The Sims 3 Living World Overhaul Mod
(Sample part 1)
It has been a minute since my last update, but I have a massive reason for the silence. I have been deep in the game's core files building a new mod that completely overhauls The Sims 3.
I initially started out just combining all of Simler90's fixes for the current game update. However, after hours of tinkering, it evolved into a massive project to make the game run flawlessly and feel incredibly alive.
In this preview video, you can see an alien autonomously deciding to invade a community lot. You will also notice firefighters acting much more dynamically, wearing various outfits and dealing with fires that can now start directly on windows.
My goal is to give you a mod that significantly improves game performance while making the world completely autonomous. We are talking optimized neighbor AI, fully overhauled routing to eliminate lag, and unlocked interactions that create spontaneous scenarios throughout your town.
This is just Part 1 of what I will be showcasing. Here is a taste of what is coming:
Bachelor party dancers autonomously showing up at the club your Sim is visiting.
Thieves actively robbing neighbor houses, complete with actual police responses.
Neighbors, children, and teenagers are also pursued by the police if they are out on the street too late after curfew.
Neighbors hire cleaning ladies and butlers to clean their dirty houses.
Fires breaking out organically anywhere in the world + fire at the window, and new animations of the NPC firefighter putting out the fire at the window..
Autonomous Ghost Hunter scenarios.
AND MANY MANY MANY MORE
Basically, imagine an optimized NRaas Story Progression mixed with Simler90's core optimizations and complete route and lag fixes, all packed into one single mod.
This mod requires Seasons Expansion Pack and Lazy Duchess’ Mono Patcher Library to work!
This is a script mod that improves the basic aspects of the Online Dating system from Seasons, aiming to make it more helpful overall for Sims searching for love on the net. 💌
Wanna meet hot, actually single Sims in your area? Keep reading!
Finding Potential Matches
By default, the game has very loose filters when it comes to determining which Sims will populate the Online Dating interface. Most of the time it ends up overrun with Sims who are already in committed relationships or not even attracted to our Sim’s gender in the first place. Add to that the amount of Sims from different age groups that our Sim might find a little too old (or too young!), and we’ve got ourselves a very complete list full of Sims that we won’t be pursuing.
The mod makes the matchmaking process a little smarter by adding the following rules:
Sims within the same age group as our Sim are preferred. Sims of a different age group have a lower chance of being selected.
Homeless Sims are now eligible as potential matches, with a lower chance of being selected than resident Sims.
Gender preference is taken into consideration. Only Sims who are attracted to (or at least not opposed to romancing) our Sim’s gender will be selected.
Sims in committed relationships will not be considered for possible matches unless they have Commitment Issues or a negative relationship with their partner.
- Sims who are Family Oriented or Hopeless Romantic will not be selected even if they have a negative relationship with their partner.
Note that in order for the new functionality to take place, the Online Dating system has to “refresh”. This can be done manually by deleting and re-creating the active Sim’s profile, or by waiting roughly one Sim day for it to update automatically.
Body Type
The vanilla game allows Sims to describe their physique in their Online Dating profile as Slim, Athletic or More to Love.
For some reason, EA’s original code for this feature makes it so that any Sim whose weight is above 0 (i.e. dead center of the slider) is considered More to Love, leading to some Sims being unfairly accused of lying about their appearance after even the slightest weight change.
The mod corrects this issue and makes some general changes to the body type system to balance things out:
Sims can now choose an Average Figure body type from the drop-down list when creating an Online Dating profile.
Sims have a Slim body type if their body weight is under -0.5.
Sims have an Athletic body type if their fitness slider is over 0.5, unchanged from the vanilla game.
Sims have a More to Love body type if their body weight is over 0.5.
Extras
The Online Dating UI can now display each Sim’s age:
If Battery’s Real Age mod is installed, the Sim’s age in years will be shown next to their name in the messages, profile grid and full profile.
Without Real Age, the Sim’s life stage will only be shown in the full profile. Disabled by default.
Additionally, when a Sim is directed to Check Messages, the “No new messages” dialog now shows as a much less disruptive notification in the top-right corner.
Tuning
As always, the mod comes with many tunable settings to help you adjust all of its features to your liking. Below is detailed information about each setting:
Possible Matches
Include Homeless Sims: Set to False to only consider resident Sims when populating Online Dating matches. Default: True.
