K’tar reverts to 1.67: Some notes...
So in the wake of EA forcing everyone to update from the Origin App to the EA App, which sporadically seems to cause even more problems than the Origin App for many TS3 players, I decided it was finally time to take the plunge and stop playing on 1.69. Below the cut, What I did, how I did it, issues and questions I ran into, and some notes.
First, I started off using this tutorial here: https://sims3tutorialhub.tumblr.com/post/176328544696/installing-sims-via-torrent Simply using the NoCD mod would not have worked for me, as I only own a few of the TS3 expansions and stuff packs via disc, and own most of them digitally. By the time I realized this might be an issue for me later, I already owned them all, and I don’t believe in paying for an entire franchise a second time just because game companies like EA will bleed you dry if they can.
Question #1: Do I need to uninstall first? After backing up the EA folder in my docs folder and the everything in the program files folder as well, per the suggestion in the above tutorial, and having already downloaded all the needed files, this was the first question that popped up for me. I don’t actually know the answer, but I decided that since my current installation was in Origin, which I hope not to use again (at least for TS3), I would uninstall everything from Origin, so I did so.
After that, I abandoned the above tutorial and instead followed the instructions that came with the downloaded files. They’re fairly concise and easy to follow. I went back and checked eventually and they’re basically the same as the ones in the above tutorial, except you’ve no need for further downloads, because everything is already included in what you’ve downloaded. If you are following the above tutorial to download the 1.67 super patch, be aware that you may have to copy and paste the link into a new browser tab to get the download to work. (I did.) This took me to having completed step 7 in the above tutorial.
Next, a step that isn’t mentioned in the tutorial, or the instructions in the download. Copy over your GraphicsCards.sgr and GraphicsRules.sgr from your old Program Files x86/.../Bin folder to your new one. This way your game will still recognize your graphics card and any changes you previously made to the graphics rules will remain.
Then I installed the proper version of @lazyduchess ’s Smooth patch into the same Bin folder. Thanks again for making it work with 1.67! I had a bit of trouble editing the TS3Patch.txt file, because the Bin folder properties had been set such that it wouldn’t let me edit the file directly. I ended up creating a copy of the file on my desktop, editing that, deleting the one in the Bin folder, and then moved the edited file into the Bin folder and gave the admin permission confirmation required.
As a last step, I installed the Nraas No CD mod to my mods/packages folder with the rest of my nraas mods and discovered that all of my game folders were still present, complete with logs, saved games, mods, everything. I wasn’t expecting that, as I thought everything would have been deleted when I uninstalled things, but nope. Everything was present and accounted for and I didn’t need to retrieve anything from the backup I’d made of that folder.
My game started up just fine. Nothing was missing, all mods seem to be working fine and are present. The game seems to take just a tad longer to start up than what I’ve been used to lately, but it’s like... maybe an extra minute, which is completely worth no longer having to deal with Origin and/or whatever online DRM crap EA may come up with in the future. Now I can play... with NO INTERNET. FREEDOM! My graphics were perfect, I didn’t need to adjust any settings at all, and everything was good to go.
Edit to add: If you’ve only ever played on 1.69, be aware that 1.67 does not have a built-in easy way to enable/disable expansions and stuff packs. However, someone shared with me this link to a mod that someone created to do precisely that! You can find it here: https://modthesims.info/d/499140/sim-game-selector-3-0-support-for-quot-into-the-future-quot-and-quot-movie-stuff-quot.html
Of course, your experience may vary... I’m running on a desktop computer with Windows 10, with all expansions and stuff packs installed, nearly 25k individual pieces of CC installed via CCMagic, plus a couple hundred other un-merged script mods and default replacement files installed in my Mods/Packages folder. (In case that helps at all.)
Cheers! I’m off to play my game!
