent rate. They obviously don't want to spend a lot for a new computer and it looks like <$100 for the ram/vcard/game would be a decent upgrade. If anyone can comment it would be appreciated.
 

898

Member
^BUMP
I'm planning on ordering this and if anyone has any opinions they would be appreciated. Don't make a small girl cry ;_;
 

Zaptruder

Banned
898 said:
^BUMP
I'm planning on ordering this and if anyone has any opinions they would be appreciated. Don't make a small girl cry ;_;

It's good, but prepare for a buggy experience.

Also scorn EA for locking away 4 sets of items and many sets of clothing and hair, as you realise that they purposely withheld and excluded content from the game for the sake of nickle and diming you for it.

Hell, you wish they nickle and dimed. They actually just go for the dollars straight of the bat for any item that you can purchase.

And to add insult to injury, they give you '1000' points, which can't even buy a single set to begin with.

On the upside, if you're fastidious about materials decoration, then the game offers plenty of variety there.
 

burgerdog

Member
Okay, so I downloaded EADM before installing the game and saw an option that would allow me to download the game if I entered my game key. I did that and started to download the game and the install went through :D Now my question is, where did EADM store the 5.6GB file? I can't seem to find it at all, unless it deleted it itself when I installed it through EADM.
 
898 said:
I'm trying to find some upgrades to get this to run on a Compaq SR1920NX for a friend's daughter. If anyone who has the game on an older machine can tell me if it will be frustrating for a 10yr old girl?

Compaq SR1920NX Specs
AMD Athlon 64 2.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE
512 MB (DDR SDRAM)

I figured upping the RAM to 2gb and maybe a GeForce 8400 GS 512MB would be enough to run this at a half decent rate. They obviously don't want to spend a lot for a new computer and it looks like <$100 for the ram/vcard/game would be a decent upgrade. If anyone can comment it would be appreciated.

The game's not really designed to be played on single core rigs. DDR RAM and socket 939 dual core CPUs are so terribly overpriced, I'd really struggle to recommend any upgrades to that old thing. Even with the upgrades you suggested the experience is going to be pretty damn terrible. You'd be better off saving up and starting again. $400 would probably net you something she'd be over the moon with, if you're willing to go the build your own route.

Go with a 4830, X2 250, 4GB DDR2 PC6400, this case/PSU combo, that sort of specification. Cheap as chips, will play Sims 3 beautifully (as well as absolutely any other game she'd like to play) and will ultimately decimate that old dinosaur.
 

Amory

Member
So my sim is about to become the CEO in the business career track (his lifetime goal) and, not knowing I'd be forced to take time off work to raise it, I adopted a kid. How long before my sim can go back to work?
 
XCell9200 said:
So my sim is about to become the CEO in the business career track (his lifetime goal) and, not knowing I'd be forced to take time off work to raise it, I adopted a kid. How long before my sim can go back to work?

It should tell you right on the work panel, where your job performance is. Pregnant Moms get 4 paid days off I think, so I'd imagine you get 2 for an adoption (no pregnancy)
 

Truelize

Steroid Distributor
Help!

Is it not possible for two players to play in the same town anymore? My wife and I have put many many hours into the past Sims games and always enjoyed playing in the same town and seeing the random things that would happen between our characters.
Well now I can't seem to find the option where I can add my Sim to her town.

Is it there somewhere?
 

Surfheart

Member
Truelize said:
Help!

Is it not possible for two players to play in the same town anymore? My wife and I have put many many hours into the past Sims games and always enjoyed playing in the same town and seeing the random things that would happen between our characters.
Well now I can't seem to find the option where I can add my Sim to her town.

Is it there somewhere?


Yep this confused the fuck outta my GF and I. Poor design.

Load your save, go to the "..." menu, choose "Edit town" and then you are able to create new sims, play different families etc.
 
