Hardware performance for The Sims 3

[ChicoMarx71]

There is an article here:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=832

Which looks into details about running the Sims 3 at high resolutions. It's 6 pages long and reasonably detailed.


The main finding seems to be that there are three places which affect performance drastically:

The usual performance killers, such as lighting and shadows, made little difference when enabled. Our stuttering, or jerky performance if you will, was narrowed down to three settings, being “Animation Smoothing”, “Edge Smoothing” and “High Detail Lots”.

I wonder what version they used to test it, an official pre-release or the leak.

[Delphy]

I find those results... contradictory. I mean, lighting and shadows both use the graphics card extensively... as does smooth edges (which is basically FSAA). Of course maxing out smooth edges is gonna be slow if you run it at very high res and have it set to max.

Also, this really isn't a computer help thread, so moving to Sims 3 Discussion.

[himawara106]

Thank you very much for the link chicomarx71! That is really an awesome page with gread reviews on graphic cards.

It's sad that they didn't get a good impression of the playable performance of the sims 3 with the tests of high end graphic cards. So I really don't know what to do with my old radeon 1950pro. I would like to play the game with maximum settings but as the tested high end graphic cards are not gonna be very good for playing sims 3 at max. resolution and with max. settings, I give up hope, that my card will be any good for the game.

[gwynne]

Everything you need to know is on the first and last pages respectively:

The Sims is not really a game that we would invest much time in, not because it’s a bad game, but because it is simply not the kind of game we play.

While The Sims 3 is still very playable with a minimum of 60fps, we found the lag when scrolling around to be a real nuisance, and it is certainly not something we would be able to tolerate in a first person shooter.

[GnatGoSplat]

I wouldn't let that review influence you. You will be very well off if you have something along the ranks of a run-of-the-mill Geforce 9800GT or ATI HD4830, even at 1920x1200 with all sliders maxed. The fact is Sims 3 is a very different game than an FPS shooter. To put things into perspective, broadcast HDTV is 60fps (and analog TV was 30fps). If the reviewers were able to maintain 60fps, that's as smooth as TV which is smooth enough for this kind of game.

[ChicoMarx71]

Yes I'm not reading too much into the review either. The reason I pointed it out mainly was because of the areas where the reviewers thought that poor performance was coming from. It's handy to know in advance which settings are going to affect your game's performance, so you spend less time adjusting settings and more time playing.

I also like the way the Sims 3 supports 1920 x 1200 out of the box.

[LethalLaurie]

What if you have something other than a GeForce GTX? I currently have NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE. My computer is a few years old (got it in 2004, I think), so I'm a little worried.

[kennyinbmore]

What if you have something other than a GeForce GTX? I currently have NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE. My computer is a few years old (got it in 2004, I think), so I'm a little worried.

That's an integrated graphics adapter, I'd be very afraid

[LethalLaurie]

Uh oh....that doesn't sound good...at all.

[GnatGoSplat]

6150LE is going to suck bad. Low resolution and all graphics sliders minimum. It will feel slower and laggier than Sims 2.

[LethalLaurie]

Ouch... I think I'm gonna cry... D:

[JeNNacide]

It might still be ok. Lots of people over at MATY are playing with intergrated chipsets and their settings are on low/medium and the game is running smoothly. It doesn't LOOK the best, but it runs.

[LethalLaurie]

I guess that's the important thing...

Hey, then again, I'm planning on getting a new MacBook this summer. Maybe I should just get the game for Mac. What do you guys think?

[JeNNacide]

I've heard the PC cd and MAC cd are one in the same. So it shouldn't make a difference which one you buy. Though I may be wrong. But I'm FAIRLY certain you can install the game onto either type of computer using the one disc

[kennyinbmore]

I guess that's the important thing...

Hey, then again, I'm planning on getting a new MacBook this summer. Maybe I should just get the game for Mac. What do you guys think?

