Tag: Sims 3

Sims 3 and Sims 4 – testing in Big Sur and on an M1 Mac

Published on by BluebellFlora22 Comments

My entry level MacBook Air has finally arrived so I can start playing around with Sims 3 and Sims 4. This is my Mac:

2020 13″ MacBook Air
Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU, 7‑core GPU and 16‑core Neural Engine
8GB unified memory
256GB SSD storage

I have all packs up to and including Snowy Escape installed. Settings are maxed out in each game.

Origin

No problems downloading Origin from https://www.origin.com/gbr/en-us/store/download. I am aware that there were reports of Origin not downloading in Big Sur. This appears to have affected those using Chrome. If you’re still having an issue use Safari or Firefox and you will be able to download it.

When you launch Origin you will get a pop-up asking you to install Rosetta, go ahead and install it. Rosetta is the software developed by Apple to translate Intel x86 apps into a language the M1 ARM chips can understand:

Origin should now run and you can start downloading your games (at the time of writing there is a bug in the Origin beta/technical preview which prevents packs from being downloaded. Opt out of the beta in the Application Settings then restart Origin and you should be good to go).

The Sims 3

After installing all the packs the game was still showing as Finalising in Origin. I launched the game by double clicking the app in my Applications folder instead and the Launcher immediately came up (repairing will also fix this). After clicking play in the Launcher a couple of times the game finally started to load. Managed to load a household fine and get into the game and play. One thing I did notice is awful pink lines around some of the screen and sim icon edges. It doesn’t affect gameplay but doesn’t look great.

Overall performance was ok and stable. Having the 64-bit version now is fantastic but it’s no doubt still pretty buggy overall.

The Sims 4

With all the packs downloaded I could press play and start a brand new game. CAS loaded fine and I managed to move a sim into their Lot. There are a lot of reports of users having crashing issues in CAS or when leaving CAS to move their household into a lot. If this is happening you need to enable Vertical Sync in the in-game options (I have no idea why). As well as testing a brand new folder I also copied over my existing Sims 4 folder from my MacBook Pro. This folder is around 5GB in total with a ton of high poly CC. Still loaded and ran beautifully. Really smooth gameplay.

If you’re having issues please leave me a comment or report over in the Mac forum at Answers HQ: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/bd-p/The-Sims-Mac

64-bit Sims 3, quick pointers after installing

Published on by BluebellFlora33 Comments

MaxisJoe has reported that they are currently rolling out the fix for the Installation Verification Error that affected everyone when the game launched yesterday. There is nothing you need to do for this, it will be a fix behind the scenes. You will be able to tell when you have it because a CD key will show up in Origin. Click on the Sims 3 64-bit in your Origin games library then the cog/gear then Game Properties. If you see a serial code next to CD Key then you should now be able to play:

Some brief points on this updated version for Mac players, in no particular order. This list is not exhaustive. You should also check out Puzzlezaddict’s excellent guide here at Answers HQ which will be regularly updated as we familiarise ourselves with this updated version of Sims 3:

Store items

  • download all your store stuff again from the Sims 3 Store. I have tried and tried to copy over my saved store content into the The Sims 3 > Downloads folder but just could not get it to install. I did however manage to happily use Safari and the link between the browser and Origin then Launcher seems to be solid.
  • If you need help with installing Store items please see this article which is still relevant to both versions of Sims 3.

Exchange – Downloading from the Exchange can be a bit hit or miss. If you’re having issues please do the following:

  • In Finder click on Go in the Menu bar then Go to folder. In the window copy and paste this ~/Library/Application Support/Origin/ then press Go. You should now be in a folder called Origin. Create a new folder called Installer Data, if there is not already one there, then repair the game.

Cheat console

The cheat console is now CMD, Shift and C, not CTRL, Shift and C.

Camera

The camera controls are awful and really buggy. Be slow and patient with them, don’t start hitting lots of keys to try and get them to work.

Catalogue items

If you are using a trackpad do not try and scroll in the build/buy catalogue. It’s really glitchy. Use the scroll bar at the side or use a mouse.

Installation Verification Error – Sims 3 64-bit and Metal for Mac

Published on by BluebellFlora13 Comments

The Sims 3 64-bit and Metal version is now available and can be downloaded and installed through your Origin games library. Unfortunately the game isn’t actually playable as this error is appearing at the Main menu:

If you look in your Applications folder you can probably see the Sims 3 Packs folder but no game app:

Hold down CMD, Shift and the full stop/period key and you will see hidden files and folders. Now you can see the Sims 3 app:

I don’t know what the cause of this is but thankfully EA are aware and looking into it. I’m wondering whether it’s a trusted developer/certificate thing? I’m blaming Origin. If in doubt, blame Origin because it’s horrible. I have tried various workarounds I thought might work with no success and am still playing around now.

Keep an eye on this thread for updates from MaxisJoe and hey, you didn’t really think the launch would go smoothly did you? This is Sims 3 on a Mac 😀