-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The Sims 3 |OT|
- Thread starter Slacker
- Start date
brain_stew
Member
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...nchmarks-and-new-quality-comparison/Practice/
Some CPU benchmarks, maybe worth adding to the op.
It seems the game is quite a CPU hog, so that's something to be weary about for those running older hardware, a dual core processor is basically a minimum requirement it seems.
Some CPU benchmarks, maybe worth adding to the op.
It seems the game is quite a CPU hog, so that's something to be weary about for those running older hardware, a dual core processor is basically a minimum requirement it seems.
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
brain_stew said:
To get all the good stuff, you will need a good PC, like Sims 2. I upgraded my PC before and then all these new animations were available to me.
brain_stew
Member
dskillzhtown said:
Its quite cool how a game that has to target quite low base hardware is capable of scaling to modern hardware, the graphics are also pretty damn nice all things considered. Its quad optimised as well, so an all around good effort on the behalf of the programmers I reckon, they could have quite easily have gotten away with much less.
My preorder will be ready to download on Friday, I was quite tempted but wasn't ready to pay the £35 asked on gamersgate. When I saw g2play were selling codes for EA's Store at £19.50 I decided to jump on it, that's half the price EA themselves charge afterall. I'm quite looking forward to trying the game out as I've never played a Sims game since the original base game was released.
Slacker said:Zomg my first official thread.I'll try to update the OP with some more info tonight.
FYI, wander around the Sims Store a little bit, there are a number of free items, including the Prius car, a few shirts, and a couple other things.
:lol, I actually thought this was a new thread. I thought "how the hell did this get to be five pages when my updates were the only thing keeping this off page 6 yesterday?"
brain_stew said:
I've installed this on OS X and on Windows Vista 32-bit on my MBP, and it is FAR, FAR snappier with highest settings on OS X my unibody MBP.
FPS wasn't a huge amount higher on the MBP, but the interface was really laggy under Vista.
brain_stew
Member
mr stroke said:
Well that's at max settings and it scales an awful lot and since it seems that the CPU is the key and you're well specced in that area you may be OK. I'd wait for reports though. All those graphs tell you is that single core play is a no-no, they don't benchmark different GPUs, only CPUS.
An Intel X3100 is mentioned in the requirements so its should run if you've got a modern Intel integrated chipset which in actuality aren't at all as terrible in terms of performance as their forebears, the problem comes with drivers and developer support which can turn compatability and performance to utter shit. Since the Sims has specifically targetted Intel hardware in this case that's not an issue so there's some sort of hope anyway.
What Intel graphics chip does the laptop have?
platypotamus
Member
dskillzhtown said:
I got the car (installed, not owned by sim yet), and the town, but I didn't know there was anything else free. I clicked the "free stuff" link and it went to wallpapers. Grrr. I wish there was a way to show all free shit.
brain_stew
Member
mr stroke said:
Should be fine then, the 4500 series was a pretty big upgrade over the x3100 which is mentioned in the requirements so yeah, its a goer. Go enjoy some Sims.
Edit: For anyone after the game for cheap and don't mind dealing with EA's download manager, G2 Play are selling retail codes (which can be activated through EADM) for 22 Euros/ $29. Mice came straight away as have all my past purchases from these guys. EA's store isn't upto par with Steam and I don't know if you're guaranteed unlimited future downloads but since you're free to make as many backups of the downloaded data as you please and can install from that just fine it shouldn't be an issue anyway.
Decent option considering there's no Steam release. My code is activated and just waiting for the game to unlock and download on the UK release this Friday.
http://www.g2play.net/store/The-Sims-3-EA-Download-Manager.html
platypotamus
Member
Juice said:
Agreed, I nominate Slacker to update the OP. All in favor?
**************
Unrelated question, is there a way to handle entire stacks of groceries at once? I stocked up buying 5 of each item I had recipes for, and when I went to move them into the fridge, I could only move one item from each stack at a time. Please tell me there's an easy way to move them into the fridge?
evil solrac v3.0
Member
so does this game have SecuROM or DRM?
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
mr stroke said:
I am running it on a entry level compaq laptop with no problems. You have to turn some things down in the settings, but it still looks good. I plan on upgrading my desktop later. When I do that I will install it to the desktop to get the uber graphics. But for now, this is fine.
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
Juice said:
I looked through the entire deal, you gets 2 free shirts and a Prius.
