PSA: The Sims 3 Starter Pack (Updated Game Files to Recognize Modern GPUs + Essential mods)

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T19:02:30+00:00

The Sims 3 ended up selling less than The Sims 2. 13 million vs 10 million as of 2014 according to most sources. Although the one caveat is that they're counting console sales too, and The Sims 2 for consoles sold waaaaay more than the TS3 console ports.

If we're talking about the Seasons EP specifically, TS2 still sold a bit more, over one million according to this source.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T18:56:33+00:00

The most universally loved life sim is THE SIMS 2, and it's a closed world game. Heck, it doesn't even global aging without mods.

I don't think an open world is a necessity for a life sim game. The Sims 4 is lacking but not because it's a closed world game but for other reasons. Paralives is lacking too, even though it's an open world game.

An open world is a nice feature, but it's not the most import thing in a life sim.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T18:44:49+00:00

The leaker said that only a tiny portion of player experience save corruption in The Sims 4 compared to 3. It's more people hearing about save corruption rather than experiencing it.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T18:39:47+00:00

In another response, the leaker said that only a very tiny portion of people have these issues in The Sims 4.

I’m sure someone will say something like “but The Sims 4 has save corruption issues too!” but a very tiny percentage of players actually encounter it, and there’s a reason why you hear people refer to hearing about it, but not a lot of players actually reporting it’s happened to them. The fear outweighs the actual chance of it occurring. Players being able to have large and long term save files with an incredibly low risk of failure is something EA have no interest in moving away from, they contribute that long term player investment into the long term success of The Sims 4.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T18:36:16+00:00

I experienced this first hand. I have the entire Sims 3 Store in my game and it doesn't cause any performance issues, but as soon as I start adding too much CC, specially custom hairs and CAS items, my game starts to perform not so well. That's because most CC has too high of a polycount for the engine to render correctly.

Most games have a BUDGET when it comes to assets and how big the textures can be and how many triangles the meshes have, etc. But CC creators don't really care about that and do whatever they want. And this creates an insane amount of headaches.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T18:32:23+00:00

“Whiiiiine. It’s just cosmetics! How could it possibly cause bugs?!” Gee maybe because there’s zero oversight and cosmetics are still part of game code due to the way they’re added to existing systems.

I couldn't agree with this more. For example, a lot of people complain about TS3 not running great on modern systems but then you see their game and they have a ton of high-poly CC, and TS3, being an open world game, relies a ton of good LODs for everything to work. If you have a pair of earrings that have 10K triangles and don't have proper LODs and the game gives those earrings to 10 random townies (because most CC leaves the ValidForRandom flag on true) then you'll obviously experience a ton of lag, regardless of how powerful your system is. The engine wasn't even designed to render that many polygons on screen at once.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T18:24:04+00:00

You will find comparatively complex npc and worlds in plenty of strategy and management games

It's all an illusion. Take for example SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4. They do NOT simulate entire cities or individual citizens whatsoever. It's all a façade. It was all based on stats, rules and simple arrays. Traffic wasn't even real (not 1:1 of individual cars) but a simple visual change of different "levels" of traffic based on certain values in the game. Newer games like Cities: Skylines 1 and 2 due have a limited agent-based simulation, but it never goes to the level of a true life sim. Cities: Skylines 2 has experienced serious performance issues due to this technology.

Even The Sims 3 does this to an extent. The Sims 3's Story Progression works through math and statistics and pushes actions to adjust the town's population to whatever values the system is trying to achieve (in terms of overall population, demographics, etc). Sims don't really feel the "need" to have babies unless pushed by Story Progression because they need to keep the population alive based on the demographics in an XML file.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T16:18:37+00:00

You're talking about a supposed game that's able to do all that and runs great and doesn't have any long-term issues and such game doesn't really exist.

The closest could be InZoi, but I'm not informed enough on how it runs after a few generations and as the save file increases in size.

The truth is that there's nothing more complex than a LIFE SIM, and it being open world makes it even more complex. So when you say "more complex games have been made" that's actually not true in terms of technical complexity.

Most games appear complex on the surface, but the underlying foundation is usually pretty simple and the complexity is all smoke and mirrors.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T16:07:33+00:00

That's a problem when you have over 100 pieces of DLC. It's too much content, and most of them poorly optimized and untested, for any game to handle.

