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Too many expansion packs? Upgrade to the new version and solve all your problems. The general opinion on the Sims 4 is that whilst it brings welcome improvements to personalities, CAS, build mode and multitasking it fails to have enough content and the lack of open world sticks out like a sore thumb. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=534925 - Adjust relationship decay. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=535156 - Reduce chance of breakages. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=534081 - Unlock all locked objects in Build mode. Eliminating game stutters/lagging, or loading times upwards of ~30 seconds In the options menu, turn off all the automatic online options (you will have to go online in order to access the Gallery) Quick Links The Sims 3 Exchange - The Sims 3 Store Sims 3 Wiki Mod The Sims Carl's The Sims 3 Game Guide How to fix a bugged sim Hold Shift + Control + C to open the console, type "resetsim FirstName LastName". How to fix a broken elevator Open console, type "moveobjects on", use Edit Town to delete then replace elevator. How to move a household to a different town Use Edit Town to select the lot then Evict the household. You can keep or sell all furniture depending on which option you pick, the household will now be in your library. To keep specific furniture but sell the rest move them into your household inventory first. How to cheat death A sim with a Death Flower in their inventory will not be taken by the Grim Reaper. Sims with high logic can play chess against the Grim Reaper if they haven't died from old age. Loser or Unlucky traited sims will not be taken by the Grim Reaper except from old age. Ghosts can resurrect by eating Ambrosia. With the Showtime expansion a wish to a genie can resurrect sims or pets. With the Pets expansion if your Sim receives the “Oh My ghost” opportunity. Once you do so, the Pet will be added to your household in ghost form. Ghost Pets should be treated just like any other Pets. Steam purchased expansions register on Origin. Origin keys (Amazon downloads, boxed copies) do not register on Steam. Yes the expansions are totally overpriced at $25 to $50. Luckily EA finally caught up with the real world instead of trying to deny sales work and sells expansions for 50-66% off on big seasonal sales, including on Steam. Help what expansion do I buy! It depends what you like, chum! Check in the expansion section for more details on what they contain. My personal opinion is that in general it's safe to skip on World Adventures, Showtime and Supernatural. World Adventures mostly contains regional themed new content, vacation areas and the decent tomb adventures. Ambitions is a solid all round pack. Late Night is great for night life and bands, skip if you only like small town life. Generations adds a lot to pre adult life, get it if you care about families. It's light in content apart from age based interactions. Pets is heavily pet focused and adds almost nothing outside pet related content. Showtime is a contender for the smallest expansion, only get it if you care about the careers, which are well developed. Supernatural adds a lot of silly content but hey who wants a realistic life simulator? Seasons adds weather and weather related content. World Adventures Overview Features: Quests, tomb exploration at three new destinations, photography, nectar, fireworks, shops, vacation homes. New vacation worlds: Champs Les Sims (France), Al Simhara (Egypt), Shang Simla (China) New Life state: Mummy New Careers: None New ways to die Mummy's Curse: If a Sim loses a fight to a mummy, he/she is cursed, and receives a moodlet indicating this. In 14 days he/she will die by turning into dust. The curse can be cured with a visit to The Great Sphinx. Ambitions Overview Features: Control within work (professions and selected careers), laundry, tattoo system, skill-based self-employment. New world: Twinbrook New Life state: Simbot (Robot) New Careers: Architectural Designer · Education · Firefighter · Ghost Hunter · Medical · Investigator · Stylist · Self-Employed New ways to die Meteor: If a Sim stands outside for a while, there is an unlikely chance you will get a note saying that it has suddenly gotten dark. A meteor shower is a rare in-game event that can occur in any world. If you don't move your Sim the meteor will crush the sim, ending his/her life. This is more likely to happen while using a telescope. Sims near the impact may catch fire, and windows and furniture of your sim's house may be damaged from the impact if it struck their home lot. Late Night Overview Features: Bars, night clubs, penthouse suites, hot tubs, subway entrances, elevators, ability to form bands, Butler, zodiac signs, fountain tool, the ability to become a vampire. New world: Bridgeport New Life state: Vampire New Careers: Film · Band Member Generations In-depth Overview Features: Pranks, new types of celebrations (i.e. birthday/teen/bachelor parties, weddings, slumber), memories, graduation ceremonies, prom, imaginative play, potions, spiral staircases, water slides, boarding schools, pillow fights, strollers, canes for elders. New Life state: Imaginary Friend New Careers: