How much RAM do you have?

[mtglady]

I have all of the EP's, SP's, store stuff and tons of CC patterns.  I have a Gateway desktop with 6 GB RAM, Intel Core i7 CPU, 2.67 GHz, and am running Vista SP2 with a 64bit operating system.  I use AVG as my antivirus and wouldn't ever think about not having it.

I installed Game Booster by IObit and I use that to disable all of my background programs before I start my game play.  My computer is only half full of programs (Sims 2 is still installed on it - lol!). 

The only mods installed are Overwatch and Mastercontroller.   Knock on wood as I haven't had any issues yet .

Happy Simming!

[PlatnumDymnd]

I admit that's what I miss the most about not having a dedktop. Having both Sims 2 and Sims 3 on my kachine. However I travel a lot and go through Sim withdrawal. 

I wish I could go without an antivirus. I'm sure that Norton takes a lot of resources from my Sims. But one never knows what the dang children click on.

[Odie]

Thank you, our love is mutual 

Wow, I keep admiring configurations like that! Mine is Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E4600 2,4 GHz and my graphic card is ATI Radeon HD HD 4850 with 512 mb of integrated GDDR3 RAM (admit I overclock it and had to add cooling paste recently and used CCC heavily to adjust it well because of the overheat). It is really a great card that is probably doing a lot in running my game smooth as it does. One day, it will be upgraded of course, to handle all the future EP's - and some estimations are it may be up to 10 EP in total, but I can't swear on that. I am more concerned how will it handle future Sims 4 and I am looking forward to see how will new SimsCity work as that will be a good test.

Mods that I am using are only neccessary for CAW populating, debug enabler and master controller + cheats and storyprogression to track problems; porter and no cd.

Oh, I forgot to mention my videocard: NVIDIA GeForce GT 220
Actually, I am just lucky that my husband wanted a new server, so I got his old one. (I don't even wanna know what's in the new server )
Btw, it almost seems like everybody uses mods these days lol. But that probably seems that way because it is allowed to mention that here now

@ mtglady
I remember using Gamebooster on my laptop. Then I found out what it really did and it was just rubbish so I got rid of it. I don't remember the exact details, but I can check with my husband if you want to know.

@ Platnum
Why can't you have sims 2 and 3 on your machine? This should be no problem at all, as long as you don't want to run them at the same time
Btw, I used to have Northon and the word I have for that antivirus program is not allowed here. Anyway, my IT-wizz hubby and I switched to Symantec and our computers are performing much much better!


I just reread my post and noticed I am talking a lot about my husband lol. That's probably because I miss him, sorry

[PlatnumDymnd]

Aww that's so sweet. Missing the hubby is always welcome.

As for Sim 2 running with Sim 3. I actually never tried it on my laptop. I just figured since I'm already pushing it having Sims 3 on the laptop, especially 10+ games later, it's probably not a goo idea to try it.

[Easilyamusd123]

Just as a quick note, when I used to run Sims 2 on my school laptop I would turn off both the wireless radio and the anti-virus. It helped an enormous amount in terms of speeding things along.

I have a MacBook Pro now so I don't bother with anti-virus but I still turn off the wireless signal when I play Sims 3. Once you make it a habit to turn on and off its really not such a big deal. Plus I can't be tempted to buy things from the in-game store. Of course, it means I cannot be logged in and receive gifts or achievments but honestly I'm totally fine with that.

[smartburn]

I have a MacBook which is only a little over a year old with 2GB of RAM. I have all EPs minus Showtime, plus Riverview, Hidden Springs (which I may uninstall once I copy certain lots and maybe households to my library, assuming I can do that) and an assortment of store content. I do not have any SPs. I really don't have much on this laptop that takes up a lot of space and resources, certainly nowhere near as much as this game does anyway.

I experienced some major lag and freezing not too long ago - I did a factory reset which helped a lot but didn't solve everything. I ultimately did a full reinstall of the game when I recently installed Pets, and didn't really play much until I installed Supernatural. Once I remembered to set most of the graphics settings back to low or medium, it's been almost as good as new. However, I think I see a 4GB or even a 6GB RAM upgrade (along with a miniature screwdriver, yay) in the somewhat near future. 

