Cap Sims

TS3 & TS2

[calypsosbay]

Archery For Children

I love playing medieval and wanted some more fun stuff to do for kids, so now they can do archery!

Do note that this is my first public mod and i am not an animator so it's definitely not perfect. For example I'd love to figure out how to change the positioning of the arrow but for now it's good enough for my gameplay and for sure better than slenderman ;)

There are 2 versions of this mod:

A standalone version which should be used as a replacement for the EA version. The Sims 3 Store's Archer's Gauntlet is NOT required for this one.

DOWNLOAD (standalone)

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And an add-on version which only contains the resources I edited/added so it will require the EA version and you will have to place it into Overrides.

DOWNLOAD (add-on)

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Also shoutout to this hilarious tutorial video that i probably watched 20 times in the process of making this and now lives rent free in my head.

[thesims3help]

"Unofficial Game Modification" Notification + Black Screen Fix

If you've dabbled with core mods or recently approved of a new Windows update, it's likely you'll run into this notification while launching the game.

The good news? The notification is innocuous and easily fixable following the steps below.

Just press "Continue".

Yup, that easy! Pressing "Continue" will make the game launch normally. If you're unable to see this notification from a black screen, hold ALT + TAB at the same time to find it.

2. Fix your core mods.

Core mods such as NRAAS ErrorTrap and simler90's Gameplay Core Mod are known to cause this pop-up. The mods' platform version can be mismatched to your platform's version, prompting this notification.

ErrorTrap offers a download for different platforms: EA App, 64bit Mac version, Steam version and Retail Disk version.

Gameplay Core Mod version on MTS causes this pop-up when used on Steam, EA App and Mac versions of the game. You can download a fix here (SimFileShare link).

[pis3update]

Sims 3 Package Reducer (S3PR) by OhRudi

"🌈👩‍💻Overview👨‍💻🌈

This software reduces the size of Package-Files drastically, very usefull if you have tons of CC

It removes thumbnails (THUM) and icons (ICON) resources from Package-Files and compresses them

Thumbnails are safe to remove, the game regenerates them (see image explenation)

Icons are safe to remove, the game doesn't use them, nor does CC-Magic

Compressing reduces mod size drastically and lets CC load faster into the game

DO NOT compress mods (like NRaas and other Script-Mods), only compress CC

Works only for Package-Files, not for Sims3Pack-Files

Works only for Windows (did test for Windows 10 & 11), not for Mac, did not test on Linux

...continued + more pictures on simblr.cc"

More Info + Download @ simblr.cc

[sim-novels]

How to install the Sims 3 and make it run smooth

With DXVK and S3SS living their high days, older Sims 3 installment guides are rapidly starting to become outdated. So here's a brand new and up-to-date step-by-step guide to go through when you do a fresh install of your game that will help you get the best performance you could possibly imagine for this old and laggy gem of a game.

Have Sims 3 installed, but is it performing abhorrently? I highly recommend a fresh install. You don't have to delete your saves or mods. Just get yourself a fresh bin to work with by uninstalling, going into your program files The Sims 3 folder and deleting any remnant files still in there. Then follow my guide!

All of the steps to follow are below the line ->

Step 1: install your game through your respected platform.

Just follow the regular steps and install the game without adding any other stuff yet whatsoever.

(I personally have a legit copy of the Sims 3 on Steam. If you use another app and have any questions, I'll probably not be able to help you.)

Step 2: run the game once through the official launcher. Once you get to the main menu, you can quit again.

It is very important you run your game through the original launcher at least once after installing it. Not doing so can cause problems with programs like CC magic. You only need to do it the first time. After that, we'll be skipping the launcher entirely.

Step 3: Create a short cut of TS3W.exe on your desktop.

You'll be skipping the launcher from now on. This helps with performance and it starts up your game much faster. It is also important to do this because of DXVK.

You can find TS3W.exe in your bin folder. For me (Steam version) it's in this location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

Right click TS3W.exe, click 'show more options' and choose 'create a shortcut'. Place this shortcut on your desktop and Run Sims 3 from there from now on.

Step 4: Run the GPU Add-on Support patcher

You can find this patcher here. It is essential to run this because Sims will otherwise not recognize your graphics card unless it's over 10 years old. This patcher helps to get your GPU recognized.

The patcher will create a new Graphicsrules.sgr and new Graphicscards.sgr for you in your bin folder. After installing this, you can move the ones that have _old behind them somewhere else (or delete them).

P.S.: if you pirate your game you'll have to do this manually, there's guides online for it but since I have a legit copy I can't help you here.

Step 5: Install DXVK

Make sure you follow this guide by Nornite and do every single step. Don't skip anything!

I'd say DXVK is pretty essential nowadays, especially if you have a modern graphics card with 6GB of VRAM or higher. It'll greatly help to keep your game stable and can prevent a lot of crashes. The way Dxvk works, is that it loads textures through your VRAM instead of your RAM. Especially when you use a lot of CC or HD textures, this will make a huge difference for your RAM usage. Sims 3 can only use 4GB of RAM at once and will start crashing once you hit the 3GB mark in your task manager. With DXVK, you will use a lot less RAM and it'll take much longer for your game to reach this hard cap.

When not to install DXVK: if you have a shitty GPU (like an integrated graphics card on a laptop, or one with 4GB of VRAM or less).

Step 5: Start up the game

Use your new desktop shortcut that also has 'run as administrator' permissions now if you followed the DXVK guide properly.

