I hate that I'm missing out on being able to play before the release date. But after buying a new psu and replacing my old case with a new Antec Nine Hundred, it's still crashing a few minutes in. I think it could be because I'm using stock thermal compound on both my video card and processor, so I ordered some Arctic Silver 5, but that won't be here until Monday. I thought changing my case, buying a new power supply and installing a VGA cooler would be enough, but I guess not. But now my computer is even crashing on Guild Wars (that's never happened before) so apparently whatever's wrong, it's getting worse.

Yeah, I agree. They look way too flat. It might just be because I haven't used EAxis default skins in years, but they look awful to me. In TS2, I mostly use Jirka skintone blends and I have default replacement skins from Sirona sims. The eyes actually creep me out, too. They look too much like doll eyes.

I think I finally figured out why my game keeps crashing. I thought it was a video card issue at first, but I posted at a tech forum with all my computer specs and they said it was my psu. I have a 630 watt Linkworld LPG2-43 which I got at a computer shop down the street back in February. After upgrading from an x1900 to my Radeon HD 4850, my old 500 watt wouldn't power on my computer and none of the local stores (including the big chains) sold power supplies over 500 watts, so I got it there. They told me my current power supply is meant for AGP set-ups, not PCI-e because there's not enough 12v amps. So I ordered a new Corsair 650 watt from NewEgg.

I just came from S2C/MTS2 and they're going warn/ban happy over there. I just posted about what things I hope are fixed soon (based on what other people are saying since I can't even play the game) and I got a warning claiming I asked for help installing an illegal copy or helped someone else do so, which I didn't, so I have no idea what's going on. I'll just steer clear from there until the official release date.

Mine went between 900 kb/s and 1 mb/s. Actually, I think that's the highest speed I've ever gotten for a torrent. I got mine from TorrentSeed.

Apparently buying sets of objects from the Sims 3 store will cost between $5.75 and $20 according to this site: http://simmersnews.blogspot.com/2009/05/sims-3-store-set-prices.html I hope they'll be easy to share like the TS2 Store items because everyone who buys the game gets $10 worth of Sim Points free. I'd be willing to share what I buy if it's possible to do so. The only bad thing is I heard that the EADM has SecuROM and I don't want it on my computer.

I did some research and I found several people with the same video card I have that get a gray screen with vertical lines where they have to hit the power button and most of the time after restarting, have no video signal on the monitor. So I'm now positive my card's overheating, but I'm not really sure if there's anything I can do. I can't really add anymore fans and while I could remove the sides of the case like my brother did on his computer, I don't like how it looks and I'd rather not do that. I don't want to mess with water cooling, either. I'm looking into maybe getting this: http://www.akasa.co.uk/akasa_english/spec_page/vga_cooler/spec_ak_vc03_bluv.htm Would it help much? I've already tried turning the fan up on my video card and that didn't help.

I wonder what's up with taking screenshots. I've taken some print screens of the game and they all look very dark and I've noticed this for all the screenshots from the leaked game. The game itself isn't that dark, but I've had to adjust the brightness and contrast for all the screens I get.

Yes, this is my processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103228

I didn't have any problems with TS2 and I thought TS3 was supposed to work well with dual cores?

I wish I could figure out why my game keeps crashing. I've tried lowering the settings and I even tried reinstalling, but it still crashes, usually in CAS. And now I don't think it's because of overheating because I have a tabletop fan pointed at my computer and it's nice and cool. There's like no heat at all now. So now I have no idea why it's crashing. I know it's not because of my video card not being good enough, but I guess it could be RAM. I only have 2 GB right now. If I had purchased this game, I would be really pissed.

It depends on the autonomy settings. If it's on high, they'll get married, have kids, etc. without you, but if it's on low, they'll just continue going to work and taking care of their basic needs so they won't die. I have my game set on low.

You can play more than one family. It works just like TS2 in this way. You just zoom out until this button comes up to go back to the neighborhood view and select a new family to play. I'm planning on playing all my families in week-long cycles.

I just hope there's a way to disable the blur soon. I find it very obnoxious and it seems way bigger than the TS2 blur.

That's what I was afraid of. But everytime I'd say something about that on any sims forum, I'd get the standard "don't worry about it, the modders will figure it out", etc. I think EA purposely made TS3 like this so they can sell us their crap from the Sims 3 Store. If we had the amount of cc as there is for TS2, they wouldn't sell as much.

