No. I didn't go through them and run them one by one after every install. There is no reason for these expansions not to work from a fresh install as they have ran previously just fine. I realise you're just trying to think of another possible option but honestly it just seems pointless. There is no reason for them not to work as, like I said before, they ran fine previously even WITH my CC.
With this new fresh install, at no point was there any problems with any updates after each install or with the final patch.
At this point I'm beginning to think something on my PC is conflicting with the game, perhaps a background process or some kind of extremely obscure graphics driver glitch. Despite the fact that I've done numerous fresh, clean installs of the latest official NVidia driver.
Hi, Bazerk83.
I'm beginning to think the problem may be your video card just isn't up to snuff for The Sims 3 on high settings. I only say this as the GTX 260 was released in late 2008, so it is approaching six years old. The Sims 3 released in mid-2009, and since it's release has seen numerous updates and fixes to the game, including a new graphics engine when Pets was released. As you add more expansions, stuff packs, etc. on to the game, it adds to the load on both the CPU and the graphics card.
I see the issue as two-fold: system memory and graphics card. I've already discussed the graphics card, though I'll elaborate in a moment. System memory - you have 4 GB memory. Regardless of whether you're running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows, your system will reserve so much memory for the operating system, so much to supplement the video memory, and of course what the application needs. When you have so many items installed, it can spend a lot of time swapping memory to the hard drive to free up physical memory. Using the command line to allow Sims 3 to use 4 GB of memory doesn't help in this situation as your system doesn't have that much to give.
On the graphics side, the GTX 260 has a couple of things working against it. It doesn't have quite a full GB of memory available to it, and nVidia intentionally disabled some of the card's processor to reduce performance compared to the GTX 280 (which uses the same chip fully activated). It also doesn't have as many graphic cores in it as more modern cards (216 in the GTX 260 vs. 768 in the GTX 650 Ti for example). I bring up the cores because after the Pets update with the improved graphics engine (and the addition of Supernatural and Seasons which are resource intensive graphics-wise), the more oomph in your graphics card the better performance you'll get.
Unfortunately, it boils down to you may need some updates to play the game on full settings with fewer issues. I haven't had a chance to check your processor, though it sounds like it should still be okay. I would look at increasing your system memory to 8 GB - particularly if you're running 64-bit Windows. You will also want to look at a newer card. I think I remember seeing the GTX 750 Ti on Amazon for about $150, which is an excellent card. Still an older card, but a huge increase in performance for not a lot of money. Both of these updates should help your system run the game better.
Hope this helps and happy Simming!
Flynn
