With DXVK and S3SS living their high days, older Sims 3 installment guides are rapidly starting to become outdated.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 (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.
Set the following to True:
Show in Compact Form: Accessories
Show in Compact Form: Clothing
Show in Compact Form: Hats
I think my casino desert hood for Strangetown isn't really worth going back to for a third time after losing it again (pc problems be damned) But I have an itch to work on a new hood... hmmmmmm....... I will ponder.
Loosely based on @insertpoetryhere's fic Photograph (Summer, 1995) because I find the idea of Johnny being terrified of Nervous Subject extremely hilarious
Are your serial daters running the risk of drowning in flowers? Does it not seem quite right to just sell them? Do you question why there's even a market for second hand date roses in the sims world? Well boy does my sim Maja Sernman have the solution for you! The Sernman Group is opening a florist near you where you too can procure 100% authentic flowers that actually age! Insect-proof, compost friendly, bio-degradable flowers for you, and you, and all of you!
Inspired by @kashmiresims, and with a little help from some friends, I bring you my first mod of 2026.
Features
- After 7 days flowers will go old, using a new texture by Epi. By default a dialogue pops up, and camera will zoom to show to the rose.
- A new interaction to throw away flowers, that routes to the nearest trash can. By default the sim will think about who sent the rose, and roses can be thrown away anytime.
- Storytelling debug interactions for setting recipient/sender, make fresh/expire, pick text option (see below)
- Buyable date rewards, which thanks to debug interactions can be set up correctly. Now your sim can give extra, if they want to! You'll find them in deco/misc, prices are 5, 5, 15 and 55 simoleons (unchanged from original).
- Optional text default! Maxis intended date rewards to have 4 possible writings, but then they just duplicated the same text. I restored this to the intended mechanic and spruced up the writing. To give you a variety in style and personality, @kashmiresims @episims @nikkasimms and I have all written one entry for each of the four different date rewards with writing (bouquet, single flower, love letter, hate letter). Edit friendly, you can add more text options if you want to.
- Highly BCON tunable. Features can be turned on or off, some are active by default, some are not. See read me for more info.
NOTE!!! This requires Date Rewards by Color Traits by Episims and PForestsims, or PForestsims' default without color traits. It uses the default base texture, and will look extremely weird without their mesh default. Must load after!! Roses will error on expiration if load order is wrong, which erases sender/recipient info, so please make sure you get load order right if you care about your existing roses. Debug interactions can restore if error did happen, if you know who sender/recipient were.
Download from simfileshare (Update: If you were among the 10 first to download, please grab again! I had missed love letters use a different BCON than the rest, which resulted in an error when a new reward is delivered. I have fixed it now.)
Conflicts: Must load after the defaulted date reward. Will conflict with anything that alters pie menu and dialogues of date rewards. Adds new code to date reward semi global. Previously conflicted with romantic standards edit by Midge, has been edited to remove this conflict. Use HCDU+ to verify if you have other mods that alter date rewards.
Credits: Kashmiresims for the wonderful idea to have roses go old, @pforestsims for their beautiful mesh and base texture that @episims did a great job turning aged. I am aware red roses don't look like this when dried out, but I wanted them to still look nice if a sentimental sim wants to keep them anyway and Epi was kind enough to do what I asked :3 Charmful, Nikka and Epi for helping me write new text. @lamare-sims and @tvickiesims for brainstorming with me at the start and helping me decide on dried out rather than rotten flowers :3
Alright so, for anyone who doesn’t actually know about this because it was a few years ago now: the person who made/maintains the official Gshade is a petulant toddler who previously placed malware within a Gshade update (which anyone who uses it knows, if you want your Gshade to work again it HAS TO BE updated).
If you’re going to use Gshade instead of Reshade, use a fork that isn’t the official one – but frankly, I’d STRONGLY suggest Reshade instead, give its open source nature and the fact you can ignore updates for literally ever if you want and it’ll still function perfectly.
For a quick summary of what happened: Gshade was always infamous for having absurd amounts of updates, and as they became more excessive people started to complain about having to update almost every damn day. Someone got fed up and created a fork that would bypass the ‘you must update to use it’ bullshit. The catalyst was the petulant child literally dropping a couple ACTUALLY EMPTY updates just to piss people off further because of the complaints about the excessive updates. Just for the extra context of ‘he very much did bullshit like this even before the malware bomb’.
This turned into an arms race between him and the person maintaining the version that gave updates the middle finger, which eventually ended in him placing code that would ‘detect if someone was using a third-party non-official Gshade’ and forcibly shut down their entire PC. Not the program (which still would have been bad, mind you, but at least SOMEWHAT more reasonable), but your entire fucking PC. Anyone whose dealt with things that ‘detect third party software’ KNOWS that this shit always has false positives from some other ENTIRELY unrelated programs, and that’s exactly what happened.
The dev’s response to this was basically quadrupling down, with one quote from them being pretty much ‘I could have done something actually harmful, but I didn’t!’ (spoiler: forcibly shutting down a PC is harmful if you’re unlucky – that’s why ‘hold power button to force shutdown’ is a last resort, because you’re basically spinning a roulette wheel). So, ‘I’ll fuckin’ do it again!’ level of response to the concerns, basically.
There’s more bits to the story, but that’s the gist of it. Given the price of PC parts and PCs in general right now, unless you’re willing to risk that potential $2k on a replacement rig if baby has a tantrum again, I suggest folks ditch Gshade in favor of Reshade. The 'convenience' is not worth it.
today i have some recolours of ep12 dress short collar, converted to sims 2 by @lucilla-sims , using textures from @thebramblewood 's princess dress. there are 25 swatches. this dress is for teen and adult females (teen textures are repoed to the adult ones), and is set for everyday and formal.
finished this one! not making much progress on the overall dress though.. :(
this is DeeDee's top only version of SkittlesSims' EP12 Dungarees conversion in my usual weird selection of patterns!
mog is not even attempting to be lowkey anymore ^^;
there's technically one additional recolour but it's just the first swatch of row two with a blue coloured shirt instead of yellow. I just really wanted an even swatch..
download (TF-AF) repo to AF files
thank you DeeDee and Skittles for the meshes and patterns are from Julia Dreams, Creative Fabrica, Spoonflower, mystery pinterest folder of dooooom...
thanks all! <3
Yo cuando la Parca se obsesiona conmigo y mata a la gente alrededor de mí para verme una y otra vez, y como siempre fui una mujer decente pues decidí darles un entierro digno a todos en mis aposentos, pero en el fondo sé que fui parcialmente responsable de dichas muertes por culpa de mis descuidos y misantropía, así que decido comprometerme con otro hombre para que él muera inevitablemente y yo pueda confrontar a la Parca cara a cara, pero lo que no sabía yo era que la Parca tenía otros planes para mí, y ahora porto con el dolor de un hijo no deseado y la consciencia de que jamás podré amar con plenitud, y peor aún, toda la gente de Las Rarezas piensan que soy una asesina serial:
the only sims 2 theory that i consider objectively false is "brandi killed skip for insurance money". you think skip "just the tip" broke had life insurance? you think the people popping three kids into a two bedroom trailer were planning things? he did Not have inheritance either. he left behind a collection of losing lotto tickets and one pack of hollowed out swisher sweets in grape flavor
Pollination Tech @pollination-tech69 - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
blakekathryn
izzy806
stormborns
theartofmadeline
2087
germansingergirl