Use Gender Preference: Whether to consider gender preference when populating Online Dating matches. Default: True.
Different Age Weight: Weighted chance of matching Sims who are not in the same life stage. Default: 4.
Homeless Sim Weight: Percent chance of considering a Homeless Sim when populating Online Dating Matches. Default: 2.
Relationship Level Threshold: LTR threshold for Sims in committed relationships to be eligible to populate Online Dating matches. Default: 0.
Online Dating Profile
Show Age in Profile: Displays Sim’s life stage next to their name in the Online Dating profile. Example: “Betty (Young Adult)”. Default: False.
Show Real Age in Profile: Displays Sim’s age in years next to their name in the Online Dating profile. Requires Battery’s Real Age mod, will simply do nothing if not installed. Example: “Betty, 25”. Default: True.
Slim Body Type Threshold: Negative weight slider threshold for a Sim’s body type to be Slim. Default: -0.5.
Athletic Body Type Threshold: Fitness slider threshold for a Sim’s body type to be Athletic.
More to Love Body Type Threshold: Weight slider threshold for a Sim’s body type to be More to Love. Default: 0.5.
Compatibility & Issues
The main mod file uses Mono Patcher to replace the following EA code:
- Sims3.Gameplay.Objects.Electronics.Computer.CheckDatingMessages.Run()
- Sims3.Gameplay.Utilities.OnlineDatingManager.OnlineDatingRecord.PopulateMatches()
- Sims3.Gameplay.Utilities.OnlineDatingProfile.GetDefaultBodyType()
- Sims3.Gameplay.Utilities.OnlineDatingProfile.LieAboutBodyType()
- Sims3.UI.OnlineDating.BrowseDatingProfilesDialog.UpdateProfile()
- Sims3.UI.OnlineDating.CreateProfileDialog
The main mod file is compatible with Gamefreak130’s Smartphone Dating mod. The provided compatibility package simply replaces one method to maintain consistency with my edit of the original Check Messages interaction:
- Gamefreak130.SmartphoneDatingSpace.Interactions.CheckDatingMessagesPhone.Run()
The compatibility package for Battery’s Real Age mod replaces the following EA code:
- Sims3.UI.OnlineDating.BrowseDatingProfilesDialog.PopulateGrid()
- Sims3.UI.OnlineDating.BrowseDatingProfilesDialog.UpdateProfile()
- Sims3.UI.OnlineDating.CheckMessagesDialog.PopulateGrid()
- Sims3.UI.OnlineDating.CreateProfileDialog
The mod is fully compatible with @nectar-cellar’s More Active Online Dating and Online Dating Inbox Messages, since they all modify different parts of the online dating system.
If a Sim is directed to edit their Online Dating profile, the traits section may show blank slots. This can be fixed by clicking one of the blank slots to bring up the traits picker, then hitting Accept.
Strings & Language Support
All languages are supported; the only new text added for the Average Figure body type is copied from an existing game string that hopefully fits the context well enough across all languages.
I made a small change to the Spanish text to grammatically match the other options in the body type picker. Any corrections to other languages are more than welcome.
Download: SFS / Patreon
This download contains three package files:
simbouquet_OnlineDatingSanity: Main mod file.
simbouquet_OnlineDatingSanity_COMPATIBILITY_RealAge: Only necessary if Battery’s Real Age mod is installed.
simbouquet_OnlineDatingSanity_COMPATIBILITY_SmartphoneDating: Only necessary if Gamefreak130’s Smartphone Dating is installed.
Changelog
12/03/2026: Initial release.
Credits & Thanks
Battery’s Script Mod Template Creator
Lazy Duchess’ Mono Patcher Library
Visual Studio 2026
Notepad++
s3pe
Adobe Photoshop
Thanks to @lazyduchess for coding help and moral support!
I've updated my Expanded Active Households mod to a new edition, adding in lots of new features such as stayovers, a new interactive daycare system, custom babysitters and separated bills!
More info in the download link 😊
Hi! I hope you're having a wonderful day! I just want to say how happy it's made my heart finding your content as somebody who has always, desperately wanted more truly maxis match options for hairstyles in TS3.