Step 6: set up all your settings through the ingame options menu

The best graphics settings for you will highly depend on what computer you're using. But there are some things you should always turn off because they negatively affect performance. I will share my (relevant) settings with you (I use a custom UI so your screen style will look a little different from mine). Click on the images to enlarge them so you can read them:

Things of note about these settings:

I recommend you play in windowed mode, especially if you plan to use ReShade. Playing fullscreen is possible, but it does make Reshade presets behave differently in your game. I will include a step in this guide that you can follow to play windowed borderless. So, when you plan to do this: make sure you set the resolution to your display resolution.

Enable object hiding helps with performance. Advanced rendering is essential because otherwise your game looks like absolute shit.

Set your High Detail Lots to any value between 2 and 4. Don't go lower or higher, because you'll get rendering issues that lag out your game.

All other graphics settings can be set to your heart's desire. I'd say start with the highest settings and only go down if you notice your frames per second are bad.

Disable shop mode and lessons and fully disable memories or use this mod to severly limit them. Disable interactive loading screens as well. These are all performance eaters. Interactive loading screen also causes crashes. Memories also don't do anything for your sim, it's just a scrap book with no in-game effects.

Disable any online mode feature. This also lags out your game. Unless you really want to use these features it's best to just play fully offline.

Save your settings, close the game again.

Step 7: Install Sims 3 Settings Setter

This is the most recent magic genie that Sims 3 was blessed with. Especially combined with DXVK it is a life changer. Installing it is simple. You download the most recent version here and drop the .asi file in your bin. Also grab 'wininet.dll' from here and drop that one in your bin too.

Start up your game and load up a save. Once you're inside your save, you press 'insert' to open up the menu for Sims 3 Settings Setter. Go to the 'patches' tab and enable what you like. These are my enabled patches and they all work really well for me, but feel free to experiment with them to find your own performance sweet spot:

Only enable uncompressed textures if you have a GPU with at least 8gb of VRAM. My game will use over 6gb of VRAM easily with this enabled, so you've been warned.

Once you have everything you desire enabled, press 'file' in the top left corner and click 'save settings'.

Step 7.5: if you're playing windowed mode: go into the Other/QoL tab and enable 'Borderless Window'. Set it to 'Full Screen'.

Save your settings and close your game again. No need to save the game you entered for this unless you want to.

Step 8: Install Nraas Errortrap, MasterController and Overwatch

These 3 mods by Nraas are pretty much essential to keep your game from breaking down in the long run. You can download the mods here. Have you never installed a mod for Sims 3 before? Here's a guide (skip the part about Sims3pack and go straight to the part where it explains how to install .package mods).

That's it! You can now play The Sims 3 and it'll be as smooth and stable as it'll ever be. From here on, you can stock your game with more mods and CC (check out my mods masterlist!), or you can install Reshade (here's a guide).

Some important things to keep in mind while playing:

Clean up your game regularly. You can easily do this by using Regul Save Cleaner.

When you install a new mod or update/change Sims 3 Settings Setter, always restart and clear your caches.

Use CC Magic for installing CC, because it merges your files and this really helps with performance. Here's a handy guide on how to use it. Don't put your script mods in here, just your CC.

If you plan to travel to vacation destinations in the EP World Adventures, Nraas Traveler is a must to prevent most of the bugs and crashes that happen in this expansion.

Always keep in mind: mods and corrupt CC can still break your game, make it laggy or unplayable. Always be mindful of the mods you add, so you can always trace any issues you're having back to the mod causing it. I highly recommend not downloading a ton of mods in one session, but adding them step by step and see what they do to your games performance.

Use 'Reset the entire town' from Nraas MasterController at least every other sim week. It'll help clear up any lag that happens because of NPC sims getting themselves stuck routing or annoying stuff like that.

Got a slow CAS? Use Nraas MasterController Compact mode! (Make sure you have the Nraas MasterController Integration module installed). Navigate to NRaas > MasterController > Settings > CAS. Set the following to True: Show in Compact Form: Accessories Show in Compact Form: Clothing Show in Compact Form: Hats

[erasabledinosaur]

TIME TO START PLAYING SIMS 3 BABES

[desiree-uk]

A Sims 3 mod manager tool from GameTimeDev (Fabian)! THE EASIEST WAY TO SORT YOUR CC/MODS!

Download the Sims 3 Mod Manager today and start sorting. Based on the Sims 4 Mod Manager!

Download from GameTimeDev!

[rollo-rolls]

Sooo here it is - my first publicly shared skinblend! I thought it will take more time to finish, but here we go. The process was tedious, as I edited seperately every age and gender as well as color. Yes, that *should* mean no more ugly, blocky textures on dark skinned sims! Their skin is a compeltely different face and body, not just the light version made darker. I'm happy with the result overall, but as always, it's not perfect. You should not worry about seams where the head, scalp and body meets. However, there can be some imperfections in bodies theirself. Hopefully nothing that could make your eyes bleed, but yeah, be aware. You can see the age stages of black female, white female, black male and white male. Of course there are other colors in between and they look good as well, I just wanted to show you the brightest and the darkest ones. You can also see how newborns look like:

This skin comes in few default versions and two non default versions. Here are the options:

default skin with 2k faces and 4k bodies

default skin with 2k faces and 2k bodies (this is the one that I use)

default skin with 1k faces and 2k bodies

default skin with 1k faces and 1k bodies

non default skin with 2k faces and 4k bodies

non default skin with 2k faces and 2k bodies

Here is how the non default skin looks like in the skintone panel:

DEFAULT 2K Faces 4K Bodies: SFS | PATREON

DEFUALT 2k Faces 2k Bodies: SFS | PATREON

DEFUALT 1k Faces 2k Bodies: SFS | PATREON

DEFAULT 1k Faces 1k Bodies: SFS | PATREON

NONDEFUALT 2k Faces 4k Bodies: SFS | PATREON

NONDEFUALT 2k Faces 2k Bodies: SFS | PATREON

@imamiii @kurasoberina @chinsims @annoyinglydarkblaze @servospawn for their wonderful skins; @i-like-teh-sims @kurasoberina @neiuro for their tones ramps that I used on the non default versions

Go crazy with this one. Use it as a base, share your skinblend with us or don't and keep it to yorself! Use parts of this skin, whatever. I just ask you not to reupload these files and please, don't claim these very skinblend as your own, as I really spent some time on it and probably worsened my eyesight too xD

@kpccfinds @sssvitlanz @simstifulccfinds @katsujiiccfinds 

and every cc blog, thank you if you reblog! ♥

If you’d like to throw a coin or two, you can support me on Ko-Fi. Thank you!

