Starting a new format on my Simsta where I show u the unhinged lore of my characters so here we go: XAVIER MULLIS ✨🦾
As a child, Xavier was gifted a doll named „Annie“ who quickly became his favorite. His attachment deepened as he grew older. Raised in a chaotic, creative household full of musicians, artists, and scientists, Xavier eventually made a wild plan: bring Annie to life.
Knowing she wouldn’t shy away from such an unorthodox experiment he turned to Sarah, his mother’s best friend who’s been living with the family and had an alienchild named Nova. She spent nights in her lab working on a tincture for the doll. The experiment succeeded just as Xavier reached his teenage years, though with a twist: „Annie“ manifested as a boy who called himself „Levi.“ Despite the initial shock, the two formed a close bond. Maybe too close…
This transformation ignited Xavier’s deep fascination with robotics. He is now applying for a technology degree at university, having already built his first plumbot, „Roberta.“ Xavier’s lifetime wish is to make his plumbot sentient. How convenient to have rich-celebrity-parent-money to afford such a passion! But before he can fullfill his wish he needs to learn muuuch more, especially, how to take better care of Roberta. Maybe he will meet somebody who can help him soon...
Outside of his lab, Xavier’s social life remains unconventional: he prefers the company of his living doll, his robot, and occasional visits from Nova, the alien girl who has become increasingly obsessed with futuristic tech.
Maddy flew over to Los Aniegos for a photoshoot with the one and only Rio (thanks @sussimmin 🤭) and my simelf Crispy, who is a famous photographer there. I think Rio liked Maddy a bit too much 😂
Tara has finished her first piece of pottery. And the glaze turned out so cute!
Look how pretty Tara's first piece of pottery turned out. Make a great piece of decor! It looks great in the Sands End beach house by Fredbrenny. Gameplay in Winchester Farming Community.
Future Xavier Mullis is much older now and finally fullfilled his dream of making his Plumbot Roberta look human. But will he succeed in giving her sentience?
For now they enjoy their little liminal safe space.
*I got inspired by the Rossum household in the Sims 2 PSP version: Isaac is a lonely inventor who've built himself a robot wife called "Roberta". (It was my childhood game and is the reason I'm obsessed with the Sims franchise & lore btw :3)
The girlies had a blast at Simchella! Susi’s (@sus_simmin) pretty girls Olive & Kayla decided to join Kandi & Maddy on the trip ⛺️🎡
Watch the full ASMR machinima here
After meeting Simon at a plumbot fair, Xavier immediatly got fascinated with his bot-building skills and asked him for help. For the first time in his life he‘s met someone as passionate, weird and nerdy as him.
Nova, one of his closest Friends, likes to join the sessions everytime. Altough she doesn‘t understand a thing, she is devoted to learn more about future tech and bot-building…
These are some of my favourite stils from my newest machinima video! Watch on YouTube 🫶🦾
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:
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).
Step 5: Install DXVK
Make sure you follow this guide by Nornities and do every single step. Don't skip anything! Make sure you install the version in this guide (DXVK 2.3.1)
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 (the 32 bit one) 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.
Xavier Mullis is the oldest son of Eddy Mullis & my simself. As an aspiring plumbot engineer he is currently trying his best to prepare himself for his uni application in tech. Along the way he meets the great mind Simon (sim by album_evans) who helps him improve his skills. Watch the full version of this ASMR machinima HERE ✨
Girlies had some fun at Simchella 🤭 Kayla and Kandi did NOT have the best start at the yacht retreat but now they got rly close! Thanks to @sussimmin for lending me her super cute Kayla & Olive 💖🤠
This is a lifesaver if you need to see your content, either to sort it or looking for inspiration for creating something new or whatever, this saved my life (and time).
I fiddled with the tool I was asking about and through sheer stubbornness (Is there any other way at this point, really...) I figured it out. I'm kicking myself because it was actually a stupid easy fix. The only thing that bugged it for me was I have everything on an external hard-drive, so if that's the case for you, make sure it's on your MAIN drive, and copy your files before trying the tool!
by Killc*a in Modding Discussion
Enjoy having super organized content, with a click of a button!
Did a fun collab w/ @sussimmin & @simminginstars!! My Sim Kandi hosted her first spiritual retreat on a beautiful yacht in Isla Paradiso for the girlies. The video also features my own music at some point, can you find it? 🤭