Daycare Pets In-depth Overview Two editions: Regular and "Limited Edition" Features: Controllable animals (cats, dogs, horses) and non-playable creatures, pet contests. New world: Appaloosa Plains New Life state: Unicorn [Pet] New Careers: Jockey New Skills: Riding Showtime In-depth Overview Three editions: Regular, "Limited Edition" and "Katy Perry Collector's Edition." Katy Perry only: downloadable stage venue, fruit-themed clothing, items, and stage props Features: Stage performance careers, stage decoration, singing, gigs. New world: Starlight Shores. New Life state: Genie New Careers: Singer – Acrobat – Magician New ways to die Magic: With sufficient levels, a Magician can use the Box of Danger to perform the "Buried Alive", "Human Statue", and "Watery Grave" tricks. However, if a Sim fails at correctly executing their tricks with this object, there's a chance that the Sim inside will die. Supernatural In-depth Overview Three editions: Regular, "Limited Edition" and "Origin Decor Edition" Features: Fortune Teller career, skeleton maid, Alchemy skill. New world: Moonlight Falls. New Life state: Witch, Werewolf, Zombie, and Fairy. New Careers: Fortune Teller New ways to die Jelly Bean: There is a slight 1% chance that a Sim can die of eating a "Magic Jelly Bean" from the Magic Jelly Bean Bush. Haunting Curse: Witches with at least a level five of Spellcasting (hidden skill) can die if his attempted Haunting Curse spell fails and backfires on him. If successful, a Sim affected by this spell may die of Haunting Curse. Transmutation: A Sim who uses The Philosopher's Stone may have a chance of turning into a gold statue when transmuting objects into gold. If so, he will pose while turning into gold and die. The gold statue of his expression at the time of death will remain an object for Sims to keep. Seasons In-depth Overview Two editions: Regular and "Limited Edition" Features: Weather, new skills (Soccer/snowboard), seasonal celebrations, new outerwear category for clothing, festivals including eating contests are also in seasons. New Life state: Alien New Careers: Test Subject (Aliens Only) New ways to die Freezing: Sims can freeze to death if they are too long outside in an extremely cold temperature. Spontaneous combustion: Sims can overheat if they are outside in the heat too long, or from outdoor activities. Overheated Sims may be told to cool down; a Sim who does not may spontaneously combust. If a Sim dies as a result of spontaneous combustion, it is considered a form of death by fire. Choking: When a sim enters a eating contest theres a chance your sim can choke and die. University In-depth Overview Two editions: Regular and "Limited Edition" Features: University, apartments and room mates, social groups, science and street art skills. New Life state: Plant sims New Careers: Art Appraiser, Video Game Developer, Sports Agent. New ways to die Death by Blunt Force Trauma (Vending Machine) Death by Blunt Force Trauma (Murphy Bed) Death by Ranting About Death Island Paradise In-depth Overview Two editions: Regular and "Limited Edition" Features: Build partially on water, live on houseboats, diving, manage a resort. New Life state: Mermaids New Careers: Lifeguard, Self Employed Diver New ways to die Death by Running Out of Air While Scuba Diving Death by Shark Attack Death by Dehydration (Mermaids) Into The Future In-depth Overview Two editions: Regular and "Limited Edition" Features: Traveling to the future, futuristic objects, plumbots. New Life state: Plumbot New Careers: Plumbot Dealer, Astronomer, Plumbot Trainer New ways to die Click here for a long guide on how to install mods! TL;DR - Patch game, make Mod directory here: Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\ Windows Vista/7: C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\ Mac OS: /Users/<username>/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/ Add these files, put your .packages here. For other kinds of files read the guide! Touch a clock or town hall for NRAAS mods setup menus. Required mods Overwatch - Correction of persistent or recurring errors produced by the Core game or other mods. Improves game performance. ErrorTrap - Save-game cleanup and error reporting. Recommended mods Relativity - Adjust time so it doesn't take an hour for your sims to have a shower. Register - Manipulate services and role sims in your town. Story Progression - Sims outside of your current active house age, progress at jobs/skills, make friendships etc. - Or - AwesomeMod - Changes a ton of stuff in one mod, has it's own story progression. Routing fixes - Improves game performance and reliability by fixing broken pathfinding nodes in the base worlds. Yes EA are incompetent enough to never fix this issue. Swedish Thaumocracy posted:To the people having problems with long load times: I had this issue as well for a long time, I have something like 4 gigabytes of mods and it was killing my will to even boot up the game. Even looking through costumes if I ever got into CAS took forever. Recommended custom worlds http://www.mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_EvansdaleCounty.html http://www.mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_BrooklynHeights.html Carecat fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Sep 28, 2014 |