My Ko-Fi Page

Hackett Out.

[pis3update]

Dream Pod selection uncapped by Dandelion Sprout

"Players who have both: • Into the Future and several other expansion packs installed. • At least one of their Sims at Advanced Technology level 10 and who the player tells to dream in a dream pod. They may have noticed an oddity in the dream selection: Up to 47 dreams exist in the dream pod if all expansion packs are installed... but the game placed a cap of 40. This means that various dream options aren't shown unless the Sim quits the dream choice menu and attempts to dream again. This could get odd for players who for instance rely on the absolute gamebreaker that is "Dream about Waking Up", as it would not always show up as an available dream. This mod fixes that. Uncapped. All dreams in the menu at the same time. No more need to enter the dream choice menu multiple times in order for the desired dream to show up.

...continued on MTS."

More Info + Download @ MTS.

[wanderingsimsfinds]

Introducing the 2025 Checkered Collection

There are 50 seamless patterns included (2025Checkered 1-50)

Found under GEO & FABRIC

There are ZIPs for sims3packs & packages with PNGs included

There is a MERGED package file with all 50 patterns

DOWNLOAD (SFS) (MediaFire)

Source: Creative Fabrica, Spoonflower, Adobe

[thesweetsimmer111]

How to quickly update your TS3 options file without launching the game after graphics driver update

I used to follow a guide on twitter by Acidlure on updating the options file after a graphics driver update without having to launch the game to create a new options file, but unfortunately it isn't available anymore and after not updating my drivers for over a year (oopsie) I almost forgot how to do it since I couldn't find anything else on it, so this will also be a guide for future me too 😄

-> This guide uses dxdiag which is a Windows tool, but there should be something similar on other operating systems that you might be able to work with if you do not use Windows. Step 1: Not mandatory, but I recommend making a back up of your Options file somewhere. Step 2: Update your graphics drivers. Step 3: Search and open up a program called dxdiag.exe on your pc. Go to the Display tab, then on the right hand side window copy the last 4 digits of the version number:

Step 4: Open up your Options file in your Sims 3 documents folder, press CTRL + F to open up the search bar and type in "lastdevice". Then replace the last 4 numbers with the ones you copied in dxdiag:

lastdevice = 0;10de;1c03;8180

Now you can open up and play your game and your settings should stay the same! 😊

[pis3update]

Automatically Closing Shutters (Shy & Shout Out Shutters) by Shadowsun252

"Hi everyone! Another one for the automatically closing curtains/blinds series! This time it's the EA Shout Out and Shy Shutters. About This Content These shutters are the same as the Shout Out Shutters/Shy Shutters from the base game. During the day (6AM - 6PM), the shutters are open. During the night (6PM - 6AM), they are closed. There are two objects contained in the .zip-file, each containing one of the shutters.

...continued + more pictures on MTS."

More Info + Download @ MTS.

[twinsimming]

Game On! Collection 🎮

The Sims 4: High School Years added a bunch of cool items for gamer/streamer sims and I’ve converted some of them for our sims to use in The Sims 3! I also converted the video game consoles from The Sims 4: City Living and the simmi figurines from The Sims 4: Snowy Escape so I have some more silly little guys to put on my nerdy sims’ shelves :p

Note: There are two versions of the wireless speaker, one that glows and another that doesn’t. They both work as stereos. There are also two versions of both computers, one version each with the streaming equipment and the other without it.

The flag on the wall and the rug are previous conversions of mine here, the freezer bunny figurine is by simbeings here, the headphones, camera, and seashell plate are by bioniczombie here and here, the MySims dolls are by Around The Sims 3 here, and the voidcritter cards are by kandiraver-sims here.

Comfort

Spine Reticulator Gaming Chair: non-CAStable | §350 |

Multitasker G: non-CAStable | §325 |

Décor

Yamachan Simmi: non-CAStable | §25 |

Electronics

Gamer’s First Computer [edited by twinsimming]: four channels | §1350 |

Streamer’s First Computer: four channels | §1500 |

The Big Picture Ultrawide Computer: four channels | §2525 |

The Big Picture Ultrawide Computer Base Model [edited by twinsimming]: four channels | §2400 |

The Big Picture Ultrawide Computer Webcam and Microphone [edited by twinsimming]: two channels | §125 |

GoldiBox Gaming Console: two channels | §400 |

UnorthoBox Gaming Console: two channels | §800 |

Groove Tube Wireless Speaker: four channels | §150 |

Groove Tube Wireless Light Up Speaker [edited by twinsimming]: four channels | §150 |

Lighting

RGBright Strip Lights: two channels | §105 |

Tri Hard LED Panels (Right): four channels | §125 |

Tri Hard LED Panels (Left): four channels | §125 |

Surfaces

PR-0 Gaming Desk: four channels | §430 |

| All TS4 presets included and base game compatible |

Credit: meshes by EA, The Sims 4, Sims4Studio, TSRW, Blender, Milkshape, Photoshop, and Gimp.