I noticed the files are still in .package format, just like TS2. Doesn't this mean it will be easier to mod in the end?

I don't like the camera much in the game. Like if you slightly move your mouse, it moves the camera way too far, so it's hard to take decent pics. And I didn't like the neighborhood. It's way too cluttered and it took me forever to find anything. I finally found the cemetary after looking for it for quite some time, but it's hard to tell residential and community lots apart in the game.

I skipped CAS and went straight into the game the third time I played (I just picked a house to play at random) and the game went longer before it crashed. But still, after 20 minutes or so, it did freeze again on the grey-ish screen. But this time, when I restarted my computer, my fans had kicked up to high and I wasn't getting a video signal on my monitor. I checked the back of my case and there was a ton of heat where the video card is. I shut it off for like 10 minutes, and now it's fine. I have 5 fans so I've never had any problems with anything overheating. Even when I played games like Dead Space, Bioshock, Witcher, Fall Out 3, and F.E.A.R. 2 all at maximum settings, it never got that hot. I wouldn't think Sims 3 would cause problems on my PC. But if it's just going to overheat my video card everytime I play, I guess I have no choice but to stick to TS2. I'm going to try playing with some of the settings like Draw Distance turned down to see if it helps. If not, I don't know what else I could do.

I really doubt it's my computer. It says in the readme that it automatically sets the options to what your computer can handle, and the options were all set to high when I started the game. Plus, I'm well over the minimum requirements. Here's my computer specs:

Windows XP
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+
ATI Radeon HD 4850
2 GB RAM

Well, I got the game installed and everything, replaced the TS3.exe with the crack and started up the game. Everything went fine until I went into CAS. It crashed after I tried to switch from a female to a male sim. I thought maybe it was a glitch, so I tried it again and went back to CAS after it loaded (luckily the game loads in just a few seconds) and tried to adjust the skintone and it crashed again. The music skips for a few seconds, then it goes to this grey-ish colored screen and I can't minimize or otherwise exit out of it and have to hit the reset button on my computer. I was really excited about getting to mess around in CAS and this isn't making me very happy. Also, when I start up the game, my only options are to move one of the bin families to a house or go to CAS. None of the other houses look to be occupied. It's really strange.

Someone who was at one of the events in the UK that got to play said a sim stole a trash can from a park. I can imagine if they're allowed to steal anything and everything, soon the neighborhood will be empty. I'm going to make a klepto sim anyway to test it out as soon as I get it installed.

Thank you. I'll check that out. The last two TS2 EPs I downloaded didn't have the No CD cracks right away (I got them later at GCW) so I figured this would be the same way.

@Rhayden: Actually I did get rid of it after wiping my hard drive and reinstalling Windows. But I wouldn't do that again because backing up all my files was way too much work. So editing the registry isn't the only way. I don't have SecuROM on my PC now, thanks to No-CD cracks.

It really has SecuROM? Damn. I was really looking forward to playing tonight. But I ended up wiping my entire hard drive and reinstalling Windows the last time I got rid of SecuROM (I already had to do this to install a new motherboard and processor) and that's not an option again. And I don't know how to remove SecuROM the normal way because I don't want to mess with the registry. I certainly don't want it again, though. I ended up having to replace a DVD burner already after installing BV.

I got impatient and grabbed the torrent from TorrentSeed. I'm getting speeds from that one between 500-600 kb/s. I hope EA kept their word and didn't put SecuROM in the game.

I hate RapidShare, though. I always get one file and it tells me to wait an hour. Plus, the last time I was there, it wouldn't take the letters they make you type in the box no matter how many times I tried.

I'm getting around 55 KB/s but it's still saying 1 day or more to finish. I might have to go to the RapidShare one.

Mine's going so slow! It's only 2.9% done and it says it will take 18 hours. There are only 3 seeds, (I'm not connected to any of them) so that's probably why. I wish I had a Demonoid account, though.

I noticed the Wiki article on the Sims 3 which had info about the game leaking today is gone already. So I guess EA knows about it.

On the RELOADED version? I've downloaded several games released by them in the past year and I've never had a problem. All the games I've arr'd are either RELOADED or Vitality releases.