The Sims 3

The Sims
Subseries of Sim
The Sims	2000
The Sims Online	2002
The Sims 2	2004
The Sims Stories (series)
MySims	2008
The Sims 3	2009
The Sims Medieval	2011
The Sims 4	2014

The Sims 3 is a life simulator game, with aspects of town management and adventure. It is noteworthy for having the other households age alongside the active household, the high ability to interact with the entire neighborhood without loading screens, and the extensive character trait and Create-a-Style systems.

Released in June 2009, it received expansion packs and frequent fix patches until 2014. Afterwards only functionality-critical patches have been released, such as one for adding Origin support in 2015, and a 64-bit macOS update in 2020.

The game has few or no compatibility issues on Windows 11 as of November 2021,^[1] and the modding scene remains active.

Key points

Strong modding community

Lacks native V-sync functionality. It is advised to force vertical sync via the graphics control panel to lessen the strain on the GPU.

General information

The Sims 3 Official Forums

Answer HQ for The Sims 3 at EA.com

Answer HQ for The Sims series at EA.com (OS X)

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 7 and SecuROM PA DRM, unknown machine limit. A De-Authorization Tool is available. Dropped starting with patch 1.2.7. Later expansions add Origin DRM.
Origin		Included with EA Play.
Steam		Included with EA Play (Steam).

Version differences

List of all different versions and regions can be found on Wikipedia.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
World Adventures	Expansion 1
Ambitions	Expansion 2
Late Night	Expansion 3. Included with EA Play.
Generations	Expansion4
Pets	Expansion 5
Showtime	Expansion 6
Supernatural	Expansion 7
Seasons	Expansion 8
University Life	Expansion 9
Island Paradise	Expansion 10
Into the Future	Expansion 11
High-End Loft Stuff	Stuff pack 1. Also known as Design and Hi-Tech Stuff in Europe Included with EA Play.
Fast Lane Stuff	Stuff pack 2
Outdoor Living Stuff	Stuff pack 3
Town Life Stuff	Stuff pack 4
Master Suite Stuff	Stuff pack 5
Katy Perry's Sweet Treats	Stuff pack 6
Diesel Stuff	Stuff pack 7
70s, 80s, & 90s Stuff	Stuff pack 8
Movie Stuff	Stuff pack 9

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
Cosmetic	SimPoints are spent on additional clothing and furniture.
Currency	Real money is exchanged for SimPoints which are spent in the Sims 3 Store. SimPoints are not available to be earned in-game.
Finite spend	Once all Sims 3 Store items have been bought, the limit has been reached.
Unlock	Stuff Packs are sold which consist of additional clothing and furniture. Additionally, other maps and gameplay elements are sold piecemeal on the Sims 3 store.

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.67.2 is the latest patch available for the DVD and Steam game versions.

Patch 1.69.43 is the latest patch available for the Origin game version (Windows and macOS 32-bit).

Patch 1.70.305 is the latest patch available for the Origin game version (macOS 64-bit).

The patch notes can be found here here.

Skip intro videos

Skip intro videos^[2]
Download and install this mod.

SMAA injector

Universal fix for most D3D9 and later games. Should provide better anti-aliasing especially with objects that use alpha effects e.g. hair and foliage; the default FSAA implementation unfortunately does not cover such effects.

Bypassing the launcher

Rename the executable^[3]
Go to `<path-to-game>\Game\Bin`. Delete or rename `Sims3Launcher.exe`. Rename `TS3.exe` to `Sims3Launcher.exe`.

Launch the game from TS3W.exe

This only works for a retail disc install patched to 1.67. If on 1.69 or higher (Digital), this method will not work and you'll need to use the one listed above.

Go to <path-to-game>\Game\Bin.
Find TS3W.exe.
Make a shortcut of the executable to the desktop. Launch the game from this shortcut from now on.

Increase how much RAM the game can use (Windows only)

By default, the game limits itself to 2 GB of RAM. On 64-bit installations of Windows, it is possible to make it use 3 or 4 GB RAM instead.

Edit `Sims3.ini`^[4]^[5]
Open `<path-to-game>\Game\Bin\Sims3.ini` in a text editor. Change `MemoryUsageLimit` from 20000000 to 40000000.

Increase how much VRAM the game can use

By default, the game limits itself to 2 GB of VRAM. It is possible to make it use the full amount of VRAM the graphics card has.

Edit `GraphicsRules.srg`^[4]^[5]
Open `<path-to-game>\Game\Bin\GraphicsRules.srg` in a text editor. Change `seti textureMemory` from either 2048 or 32, to the GPU's VRAM multiplied by 1024. For instance, 6 GB = 6144.

Increase how much CPU power the game will actively use

Edit `GraphicsRules.srg`^[4]^[5]
Open `<path-to-game>\Game\Bin\GraphicsRules.srg` in a text editor. Change both `seti cpuLevelMedium` and `seti cpuLevelLow` from 2 and 1 respectively, to 3.

NRaas Overwatch^[5]

Contains bugfixes for Sims that have walked into spots without outside path routing, empty cars that stand still in the road, superfluous/corrupt caches, NPCs stuck in-between life ages, and a bug involving a police station mission that can't be won, among other things.

Replaces Sims 3 Seasons' moon cycle with a more detailed one.