Keep in mind though, with aging on, I think things won't work out super well. You'll be playing your game, and her characters will be growing older, and vise versa
 

Truelize

Steroid Distributor
platypotamus said:
Keep in mind though, with aging on, I think things won't work out super well. You'll be playing your game, and her characters will be growing older, and vise versa

Yeah I've read to turn story progression off. Hope it works. I could always just put my Sim in her town and just let him do his thing with the computer controlling him. And I could have my own town.

We shall see.
 
I believe you can actually have two separate save games from the same town... but they are like parallel universes. So you could do what you are describing that way, and still likely have a lot of similar points of reference to discuss what was happening in each game.
 

Salmonax

Member
Is there any downside to going the direct download route through EA.com for Sims 3, or should I go for retail/disc?
 
Salmonax said:
Is there any downside to going the direct download route through EA.com for Sims 3, or should I go for retail/disc?

Don't get it through EA.com. It's on other DD sites. I got it through Gamer's Gate, like a lot of other games I own, and heartily endorse them. I think it might also be on Direct2Drive.
 

Gravijah

Member
Everdred said:
Just reinstalled today and I've been playing for 4 hours. I can never pull myself away from this game.

I'll be re-installing it soon myself. Too bad the expansion is far away.
 

Retro

Member
Same, about three months ago. I learned to avoid watching Home shows, those usually give me ideas. Last time I played though, I actually made a Sim and played with him for a while. He wrote trash romance novels with suggestive titles and had a sweet pad. He was also a master artist, so... basically as close to personal wish-fulfillment as possible (You'd think the Sims would have a Game Design career).... :lol
 

UrbanRats

Member
I was about to get The Sims 3 from digital delivery, but first i wanted to ask: did they fix the problem of the families disappearing?
I remember they stiil disappeared even with Story Progression off a year ago.
 

dskillzhtown

keep your strippers out of my American football
Is anyone picking up the console version of this game? I checked out a preview video last night and it seems everything has been brought over with a good control scheme. I might try it out just to see how the conversion was handled.
 

DryvBy

Member
Any impressions of the console versions? I've heard 0 news about this game until I saw it in the store.
 

Dabanton

Member
DryvBy2 said:
Any impressions of the console versions? I've heard 0 news about this game until I saw it in the store.

I have the 360 version (well i brought it for my GF) and it's very good. I was worried that it would be another cut down version but EA have made the effort. Everything seems to be in here the only thing i think is different is the town is smaller. Most importantly for me you can actually build houses with floors now the last console versions would only let you build one floor houses which kind of missed the point. Also using the pad for commands works very well, they are mapped out excellently.

I'd say it's worth picking up.
 

Salsa

Member
I just bought this on a whim, PC version.

Not much of a Sim player but thats mainly because the games became a chore and some restrictions kinda pulled me out, always liked the concept. It seems like they fixed some of that stuff here so we'll see how this goes!

Also my GF is going to play it
 

Salsa

Member
stupid english language



and i just figured i needed something to play while waiting for all the great November releases, something that doesnt rely on story too much so i can pick up whenever i want and play around with it.

So yeah Sims 3.
 

Retro

Member
SalsaShark said:
Not much of a Sim player but thats mainly because the games became a chore and some restrictions kinda pulled me out, always liked the concept. It seems like they fixed some of that stuff here so we'll see how this goes!

The Sims tend to take care of themselves better in Sims 3, and you don't have to micromanage quite so much to keep them from blowing shit up. Maybe I just built my sim with decent traits, but I never felt like I had to take care of him. It was more enjoyable to coax him into doing stuff like writing a ton of novels when all he wanted to do was paint.

The restriction that pulled me out of the game was the limits on building. The Sims 3 shipped with a ton of stuff missing from previous versions that, at this point, felt required. I've always enjoyed building houses, so not having objects like Pool Tables, hot tubs and work benches and all of the quirky stuff the Sims have added to their collection felt like a huge step back.

Nitpicky, I know, but it sucks to want to make a bachelor pad and not have stuff like pool tables, pinball machines, etc. to make it with. The item selection is just.. bleh.

