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.

After a pre-release beta was leaked in May 2009,^[1] the game was released in June 2009, after which 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 May 2023,^[2] and the modding scene remains active.

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.
Amazon.co.uk		Includes Late Night and High-End Loft Stuff.
Microsoft Store		Starter Pack. Included exclusively with Xbox Game Pass for PC as part of its version of EA Play.
Origin		Included with EA Play.
Steam		Included with EA Play (Steam).
Games for Windows Marketplace (unavailable)		^[3]

The 64-bit macOS version is separate from the Windows and 32-bit macOS version. Contact the EA Support if the 64-bit version is missing from the Origin library.

Version differences

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

Monetization

Type	Notes
DLC	Stuff packs contain sizeable additions to content already available in the base game.
Expansion pack	Expansions contain major gameplay additions not present in the base game.
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.
Sponsored	Certain Stuff packs and Store items feature products from real-life companies and celebrities.^[4]
Subscription gaming service	Available via EA Play.

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.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
World Adventures	Expansion 1
Ambitions	Expansion 2
Late Night	Expansion 3 Included with EA Play.
Generations	Expansion 4
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. Not available digitally anymore, presumably due to license expiration.
Diesel Stuff	Stuff pack 7
70s, 80s, & 90s Stuff	Stuff pack 8
Movie Stuff	Stuff pack 9

Essential improvements

Patches

The following are the latest patch versions for each edition of the game.

Retail/DVD, Steam and macOS 32-bit - 1.67.2. The link provided is for the Windows retail version. Steam version is already patched. Patches for each region of the macOS version can be found here.
Origin (Windows) - 1.69.43
Origin (macOS 64-bit) - 1.70.305
The patch notes can be found here here.

Utilities

Smooth Patch 2.0

ASI mod by LazyDuchess. This mod adds FPS limiter, borderless windowed support and alters the speed at which the game's processing threads runs, which improves the overall performance of the game and some loading times. Most noticeably in Create A Sim, Create A Style and Buy/Build.

This mod alone will not improve the performance issues with the game and recommends using NRaas and other mods for improved performance.

SMAA injector 1.2 (direct download)

SMAA injector 1.2 (original source)

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.

Miscellaneous

Skip intro videos^[5]
Download and install No Intro mod

Bypass the launcher^[6]

Rename the executable.

Go to <path-to-game>\Game\Bin.
Delete or rename Sims3Launcher.exe.
Rename TS3W.exe to Sims3Launcher.exe.

Increase VRAM allocation limit

The game can only use up to 2 GB of VRAM by default. However, it's possible to make the game utilise the VRAM the graphics card has.

Edit GraphicsRules.sgr^[7]^[8]

Open <path-to-game>\Game\Bin\GraphicsRules.sgr in a text editor.
Change seti textureMemory from either 2048 or 32, to actual amount of VRAM in mebibytes.

Calculate the actual amount of VRAM your graphics card has in gigabytes, then multiply by 1024. (i.e. 6 GB of VRAM × 1024 should equals 6144, etc.)

Increase how much CPU power the game will actively use

Edit `GraphicsRules.sgr`^[7]^[8]
Open `<path-to-game>\Game\Bin\GraphicsRules.sgr` in a text editor. Change both `seti cpuLevelMedium` and `seti cpuLevelLow` from 2 and 1 respectively, to 3.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Game\Bin\Sims3.ini^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\Game\Bin\GraphicsRules.sgr^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\Game\Bin\Default.ini^{[Note 1]}
Microsoft Store
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
Microsoft Store
macOS (OS X)	$HOME/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
Xbox 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.^[9]
4K Ultra HD		UI does not scale with resolution, and thus will be extremely small at 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)	Applied an unknown amount when Texture Quality settings set to High. For better aniso. filtering quality, force it via GPU driver control panel/utilities.^[10]
Anti-aliasing (AA)	MSAA, labelled as Edge Smoothing. Off, Low (2x), Medium (4x), High (8x) options available.^[11]
Vertical sync (Vsync)	No vertical sync present at all; forcing vertical sync and/or triple buffering via graphics card's control panel or D3DOverrider is highly recommended.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS	Some physics effects are tied to the monitor's hertz setting. On ≥120 Hz monitors, elevator shafts are harder to snap in place, item previews spin faster (Compare^[12] at 60 Hz, to^[13] at 160 Hz), and Buy/Build Mode scrolling may be janky.^[8]
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 household/lot names and cheat codes requires a keyboard (An on-screen virtual keyboard would likely suffice).
Controller
Controller support

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.^[14]
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
Royalty free audio		Parts of the OST is listed on streaming services, but have not been known to trigger auto-DMCA systems. The rarely encountered "Custom" speaker genre uses commercial songs by default, but its songs can be replaced or removed manually.