Download (SFS, package) | Mirror (MEGA, package)

If you like my work, please consider tipping me on Ko-fi.

Experiencing issues with my conversions? Inbox me. Enjoy! 💙

[dacrystalsim]

TS3 Functional Closet Mod

The idea for this mod started with my want to convert TS2 Apartment Life closet. I could have used the Supernatural wardrobe as a base, but I wanted the doors to have proper animations and the ability to function like real closet doors against the wall, similar to how doors work in the game. So, this mod was created! 😊

What is this mod?

This mod functions as a dresser but includes a new animation that allows the doors to slide open like an actual closet. When the closet opens and closes, the Sim plays an idle animation, and when changing clothes, they use the spin animation.

The mod includes two different types, depending on the closet:

Dresser Type – Offers the same interactions as the base game dresser. This type is best for closets without mirrors.

Mirror Type – Includes interactions from the vanity table in Supernatural and Showtime (Don’t worry, the mod is 100% base game compatible!).

Important! This mod does not add a closet object to the game by itself. It only provides the necessary functionality for closet objects to work properly!

The Closet Object:

As mentioned earlier, this mod was created because I wanted to convert TS2 closet. The conversion is included with the mod, and you're welcome to use it as a base for creating your own closets! 😊

The closet comes in three different versions:

Opaque

Mirror – This version is split into two parts: the closet and a separate mirror for the animated door. To use it properly, simply place the mirror on the closet—it will slot into place and move with the door 😊

Glass

Both merged and unmerged versions are included—please install only one! (The merged file does not include the mod itself.)

How to Install?

Place the mod and the closet objects in your Mods/Packages folder.

Download links:

[SFS] | [MTS]

Credits: EA/Maxis, Blender, SimPE, S3PE, S3OC, TSRW, ILSpy, Visual Studio 2022 and Battery for the Script Mod Template Creator. Special thanks: @zoeoe-sims, @deniisu-sims, TS3CreatorCave discord server for all the help and Bloom from simlogical for creating a mirror door that I used as a reference to figure out how to make the closet move with the mirror ❤ @xto3conversionsfinds @pis3update @kpccfinds

Additional information, CASTable channels, polycount and how to make your own closet under the cut.

How to Create Your Own Closet?

Choose the version you'd like to clone as your base and ensure the OBJK is set correctly in S3PE for the closet type you want.

For a closet without a mirror: Sims3.Gameplay.Objects.ShelvesStorage.Crystal.Closet

For a closet with a mirror: Sims3.Gameplay.Objects.ShelvesStorage.Crystal.ClosetMirror

Polycount:

The 3 versions share the same polycount. LOD 0 (High Detail): 2430 LOD 1 (Medium Detail): 1070

Additional Info:

The closets are found under Storage -> Dressers in Buy Mode.

The original TS2 catalog description and price.

The meshes were UV edited to make them CASTable.

The package files are compressed.

[desiree-uk]

Using Expanded Active Households/Home mod by Savanita! 🏠

(Warning: This is a long post as I don't really want to split it up into mutiple ones unless Savanita (@thesweetsimmer111) makes a massive update to her mod! 😄 This post is for the mod as it is now.

This is a long time coming as I wanted to make this guide as soon as Savanita's mod came out, but then I got waylaid learning to make mods myself 🥳 and then RL happened, but now I've finally got it together! 😛

I really love this mod by Savanita! 💖 Testing it out was so fun and I enjoyed throwing out ideas to her to see which one would work lol

She said she wanted make a mod to allow sims in the active household to be able to live on different lots without them returning to the main home lot and to be able to change certain things such as allowing ownership of beds on other residential lots. It really piqued my interest. At first I thought we could already do that, but then I realised we couldn't without a lot of other mods and different settings of them, and restriction of sims autonomy so they wouldn't disappear as a homeless NPC! lol

While testing the mod, I asked her what was the original plan for the mod - because it was way more flexible than what I initially thought. Savanita said that she had been playing one of her main households quite a lot, and they have a lot of friends and family scattered around the town which she also liked to play sometimes too. She always felt like it was hard to control all of the sims if they went on an outing together, and if one of them has a baby or toddler, to get other family members as free babysitters rather than a random stranger take care of babies/toddlers.

As a player who plays rotationally I got it! I really loved the idea of using extended familes and friends more in my rotations!

This mod is very simple to use and once you start playing with it, you'll see how flexible it is. You can almost achieve any kind of interactive gameplay you want with a little creativity. I'll be showing you here how I'll use it in my game.

Houses

Apartments

Community Lots

Pets

Complimentary mods

I'll give some ideas on how I'll use it on houses, community lots, with pets, and other mods I'll use along with it to achieve different scenarios.

I'll be using the regular expressions of 'expand' 'expanded sim(s)' 'expanded household(s)' 'expanded lot/house' etc to describe the sims or house/lot that has a marker on or is assigned to - I was pretty much using them from the beginning, they sound so organic lol

This mod does require Lazy Duchess' MonoPatcher!

I know some people don't like using it, but believe me, it's worth it to use a little mod like this that can achieve so much ! 💚

Houses

If your family has ownable lots, this mod is perfect for them as you can spread out your family to live on them while still being linked together as the main household.

Playing the active family you want to expand, add the little house marker - found in Decor>Sculptures for §0 - on the house you want a sim(s) to live on.

Assign the sims you want to live in the house.

You can also assign pets (more on pets later! )

Give the marker a name!

When you click 'Go Home' on their portraits, the assigned sims go to their new expanded house!

Using a well known family (and one of my favourites to test with), the Sekemoto family is just right for this mod!