# ? Jan 2, 2013 00:30 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 11:04 |
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Better start this thread with the look of pure evil.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:03 |
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What about "AwesomeMod"? I find that to be the best overall one-stop-shop mod for making everything pretty better.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:10 |
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Story Progression is the mod that helps populate your town, correct? That's one thing that I didn't really like about The Sims 3 - everything felt abandoned with only a couple of sims in areas at a time.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:14 |
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If you had to go with one expansion, which one would you say is most essential? I picked up the base game and the Pets expansion during the Steam sale, and I'm just curious if there's one I should definitely have on my radar.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:20 |
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dropkickpikachu posted:If you had to go with one expansion, which one would you say is most essential? I picked up the base game and the Pets expansion during the Steam sale, and I'm just curious if there's one I should definitely have on my radar. I really like Seasons personally, but the career one is really good too. If you hold out for the upcoming university expansion (of COURSE it's coming) that might be a good bet too. Late Night is kinda lame and so is Adventures, and the Supernatural one is just way too weird sometimes.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:24 |
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Dark_Swordmaster posted:What about "AwesomeMod"? I find that to be the best overall one-stop-shop mod for making everything pretty better. Does it still lock you out of playing your game when it has been updated and you haven't gotten the latest update yet? Because wow that was annoying as poo poo.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:25 |
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I don't suppose they have fixed that error code 12 problem since I last played? Made playing games for longer than a generation impossible for me.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:25 |
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Are there any recommended settings to improve performance? I picked this up during the Steam sale and it runs like absolute poo poo, from ridiculously long loading screens to terrible in-game lag.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 07:57 |
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Bieeardo posted:Are there any recommended settings to improve performance? I picked this up during the Steam sale and it runs like absolute poo poo, from ridiculously long loading screens to terrible in-game lag. I don't know about settings, but the Overwatch mod in the OP has helped performance in my games with no other mods installed at all. I'm not sure how much it will help brand new games, though.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 09:38 |
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After spending hours trying to get this installed on Origin (Your steam keys work to activate origin content if you have mixed content keys) it turned out that the reason it wasn't installing is that it refused to install while it was in the default download folder (program files(x86)\origin games\) but changing download destination to program files(x86)\Electronic Arts\ seemed to fix it. This is the posting I followed to get it working Work Around With No Help from EA Everything is installed and working great. The solution is so simple EA should be ashamed of themselves. Steps: 1. Start Origin 2. Click on the "Customize and Control Origin" button 3. Select "Settings" 4. In the "Downloaded Games" change the pathname "Origin Games" to "Electronic Arts" 5. Click "Done" button 6. Download your game. It should download and install with no problems. If that doesn't work: 7. Go to the \Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\ folder where the game was downloaded. 8. Start the program "Sims3Setup.exe" (You may need to "run as administrator"). 9. When the install finishes go to folder: "\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\" 10. Rename files: Sims3Launcher.ex_ to Sims3Launcher.exe TS3.ex_ to TS3.exe Click on The Sims 3 game icon. The Launcher and Game should start.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 10:07 |
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dropkickpikachu posted:If you had to go with one expansion, which one would you say is most essential? I picked up the base game and the Pets expansion during the Steam sale, and I'm just curious if there's one I should definitely have on my radar. I'd either go with Ambitions (for self-employment and the jobs that let you actually do things while at them), Seasons (which just adds a shitload of stuff) or Supernatural (if you want fairies/vampires/werewolves/witches to mess around with).
