Can my game be better if I upgrade my machine?

[NoShitSherlock]

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/7126-The-Official-Windows-7-Repository - If you still want to bother with upgrading to 7. It's essentially the OEM edition of any version you choose, without actually paying for it.

You may also want to try ccleaner to clean all the shit out of your registry, which might improve some performance.

[Madame Mim]

I know where you're coming from. My virus program asked to do a full update this morning, on both my machine and my fathers. He double checked with me that it wasn't some evil plot to take over his computer and then allowed the install to start. After it had installed Windows did it's usual complaints that *wah, virus program off* *wah, virus program using old signature file* *wah* *wah* *wah*

And he rang me up to tell me about it - while I was on a bus into work. He wouldn't listen when I tried to explain why. He wouldn't listen when I told him that the Windows pop-ups were useless and he needed to open VET to see if it was still updating or what. He sent me an email later today to complain about the time it took to do a base line virus check.


edit: anybody have any comments/ideas on the preferability of one of these 2 video cards over the other?

• GTX 450 128bit 1Gb DDR5
• GTX 460 192bit 750Mb DDR5

There's almost $AU100 difference between them and (if it was worth it - ie Sims could make use of it) I'd be able to buy 2 of the 450's

[Alexina]

A better machine will only take you so far.  You'll get nice graphics, fairly nice speed, but the game itself is poorly written using inefficient and half-assed coding hence why it is so slow, glitchy, laggy, runs your fan to max and uses a helluva lot of CPU power, and if you use mods and packs then that adds more load to the game.

I disagree and think your just full of shit and bile because you can't get it to work on your machine for whatever reason.

I am lucky if my fan speeds get above 50% of max speed, and it usually grabs one core only, which isn't really taxing on the CPU or even a "Helluva lot of CPU power" as you describe it.  I had a couple of sound issues after LN, which would drive up a core or two, but finally seem to have them solved.  The game isn't what I would call slow or laggy, unless playing on the underspec'ed laptop, even though occasionally when something specific occurs it may appear to lag or be slightly slower, but hardly the major disaster you are implying it is.  Yes it is buggy and poorly written, but mods like AM solve most of those issues and clean everything up.

The same thing applies to you as it does to Cwunts, if you don't like the game, stop playing it.

What the hell are you on about?  Sims works fine on my machine because I shelled out for a top model gaming machine.  It's just a fact that TS3 is a badly written piece of trash and puts all load on the CPU instead of the GPU, so an average computer not really designed for running power-hungry games on it running TS3 will feel the burn literally whilst a well specced computer may not notice that it's being overprocessed and can handle the abuse.  I aint sputing garbage or quoting what may have been written elsewhere, I am telling you facts and it aint just with TS3 it's with all Sim games and SimCity 4 is just as crap.

And let's face it, awesomemod can only do so much.  Yeah it'll clean up a lot of the crap that the game ends up just dumping here and there and make the game more playable, but it isn't a magic wand that's gonna fix every damned thing that's wrong with TS3 and the way it got designed.

You can go and live in your own fantasy world and deny that TS3 is so badly written that it can fry a standard home computer, or that if you get a whopping big supercomputer that suddenly the game will improve beyond its maximum performance.  I aint a hot-headed teenage moron who thinks he's ace at everything that many of you appear to be.  How about rather than trying to pretend you're ace at everything and sputing bullshit back at people who are trying to talk sense that you go do something you're really good at which is finding some photoshopped artwork from failblog and spamming topics with them.

It's frickin' Sims, if you're gonna get aggressive over a virtual dolly house then you need to get a life and some fresh air.

[tizerist]

Madame Mim, have you actually tried altering the address header? You didn't say.

This is the core improvement to the game, and I can't imagine you'd have any crashing if you tried it.

[Madame Mim]

I must have missed that bit Tiserist - what address header?

[Narmy]

What the hell are you on about?  Sims works fine on my machine because I shelled out for a top model gaming machine.  It's just a fact that TS3 is a badly written piece of trash and puts all load on the CPU instead of the GPU, so an average computer not really designed for running power-hungry games on it running TS3 will feel the burn literally whilst a well specced computer may not notice that it's being overprocessed and can handle the abuse.  I aint sputing garbage or quoting what may have been written elsewhere, I am telling you facts and it aint just with TS3 it's with all Sim games and SimCity 4 is just as crap.