Thank you so much for what you've shared already, it's all been amazing, and I can't wait to see more of what you have planned. ❤️
Thank u! ❤️❤️
I’m just really appreciating the work the devs did on this game, its truly amazing and quite pretty if you put the work in maning better looking sims haha.
I won’t say much of what I have planned because I don’t hava a lot of time rn so this could take months, but I’m still working on the baby replacements and a new head mesh for toddlers and maybe children + some hair defaults that attempt to fix a few questionable meshes across packs that even 2012 fashion can’t justify. (for instance the curly hair from seasons that is really pretty on the front but bald on the back)
Again thanks for the kind words it ALWAYS makes my day ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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
I cannot find the mesh file on this thing, but I retextured it, I didn't like the orange bow, this feels more like wood to me
I'd also like to change the animation because that is not how you shoot a bow, specially I'd love to make the arrow rest on the hand and angle the bow a bit
Still some mesh/texture things to fix but I'm quite happy, I don't tink Cassandra should have straight hair, I chose the afro pigtails for children from base game because the texture is cute and the microbangs suit the goth family aesthetic, the pigtails are the ones from midnight hollow.
I'm also converting this EP4 hair from children to Teen-Elder, the back of the hair is not the prettiest so I will work on that.
The hair reminded me of og sims 4 Bella so I decided to make it for her.
I'm working on my Pleasantview save and I'd like to add family portraits + those iconic closeups of Bella that Morty has all around his house.
I'm still working on the babies + toddlers face update but it is a BIG project and now I'm quite busy with uni so I will focus on the save + hair edits for now
Still some mesh/texture things to fix but I'm quite happy, I don't tink Cassandra should have straight hair, I chose the afro pigtails for children from base game because the texture is cute and the microbangs suit the goth family aesthetic, the pigtails are the ones from midnight hollow.
If I could only have one piece of cc would be an eye mesh, it makes a huge difference, Im really happy with how this sim looks and has EA skin, sliders and presets so...
The first picture has my defaults up to this date, @simbouquet's eye mesh and @tamo-sim ultra plain eyes
The second one has a conversion of TS3 medieval eye mesh and new eyes by noucentil over on nexusmods (apparently fixes some clipping issues, and the occult eyes look so good)
The final picture is what I decided to stick with, I like @simbouquet's eye mesh better because at least in cas makes the eyes have a really nice glint and looke more alive, but I kept this new eye texture its so good, It also comes in really high texture quality but Im happy with the classic resolution.
TS3 Medieval eye mesh
Maxima eyes (this look very maxis match but they are also very soft and the occults look pretty)
Also you should check sims 3 mods over on nexusmods there is some cool stuff there, noucentil is my fav creator (they also have a matte specular replacement for no shiny sims - rn Im using @kurasoberina's specular)
Sorry for the bad quality but I've been getting this issue for a while and I need to know If I'm the only one or if there's a fix because I have not seen anything online. Basically my sims get this lines around the face that look like seams, when I zoom really close they kinda fade away but they are most present during gameplay and ruin most of my screenshots
I added a few more milestones to the first gen, I will also be completing the science skill and getting a plantsim, completing the logic skill and discovering all potions, maxing out the nerd social group and getting a science degree through LTW points.
Fully unedited pics btw. This game is really pretty with a good lighting mod
Larger Patterns Panel increases the size of pattern thumbnails and the height of the patterns panel in CASt, CAS and CAB.
So this mod by Butterbot makes the CAST ui bigger so that more patterns show up, the thing is that it does not matcg the UI mod that I use by @sarhxz
Overview
Snowy UI recolor is currently in beta!
Most assets have been manually adjusted to maintain the saturation of specific icons.
That's why I made a recolor of the mod to match the new UI, I don't know how to make an update that requires the original file so I will share the texture file so that you can replace it in s3pe.
New Uncompressed Sim Textures patch from "Just Harry" that forces CAS quality textures onto sims. Comes with an obvious increase in memory usage, highly recommended to use DXVK
ImGui window now tells you to save if you have unsaved changes
Before:
After:
As always, download link here: https://github.com/sims3fiend/Sims3SettingsSetter/releases/latest
The readme has also been updated slightly by swiffyjk on github :D
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