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 10:21 |
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I love the Sims and Sims 3 fixes almost every problem I had with Sims 2 (except the doughy-rear end freaky doll faces). Almost all the expansions are worth it, aside for Showtime.Chafey posted:the Supernatural one is just way too weird sometimes. This is a confusing opinion. I've always felt that Sims 2 and 3 had been played far too straight until Supernatural. Sims 1 always had this undertone of surrealism. After all, you are playing god in this bizarre little 3D dolls house, where human lives are distilled down to 6 bars. The base premise is weird as hell. All the weird stuff that Supernatural adds has been long coming, at least for me.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 10:22 |
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Bieeardo posted:Are there any recommended settings to improve performance? I picked this up during the Steam sale and it runs like absolute poo poo, from ridiculously long loading screens to terrible in-game lag. Depending on the town you chose, there are some that can cause sims to get stuck in weird areas and lag the hell out of your game. Overwatch mod will help with this automatically but you can try this fix to see if it helps your lag. Open the console and do resetsim *, this will reset all sims positions and pre-Overwatch it was one of my main fixes for my town since there were a couple of areas where sims were getting stuck. Didn't really have to do this very often, more of a rare occurrence. As far as primary expansions go and content bang-for-buck I'd say from top to bottom Ambitions World Adventures Seasons Supernatural Generations I personally don't feel that Showtime / Late Night add much to the game to be worth their cost, but I'm sure there are people that disagree.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 10:49 |
Which town would people say is the best? I have every expansion but since they're all segregated based on each expansion pack, it doesn't feel like I can enjoy every expansion at once (for example, I started in the supernatural town but there were no venues for my musical sim to get gigs in). Are there any towns available that combine all the various types of lots into one town?
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 11:06 |
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As it was for Sims 2, my favorite expansion has been Seasons. The sim who had flesh alien baby was pregnant again with another alien spawn on the day it became a toddler. And his wife was pregnant with a child too, since they tried for baby before the abduction took place. Aliens in Sims 3 are weird.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 11:31 |
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I really like Seasons; I really feel the Weather effects add so much to the game.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 11:39 |
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Where can I find the Relativity settings, after installing it? It's not showing up in the NRass menu when I click on my sim.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 11:45 |
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Noreaus posted:Where can I find the Relativity settings, after installing it? It's not showing up in the NRass menu when I click on my sim. Click on either a clock or the Town hall.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 12:00 |
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Noreaus posted:Where can I find the Relativity settings, after installing it? It's not showing up in the NRass menu when I click on my sim. I posted this in the last thread but it seems relevant so here! A Newbie's Guide to the Relativity Mod First of all, you need to install the mod. Easy enough, just pop it in your C:/Documents/EA Games/The Sims 3/Mods/Packages folder. Now, load that sucker up. You'll get a notice saying that "Time is running at 1 times speed". That's good, and pretty much your indicator that the mod is installed and working. So now it's time to set everything up. Go to your town view and click on your city hall - this will work even if your city hall is a combined building like the ones in Starlight Shores or Bridgeport. This one was done in the Supernatural neighbourhood and I totally forgot what its called. Click NRaas.. Then Relativity. This'll come up. note: these are my settings, not the default ones, although I've only changed one thing from the defaults here so it's good enough. Most of what you can do can be done on this screen. First of all, to change the game speed, go to "set speed" and type in a number. The closer to the game's default speed (which is 37) you go, the faster it'll be. When I was trying to figure out how I liked it, I went down two at a time until I hit my personal sweet spot in regards to how I like it to run. 17 is a good number because it's not too fast but not so slow that you'll get bored. Switch Speed on Fast is normally at 0 so if you want it to switch to default speed when you're running on ultra speed, set