Hello!
Okay, so I've been reading a bit about the FPS in the sims 3, so out of curiosity I went ahead and placed the cheat to see it, quite frankly I can't remember the number I was given, but I do know it was over 80, anyway, I've got a couple questions.
1.- Do I need to make something to limit the FPS in the game? Cause I read some people say you should, some say you should not mess with it and some that it doesn't matter so I'm confused.
2.- If the answer is yes, then, what do I do to limit it? Is there an easy tutorial somewhere? Do I have to download an aditional program to do it?

Sorry if this questions sound dumb, but honestly I only play sims 3 and diablo 2, so I have no idea on what should or shouldn't do about this.

I'm running windows 7 on an i5-4670, 8gb ram and Nvidia GTX 760.
Thanks!

You only need to limit your frame rate if the high framerate is causing issues for you. I used to have a GTX 670 which is slightly more powerful than your GTX 760 and I didn't need to limit my framerate even though I was getting 120+ FPS.

Just monitor your GPU temperatures. If you're not having any problems, then don't worry about it.

what's annoying is not exacly insane high framerate (until you have great graph card with poor cooling) but framerate drop-top game feature.
You can set fixed 60fps from inside of game settings.
That, for example, gives on my ancient Acer laptop relatively stable fps variability 40-46fps, while on normal setting (non fixed fps) game went crazy between 10-70 just while "looking around" (the rest of quality settings were the same with both cases). Why? I don't know.
Ok, that's SIms, I don't dare to ask >.>

My old GTX280 was fried back then, I'm not sure either was it because of playing TS3 without FPS limiter or because of something else, I had it for a long time and it was fine before I bought TS3 in early 2012, and then in 2013... it's gone.., well I didn't know I was suppose to run the FPS limiter with TS3, I only know it after I read some of the threads here in MTS, unfortunately I read them too late..

Ok so.., anyways.. what is the ideal FPS limiter number for TS3? Is 30 FPS too low? Because I never mess with the default set up as I installed it.

And btw, is this FPS limiter also needed when running TS3 CAW? if so, how do I set it up, is it the same way like for TS3 itself? And how do I check it out to know the FPS limiter is working under TS3 CAW? Thanks in advance..

it is - display settings, dropdown list named "refresh" [Default][60] - 1st is nonfixed

Alright, so I went back in the game and checked again. The reason I began researhing this was that a couple days ago I was playing, my balcony door was open and we had lots of wind, and I could actually feel the hot air blowing from the PC.
Now, this is what I got and I'm begining to get concerned.
I got 90 to 130 playing the sims, camera relatively zoomed in, inside the house.
I got 160 to 180 when the sims were outside the house, again, relatively close to them.
And I got 200 to 300 when I'm building. Not building in a world where I play, I just have a world where I build.

Now, the temperatures I got are this from SpeedFan
GPU: 53
HD0: 30
Temp 1: 28
Temp 2: 30
Core 0: 42
Core 1: 40
Core 2: 38
Core 3: 39
So... what do I do? Cause from the "flame" icon I saw in the GPU, this is no good, no?

Also I went to settings and put in 60, wich made zero difference...

Alright, I downloaded the Inspector, went to profile and then sims 3 (chose that one, since it is only that one and world adventures as choices) then go to FPS, what number would be okay? 70?
As I understand it I only click okay and it should work, right? No need to have this program open while I play?
Thanks for the help, I posted the temperatures and started downloading the program!

@ElaineNualla what's "framerate drop-top game feature"? I don't understand what you mean.

@darkdirtyalfa 53C while playing is relatively cool. You only need to start worrying above 80C. The way your card is setup, it should automatically start turning up its fans to 100% and start throttling once it reaches 80C - 85C.

If it goes up to 85C+ that's when you start looking into limiting your FPS, or checking for airflow problems.

So I put it in 70, temperatures dropped to 47. It works without having the program open.

@ajaxsirius but still, 300 fps is a litlte crazy, no? Like, why would I need that speed? I would maybe understand the 200 but 300? Now, with the 70 I feel like there is a little stutter when moving the camera. Before it dropped to 80-90 when I was moving the camera, now it goes to 40-50. Wich now I feel is too low. There are lots of settings anyway. Thanks for the info on the temperatures, at least I know I'm not killing my computer XD

Simply put: game relies highly on Disk->RAM transfers, and since any HDD except RAMDisk is slower than RAM it's bottleneck. No matter how good your GPU is, you'll experience lags and chockings (sudden "framerate drops") because it is how this program has been written.

nitromon below explained this in more clear way than I did, I think.

And I may be wrong - that shall demand reliable tests or knowledge which I have not - but limiting refresh rate seems to impact (I mean: lowers) GPU stress. However - it shall be treated as just opinion and observation of program behavior running on rather low-end machine (laptop) which kind is usually limited by design for energy using and heat managing reasons.

Thank you guys for all the info!
I'm not concerned about the room temperature afecting the pc, my room is quite cool (and I mean very very cool, even in summer) so that's one less concern, I'll keep an eye on the temperature and the performance of the game.

Is there any option for AMD GPUs?
I'm getting 2000+ fps while loading and 150+ while playing, and I'm hearing coil whinning.
Catalyst Control Center doesn't seem to change anything even with VSync and Triple Buffering on.


EDIT:
So, it seems I found an alternative.
Downloaded MSI Afterburner and installed it and the optional RivaTunner Statistics Server.
The RivaTuner has a setting to limit framerate, by intercepting Direct 3D calls.
FPS is limited to my screen's stated cap, confirmed by FRAPS, and coil whinning is gone.
Hope anyone else looking for an alternative finds it useful.

AMD's vsync doesn't work for TS3 for some reason. A while back I discovered 3booter sans the accompanying fps limiter for it which made TS3 playable for me again, since I used to play on a potato until I finally started building my own gaming PCs.

I was getting 200-300 fps in game with huge lags and slow downs, even though the framerate would still be around 200 fps, it was bottlenecking my overclocked i5-4670k. I'm running a mildly overclocked 2GB HD 7850 by the way. Limited the fps to 30 and it runs so smooth now, also I have it installed on an SSD.

CAW needs a limiter even more, I actually made a thread recently asking about it because I was getting over 1700 fps and coil whine in CAW. I downloaded FPS limiter 2.0 and an using that to call it at 30 as well and it works much better.

It's worth noting, my previous graphics card, an HD 6850, died while trying to play TS3 without a limiter. Luckily I could RMA it and got a replacement, but in the mean time I upgraded to my current 7850 which is so much better. :D

Interesting about the MSI Afterburner, I didn't know that. I'll have to check it out.