Yumi is finally fed up of Leighton being all up under her feet and wants him to finally spread his wings, settle down and maybe find a lovely partner who can love and take care of him and his cute son, Sam. But Leighton's sports career isn't really hitting the pinacle of his talent and paying much money so he can't really afford to move out. Yumi buys a little cottage next door with her retirement and pension money. Leighton and Sam can live there, have their own space but still be near by and most importantly - household-bound (another good expression!) to the main house - so I can easily switch between the members and both houses are open for all members to come and go. Leighton can drop Sam over to mum and she can visit them.

Of course that also means they share household funds and fridge inventories. For expanded households like this, it works perfectly because Leighton can save money until he can afford to buy or rent his own home and Yumi can cook and he and Sam can still enjoy her food from the fridge in their own place! lol

Family Inventory with the Expanded Household mod:

Ownable lots can share the family inventory with the main lot. So if a sim on the expandable lot can't afford new furniture, they can bring over a sofa or bed, whatever they want! To do this, you have to switch to a sim on the main lot and shift+click on the floor of the expanded lot to access the family lot in Buy Mode. So in my above example, if Leighton wants his desk and laptop from his old room, switch to Yumi, pack up the items from the house, then move the camera to the apartment, shift+click into Buy Mode and you'll see his desk and laptop in there!

(My open family inventory mod doesn't work with Savanita's Expanded Household mod, but they both work well independent of eachother 🙂)

Expanded Household Notes

The home marker can be placed on empty houses that are not purchased by the main household or any sim.

You can add multiple markers on one expanded lot and give them different names so you can read them from the tooltip to know who or what they are for.

You can add as many sims to one marker or across many markers to spread them out.

The sims can be either from the same household or from different households - you have to switch active households to add sims from them.

Other Ownable House ideas

Have extended family live on ownable houses

Granny annexe - a small flat on lot next door - can be owned by household but doesnt have to be.

Or actual Granny! - elderly parents or widowed grandparent to live with family but want their independence.

Have teen or YA offspring live away from home. Far enough to be out of their parents hair but near enough to still be controlled by them!

Young married couple starting out but cant afford to move away completely.

Young couple with baby wanting space but still want to live near grandparents and extended family.

Lodger - assign a resident sim, like a friend, extended family member, that you don't mind using your funds or eating your food from the fridge! Use PJSims bank objects from her club mod to have them pay the main household.

Resident sim as a service sim - to work for the main household as a live-in cleaner, butler, maid, gardener, babysitter - added to the main family but has own space - can use other mods such as the bank mod to pay them, the allotment mod for a gardener, give neat trait for cleaners/maids etc, (make sure they have access to the main lot), live-in babysitter, (either invite them over to babysit or drop your baby at their flat).

Stay over at family or friends houses/sleepovers - If you have sims you like to visit often but not necessarily want to move in with them, add a maker on their houses and assign your sim to it. I've only tested this with family so I didn't get the 'inapropriate visitor' message, but I will try doing this with friends. If I do see the message, I'll just give them the 'Inappropriate But In A Good Way' reward. To have them stay over at your active sims house, switch to the visitors you want, assign them to the marker on your active lot. They can stay over for as long as you want them assigned to the marker. When you're tired of them hanging around, take their names off, and they go back to their homes!

Apartments

The above notes are very useful for blocks of flats/apartments that you want to fill up with your own resident sims and not NPCs. The lot doesn't have to be owned by a particular sim (unless you want it to, in that case you'll have to set up your own ways to have the tenants pay rent to the owner)

Important for Expanded Apartments to work:

Set lock door options - use EA Door Lock or NRaas GoHere

Set bed ownership

Add cot/crib for babies and toddlers

Add fridge

Add cooker

I made this block of flats that has 4 small flats in it. Again I'm using Leighton as my first sim to test it out lol

As the lot isn't owned by anyone its no point putting the marker(s) inside the lot as you won't be able to access the inside of it until a sim is assigned to it, so I place them outside - I'll move them to the sim's inventory or at the back of the house in my main game or so they won't stand out so much - I'm just putting them at the front for this test game.

I added Leighton and Sam to a marker, named it after him and what flat he's in.

This is when you set the two most important things to make sure he'll go into the right flat; the door locks and the bed ownerships. The residents might not go inside the lot straightaway because sims love to idle but they will go in - and they have too many doors to choose from, so the the door locking system is very important! They will also go into their flats eventually if at least one of their motives is low - being tired will push them into their flats and into bed, being hungry will push them to their fridges and needing the toilet will push them to their bathrooms. Also make sure there is a cot/crib if they have a baby.

Make sure to use the door lock options to make sure he and his household use the doors to his flat only

Leighton went straight upstairs to his floor and put Sam down on the landing and went to get something to eat - an avocado toast in the fridge Yumi made earlier! - Sam followed him and played in the toilet LOL

I later switched to the Baker household and Becky Baker and her baby. She left her baby with her dad :)

I put her in the flat next door on the same landing as Leighton 😉

He was in the laundry room and she went straight to talk to him in there lol. Love it!

I haven't filled up the two partments upstairs yet, but I will in my main game. You assign the sims the same way to the markers outside, making sure you set the door locks and beds. If it really bothers you seing a bunch of inactive residents outside, or on the landings you can always add a common area for them to hangout in until they really need their motives sorted out.

Student Housing

I always like playing homeworld University. I never send sims to the Uni world. I have a home university and some small residential lots nearby for sims to live in while at college to simulate sims living on campus, away from home for a couple of weeks. With the Expanded Household mod I can do that without moving them out of their houses, especially teens! And again, the student residence doesn't have to be owned by anyone unless you want them to and it can be a residential or community lot.