I would actually go back to the Sims 2 if they released a collection of all the expansions (like the did with the Original game). Tons of user-created content with that too.

Edit: I haven't been following the expansions for the Sims 3, have they added some of that stuff back in?
 

JoeBoy101

Member
Sims 3 has great aspects about it but they screwed up more than few things going from 2 to 3. Frankly, I like Sims 2 more, but just wish I could get the story progression mode included into 2.

Retro - They have added in Exotic Locations (and they are way better than in Sims 2) and they added in a Downtown. But from what I understand, the Downtown is not another location for your neighborhood, its a neighborhood entirely separate from the suburb. Can't just switch back and forth.
 

Retro

Member
JoeBoy101 said:
Retro - They have added in Exotic Locations (and they are way better than in Sims 2) and they added in a Downtown. But from what I understand, the Downtown is not another location for your neighborhood, its a neighborhood entirely separate from the suburb. Can't just switch back and forth.

Yeah, after posting I looked into the expansions to see if they improved things any. It seems the first one lets you build tombs and dig for treasure, one added a bunch of careers, and the latest one adds more hobbies and stuff to do (I think it's called Nightlife or something like that). I did see that it adds the Hot tub back in, so...

... In all honesty, it sounds like such a silly thing to bitch about, but I enjoy the building portion the most and not having lots of cool little things to add really brings down the whole experience. ESPECIALLY after getting used to having everything imaginable in the Sims 2.
 

Mojojo

Member
Retro said:
Yeah, after posting I looked into the expansions to see if they improved things any. It seems the first one lets you build tombs and dig for treasure, one added a bunch of careers, and the latest one adds more hobbies and stuff to do (I think it's called Nightlife or something like that). I did see that it adds the Hot tub back in, so...

... In all honesty, it sounds like such a silly thing to bitch about, but I enjoy the building portion the most and not having lots of cool little things to add really brings down the whole experience. ESPECIALLY after getting used to having everything imaginable in the Sims 2.

I have all expansions and stuff packs for Sims 3, so I don't remember how 'bare' is the base game but the content is enormous if you get them, without even using the sims store (imo the worst thing that happened to the franchise ;) , EA pricing is insane.. Unfortunatly its successtull . On the other hand the Exchange is a great idea).. And if you are into custom content then possibilities unfolds *1000 .. Plus the free tools from EA, Create A Pattern and Create A World ...


if you can get only one xpac, from your needs I would recommend the latest, Late Night which is more simulation driven[ interaction between sims), than the other 2 (opportuniy-driven, adding new ways to play, demanding more control over your sims). Moreover it adds the hot tub(at last!), elevators, appartment shells, 3 new instruments(piano, bass , drums) arcade machines, new drinks from the mixology skill, and lots of party /club themed items, clothing...And the best simlish soundtrack of the three :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLGoP46QtxU

I would link some of the awesome stuff made by the community on the official forums, but it seems you need to be logged in now to see them.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Sorry to bump an oldish topic.

I was thinking about getting The Sims 3 for Christmas. I was thinking about getting the deluxe edition which retails on sale for $39.99. Do you think it's worth the money? I was hoping it would be cheaper since it came out awhile ago. I had a bad experience with EA and Sims 2 when I bought the collectors edition at launch because the stupid DRM wouldn't let me play the game because I had Nero installed. It still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
 

Retro

Member
One of the most irritating things about the Sims series is that every time they make a sequel (instead of an expansion), they completely ignore the last games' expansions. Seriously? They're just now getting pets back, when that was in the Sims 2 in 2008.

It's like... Yay, we upgraded the game... but took out everything that made the last game feel like a complete package...

Sequels should carry as much as possible from the last game in a series like this, instead of taking a single gameplay/technological step forward but eight steps back in terms of content. Of course, then they can't milk the shit out of people by slowly adding everything back in over the course of several years.

And I'm still pissed off there's no pool table yet. The fuck is anyone supposed to have a decent billiards room without a billiards table?
 
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