it to 37. You can set it faster if you really really want to but I don't personally see the point. Fun Factor is a neat little feature I forgot to mention. You know how Sims seem to be drawn like magnets to computers, hot tubs, bars and bookcases to the exclusion of all other things? This is because of a game mechanic that basically advertises to the sim how fun that thing is. If its more fun than anything else around (and it probably will be) then the sim will do it. What this option does is sets the percentage factor of that advertisement to whatever you set it as. For example if I set it to 50, then things would be advertised as 50% less fun than they actually are, meaning that my sims would be far, far more likely to autonomously do things that are actually useful. Relative Skills and Motives and Skill Gain Factors are what you use to set...well, its pretty self explanatory really. Unlike the Fun Factor option though, the number RAISES the factor, not lowers it, so keep that in mind when playing it. It also has a cool little feature of allowing you to set skills/motive factors individually, so if you'd like your energy to decay slower and nothing else, you can do that. Only Count Humans During Sleep Checks is what you select if you'd like the game to stop setting your speed to normal when the humans are asleep/at work but the cat is awake and cleaning itself. Pause On Completion is one that I've never found a use for but some might; when you set up a queue of actions and super speed your way through them, if this is enabled it will pause the game once all those actions are completed. Lastly Show Notice which I have set to false because I don't like seeing notices every time my game speed changes. Useful if you're like me and have a habit of speeding through boring things like showers. Hopefully some of this is useful, and if there's a thing in the menu that I haven't explained then NRaas has a nice list of interactions here that's a bit more extensive than my disorganised thoughts. Hope that helps a bit! Faerie Fortune fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Jan 2, 2013 |
# ? Jan 2, 2013 13:25 |
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Bieeardo posted:Are there any recommended settings to improve performance? I picked this up during the Steam sale and it runs like absolute poo poo, from ridiculously long loading screens to terrible in-game lag. As far as I am aware your only two options are to put it on an SSD, use less expansions/custom content/mods (apart from overwatch) or use mods like register to stricly control the population of your town. The problem with the game isn't the graphics, it's the poorly designed/optimized engine (and some horrible bugs with cars etc) that cope badly with all the sims active in a town and the huge amount of content after expansion packs.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 13:41 |
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IMO putting it on an SSD is a waste of space unless you have an atrociously old hard drive. The main load for the game is really the only place you'd see a difference. I put the install on my latest comp on my SSD and didn't notice a huge difference in load times beyond the title screen load.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 14:02 |
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Pretty much the only thing you can do to mitigate it is not play the game without patience. Open Sims 3, put the kettle on, chill out, open your household, finish the cup of tea you're making, chill out more, play sims.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 14:15 |
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You could also try playing on physically smaller worlds. I have a custom world (download here) that I love playing on because its small but not too small, and there's room to add stuff from expansion packs that aren't included since it was made after World Adventures' release and hasn't been updated. Still, its a nice little place that has everything a Sims game needs and on my setup with full graphics and pretty much all options maxed out, it loads pretty quickly.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 14:24 |
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Just got Sims 3 and the Pets expansion through Steam and I'm having a bit of an issue. Everything works alright except for the rendering of pets: they're all Lovecratian horrors from beyond space. Specifically, their polygons are all mixed up and stretched and goofy. My computer is a bit old but meets specs. However, my graphics card is an Intel 82945G, which is not supported. Horror pets may be the reason. I'm just wondering if there is a patch that can address this, either from Intel or EA or elsewhere. I've poked around looking for fixes and I'm up-to-date on both Sims 3 patches and my card's drivers, but I still haven't had any luck. I'm finding people with the same problem with unsupported cards, but I haven't found a fix for my specific card. I was hoping some intrepid goon might have an idea. If not, it's no big deal. Playing with non-Euclidean pets has...a kind of charm to it.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 15:06 |
