Why is Sims 3 having problems skipping and freezing?

Today I bought Sims 3 (which I have been very excited about for a long time), I installed it, read the tutorial, and started the game. I immediately noticed a slight lag when it came to the graphics. Sims 3 is a game where you can't have this, as you are always moving the camera and such.

Here are the Minimum System Requirements for Sims 3:

Desktop PC (Windows XP + SP2):
CPU: 2ghz Pentium4 Processor or Amd Athlon 2000+ Processor
RAM: 1 GB of RAM
GPU: 128mb Video Card (GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9500)

Here are my CPU Specs:

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU
6300 @ 1.86GHz (But it's rated at 2.72GHz from the Sims 3 requirement check software on the official Sims 3 website)
1.86GHz, 3.00GB of RAM
GeForce 7300LE Video Card
And I'm not exactly sure of my sounds specs but I know that has nothing to do with the graphics skipping.

So if anyone could help me with this and tell me how to make this game run better, I would greatly appreciate it. I have already tried putting all the game options to Low and Off, I was running the game at the bare minimum and it still skipped. Any ideas or thoughts at all are greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading this and possibly helping!!!

turn down resolutions, see if that helps. my dad has the 7300le and it's pretty much garbage. you should look into buying a 9500gt, that should run sims 3 fine. paullywog

Minumum specs are just that.... They want you to run in 640x480 with all the graphic setting turned to minimum and/or off.

It's most likely that video card.... just be sure you buy one with the correct interface port. I don't really know how old your PC is, but it could be an AGP. And a PCI-e card will not work in a AGP slot.

And I wouldn't buy computer components from Best Buy.... they mark the stuff up about 30%. 9600's go for about 90 bucks from Newegg.com, Best buy probably has the same card listed for about 125 bucks. You can get a 9800 from Newegg.com for the price you get a 9600 from Best Buy. And if you live in the correct state, no sales tax; which, most times, offsets the shipping cost.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187060 86 bucks

Or if you don't mind mail in rebates that takes about2 months to recieve: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127418 70 buck

------------------------

As of Best Buy versus newegg:

BFG 9600 (six) OC 120 bucks @ best buy:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8719041&st=9600&type=product&id=1200702767829

BFG 9800 (eight) OC 130 bucks @ newegg.com:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143185

On my Core i7 920, with a GTX 275, The Sims 3 was stuttering and spitting and hiccuping - I only played it last night for an hour, but the performance at 1680*1050 with all the sliders maxed was horrible. This wasn't a framerate issue - it's something else.

[QUOTE="paullywog"]turn down resolutions, see if that helps. my dad has the 7300le and it's pretty much garbage. you should look into buying a 9500gt, that should run sims 3 fine. Triksta6

9600gt has worked great for me on everything except Sims 3 (played Crysis, UT3, Fallout 3, all on high settings)... Sims 3 crashes every 7-10 minutes. Looks beautiful until then though :P

9600gt has worked great for me on everything except Sims 3 (played Crysis, UT3, Fallout 3, all on high settings)... Sims 3 crashes every 7-10 minutes. Looks beautiful until then though :P

Baji_Boxer

7300LE was designed as an integrated chip solution and not a real gpu.

The sims 3 can suffer from stuttering, its not fast pase, there is no real need to rush anywhere.

Another issue is when panning the camera, your system is attempting to load the games textures, world, objects, etc. Having no gpu memory and sharing with your system ram is probably not helping at all

[QUOTE="Baji_Boxer"]

9600gt has worked great for me on everything except Sims 3 (played Crysis, UT3, Fallout 3, all on high settings)... Sims 3 crashes every 7-10 minutes. Looks beautiful until then though :P

FelipeInside

I can't remember which one is the crap card... Seems every go round they release some pos with a very close name to their higher quality card but at a budget price :P

i have a 8800GTX sli and 3.2Q6600 and 2 gig of ram and sims 3 is pausing and stuttering

i have a 8800GTX sli and 3.2Q6600 and 2 gig of ram and sims 3 is pausing and stuttering

Whiteknight19

Wow....then if that's true then it needs a patch.....

