With DXVK and S3SS living their high days, older Sims 3 installment guides are rapidly starting to become outdated.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
Hello! So, we agree that a significant number of the apartment halls are a travesty, right? They're unfinished, don't make any sense, etc? Cool, so I made overrides to help fix this!
I wanted to keep everything base game/City Living compatible so I only used in game assets from those two BUT you can absolutely change out the texture file and make it anything you want, for your personal use. If you want to make your own version of this and make it available for download, please create your own new files but, no link backs or anything is necessary. Shout outs and links are always appreciated though. At the bottom of the post is a link to a tutorial on how to make your own, as well as the wall and floor names for the ones I made overrides for to help make things easier for you.
First up, Alto Tower. Alto Tower is one of the tallest buildings in all of San Myshuno with two HUGE apartments that have windows all around and you want me to believe THIS is what a hallway would look like in that kind of building????
And that some random storage room would be bright green????
Absolutely not. I've replaced the wall on both of these.
You can download the overrides here. There are two package files per override. One is an override, meaning everywhere the original dark blue is being used, it will now be this paneled wall. The second file adds the dark blue back as a new additional swatch so that you can go around and paint any wall back to the dark blue you intended it to be elsewhere. In other words, if you want to override the original color and also regain the original swatch for use elsewhere, you need both files. This is true of every wall and floor override I've created here.
Next up: Chic Street Apartments
I understand these apartments are meant to be cheaper starter apartments BUT they're in a nice building in the trendy FASHION District. I've changed the whole vibe of this one. The original look:
And with my overrides for the wall, floor, and the elevator:
You can download these here.
I actually think Culpepper House has one of the least offensive hallways. I went ahead and just picked a dirty swatch to match some of the apartments a bit more.
You can download it here.
Jasmine Suites. This place is UNFINISHED and you can't convince me otherwise. The only reason I didn't override the floor is because it's the DEFAULT CONCRETE floor. It's used in waaaay too many other places. At least the wall isn't as offensively bright now.
You can download here.
Landgraab Towers. I missed taking a proper before picture. You can kinda see the ugly brown wall here:
And then I did get a picture showing the floor during testing. I only just yesterday realized there's actually two carpet prints being used in this foyer:
This is Landgraab Tower. The Feng's live here. This is supposed to be luxury and eleganzaaaa??? Here's the after:
You can download here. Floor 1 is the plain carpet, floor 2 is the patterned carpet.
Spire Tower. This is ANOTHER ONE that uses the friggin cement flooring so I've only changed the wall here. The before isn't the worst but it doesn't exactly scream "three story condo at the top of a tower in expensive ass Uptown." Hopefully my override feels closer to that. Again, I was just working with Base Game and City Living though so please don't tell me there are better options in other expansions.
Paired with TOOL and clever use of rugs and other items, you can really overhaul these halls to be so much better. For instance, here's the Jasmine Suites hall again, in its original state:
And here it is with my wall override, using pierisim rugs that look like tiles to cover the whole floor, and then regular rugs, new lights, new doors, and better decor:
Here's a link to the folder with all of the downloads. Simfileshare
If you find any issues, please let me know! These will conflict with any files that override the same swatches. If you use littlemssam's elevator mod, I am unsure if the elevator override will cause problems, I don't use that mod. Just keep that in mind and remove if it does conflict.
And if you'd like to make your own overrides, here's a link to a tutorial that also has the wall and floor names, here.
A cozy spot for your sims to stop at this fall to grab a cup of something warm and enjoy a good book 📖 Check out the kids section of the bookstore🧸 There’s something here for all ages!
Build also features a kitchen and an empty upstairs space so there’s always room to expand or build your own business here!
NO CC BUILD (actually so proud of myself for this!)
lot type: Cafe
lot size: 20x15
DOWNLOAD ON THE GALLERY
Gallery ID: munedanesimss
Don’t forget to turn bb.moveobjects on before placing!
Please do not reupload or claim as your own. If you use my build tag me here on tumblr or on instagram, I would love to see!!
The San Sequoia Market is right in the center of Anchorpoint Wharf, and will certainly have something for everyone to enjoy! This market place consists of food and retail vendors🍕🛍️☕️ a play area for children🛝🏝️ a farmer’s market with plenty of home grown and homemade goodies🥕🥬🍞🍓 and a sitting area to enjoy all the goodies and company you may find!⛱️🧺
NO CC BUILD- I did use a decent amount of packs and kits.
lot type: Generic
lot size: 30x20 (placed on the Manzanita Terrace lot in San Sequoia)
DOWNLOAD ON THE GALLERY
Gallery ID: mundanesimss
Don’t forget to to turn on bb.moveobjects on before placing!
Please do not reupload or claim as your own. If you use my build tag me here on tumblr or on instagram. I would love to see!!
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