The mod will show in-game notifications when it has taken action to resolve the tasks above.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Game\Bin\Sims3.ini^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\Game\Bin\GraphicsRules.srg^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\Game\Bin\Default.ini^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/47890/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves
macOS (OS X)	~/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Saves
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/47890/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Origin
OneDrive		Requires enabling backup of the Documents* folder in OneDrive on all computers.*
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings

Graphics feature	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor		Use The Sims 3 FOV tool. HUD Position Affects Gameplay.
Ultra-widescreen		Vert- scaling.^[6]
4K Ultra HD		UI does not scale with resolution and is extremely small in 4K.
Field of view (FOV)	Use The Sims 3 FOV tool.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed	The Sims 3 Smooth Patch gives the option to enable borderless windowed mode.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS	At ≥120 FPS, the item previews spin faster, elevator shafts are harder to snap in place, and Buy/Build Mode scrolling may be janky.^[5]
High dynamic range display (HDR)	See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)

Input

General settings, including camera invertion

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration		No mouse acceleration.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Touchscreen optimised		Moving the camera around in the neighborhood, would require either mouse cursor emulation, or right mouseclick emulation. Entering cheat codes requires a keyboard.
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Voices, Sound effects, Music, Background noises, Sound quality
Surround sound		4.0 and 5.1 can be chosen for when zoomed in. Tries to force sound through individual speakers that have been set in the Windows sound settings as being non-present.^[7]
Subtitles		No intelligible dialog. All in-game dialog uses the fictional Simlish language.
Closed captions		Sound effects accompanied by visual effects.
Mute on focus lost		Can be turned off

Localizations

After the initial installation, further language changes must be done in the Windows registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Sims\The Sims 3 → Locale (On 32-bit Windows installations it's at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sims\The Sims 3). The process is explained at Crinrict's Sims 3 Help Blog, although its listing of en-GB is not a valid code.^[8]

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Czech
Traditional Chinese
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai

Issues fixed

Various fixes can be found in this Steam Community Guide.

Many performance issues can be fixed with mods. These include Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Traveler, Mastercontroller and DebugEnabler

Poor performance

Turn off online functionality
Open the in-game settings Go to general settings Turn off shop mode, lessons, usage sharing, memories and interactive loading screens Go to online settings Turn off online notifications

World Adventures Region Error

Incorrect Region Codes can be fixed with a simple registry tweak.

World Adventures Region Error^{[citation needed]}

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\The Sims\The Sims 3
In the right hand pane, double-click on SKU
Change the value to either 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 or 7 (depending on the user's version of the expansion pack).
Try to install the expansion pack again.

Region Codes

North America (languages: en-US, fr-FR, es-MX)
Europe (languages: en-US, fr-FR, es-ES, de-DE, it-IT, nl-NL, sv-SE, da-DK, no-NO, fi-FI, pl-PL, pt-PT, hu-HU, cs-CZ, pt-BR, el-GR, ru-RU)
East Asia (languages: en-US, ko-KR, zh-TW)
Japan (languages: en-US, ja-JP)
Worldwide (languages: en-US, fr-FR, es-ES, es-MX, de-DE, it-IT, nl-NL, sv-SE, da-DK, no-NO, fi-FI, pl-PL, pt-PT, hu-HU, cs-CZ, pt-BR, el-GR, ru-RU, ko-KR, zh-TW, ja-JP, th-TH)

Issues unresolved

Screenshots taken with PrintScreen in fullscreen mode, have much darker color saturation than what they're supposed to have.^[1]

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9
DirectDraw		A `ddraw.dll` file is present in the game's folders.
Metal support		Requires macOS 10.13 (High Sierra).
Shader Model support	2.0

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Mods

The Sims 3 attracts a large modding community, allowing further customization features. Unfortunately, even properly designed mods could increase the chances of crashes and errors in the game. Mods have a major impact on loading time and stability, and should be used with discretion if you are having issues with the game.

AwesomeMod - A large compilation of mods and small tweaks. More information can be found at The Sims Wikia and Matywikka (archived)

Mod resources

The Sims 3 Exchange - The official website for sharing user-made content (sims, households, clothing, etc.). The website uses the Sims 3 launcher to download and install custom content. Both the exchange and Sims 3 launcher require the same account.

Mod The Sims - Also hosts mods for The Sims 2 and The Sims 4.

Tools

Official

These tools were created by EA and are hosted on the games official website.

Create a World (Beta)

Unofficial

More tools can be found on ModTheSims.

Better performance

SaveCleaner

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2400+
System memory (RAM)	1.5 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	7.1 GB	32 GB (with all DLC)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 series ATI Radeon 9500 series Intel GMA 3000 series 128 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible Shader model 2.0 support

For computers using built-in graphics the game requires an Intel Pentium D 805 2.66 GHz or a Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz CPU, and 2 GB RAM.

VRAM requirements do not apply to integrated GPUs.

GeForce 6100 and 7100 cards are not supported.

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.5.7 (Leopard)	10.13 (High Sierra)
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core Duo	Intel Core i5
System memory (RAM)	2 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	7.1 GB	18 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT ATI Radeon X1600 Pro Intel GMA X3100 128 MB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 AMD Radeon RX 560 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640