EA – Bluebellflora

EA App finally coming to Mac

Published on September 7, 2023 by BluebellFlora3 Comments

How disappointing although of course inevitable. Today EA announced that the EA App will be arriving on macOS soon. In what must have been a fun news item to write, given that barely any of it is actually true, EA proudly stated “…it’s the best place for you to experience EA’s incredible games, services and content.” and “…you can ensure that your games are ready to play when you are”. You can read all about how unstable and buggy EA App is for Windows users over on the EA App bug forum here. Yes I know Origin isn’t much better but since the launch of EA App we’ve had it considerably better than Windows users (apart from the September 2023 patch).

A small flavour of what we most probably have to look forward to:

Horse Ranch Pack will not install

Individual Pack download issues

Kit showing as unowned after purchase

Horse Ranch Pack installed but not present in game

Hopefully these issues, which seem to pop up frequently in EA App, are also down to the hell-hole that is Windows and maybe our lovely macOS will run the app a whole lot smoother. But I really don’t hold out much hope….. If you want to read further, EA_Kent (don’t shoot the messenger) posted some further details over at Answers HQ in this general info and FAQ post.

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.

Sims 3 issue connecting to server – Workaround

Published on October 13, 2018April 11, 2020 by BluebellFlora31 Comments

Update 17/10/18
Puzzlezaddict has discovered that a working dll file is already hidden away in the base game files, see her post here at Answers HQ.

Update 16/10/18
We have an unofficial workaround for this issue now. The problem is caused by a Windows file, paul.dll, buried inside the Cider installation of the base game. I copied over the dll file from an install on an old Mac into the new installation and the game successfully loaded without any server connection issues. It’s with BIG thanks to a fellow Hero at AHQ, Henalexandre, for this workaround as he posted of another user on the French forums who was experiencing the same issue and figured out what was causing it. That user was beerxced79000 and you can find his thread here (go give him some XP, he’s amazing).

If you would like to do the workaround you need to download my paul.dll file from here or here and replace your existing one with it. To get to the file:

Go into Applications > The Sims 3, right click on the Sims 3 base game icon and select Show Package Contents from the menu that appears.
Navigate to Contents > Resources > transgaming > c_drive > Program Files > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Game > Bin > Packs > TS3 where you should see four files.
Trash the paul.dll file in that TS3 folder and drag my file into there from your Downloads folder.

PLEASE bear in mind that this fix is unofficial. Hopefully EA are working on an official fix 🙂 BIG thanks to puzzlezaddict who, thousands of miles away, spent last night testing this issue with me 💚

A new issue that’s arisen in the last few days with Sims 3 on macOS. The game will not load as it cannot connect to a server. This only affects new installs of the game. If you already have the game installed then you will not run into this specific issue.