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. The process is explained at Crinrict's Sims 3 Help Blog, although its listing of en-GB is not a valid code.^[15]

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				Free choice between 12- and 24-hour clock. If Seasons is installed, there is also a free choice between Celsius and Fahrenheit in the settings.
Traditional Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai

Issues unresolved

Screenshots are overly dark

Screenshots taken with PrintScreen in fullscreen mode, have much darker color saturation than what they're supposed to have.^[2]

Frequent framerate drops and stuttering

Savefiles that have lasted for several generations, or which have many residents, can encounter problems like framerate drops, stuttering, slow response to camera movements, and slow 3x-tier time.^[16] There is no single problem or fix for it, but it occurs most commonly when the game loads (or struggles to load) lots, textures, outfits, and notifications.

Error Code 16 while trying to save the game

Delete some or all lots where moveObjects on have been used^[17]

The exact trigger for the error is unclear, but it seems to be more common when a world has many lots where moveObjects on have been used.

Not to be mistaken for the much more common Error Code 12.

Close and start the game.
Load the savefile.
Go to "Edit town".
If there are any lots in the world where it is known that moveObjects on was used during editing, delete those lots.

(Late Night) Error Code 12 when trying to save after a band gig

^[18]
The error is especially prone to happening if the name of the NPC that the band is supposed to talk to after a gig, is empty in notifications, e.g. "Talk to to get the reward." Saving may occasionally work immediately after a gig if the NPC still exists.

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

Tips for better game performance and fixes for various bugs(for advanced users) NRAAS-Better Game Performance.

Game won't launch on Intel Alder Lake processors

Patch the game with AlderLakePatch.^[19]

After download the file, extract the zip, rar, or 7z file.
Unzip the tool anywhere, then execute the AlderLakePatch.exe file. You will be prompted to locate the game's executable in <path-to-game>\Game\Bin.
The program should patch the executable, and will create a backup of the executable and an IntelFix.dll file, which the game now uses.

For Origin version, or if the game has been patched to version 1.69, patch TS3.exe.

For Steam and retail version without Origin, or if the game has been patched to version 1.67, patch TS3W.exe.

Poor performance

Turn off online functionality^{[citation needed]}
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\Wow6432Node\The Sims\The Sims 3.
In the right hand pane, double-click on SKU.
Change the value to either 1, 2, 3, 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)

When loading a savefile, the error message "A critical error occured when loading (…)" shows up

Load a different savefile first, then load the intended one^[20]^[21]

Load a different and smaller savefile and play around in it for a minute.
Go back to the main menu, then load the savefile you intended to load.
If the intended savefile is then loaded correctly, save normally to ensure you have a working backup, then save with "Save as…" (Preferably to a new savefile name, to avoid the possibility of losing the savefile entirely) to reduce the chance of possible cache issues on future occasions.

(World Adventures) When going on vacation, the travel's loading gets stuck at 98% for more than 2 hours

Sell the private house that the household owns in that world^[22]

Occasionally, one can open a vacation house in Build Mode from Edit World even when it is being owned by a household that is currently not on vacation, which can make the game confused about who owns the house and causing vacation world loading to get stuck.

While in the household's regular world, choose a household member's cellphone → Property & Travel → Check the Property Market → the vacation house → sell it by clicking on the coin button in the lower left of the popup window.

Use the NRaas Traveler mod^[23]
Download NRaas Traveler. Extract the downloaded ZIP file. While the game is not running, place the extracted `.package` into `%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods\Packages`.

Very long loading times in excess of half an hour

Update, replace, or remove custom Buy/Build/Create-a-Sim .package files^[24]

When trying to load savefiles with many lots, the game can hang up for quite some time due to what seems to be problems reading info on some custom items that are included in mod packages. Looking for a package update, finding an equivalent package from another creator/site, or simply removing the packages, can bring loading times down to less than 5 minutes.

In Windows, open %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods\Packages
(If applicable) Search online for an update/replacement for one or more of the custom item .package files.
Move or delete the old .package files out of the folder.
Paste the new .package files into the folder.
Start the game and load the savefile. It can still take a while to load the first time around, but hopefully not quite as long.
(If you receive a message about "Some items couldn't be found and have been replaced") Look a bit around in town and see if the replacements can themselves be replaced with the new items in "Edit town" mode. If they can, continue on with the guide.
Choose ••• → Save as… → Choose a new filename (for example "[Existing filename] 2"). It is not advised to overwrite the old savefile, in case that problems would occur with saving the game or with regretting the new item files.
If the saving succeeds, close the game, start it again, and load the file that has the filename that was picked. If this guide worked well, the loading time should likely be under 5 minutes.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c
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)

Modifications

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) (direct link) (for patch 1.67)

Create a World (Beta) (direct link) (for patch 1.69)

Create a World (Beta) (more info)

Create a Pattern (direct link)

Create a Pattern (guide)

Unofficial

More tools can be found on ModTheSims.

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 Supernatural's moon cycle with a more detailed one.

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

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