I went into the Exchange, where people make stuff, and there is already a bunch of furniture and clothes in there for free.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
grrr I want mine to come today!
my rig is a e6850 c2d @ 3ghz and a 280gtx so judging by that pc cpu guide I should average around 60 fps (my e6850 a little better than the e6600 (by about 600mhz) but a little worse than the e8400 (smaller l2 cache), and no I don't overclock anything.)
i wanna ride this rig till diablo 3 so for almost 2 years old im pretty happy with it.
focusing on the cpu imo was smart of them, almost everything comes with a dual core nowadays.
my rig is a e6850 c2d @ 3ghz and a 280gtx so judging by that pc cpu guide I should average around 60 fps (my e6850 a little better than the e6600 (by about 600mhz) but a little worse than the e8400 (smaller l2 cache), and no I don't overclock anything.)
i wanna ride this rig till diablo 3 so for almost 2 years old im pretty happy with it.
focusing on the cpu imo was smart of them, almost everything comes with a dual core nowadays.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
Kabouter said:
yeah but thats sims for you, I dont think ill sims store anything (unless it adds actual engine/gameplay functionality, not just blue hair)
You can WooHoo with a ghost. She disappeared right after though, so rude.
http://xs940.xs.to/xs940/09234/ts3_2009-06-04_11-25-27-42201.jpg
http://xs940.xs.to/xs940/09234/ts3_2009-06-04_11-25-27-42201.jpg
ZombieSupaStar
Member
Zzoram said:
from what ive read a fully expansioned up sims 2 > than just sims 3 in terms of content, however having a full city now at all times makes the dynamics for the world have much more potential.
a better question is which is a better base game The Sims 2 (no xps) or The Sims 3 (no xps). From what has been posted id guess its just a lack of hottubs, and a bit of nickel and diming on the sims store?
lordfroakie
Member
Has anyone tried Sims 3 for the iphone/ipod touch yet?
The hacker / mod community over at the Sims Resource (www.thesimsresource.com) is hard at work at an open source custom content tool that will allow players to import custom meshes. This is pretty important given that The Sims has always been a creative community-driven franchise. There wouldn't be half as many people playing today were it not for the content that people have created and shared.
On that front, I would expect custom content to be available before the end of the month, assuming they don't run into any problems. You can read all about it here; http://www.thesimsresource.com/workshop.
TSR has been hosting a live chat, and people have been talking about the project quite a bit; they have made it very clear that they will not be hacking EA-made Store items, but there's nothing to stop intrepid modelers from making "very similar items" and sharing them. Read between the lines, and the mod community is basically going to ensure that EA's will have to really push to make their items worth the price, instead of just slapping crap on there and forcing people to go through them if they want anything decent.
The mod community has a history of making much better content than EA does, so for anyone holding out because they don't want to pay for half a game and get nickel-and-dime'd on content, you won't be waiting long.
On that front, I would expect custom content to be available before the end of the month, assuming they don't run into any problems. You can read all about it here; http://www.thesimsresource.com/workshop.
TSR has been hosting a live chat, and people have been talking about the project quite a bit; they have made it very clear that they will not be hacking EA-made Store items, but there's nothing to stop intrepid modelers from making "very similar items" and sharing them. Read between the lines, and the mod community is basically going to ensure that EA's will have to really push to make their items worth the price, instead of just slapping crap on there and forcing people to go through them if they want anything decent.
The mod community has a history of making much better content than EA does, so for anyone holding out because they don't want to pay for half a game and get nickel-and-dime'd on content, you won't be waiting long.
Updated the OP with a few of the freebies in the store (I'll go through the clothes here in a bit). If you guys see worthy stuff in the Exchange let me know and I'll add that too.
I sent a Sim out for a jog last night. Very cool! Really makes you appreciate the openness of the world compared to the previous games.
I sent a Sim out for a jog last night. Very cool! Really makes you appreciate the openness of the world compared to the previous games.
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
Crateman said:
Tell her to do a hard reset of her phone. If that doesn't work, do it again. I had problems initially, but after a hard reset, everything worked fine.
brain_stew
Member
Retro said:
Excellent, stuff like this is why I love the PC platform, people will always find ways to expand upon a game and make overpriced DLC irrelevant. If it pushes up the quality of the paid DLC then everyone's a winner, I've no problem paying for content that is meaty and well priced and doesn't split an online community.
VibratingDonkey
Member
Sounds great. Was worrying about EA making user generated content needlessly difficult and microtransacting the whole thing to death. Kudos to the people working on this project. Sticking it to the man.Retro said:
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
Crateman said:
Hmmm...I heard also a re-download would fix things up too. She can try that. I can feel her on the frustrations. Mine was crashing everytime I did something good.
The_Inquisitor
Member
I'm thinking of picking this up for my sister w/ her new laptop. Is it decent guys?
dock said:
TLDR Version: There really is no right way to play the Sims.
Some people love making complex, interesting Sims and then engineering their life. They purposely play the game hands-on to build a character as realistically as possible.
Then there are people who make complex, interesting sims, but let them go off on their own and watch. In this way, it's sort of like a voyeur / ant farm type game; sometimes there's a great deal of fun to be had with minimal prodding, watching your Insane Klepto sim run around town stealing peoples' magazines or lawn gnomes.
There are people who make Sims with the express purpose of telling a story or even making a movie (since Sims2, the game has come with built-in video capture), and then sharing that tale with others. In this way, it can be a Storytelling / Machinima game.