I wanted to make sure teens could live away from home so I tested with River McIrish and some other teens from Sunset Valley.

They all arrived! Look at them chatting up a storm in their new place! 😍

I've assigned their rooms, locked their doors and set their beds.✅

This will also work if their residence is on the same lot as the university.

Now, I had problems with the teens living away from home every night at 10.30pm! 😄

They weren't being pushed to go home as such, but the 'Go Home' interaction kept showing up in their queues, no matter how many times I'd cancel it.

I checked all the curfew settings in my NRaas settings. Even after disabling all the curfew and push settings in the town and castes options I set in NRaas Story Progression, I was still having problems keeping them where they were. I realised I completely missed the curfew setting under the 'Graduations and Proms' settings! LOL. I turned it off and that finally fixed things.

NRaas SP> Options>Grad>Proms>Curfews - this was the one setting that was very strict!

Expanded Apartments Notes

Remember, expanded sims/households on apartment lots will still have shared fridge inventories and shared household funds with their main household - BUT not with the expanded sims from other households that they may live with! You don't have to worry about the residents eating eachothers foods or use eachother's money! When Becky Baker gets food from her fridge, she won't be able to see the contents of Leighton and Yumi's fridge or eat their Avocado Toast. If Leighton uses his funds for a cab, it won't be from the Baker's funds. Brilliant! 😃

Each expanded sim/household gets their own mail from the mailbox, even if it's the same mailbox on an apartment lot.

Community Lots

When I was testing this, I added a marker to a community lot, not knowing for sure it would work and to my immense happiness, it did! This is where the mod really comes into it's own and is a massive game changer for me!

With this mod, Sims can live on community lots with a marker placed anywhere as it's open.

If you have Buzzler's Builder Stuff mod you can add residential items such as a cooker, fridge, bed - anything you'd consider a home comfort can be placed on a community lot for a sim to be confortable.

You can use my Community Lot Mailbox/Trashcan mod, which enables a mailbox and trashcan to be added to a community lot as if it was a residential lot and sims will get their mail, books etc as normal but there are some oddities. The bills aren't calculated properly as residential bills and they may not arrive autonomously. I can't do anything about that as the bills are hard-coded for residential lots, but if you add bills to the mailbox with NRaas Debug Enabler, the postman will arrive within 24 hours and post the sims bills.

If you have Pjsutton's Rental mod, the community 'home' will be considered a rental home and the sim may or may not pay rent, but I don't know how it's calculated as its not technically a house.

The bills might calculate if the community lot is owned by another sim.

Previously, I'd rely on NRaas MC>Settings>Allow Add Sim on Community Lots (True) and MC>Add Sim to make a sim 'live' on one, but with the Expanded house marker, you can assign a sim to live on one without the NRaas settings, but I use them both together to enjoy the best of both worlds!

The main reason I like sims to live on a community lot is to have flats upstairs from shops. My artist sim Joy Peacelove, has a shop to sell her art. There is a small flat upstairs that I like her to live in as its bigger than her own tiny flat and there's more room for her to have an easel there do she can paint in her spare time.

I added a marker and assigned her to it so now she'll use the flat upstairs from the shop as her home as long as her name is on the marker.

Really though, I want the shop flat to be Joy's only home because she's meant to be a struggling artist. What struggling artist do you know that has two homes? Yeah, exactly! 😄

So I use NRaas Master Controller to add her to the lot and her main lot will be sold. (Make sure the setting 'Allow Add Sim On Community Lots> True' is set in MC: NRaas > MC > Settings > Allow Add Sim on Community Lots > True (is False by default).

As it is a community lot, there are still some quirks to living on one as their main home such as the sim won't always autonomously go home when sent to and sometimes certain home objects don't fully work such as the fridge - but using NRaas>Add Sim together with the Expanded Household not only makes the shop her home but all residential interactions will actually work properly!

To make sure her move goes smoothly, I first use my Open Family Inventory mod to move whatever furniture I want Joy to have from her main home to the shop flat. I make sure to empty the inventory before assigning Joy to the Expanded Household Marker or adding the sims to the lot otherwise I can't access it and she'll lose her contents (the Expanded mod overrides my mod and MC will delete the contents.)

I assign Joy to the marker. Now, to have her 'sell' her main house, I 'add' her to the community flat with MasterController.

I make a note of the Joy's household funds the sims household funds because she will get the money from the 'sale' of her main house and I want to deduct it.

When adding a sim to a community lot, you must switch to another sim/household first as the sim will 'disappear' if she's the active sim while being added.

I switch to another sim, click on the exterior of the art shop, NRaas>MC>Add Sim and search for Joy in the filter and added her to it, then switch back to her when done.

If successful, when you switch back to your expanded sim, you'll see she has the full amount of money from her main house in her household funds, even if she was renting it. You can take that money off by clicking on the sim: NRaas>MC>Household> Family Funds. Enter the minus sign and the amount to subtract. Her main and only home is now the the shop! Like the apartment, make sure you lock the doors of the flat to everyone but the sim, set her bed and make sure all other doors she's not using is locked to her.

When you add a sim to a community lot, the mailbox might disappear but you can just one back again.

Now Joy's only place of residency is the small flat upstairs from her art shop!

MC makes the flat her only livable place, and the Expanded mod makes everything in that place work as if she was in a proper house!

Makeshift Daycare Service/Childminders

If you have a childminder sims and don't want to use the default daycare career for them, you can always set up your own makeshift daycare service! Run it on a residential or community lot, have a sim live or own the lot, and have childminders live or work there.

Switch to the families who have toddlers/children and assign them to the childminder's lot, even if its just for the day. Take them off when you're ready for them to leave and they'll teleport home!