U don't have anything running in background?

Although Sims was always RAM hungry...u might need to go to 4GB 800Mhz...

Nope, it's a glitch with the game that's happening for some people, and not for others. I'm communicating with a guy who has 8 gigabytes of ram, and like myself, he can't spin the camera around without it hiccuping and stuttering - the game doesn't seem to be loading textures into cache as far as we can tell.

But some people seem not to have this problem.

A Core i7 with a GTX 275 should not be stuttering like this - so far, the developer has remained silent.

The game itself is mind-blowing. If you zoom right in on your sim... and I mean right in... the facial expressions are the best I've ever seen in any game. They're incredibly lifelike. A friend of mine from university was working at Redwoood (on that other game, not the sims) and he said that they spent a massive amount of time working on the eyes of the sims... at the time I didn't understand what he was talking about, but now I see it. If a sim is watching t.v., for example, the sim's eyes will look down at the t.v. and seemingly respond to what's happening onscreen, but if another sim walks by, the sim's eyes will momentarily move over and look at that sim before returning to the television. It's incredibly subtle, but incredibly effective.

The game is filled with an endless number of small touches just like that one - but what I'm still coming to terms with is the size and scope of the game. I now have ten homes all lined up side by side, filled with sims of my own creation, and they're all moving around and getting to know one another. It's just awesome. The whole blasted thing.

Nope, it's a glitch with the game that's happening for some people, and not for others. I'm communicating with a guy who has 8 gigabytes of ram, and like myself, he can't spin the camera around without it hiccuping and stuttering - the game doesn't seem to be loading textures into cache as far as we can tell.

But some people seem not to have this problem.

A Core i7 with a GTX 275 should not be stuttering like this - so far, the developer has remained silent.

The game itself is mind-blowing. If you zoom right in on your sim... and I mean right in... the facial expressions are the best I've ever seen in any game. They're incredibly lifelike. A friend of mine from university was working at Redwoood (on that other game, not the sims) and he said that they spent a massive amount of time working on the eyes of the sims... at the time I didn't understand what he was talking about, but now I see it. If a sim is watching t.v., for example, the sim's eyes will look down at the t.v. and seemingly respond to what's happening onscreen, but if another sim walks by, the sim's eyes will momentarily move over and look at that sim before returning to the television. It's incredibly subtle, but incredibly effective.

The game is filled with an endless number of small touches just like that one - but what I'm still coming to terms with is the size and scope of the game. I now have ten homes all lined up side by side, filled with sims of my own creation, and they're all moving around and getting to know one another. It's just awesome. The whole blasted thing.

Charles_Dickens

I will never understand the joy of this game....and how it can be so popular... Oh that's right....idiots watch Big Brother and love it so now I understand....FelipeInside

No, you still don't get it. It's the same principle as playing with dolls, or RPGs, or RTS games. It's all about control. Youcontrol your character in an RPG. Youcontrol your soldiers in an RTS. In the Sims series, youcontrol your Sim. Just like playing with dolls, you control all aspects of your Sim...granted, there are some instances of autonomy, but there's always the ever-present feeling of you-know-what's-best-for-your-Sim and so you can cancel your Sim's autonomous behavior and replace it with what you want him/her to do.

If playing with virtual dolls doesn't appeal to you, so be it. But you shouldn't be belittling those who find enjoyment in controlling the lives of virtual play things.

[QUOTE="FelipeInside"]I will never understand the joy of this game....and how it can be so popular... Oh that's right....idiots watch Big Brother and love it so now I understand....Ein-7919

No, you still don't get it. It's the same principle as playing with dolls, or RPGs, or RTS games. It's all about control. Youcontrol your character in an RPG. Youcontrol your soldiers in an RTS. In the Sims series, youcontrol your Sim. Just like playing with dolls, you control all aspects of your Sim...granted, there are some instances of autonomy, but there's always the ever-present feeling of you-know-what's-best-for-your-Sim and so you can cancel your Sim's autonomous behavior and replace it with what you want him/her to do.