That's in idea if you can wait that long, but is your pc upgradeable? Do you have a PCI-E slot? If you do you can get a relatively inexpensive graphics card to run it

I've heard the PC cd and MAC cd are one in the same. So it shouldn't make a difference which one you buy. Though I may be wrong. But I'm FAIRLY certain you can install the game onto either type of computer using the one disc

That's correct

[LethalLaurie]

Whoa, seriously?? I didn't know they could do that! It would take some stress off, anyway--wouldn't have to worry about being stuck with one version after finding out I need the other, and such.

[LethalLaurie]

That's in idea if you can wait that long, but is your pc upgradeable? Do you have a PCI-E slot? If you do you can get a relatively inexpensive graphics card to run it


Errrm....how would I find that out? XD;;

[a-wenzel]

I believe the PC and Mac version are both on the same disc, so if that's the case, you should be fine.

[himawara106]

I also like the way the Sims 3 supports 1920 x 1200 out of the box.

Yes, I like this fact too. The only problem is, that my desktop and notebook screen only supports resolution of up to 1440x900. :(

So are you people maybe going to buy a new monitor to run it in a better resolution?

[GnatGoSplat]

Errrm....how would I find that out? XD;;

If it's a name-brand PC, you can find out with the brand and model.
If it's a home-built PC, you might have to open it up to see if it has a PCIe slot.

[gwynne]

It might still be ok. Lots of people over at MATY are playing with intergrated chipsets and their settings are on low/medium and the game is running smoothly. It doesn't LOOK the best, but it runs.

I'm sorry, but they're referring to newer integrated gaming chipsets like ATI Mobility or NVIDIA GO/M series. That 6150 may be able to run it (it can handle shader model 2.0 at least) but it will be pretty painful. I guess it comes down to "will it work?" vs. "will I want to shoot myself in the head due to the scaled-down graphics and sluggishness?".

[LethalLaurie]

Well, I can at least stake some chips on the MacBook.
Speaking of chips, the one I have my eye on sports dual NVIDIA GeForces, 9400M and 9600M GT. 512 MB!

[malianx]

That MBPro is awesome, I have just the standard unibody with the shared memory card, it runs games fairly well though. Heats up a lot, thank god for the aluminum case.

[LethalLaurie]

My aunt has this thing, it's a flat pad you set your laptop on and it helps keep it cool. I'd have to ask her exactly what it is, again.

[Annalisa]

Some of the interesting things people have said about graphics performance over at MATY is that it seems like CAS for some reason puts a LOT of stress on people's graphics cards and really hikes up the temperature, even on pretty high end cards. Don't know what's up with that ... it's very odd.

[ChicoMarx71]

My aunt has this thing, it's a flat pad you set your laptop on and it helps keep it cool. I'd have to ask her exactly what it is, again.

That's a notebook cooling pad. You'll find that the companies that make case fans will usually have a few models in their catalogues (links provided):

Antec (http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzI=)
Cooler Master (http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/category.php?category_id=1666)
Genius (http://www.geniusnet.com/geniusOnline/online.portal?_nfpb=true&productPortlet_actionOverride=%2Fportlets%2FproductArea%2Fcategory%2FqueryPro&_windowLabel=productPortlet&productPortletproductId=672382&_pageLabel=productPage&test=portlet-action)
Lian-Li (http://www.lian-li.com.tw/v2/en/product/product03.php?cl_index=2&sc_index=23)
Zalman (http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=343)

Thes above pages have a few models so have a look around to see what you like.

Quite often they use another AC plug, but you can get ones that run off USB ports. I would think that the AC powered ones would be more reliable but I haven't really looked into them in any detail.

( Man those hardware web sites suck, I want to look at what they sell not some stupid flash intro... )

[LethalLaurie]

Ooh, thanks--this is exactly what I was thinking of! I wanna say the closest one to what she has is Zalman's.

[gamegrl66]

EA just removed my card from the list of compatible cards. :/ My card is is low end I know, 9500GS 512MB. Can anyone figure what kind of performance I can get with it? I want to upgrade to the 9800GT if necessary?

[Arcadus]

Ok so now my post doesnt have to be deleted anymore. The game runs fine on my X1600Pro.