A daycare service is defintely needed in this town as the babysitters are...nowhere to be found lol

Darla at her home daycare, a cute building by PolarBearSims at MTS! 😍

I didn't direct any of the toddlers to 'go home' to the daycare because I wanted to see if any turned up autonomously. One teleported to the daycare in about two minutes! 🥳

Other Community Lot ideas

Use the household marker at community lots for temporary stays such as:

Hospital stays - if you have an open hospital, add a marker there and assign selected sims to stay at a hospital when they get sick for a few days! Assign their beds. You can lock their doors if you don't want them to go out or wander around but make sure they can have something to eat when they want.

Jail/Prison stints - add a marker at an open police station/jail. Assign prisoners to the marker. Assign their beds and lock the main doors so the prisoners are free to wander around the prison lot and yard but not leave the building until they do their time!

Bootcamp/military training camp - delinquent sims and soldier sims can be assigned to a marker at an open basecamp.

Care Home for the elderly - elderly sims assigned to a marker at a care home. If you don't want your elderly sims to live at a care home permanately, this is a nice alternative!

Hotel/motel/inn/lodge/camping - Short stays for sims who want a holiday break from home!

Expanded Community Lot Notes

You can add Twin's utilities from her mod to the community lot as an expanded sim and the sim will be billed for their power, water and AC usage on the lot. The bill amount is quite low, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. 😄

Pets

I don't play with pets that much except horses, but I really like that we can assign pets to the markers if we want! When PJSutton (the creator of the Rental mod at MTS) made the Horse Boarding Service mod,

I had the privilege of helping to test it out and learned to love playing with horses in my game! 🐎 With the mod, your sim can buy or adopt a horse and board it elsewhere if they live in a small house or apartment with no stable. You had to add another mod to stop the horses being pushed home though, but it didn't always work properly, and the horse would find itself being pushed home and suffer low motives and routing problems because it had no where to run, sleep or eat at it's own home. With Savanita's Expanded mod, this is no longer a problem!

Add some stables to a residential or community lot, making sure they have a roof over them, some water, hay, salt lick, apples, carrots, etc, whatever else a horse needs.

Have a sim own it or manage it. Switch to the family you want to buy/adopt a horse for.

Christopher Steel lives in a small trailer but he wants a horse so he adopts Asta, who he can board at the Horses Haven stables owned by the local farmer, Davon Selby. 🐎

As the horse's owner, assign the horse to the marker at the stables (Assign Pets to Lot…)

As the horse, click 'Go Home' on their portrait. The horse should hopefully run to the stables! (Christopher was already riding Asta, so they rode to the stables!)

Click on one of the stables>Boarding Services>Boarding Roster>Request Boarding Approval. Wait for approval.

The expanded marker will stop the horse from trying to run back home every morning as the stables is now the horse's home!

If the stables aren't owned by a sim, you can still assign your horses to the stables without using the boarding mod - the horse won't leave.

Set up your own boarding service and have owners pay with the banking mod. You can assign sims to live at the stables too who can work as stable hands to take care of the horses for owners.

This could work for other pets too! If you have a vet service, sims can temporarily house their sick pet at the vets with nurses to take care of them until they're well enough to go home!

Other mods that compliment Savanita's Expanded Household mod:

Needed: Lazy Duchess' MonoPatcher - without it, the mod won't work!

Desiree101 Open Family Inventory mod

Desiree 101 Community Mailbox/Trashcan mod

NRaas Master Controller

NRaas GoHere

NRaas Story Progression

NRaas Debug Enabler

PhoebeJaySims Club mod - with banking

PhoebeJaySims Allotment mod

PhoebeJaySims Taxes and Benefits mod

PhoebeJaySims Real Estate mod

PhoebeJaySims Postal Mod

Buzzler Builder Stuff mod

PJSutton Apartments & Roommates Fix (Rental) mod

PJSutton Horse Boarding Service mod

Twinsimming Utilities Mod

[criisolate]

What if I say I learnt a way to make ts3 run even smoother🙀 The game is currently running on 2.5+gb of RAM and 5+gb of VRAM… This is insane.

[criisolate]

I'll explain what I did below, before making any change please back up relevant files and make sure you have a decent computer (or at least a good video card, mine is Nividia RTX 2060 6GB). This method was initially posted by Foul Play in Discord, so a big thanks to them!!! 📢Check out the comment section first please. There seems to be some issues with Reshade/Gshade📢 We all know that The Sims 3 is a 32-bit old game that can only use less than 4GB of RAM, making it prone to crash due to memory overflow. Moreover, the game loads some texture memory into RAM, resulting in high RAM usage and low VRAM usage. Even the most powerful computers can't leverage their advantages. Therefore, what we need to do is to allow the game to fully utilize the performance of modern computers, while reducing RAM usage and increasing VRAM usage.

Download and install dxvk. Copy the d3d9.dll from the x32 folder to your bin folder (where you installed smooth patch and reshade/gshade). If you have installed reshade/gshade before, you will be prompted to overwrite files, please choose yes. If reshade/gshade stops working after entering the game, reinstall reshade/gshade, and choose Vulkan mode(for reshade) /dxvk mode(for gshade) instead of d3d9 when installing. If you are not familiar with dxvk, it is recommended to check out this post (the 7th page) or videos about dxvk on Youtube.

Download the dxvk.conf file and place it in the same folder. Open this file with Notepad, delete all content, and add the following text. The first line must be added, and the second and third lines are used to set vertical synchronization and frame rate lock (It's just my personal preference, you can set it up based on the documentation on GitHub). d3d9.textureMemory = 1 d3d9.presentInterval = 1 d3d9.maxFrameRate = 75 At this point, you can enter the game and observe if a TS3W.dxvk-cache file is generated in the bin folder. If so, dxvk is successfully installed. After entering the SIMS 3, the game settings will be reset, so you need to back up the original settings or readjust them directly. For me, simply installing dxvk converted the game's RAM usage of over 300MB to VRAM usage. The Sims 3 became more stable. It's harder for it to reach 3.7GB RAM usage and then crash.

