tess.33 i make cc for ts4, & post a little of this, a little of that. tag me if you use my cc! :) wcif friendly; dms are always open
TOU is no tou (terms of use); do whatever. Just give me credit.
You're NOT going to support the Sims 4 Marketplace with money, reblogs, etc.
You're NOT going to harass or bully creators who go on the Marketplace. Ignore them. Make them irrelevant. Don't feed the trolls, DON'T engage with and be shitty to people.
You WILL support FREE (and/or reasonable early access) creators. That means REBLOGS and advertising people's stuff in builds on social media (within reason). Not likes. Reblogs.
You'll spread the word about free alternative content-- let's be real, it's out there somewhere. The Sims 4 has SO MUCH custom content out there. I easily have content from over a T H O U S A N D creators on my HD. There is NO SHORTAGE of a million variants of the same type of item and thanks to all the available tools out there, making custom content is easier than ever.
You'll share 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ on the high seas, if we can figure out how to do it.
You're not going to support billionaires' continuous human rights violations, environmental disasters, and global networks that literally want to take EVERYTHING from us, INCLUDING our creativity and our willingness to think for ourselves.
REASONS TO AVOID THE MARKETPLACE + ITS PARTICIPATING CREATORS + ITS CONTENT LIKE THE PLAGUE:
The Saudi investment group and TRUMP FAMILY buyout. 'Nuff said, but we'll continue.
The interest on EA's loan to do this buyout is going to be ~$1 BILLION annually. Them doing this means they are DESPERATE. We should NOT be rewarding them just because we want that fancy lipstick that, let's be honest, exists for free if you'd take like five minutes to go look on Google image or Pinterest.
EA is laying off workers to replace them with generative AI. They're closing other game studios. They would literally sell creators to Satan for a billion cornchips and they'd watch you roast in hellfire for a "cheap" laugh.
They haven't (as of this post) given an actual price-scaling metric - and in fact, have outright said it is subject to CHANGE. That means the pricing will NOT remain the same, EA has direct control over it, and the "value" of content is variable.
It's literally just gambling. Like holy fuck, this is so fucking predatory. And for those who don't know, the saying about gambling is, the house always wins. Casinos always rig shit to their favor to "run their business." Microtransactions work the same. Damn. Way.
Maxis literally wants the Marketplace to fail. They're hoping it dies and they're RIGHT to want that.
To be honest? I want to have sympathy for the folks who need $$$. But I can't, not at this point. There are multiple avenues of earning money through Patreon, Boosty, Substack, Modco, TSR (to a lesser extent), SimsFinds (formerly SimsDom), & even Curseforge - and yes, Curseforge does come with the caveat that they're part of an umbrella that helps support the IDF. Pretty sure I've even missed one or two other monetizing sites dedicated entirely to Sims content.
Creators who are joining up with the Sims 4 Marketplace are actively pouring little bits of gasoline on a forest fire in the middle of a dry summer with the reasoning that it'll help them be more warm at night.
Love that for you, but you are actively feeding something that is already wildly out of control and consuming the community.
Spread the word. Take this post outside tumblr without credit for all I care. But I know this community, and I know this is going to become a problem if we let it.
The most disgusting thing about the Marketplace is that they've finally made an official modding tool for their 12-year-old game only to gatekeep it for the illusion of exclusivity and profit.
Hey here's some free Sims games. Don't pay for digital media in this economy.
Sims 1
Sims 2
Sims 3 or this link
Sims 4
Sims Medieval
You'll have to scroll down to each game :] Hopefully the archive stays up.
Here is also all non-PC sims games. As well as links to a variety of emulators:
PS2
PS3
XBOX
XBOX 360
PSP
DS
Wii
GameCube
Game Boy Advance/Other emulator
EDIT (2/11/25) I completely forgot that Vimm's Lair got a lot of games nuked recently, here is a link to the 🏴☠️ games megathread.
EDIT (10/28/25) Sorry for not updating the links for a while.
EDIT (3/4/26) Replaced Anadius's link to fitgirl's repack.
Reminder that these kind of links tend to get taken down every so often, so please make sure to click back to the original post when reblogging ! Two of the most popular reblogs contain dead links !!
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 just saw this shit about the sims 4 marketplace. bethesda have a similar model on their mainline games. it sucks. ive spent way too much money on it bc im a fucking rube. im not being roped into microtranactions for my other favourite series.
there's so many incredible cc makers out here making amazing content 100% free. because modding is a community. i absolutely disagree with monetised mods that are "officially" implemented. i was ok with the kits, it gave console players a little slice of what we get on pc, never been happy about the price of them, though. ea is a multi billion dollar company. this is corporate greed disguised as community and creativity.
if you really want to be part of the community: make cc! recolour your favourite dress or sofa! post it up on simfile share! there's so much amazing help out there to get you started, you'll meet some great people along the way, and you'll learn some new skills!
Anyone else play Kynseed? I have become absolutely obsessed! I'm shocked it's not more popular!
My girl Olive is married to Ned (already, she's only 18), & they have a daughter, Amethyst, & another on the way! I wanted to make sure we had someone to pass the Kynseed onto. I bought the general store & the apothecary (the apothecary mini games are hard!)
The story is so in depth & the writing is so quirky & funny. You can totally tell that the devs worked on Fable; it's got the same charm.