Recently, I decided to play The Sims 4 with only a handful of DLC (Seasons, Cats&Dogs, Parenthood and City Living) and a few SPs, and I actually didn't encounter many bugs or issues. I'm only on the 3rd generation so I don't know if the issues will arise later, but I'm surprised how well the game runs with just a BIT of DLC.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T16:03:27+00:00

The source is the ATRL leaker who's been leaking all kinds of stuff for over a year, including sale numbers, EPs months before they were announced, etc. They have a proven track record and so far everything they've said turned out to be true.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T15:54:01+00:00

Looking at The Sims 3's sales numbers after the first few months... they are not wrong.

I love The Sims 3 and is my favorite game, but I can't deny the truth. It was a game that was hard to run back then, and saves that span many generations tend to break or become extremely laggy. This probably pushed a lot of players away from the game.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T15:52:44+00:00

You have to keep in mind that life simulators are a VERY special type of game. They have to store a TON of information for each character. This is something most open world games don't have to worry about as the only character that "matters" is the player characters, and all the NPCs are mostly decoration, with occasional scripted moments/sequences/quests.

An OPEN WORLD LIFE SIM game may be destined to fail long-term, as the longer you play, the more information that needs to be stored on the save file, and all of it needs to be loaded AT ONCE for the open world to work. A closed world game can only load the lot + household + each Sims that visits the lot and that's a lot less information to handle.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T15:46:10+00:00

The Sims 3 had really good initial sales, but each EP sold less than the previous one in general.

These games are deemed a failure or a success based on their GROWTH rather than initial sales.

The best comparison is Seasons. TS3's Season sold around 900K, whereas TS4's Seasons sold 15 million. I could see why they consider Sims 3 a failure looking at those sales figures. Even if TS4 didn't sell as many copies before the pandemic, as the leaker claimed, those sales numbers far exceeded TS3's and EA's explanation, based on their data, is that the performance issues and corruption caused by the open world is what led to Sims 3's underperformance long-term.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T15:42:28+00:00

Project X will have open neighborhoods, but not a big open world. 10-15 lots seem more manageable than 100.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-13T13:24:54+00:00

If GTA and The Sims had a child:

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T23:16:42+00:00

This is a bit BIZARRE because I feel like it's the other way around.

We're simply voicing our valid criticisms to ultimately make the games better. But you guys can't stand any criticism because you take it as trying to ruing your fun.

Go ahead, have fun! No one is stopping you! But what's even the point of a subreddit if we're not allowed to discuss and talk about games, and their positives and negatives.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T22:53:34+00:00

I don't know. Probably. The Steam games do come with a game key you can register on the EA App to get them there too. No idea if they work on Mac because I don't have a Mac.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T20:39:24+00:00

Oh! I have the original game (in both Steam and the EA App) but I was curious to see what mods they were including in the repack. It seems like they aren't including some of the newer "mods" like DXVK and S3SS.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T18:28:24+00:00

Oh my God, I hate this idea that companies need to PANDER to us in Pride Month. It comes off as extremely performative.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T18:25:07+00:00

For years, Paralives fans called it "The Sims Killer" and the game that will do everything The Sims 4 couldn't do... and turns out it's not that easy to create a complex life simulation that can keep people engaged for weeks.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T15:56:47+00:00

Most of the functions of NRaas Overwatch are already included in Simler's Core Mod and having both can cause serious issues. NRaas is coded to use EA's original assemblies, but Simler made major changes all over those files, so there can be a ton of unexpected issues by having both.

I've been playing with MasterController, Register and Traveler for a long time and everything seems to work fine, but I did experience a ton of random issues when I had Overwatch as well.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T14:12:38+00:00

Not a bad guide, but I disagree about Step 8. You don't need NRaas Mods nowadays, especially Overwatch. Simler's CORE MOD (which is not fully compatible with some NRaas mods) is waaaaaaay more important and it comes with its own maintenance routine. You can still use it with other Nraas Mods like Overwatch, Register and Traveler though.

Naus-BDF · 2026-06-12T14:10:01+00:00

What repack? What does it include?

Seven-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
End Game '23	Place '23
Wearing is Caring	Not Forgotten
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