And let's face it, awesomemod can only do so much.  Yeah it'll clean up a lot of the crap that the game ends up just dumping here and there and make the game more playable, but it isn't a magic wand that's gonna fix every damned thing that's wrong with TS3 and the way it got designed.

You can go and live in your own fantasy world and deny that TS3 is so badly written that it can fry a standard home computer, or that if you get a whopping big supercomputer that suddenly the game will improve beyond its maximum performance.  I aint a hot-headed teenage moron who thinks he's ace at everything that many of you appear to be.  How about rather than trying to pretend you're ace at everything and sputing bullshit back at people who are trying to talk sense that you go do something you're really good at which is finding some photoshopped artwork from failblog and spamming topics with them.

It's frickin' Sims, if you're gonna get aggressive over a virtual dolly house then you need to get a life and some fresh air.

I guess I was just dreaming when it worked fine on my Core2Duo with an ATI HD 3xxx/4xxx series. Yeah I shelled out the big bucks for that one.

[tizerist]

I must have missed that bit Tizerist - what address header?

http://nene.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:Large_Address_Aware

[spockblock]

I must have missed that bit Tizerist - what address header?

http://nene.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:Large_Address_Aware

The game now handles large memory addressing by default, at least since Late Night came out. Patching to the latest version should make it irrelevant whether you have the EPs or SPs installed or not.

[Madame Mim]

I had just been sitting here trying to remember why I thought LAA was now irrelevant (as far as having to enable it) in my game - what Spockblock said.

No I hadn't looked into it.

[wizard_merlin]

What the hell are you on about?  Sims works fine on my machine because I shelled out for a top model gaming machine.  It's just a fact that TS3 is a badly written piece of trash and puts all load on the CPU instead of the GPU, so an average computer not really designed for running power-hungry games on it running TS3 will feel the burn literally whilst a well specced computer may not notice that it's being overprocessed and can handle the abuse.  I aint sputing garbage or quoting what may have been written elsewhere, I am telling you facts and it aint just with TS3 it's with all Sim games and SimCity 4 is just as crap.

And let's face it, awesomemod can only do so much.  Yeah it'll clean up a lot of the crap that the game ends up just dumping here and there and make the game more playable, but it isn't a magic wand that's gonna fix every damned thing that's wrong with TS3 and the way it got designed.

You can go and live in your own fantasy world and deny that TS3 is so badly written that it can fry a standard home computer, or that if you get a whopping big supercomputer that suddenly the game will improve beyond its maximum performance.  I aint a hot-headed teenage moron who thinks he's ace at everything that many of you appear to be.  How about rather than trying to pretend you're ace at everything and sputing bullshit back at people who are trying to talk sense that you go do something you're really good at which is finding some photoshopped artwork from failblog and spamming topics with them.

It's frickin' Sims, if you're gonna get aggressive over a virtual dolly house then you need to get a life and some fresh air.

I have a higher end spec'ed PC which things work great on, and I also have an underspec'ed laptop for when I am not at home to utilise the PC.  If you read my original post, I never said the game wasn't poorly written and buggy as hell, but my experience on both the desktop and laptop, isn't as bad as what you make it out to be.  I have played Sims 2 and Simcity 4, and never had any issues, even on underspec'ed systems.  My only problem with both of those game now, is that they don't support the full resolution of the monitors and graphics cards, while simcity 4 especially doesn't look very good at the resolutions available, otherwise game play is fine.

I also never said the game can't fry a standard home computer, as it can and even has the potential to fry the most high end system, but it mainly fries graphics cards, including the high end ones, rather than other components, due to the high FPS the game drives the cards at unless you run a limiter, which is a really bad design flaw on the part of EAxis.

I stand by what I said in response to the passage I quoted from you originally.  Even on my underspec'ed laptop, which has only has a 2.1 Ghz Intel Duo, the game isn't that slow, glitchy, laggy and unplayable like you are suggesting.  Yes, the desktop runs the game much better, which it should, as it runs most programs better, but the laptop handles the game to a perfectly acceptable standard for being underspec'ed and a laptop.  Yes, the game does occasionally CTD for unknown reasons, yes I have had some sound issues previously, but nothing which makes the whole thing unplayable and makes me want to stop playing.