Sims3 has added a lot of new collecting aspects to the game; you can now hunt for seeds, minerals, fish, and insects, so it's kind of channeling Animal Crossing.
There are people (like me) who crack open the game, skip making a sim, and just start building shit. We start getting ideas watching the Home and Garden network, and usually foam at the mouth looking for custom objects or build features.
For example, the game shipped without spiral stairs, Hot tubs or pool tables. Those last two have been shipped with every single Sims game to date, so their absence is particularly concerning. Also, you can't use Create-a-Style on stairs, fences, or chimneys. Fences so far are pretty good, but the stairs are pretty much poorly textured, so I'm looking forward to somebody hacking that feature in (or at least putting together some customized stair objects soon).
I haven't even played a sim past the tutorial, I've spent all my time trying out build mode and seeing what I can come up with. Here's a few rough examples (just me experimenting, deleted the houses these are based on).
http://i40.tinypic.com/sc75no.jpg
(Yes, I totally am ripping off the Villa from Castlevania 64, except of course, not being able to put plants up on the terraced floor).
http://i40.tinypic.com/20t3u5w.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/2w32h02.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/2i91209.jpg
(early attempt at sunken floors, you have to enter a cheat code o remove floor constraints, and even then it's not very visible / worth the headache. Also, early experimenting with Create-a-Style).
http://i43.tinypic.com/2yoo9at.jpg
So really, just do whatever comes naturally. Make Sims with insane personalities and watch them clash, build a cool ass house, simulate yourself, make a few movies, maybe just put together some sims and kill them off in really interesting ways.
brain_stew said:
TLDR Version: The mod community is going to make EA sorry they released the game with over $50 worth of DLC to buy before the game even shipped.
Yeah. EA is not gonna get away with charging people $10 for a slightly different looking set of furniture, especially not when create-a-style allows you to really make any object (with the exception of aforementioned stairs, fences, and chimneys) match everything else. I was pleasantly surprised with how detailed you can create things; I made some amazing rugs last night.
If EA wants to charge for stuff that behaves differently, rather than looks differently, that's fine. If they make 500 cabinets that all look the same, but have different knobs, they can fuck right off. But if they want to make content that expands the game nicely, that's awesome. For example, the gnome crafting table in the original Sims was fun, added a new way to make money, and was quirky enough that you really wanted to have one.
Color swaps aren't gonna fly, but if they want to add items that have new functions, that's fine. At this point, I would be willing to pay a few sim points for a fucking pool table, even though I feel jipped not getting one by default. Still like Arcade games too.
The custom content I am most looking forward to is a way to add your own pictures as paintings and posters. The selection of paintings in the Sims games are always progressed retardedly ; hamster painting > hula girl > tiger > $5000 stilllife > $10,000 portrait. I always make it a point to put movie posters in for my man caves....
I need my game room elements first though. Pool table, pinball machine, arcade machines... at least there are decent bars to start off in Sims3.
The_Inquisitor said:
If it's a new laptop, it should run ok. A few people in the TSR Chat yesterday were having issues with their laptops, but I think they were trying to get it to run on older computers. If she meets the minimum specs, she should be fine.
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
VibratingDonkey said:
Have you been to "The Exchange" on Sims3.com? There is alot of free stuff on there already. In the past alot of TSR stuff ended up in The Exchange also. It is going to be interesting to see how EA handles this. I mean, are you going to have a ton of free stuff sitting right next to a ton of paid content?
I would handle it this way, branded stuff like IKEA, ecko, GE, etc. would be paid, but generic stuff would be free. That would leave open Home Depot branded decks and grills or a GM Volt you can buy.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
You can add non-steam games to steam bro.Zzoram said:
Christ.
Its barely a convenience thing anyways. Its actually more convenient to launch from desktop. Hit the "show desktop" button, then double click on some shit.
EA has their own download manager if you're worried about patches.
dskillzhtown said:
All of the Exchange stuff so far are create-a-style versions of built-in objects, as there is currently no way to add custom meshes to the game. Every object you see on there that's free? You can make that yourself. Same goes for all of the houses, hairs, and clothes.
The Sims, despite having a great community, is also notorious for having 5000 re-colored clones of the same mesh. There's also people who will download a mesh, subtly change it, and claim it as their own. That sort of thing is already happening on the Exchange; there's a few people who put some really awesome houses on there, and people cloned them and put their names on them to take credit.
On the other hand, The Sims Resource, despite requiring a subscription for the better stuff, polices their content to make sure crap isn't just being thrown around. If you want hundreds upon thousands of same-looking recolors, The Exchange is exactly where that sort of thing is going to happen.
I would not expect to see any custom meshes on there; you'll need to go to The Sims Resource for that, as I don't think EA will want the awesome free stuff people have built competing with their sub-par recolor jobs that cost real money.