How to play the Sims 3 on a Mac
These threads and guides are not definitive nor exhaustive but they have proved extremely popular on my website and do seem to have helped frustrated Simmers along the way. The locked ‘help’ thread on here by simguruhydra has not been updated in over 3 years. Unfortunately us Mac Simmers have to help each other as EA do not offer much support for OS X, if any. If you receive advice from Customer Support to quit Processes on your Mac PLEASE ignore it. Read more…
The Sims 3 – How to do a clean uninstall and reinstall on a Mac
These instructions are to completely delete everything Sims related from your Mac – CC/Mods/Saves/Downloads, everything. If you’re having problems with your game this is a last resort but it will only work if you really get rid of everything. Even then it’s not 100% guaranteed that your game will work again after reinstalling but it should give it the best chance possible. A lot of Preference files are left behind when you uninstall The Sims 3 using the Uninstaller in the Applications folder. Read more…
Unknown Error message related to macOS El Capitan and Sierra and Late Night/Ambitions
This is the biggest Mac/Sims 3 issue at the moment, apart from the unsupported graphics card issue… Read more…
itsaprilXD’s How to install Mods on a Mac Guide – The Sims 3
itsaprilXD has written this brilliant tutorial on how to install mods on a Mac for The Sims 3. She did post it over on the official forums but sadly EA kept deleting it. You can also find it over on her Tumblr page – ministryofsims.tumblr.com (for help on installing Mods in The Sims 4, please read her great guide here). Read more…
Disc Authorization Failure
If you are suffering from one of the Disc Authorization Failure error messages with The Sims 3 it could be for a few different reasons. Read more…
Resetting RAM (also known as purging RAM)
If you suffer from frequent crashes/lagging/hanging in game this may be because your Mac is running out of RAM whilst you’re playing. You need to free some of it up and you can easily do this whilst you’re playing. You can buy apps from the App Store to do this but why bother when you can do it through Terminal for free? You can do this when your game starts to lag noticeably which seems to happen to me when I’m moving between Vacation, University and Home worlds in The Sims 3. Read more…
Installing Sims 3 Store content on a Mac
Installing Store content into your game is always a bit hit and miss thanks to the Launcher. The Launcher is responsible for many borked issues in the game, thanks in part to it’s memory hungry greed. This guide to installing your Sims 3 Store content into your game is based on what successfully works for me – I hope it works for you too! Read more…
Checking which Sims 3 patch version you’re running
If you need to know which patch number you’re on do the following. Read more…
Finding your Serial Key using Terminal
If you’ve lost your serial key for the game you can find it using Terminal, providing the game is still installed on your Mac. Read more…
Sims 3 manual super patch for Mac 1.67
Sometimes just re-downloading and reinstalling the super patch can make your game work again. With Apple’s Gatekeeper feature now built into OS X this can prove a bit of a challenge depending on what your security settings are. Read more…
Fix for incompatible graphics for The Sims 3 on Mac
If you have one of the following Macs the chances are The Sims 3 doesn’t work for you. You can probably load the Launcher but the game gets stuck on the blue screen with the green plumbob. This is because your graphics card is newer than the game and isn’t included in the game files. We’ve now come up with a fix which should work. Read more…
Cannot start the process when the game is running – Sims 3 error on Mac
If you are experiencing the following error:
“Cannot start the process when the game is running. Please quit the game and try again”
you are most likely on a Mac with unsupported graphics for The Sims 3. This appears to be happening on the 2015 MacBook Airs with Intel HD 6000 and the 2015 13″ MacBook Pro with Intel Iris 6100. Both Macs have Intel Broadwell processors which may be a factor in this issue but cannot be confirmed. Read more…
Bluebellflora 