If playing with virtual dolls doesn't appeal to you, so be it. But you shouldn't be belittling those who find enjoyment in controlling the lives of virtual play things.

mine runs smooth on window mode 1080x768 everything on max except high detail lot is on 1 because i find that maxing this setting out will stutter the game alot even when your fps is 120+

It must be a deeper problems than graphic because for me, Sim 3 seems to run almost flawless, with slight hiccup when exiting (so far only noticed twice). Im using a 9600gt and a Pentium Dual E2200 2.2ghz with about 3 gigs of ram running at 1440x900.

[QUOTE="Ein-7919"]

[QUOTE="FelipeInside"]I will never understand the joy of this game....and how it can be so popular... Oh that's right....idiots watch Big Brother and love it so now I understand....FelipeInside

No, you still don't get it. It's the same principle as playing with dolls, or RPGs, or RTS games. It's all about control. Youcontrol your character in an RPG. Youcontrol your soldiers in an RTS. In the Sims series, youcontrol your Sim. Just like playing with dolls, you control all aspects of your Sim...granted, there are some instances of autonomy, but there's always the ever-present feeling of you-know-what's-best-for-your-Sim and so you can cancel your Sim's autonomous behavior and replace it with what you want him/her to do.

If playing with virtual dolls doesn't appeal to you, so be it. But you shouldn't be belittling those who find enjoyment in controlling the lives of virtual play things.

[QUOTE="Triksta6"][QUOTE="paullywog"]turn down resolutions, see if that helps. my dad has the 7300le and it's pretty much garbage. you should look into buying a 9500gt, that should run sims 3 fine. FelipeInside

Compared to the one he has it's a big step up, for the price it can be bought for it's good value anyway.

[QUOTE="FelipeInside"][QUOTE="Ein-7919"]

No, you still don't get it. It's the same principle as playing with dolls, or RPGs, or RTS games. It's all about control. Youcontrol your character in an RPG. Youcontrol your soldiers in an RTS. In the Sims series, youcontrol your Sim. Just like playing with dolls, you control all aspects of your Sim...granted, there are some instances of autonomy, but there's always the ever-present feeling of you-know-what's-best-for-your-Sim and so you can cancel your Sim's autonomous behavior and replace it with what you want him/her to do.

If playing with virtual dolls doesn't appeal to you, so be it. But you shouldn't be belittling those who find enjoyment in controlling the lives of virtual play things.

2uneek4u

I dont claim to know a lot about computers, but I have seen framerate issues; this is not at all what I am experiancing. What is happening is sporatic and erratic and not sensible at all. I don't run any action that is strenuous like moving the camera from one end of town to another, or having several sims dancing and interacting at a nightclub full of people; just my sim sitting at his or her computer alone in their house trying to finish a book. It will run great for a few minutes then freeze for ten to fifteen seconds in place. The sound would continue, and the 2 dimensional animations for in-game tv or video games continue,but my sims action freezes in place. This makes no sense to me. I have a pretty wicked computer with a fairly crappy video card; this seems to be the trend. If this is a video card problem please someone tell me because that is relatively easy to fix.

AMD Phenom 9750 Quad core 2.40 Ghz

8GB Kingston heatsinked RAM on 4 2GB chips

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

NVidia GeForce 210 with 1GB DDR3 dedicated Video RAM

I dont claim to know a lot about computers, but I have seen framerate issues; this is not at all what I am experiancing. What is happening is sporatic and erratic and not sensible at all. I don't run any action that is strenuous like moving the camera from one end of town to another, or having several sims dancing and interacting at a nightclub full of people; just my sim sitting at his or her computer alone in their house trying to finish a book. It will run great for a few minutes then freeze for ten to fifteen seconds in place. The sound would continue, and the 2 dimensional animations for in-game tv or video games continue,but my sims action freezes in place. This makes no sense to me. I have a pretty wicked computer with a fairly crappy video card; this seems to be the trend. If this is a video card problem please someone tell me because that is relatively easy to fix.

AMD Phenom 9750 Quad core 2.40 Ghz

8GB Kingston heatsinked RAM on 4 2GB chips

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

NVidia GeForce 210 with 1GB DDR3 dedicated Video RAM

KojimaFreak