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That card is from 2005 and doesn't support Pixel Shader 3.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 15:11 |
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Does your computer have PCI Express and a a PCI-E power connector? Get a Radeon 7770 for $105.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 15:54 |
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So, I've played Sims 1 on and off when it first came out and enjoyed it, skipped 2, and bought this from the Steam sale. There's a lot to do in this one compared to the first! It's still something entertaining to play rather than shooting game 2012 again. I found a sim in the game named "Gobias Koffi" (Arrested Development, when Gob and Tobias propose a coffee shop business) and thought it was the coolest reference ever. Fake edit: I noticed the "Never Nude" trait too! Pretty cool stuff. Edward_Lapine fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jan 2, 2013 |
# ? Jan 2, 2013 19:28 |
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Edward_Lapine posted:
One of the traits you can give your sim is "Never Nude", where they'll always wear a little pair of jean shorts in the shower/bedroom. This game is peppered with lots of little fun references.
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 19:37 |
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Loving the new thread!
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 19:49 |
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My favorite town has always been Sunset Valley. Does anyone know of any custom worlds like that or a good updated version?
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# ? Jan 2, 2013 23:42 |
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Heres the one I use, its updated to include all lots and items (or the important stuff) from all the expansion packs, but you can choose a version which includes a combo of expansions if you are missing any (e.g. a version that has everything except Pets etc.) Sunset Valley Version 7
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 00:00 |
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So is the Seasons expansion in this one good? It was my favorite expansion in 3 and I'm considering buying the game again on Steam to play it.
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 00:11 |
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Railing Kill posted:Pets only their mother could love. Could you take screenshots for us please?
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 00:23 |
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Edward_Lapine posted:So, I've played Sims 1 on and off when it first came out and enjoyed it, skipped 2, and bought this from the Steam sale. There's a lot to do in this one compared to the first! Boy, you missed out, Sims 2 is arguably better than Sims 3.
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 00:28 |
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Scyther posted:Boy, you missed out, Sims 2 is arguably better than Sims 3. Is there any good mods for Sims 2? I got all of Sims 2 for free during the Origin goof up in October and been meaning to mess with it.
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 00:41 |
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That's kind of a big question, but yes there's a ton of good Sims 2 mods for all kinds of different purposes on modthesims.info and some various annoyance fixes and tweaks by the same guy that made AwesomeMod for Sims 3. Most of them are a matter of personal preference though, and less "must-have" mods, but that's due to Sims 2 generally being less broken than Sims 3.
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 00:54 |
Two questions: 1. I got an amazon gift card for christmas. If I use it to buy an expac, can I use that with the installation I got using steam? 2. One of the LP threads mentioned that the whole "(x) did (some bullshit!) would you like to share this memory?" thing eventually caused horrible slowdown for loads, even if you disabled it, needing a mod to turn it off entirely. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and if so, what mod was that?
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 03:43 |
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nraas's master controller has a no memories option.
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 04:43 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 11:04 |
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President Ark posted:Two questions: One of the newer patches made it so that you can turn memories off in the game Options. If you just want fewer memories, I recommend using this mod by velocitygrass to choose which memories you'd like. Personally, I use the latter - some of the memories are worthwhile, so I don't want to turn them off completely, but most of them just clog up your save file.
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# ? Jan 3, 2013 04:47 |