(Experimental, set it cautiously and test yourself)Next, open your GraphicsRules.sgr, search and find two lines seti MemCacheBudgetValue, which determine the size of the game's VRAM Cache. The values behind represent 200MB (209715200) and 160MB (167772160) respectively. Modify these two values to larger numbers. You can choose according to your computer and then have a test in the game. You can then check how much RAM and VRAM the game is using in the Task Manager after modification and find a proper value. If you don't install dxvk, increasing these values will make your RAM usage higher! EDIT: The original values of 200MB and 160MB are calculated as 200x1024x1024=209175200 and 160x1024x1024=167772160. I set MemCacheBudgetValue to -1 during testing, which represents no limit. Before using dxvk and modifying GraphicsRules.sgr, the game only used less than 1.5GB of VRAM. But now, the game is using over 5GB of VRAM after 2 sims day playing. However, RAM usage continues to increase at the same time and does not remain at a certain size as I expected. Maybe MemCacheBudgetValue should be set to an appropriate size to prevent the game from eventually using over 3.7GB+ of RAM. After applying all these changes, with 6GB of mods and all graphics settings set to the highest, my game now runs more stable and smoother. I recommend you to try these steps above. Results may vary from person to person, so please share your test results in the comments^^

some extra information you may want to know

This method doesn't fundamentally solve the issue of the Sims 3. I suggest going through the performance optimization guides on Steam before attempting this.

Some of the settings in Nvidia (and maybe other cards) no longer take effect after installing dxvk. For example, the vertical sync, frame rate lock, and anisotropic filtering that I set in the Nvidia Control Panel don't work anymore. This may be due to switching the game from d3d9 to Vulkan. Fortunately, some settings can still be adjusted in the dxvk.conf file.

I recommend not opening the Nvidia Control Panel or similar utilities when running games with dxvk, as there's a chance it could switch the game back to d3d9 mode, causing the RAM usage to revert to its original state (I've experienced this a few times).

Each time you install and uninstall dxvk, switching the game between Vulkan and d3d9, is essentially making the game recognize the graphics card again, which results in the settings being repeatedly reset.

[simnostalgia]

Wayback Machine is a GREAT tool. It just has a few issues. The number one issue is that it isn't great at crawling. Normal HTML sites are no problem but more complex sites like forums and especially blogs are hard for it to navigate. It tends to get only very small pieces of LiveJournal for example. The entire official Sims 3 forum from 2009-2017(?) is just gone because Wayback wasn't able to access it.

As I've talked about over the past few years, I'm trying to archive a lot of CC with Archive.org. This works well for most older sites but not so well with newer ones. Plus, I'm focusing on custom content more than webpages and stories.

Stories, that people put hours and hours into, legacies, forum posts, pictures, blog posts, all things that are just TOO numerous for me to even make a dent in on my own.

Buuuut, if I could get a bunch of simmers who were actively viewing blogs and downloading content and reading forum posts to archive every post they viewed that could do something!

Wayback Machine Auto-Archiver is a bot that archives all PUBLIC webpages that you visit to the wayback machine. Think of it as a bot that follows you around taking a shot of every blog you visit. Obviously, this isn't just for Sims content but it would certainly help the community who may go looking for the content that you archived after it's LONG gone from the internet.

The auto-archiver is a simple extension. If you're running Chrome or Edge you simply install it like any other extension and then you surf the web like always.

The more simmers who use it, the more content gets archived. Also, it's entirely anonymous. If you're a lurker and you've never made or posted anyway, think of this as a way to give back!

Download it here and please reblog!

(I will be reblogging this post several times)

[simnostalgia]

Just an update: The auto-archiver WILL download custom content under certain circumstances. It always grabs pages but if custom content is deliberately hard to reach (such as behind adfly or TSRs timer, automatic archiver won't grab it) It DOES seem to grab MTS downloads (which are archived under skuld.modthesims.com) but if content is behind a login page it won't necessarily get it. (Sometimes it will sometimes it won't. It depends on how the website it set up, I guess?)

As it turns out, Mediafire content CAN be archived by this so if you visit a Mediafire page it will grab what's there, but Mediafire uses hundreds of subdomains. It seems hit or miss. If you want to mirror content you can use the direct crawler available through Internet Archive. On the bottom right of this page, enter your URL if you're unsure if a page you're viewing will be grabbed by autoarchiver.

Again, PLEASE reblog this so more people see it. Having people automatically archive their own webpages and sim related content they view will be incredibly helpful in helping us preserve the community's hard work!

[capsims]

Flamingo Pattern

Flamingo pattern with 2 recolorable channels and in package format

Download here

Themed category

Made with Pattern Packager

Pattern from colourlovers

[celtysims]

Faux Fireplace Wall Collection

I saw a photo somewhere here on the internet of a cosy-looking hearth very similar (if not exactly like) the cover photo of this post. So, I took a few hours of my weekend to make this 24-piece wallpaper set!

You can find the wallpapers under ‘Wallpaper’ and ‘Paneling’ respectively. Each costs §5. The variants are:

plain

baseboard only

plain crown

fancier crown

plain crown/fancy crown and baseboard

All of the wallpapers are designed to match each other, so mix and match as you choose. You aren’t limited by anything other than your imagination. 

Enjoy and keep cool this summer (or warm if it’s winter for you)~

DL: MF // Box