You're the one sounding all aggressive and bent out of shape because I dare to have a different view and a game which runs just fine.  Perhaps you're the one who needs to get a life if you get this worked up over NOT being able to get your virtual dolly house to work.

[Alexina]

You're the one sounding all aggressive and bent out of shape because I dare to have a different view and a game which runs just fine.  Perhaps you're the one who needs to get a life if you get this worked up over NOT being able to get your virtual dolly house to work.

Riiiiiight, so calling me a cwunt and telling me I'm full of shit and bile isn't being aggressive.

And don't think for one minute I overlooked what you've posted either Jeromy.  You've been egging to get a bad reaction out of me.  It must give you a boner to make people angry.

[jezzer]

It's frickin' Sims, if you're gonna get aggressive over a virtual dolly house then you need to get a life and some fresh air.

You don't have the slightest shred of self-awareness, do you?

Riiiiiight, so calling me a cwunt and telling me I'm full of shit and bile isn't being aggressive.

Not a "cwunt", a "Cwuntz".  Who is "Cwurtz", a poster around here.  Which fact you would know, if you had only LURKED MOAR.  Instead, you get even more bent out of shape over a nonexistent word, because you have obvious anger issues.

[wizard_merlin]

Riiiiiight, so calling me a cwunt and telling me I'm full of shit and bile isn't being aggressive.

As I didn't call you a cwunt, it is aggressive only if you have a very thin skin and/or other assorted problems, which you obviously do.

As one of our esteemed senators pointed out to you, if you had lurked more, you would have known that 'cwuntz' is a name used to refer to another poster who presents the same way you do.  They bitch and moan about everything that is wrong with TS3 and how bad it all is, yet keep playing it.  Not to mention they are currently in the middle of a hot romance with their butt-ugly sim named oona, ooza or some such shit, and is probably in the throws of planning a real life wedding between them.

[NoShitSherlock]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

[Jeebus]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

Yes, 5770 is much more than enough.  I have a laptop with an ATI 4670 and an i7 Q820, and TS3 runs well on high settings.  Your (planned) computer should do fine.

[NoShitSherlock]

Groovy. Newegg has it on for 130 bucks Canadian right now, which is why I looked at it. I've been reading conflicting reviews about it, so I wasn't sure if it was decent.

[Narmy]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

You do not need 12GB of RAM. I'd go 4GB minimum 8GB maximum (if it's a dual-channel mobo) or just 6GB (if it's a triple-channel mobo).

[wizard_merlin]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

You do not need 12GB of RAM. I'd go 4GB minimum 8GB maximum (if it's a dual-channel mobo) or just 6GB (if it's a triple-channel mobo).

What's wrong with having 12GB of RAM if you have twin triple-channels and you want it?

[Narmy]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

You do not need 12GB of RAM. I'd go 4GB minimum 8GB maximum (if it's a dual-channel mobo) or just 6GB (if it's a triple-channel mobo).

What's wrong with having 12GB of RAM if you have twin triple-channels and you want it?

More RAM =/= better performance

RAM is just temporary storage for data that needs to be read/written fast. If a game uses 2GB of RAM, then that is all you need to run it; but you need a bit extra for the OS and stuff running in the background.

12GB is overkill for games, you'd only need that much if you do HD video editing for a living or something.

[Jeebus]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

You do not need 12GB of RAM. I'd go 4GB minimum 8GB maximum (if it's a dual-channel mobo) or just 6GB (if it's a triple-channel mobo).

What's wrong with having 12GB of RAM if you have twin triple-channels and you want it?

More RAM =/= better performance

RAM is just temporary storage for data that needs to be read/written fast. If a game uses 2GB of RAM, then that is all you need to run it; but you need a bit extra for the OS and stuff running in the background.

12GB is overkill for games, you'd only need that much if you do HD video editing for a living or something.

One thing here: you need more than just "a bit extra" RAM.  On Windoze 7 and Vista, the OS and background tasks can easily use up 2GB of RAM.  Granted, on XP, it's much less, but still fairly sizable (at least 300MB).  But yes, 12 GB is way overkill.  I've never been known to use more than 6GB or so of RAM, and I run a shitload of stuff at the same time.