[DeLouche]

My game's been acting up something terrible recently, so I took a quick look at my specs...
Hardware:
ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP iP965- Wireless Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, Socket 775
450W Corsair VX Series PSU, ATX, Power Supply
2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair RAM
2 x 120 Gb Hard Drives SATA II
NVidia GeForce 7900 Gt/Gto Graphics Card


Only TWO GB of RAM.... I think I've found my main problem...

So I went online to buy a stick or two of delicious RAM for my beloved 'puter, and found this gem of a product description:
"Aluminum heat spreaders help dissipate heat, and provide the aggressive look that you want in your gaming rig."

Oh, Mr Marketing Genius, an 'aggressive look' is EXACTLY what I want to play Sims 3 better!

[Roxanne07]

I have a one year old Inspiron DELL laptop ( Win. 7 ). It's a 32-bit with 3GB of RAM, Intel Core i5 CPU and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5430 Graphics Card. I have all Expansion and Stuff Packs except Katy Perry Sweet Treats and Diesel, and a lot of store content.

I think it's a good laptop overall. I run the game on high settings all the time and I get very few crashes. Well, the game takes a while to start up, and when in Create-A-Sim, the clothes take ages to load ( too much store content! ), but other than that, it's fine. Although with Seasons coming in 2 months, I should really consider buying more RAM. Right now, with all my Expansion and Stuff packs installed, I have only about 27 GB free in my main drive, and I don't have any large save files or anything.

I'm also planning to get The Sims 2 and all its Expansions ( back ) very soon! I miss it! ( Not sure if the poor laptop can handle all those Sims games though, hehe )

[donatello]

I run Avast (the free version) and it works a charm! It hardly touches any resources whatsoever and I've not had a day's trouble with it for more than 18 months. And I only have 1GB RAM. Now that's very, very light if 1GB doesn't feel its presence. And Roxanne: I recommend doing something about hard drive capacity, because (no jokes) running a hard drive beyond 80% capacity is looking for trouble (like a drastic, devastating crash). You could push to 95% or so, but 80% is a safe threshold. Have you compressed your hard drive? That would save you plenty of space and buy you some time before having to upgrade.

[Roxanne07]

I run Avast (the free version) and it works a charm! It hardly touches any resources whatsoever and I've not had a day's trouble with it for more than 18 months. And I only have 1GB RAM. Now that's very, very light if 1GB doesn't feel its presence. And Roxanne: I recommend doing something about hard drive capacity, because (no jokes) running a hard drive beyond 80% capacity is looking for trouble (like a drastic, devastating crash). You could push to 95% or so, but 80% is a safe threshold. Have you compressed your hard drive? That would save you plenty of space and buy you some time before having to upgrade.

No, I haven't compressed the hard drive. But yes, you're right. I have 27 GB of 97 (~100) GB free, so it's still a little bit over 80 percent free space. I do regular system defrags and cleanups and so far, I haven't had any problems with the game or the system, so I think I will only upgrade when I really need to. 

I'm curious though, is compressing something you would do regularly? I know how to compress the hard drive, just wondering if it should be done only once or often. Also, I've heard it is not really recommended as it slows down your system?

[donatello]

It would slow it down, but I personally don't even notice the difference. My hard drive is compressed and I haven't had any trouble or reason to complain. Your processor and RAM play far greater roles in this. Compressing is a once-off thing if you do it when you reach 80% full. By the time you reach 80% again, it really is better to upgrade. Because you'll a) gain far less the second time around, and b) you'll likely be pushing the limits of your system.

[Frey]

I have 2 GB and all EP's up to Showtime, Riverview, Barnacle Bay, no stuff packs and maybe 40 or 50 items from the store. I was having extreme crashing issues until I used msconfig to reduce the amount of background-running processes like Itunes, Skype and like 20 other processes. I can't say it runs well now, but it runs decently, and it doesn't crash anymore unless I have Chrome or something else running at the same time. My in-game settings are all low to medium though.

[PlatnumDymnd]

So I got me 4 more Gb of RAM. I now have the max 8gb. So far so good. We'll see.

[Odie]

Good for you! Hope it helps

[PlatnumDymnd]

Thanks Odie. I was inspired by this thread to go ahead and get some more RAM. I really didn't have a need to get it since my game issue wasn't related to RAM.

It definitely loaded faster. But it wasn't really slow in the first place so now it's like zippy fast. I'm still having the issues with the custom pet I told you about, but like I said I think that's something else.