Apple – Page 3 – Bluebellflora

Sims 2, Sims 3, Sims Medieval and SimCity are no more in macOS Catalina

Published on June 4, 2019October 2, 2019 by BluebellFlora8 Comments

Update 02/10/19 – EA announced today that they will be releasing a 64-bit version of Sims 3 in early 2020!

We knew it was coming and now it’s real:

32-bit apps are dead in 10.15. If you’re thinking about upgrading when the public beta is released in July, or when it is released in the Autumn, you may want to install Mojave or an earlier version of macOS on an external drive beforehand if you want to continue to play the legacy sims games.

EA drops support for OpenGL and goes with Metal for the Sims 4

Published on March 13, 2019March 13, 2019 by BluebellFlora15 Comments

EA Mai announced today that from June 2019 EA will no longer support OpenGL for the Sims 4, instead they will be upgrading the game to support Metal on compatible Macs. For those using a Mac that doesn’t support Metal, you will still be able to play the base game and all packs up to and including StrangerVille (all releases to February 2019) but will need to download and install a new legacy edition of the game which will be made available in June. Some important things to note about the Sims 4: Legacy Edition:

It will not receive any bug fixes
It will not receive any new content
The Gallery and social integrations within the game will no longer function
It will not be possible to add any further Expansion/Game/Stuff Packs to the game released after February 2019
Your installed game will not be automatically upgraded to the legacy edition if you are using a Mac without Metal support
Your saved games can be transferred to the legacy edition, EA will provide further instructions on how to do this nearer the time

Apple have a page on their website explaining Metal and listing supported Macs. They also have a page on their Developer site explaining it in more depth.

The following Macs all support Metal:

MacBooks introduced in 2015 or later
MacBook Airs introduced in 2012 or later
MacBook Pros introduced in 2012 or later
Mac minis introduced in 2012 or later
iMacs introduced in 2012 or later
iMac Pros (all models)
Mac Pro models introduced in late 2013, plus mid-2010 or mid-2012 models with a recommended Metal-capable graphics card.

To find out which exact model Mac you have click on the Apple in the menu bar then About This Mac. If you’re unsure about your Mac, leave a comment below 🙂

This is great news from EA and should improve game performance for all those with supported Macs. Metal enables the CPU (processor) and GPU (graphics processing unit) to work together more efficiently to improve overall performance when playing games.

One last thing, you can ignore the other announcement made about EA dropping support for 32-bit for PC. The Sims 4 has only ever been 64-bit for macOS.

Disabling Origin in-game is the way forward

Published on September 22, 2018 by BluebellFlora2 Comments

EA_Tom over at Answers HQ has posted that Origin in-game will no longer function in Mojave. This is due to the increased functionality in the macOS System Integrity Protection. Tom’s post is here and you should definitely go and read it – https://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-Mac/Origin-In-Game-and-the-macOS-Mojave-Update/m-p/7053780#M14299

There are detailed instructions in the post on how to bypass System Integrity Protection in order to get Origin in-game to work. If you decide to do this you MUST re-enable it again immediately after closing Origin. This OS feature is an integral part of your Mac security. Disabling and re-enabling it requires restarting your Mac.

For the record, I won’t be doing this and will simply have Origin in-game disabled (as I do now). My suggestion would be not to do it either as it can seriously compromise the security of your Mac. Google disabling System Integrity Protection if you want more opinion.