[Narmy]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

You do not need 12GB of RAM. I'd go 4GB minimum 8GB maximum (if it's a dual-channel mobo) or just 6GB (if it's a triple-channel mobo).

What's wrong with having 12GB of RAM if you have twin triple-channels and you want it?

More RAM =/= better performance

RAM is just temporary storage for data that needs to be read/written fast. If a game uses 2GB of RAM, then that is all you need to run it; but you need a bit extra for the OS and stuff running in the background.

12GB is overkill for games, you'd only need that much if you do HD video editing for a living or something.

One thing here: you need more than just "a bit extra" RAM.  On Windoze 7 and Vista, the OS and background tasks can easily use up 2GB of RAM.  Granted, on XP, it's much less, but still fairly sizable (at least 300MB).  But yes, 12 GB is way overkill.  I've never been known to use more than 6GB or so of RAM, and I run a shitload of stuff at the same time.

On Win7 I only use 1.5GB when not running a game. And that is with Steam, Firefox, Xfire, Avast, and Pidgin running.

4GB is perfectly fine for most games at the moment, but I am planning on adding a couple more sticks of 2GB if future games require it.

[wizard_merlin]

Back on the subject of upgrades, is a Radeon 5770, with 1 GB of dedicated memory, enough to play this stupid game? My poor ickle laptop can no longer handle the game and expansions, even on low settings. After an hour, the game starts pixelating and my laptop feels like it's going to burninate to a crisp. My laptop is a piece of shit Compaq that's about 3 years old, with integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 duo processor, and 3 GB of RAM. Once I get my tax return, I'm building a mid-range gaming desktop for playing TS3 and Civ V. I'm looking at the 5770, as well as the new 2600k i7 Intel Sandy Bridge processor, and 12 GB of RAM. I'll be hooking it up to a 42" LED tv via HDMI for playing.

You do not need 12GB of RAM. I'd go 4GB minimum 8GB maximum (if it's a dual-channel mobo) or just 6GB (if it's a triple-channel mobo).

What's wrong with having 12GB of RAM if you have twin triple-channels and you want it?

12GB is overkill for games, you'd only need that much if you do HD video editing for a living or something.

One thing here: you need more than just "a bit extra" RAM.  On Windoze 7 and Vista, the OS and background tasks can easily use up 2GB of RAM.  Granted, on XP, it's much less, but still fairly sizable (at least 300MB).  But yes, 12 GB is way overkill.  I've never been known to use more than 6GB or so of RAM, and I run a shitload of stuff at the same time.

On Win7 I only use 1.5GB when not running a game. And that is with Steam, Firefox, Xfire, Avast, and Pidgin running.

4GB is perfectly fine for most games at the moment, but I am planning on adding a couple more sticks of 2GB if future games require it.

I have seen TS3 at different times, along with everything else running in the background push my RAM usage to over 5GB, close to 6GB.

I know how RAM works, and what it does, and after a certain point more RAM won't necessarily help anything, but if someone wants to add more RAM what is wrong with that?  Just because a game may or may not use more than 2GB RAM doesn't mean you have to just install that amount.  You argue that 12GB RAM is overkill, it probably is, but so is a 2 or 3 x SLI GTX570 graphics set-up, and an i9 hexacore processor overclocked to some ridiculous speed, but people still do it.

Just because a game wont use all of the available system resources doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't add them.

[spockblock]

Just because a game wont use all of the available system resources doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't add them.

It still won't make your PUDDING BETTER, which is the ACTUAL QUESTION BEING ASKED IN THIS THREAD.

[J. M. Pescado]

Just because a game wont use all of the available system resources doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't add them.

Well, it's fine if you want to do it for purely masturbatory purposes, but...

It still won't make your PUDDING BETTER, which is the ACTUAL QUESTION BEING ASKED IN THIS THREAD.

[wizard_merlin]

Just because a game wont use all of the available system resources doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't add them.

Well, it's fine if you want to do it for purely masturbatory purposes,

or you use other non gaming applications that make use of the extra resources, but as the original question was specific to TS3, I agree with your assessment.

It still won't make your PUDDING BETTER, which is the ACTUAL QUESTION BEING ASKED IN THIS THREAD.

[/quote]
Given that EAxis seem to like keeping their shit able to run on the lowest craptastic machine possible, I agree.