Sims 3 Slow and Choppy on a high end PC

[jasondm4]

I can run games like crysis bioshock far cry 2 etc with great framerates but the sims 3 is just terrible textures take forver to load and every time i move the camera the game lags. Ive updated everything from chipset driver to the graphics drivers ive called EA ATI and nobody has been able to fix this problem for me and its driving me crazy i even tried an FPS limiter that limits the frame rates to 30 which is the maximum for the game so ive heard. I also installed xp on another hard drive and ran the game on xp with barley any processes running since that game was pretty much the only app installed on there. I have tested each of my 4870's individually and with crossfire and get the same horrible performance. Anyway ive got to get to the bottom of this so please give me some advice as to what i should do here are my specs which exceed the requirments for this game.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus Formula X38
RAM: corsair xms2 ddr2 4gb
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 3.0 Ghz 12mb of cache Q9650
PSU: Zalman 850 watt ZM850-HP
Graphics Card: 2 Sapphire ATI HD 4870 1gb toxic edition in crossfire mode

 

[daship]

Faster HDD would help the textures.

 

[ill b ben]

Its rly simple, the game is lousy coded if you ask me. I had the same issues on my rig (q9550 3.6ghz, 4890 4gig ram) if i'd leave my screen id top 100 fps easy, but when panning scrolling etc it would drop 40ish (for a sec at most). i had the same on a crossfire 4670 rig played it on the same level of detail AA etc, same results.

Dont forget this game isnt rly made for the hardcore gamers out there, but rather the ppl with onboard vids. Who dont give a *** if they have 20 fps or 60

 

[ill b ben]

@ dash, not from my expierence (atleast not much noticible speed) i have a WD caviar black, while the crossfire rig where i also tested this game has a cheap 250 gig maxtor disk. And the results where pretty much the same.

Game prolly loaded a sec of 2 faster but thats it rly, ingame pretty much the same

 

[jasondm4]

thats sad that EA cant just code the game better you would think they would? but no they dont really care they just want the money i mean do they really think just people with crappy computers are going to buy this game i mean seriously

 

[Helloworld_98]

^ of course they think that, it's a sims game.

 

[ill b ben]

lol silly silly man, ive seen a lot of ppl buy the game with igp like 950gma... and ''run'' it

 

[daship]

SSD is the best way to load textures fast.

 

[bpogdowz]

SSD has actually been proven to be slower when given high demand to the point of data jamming or bottleneck I read somewhere compared to a regular hard drive but when it comes to loading into Windows and other smaller tasks it's faster. If you have a graphics setup and adequate processor the difference between a 7,200 and 10,000+ RPM drive is slim to none. I'm willing to bet it's your slow processor and weak graphics card setup. 4780 crossfire doesn't even = 1 GTX 280 (which still isn't even good for what your demanding). When I mean slow processor meaning it's not 3.2Ghz which frees up any graphics bottleneck. Definately your weak graphics card setup

 

[daship]

SSD has actually been proven to be slower when given high demand to the point of data jamming or bottleneck I read somewhere compared to a regular hard drive but when it comes to loading into Windows and other smaller tasks it's faster. If you have a graphics setup and adequate processor the difference between a 7,200 and 10,000+ RPM drive is slim to none. I'm willing to bet it's your slow processor and weak graphics card setup. 4780 crossfire doesn't even = 1 GTX 280 (which still isn't even good for what your demanding). When I mean slow processor meaning it's not 3.2Ghz which frees up any graphics bottleneck. Definately your weak graphics card setup

You obviously havent a clue what you are talking about.

 

[bpogdowz]

It's obvious your a troll and prove me wrong.

 

[selea]

It's obvious your a troll and prove me wrong.

You stated that two 4870 in crossfire is less than a single GTX 280. This is ABSOLUTELY incorrect. Read more reviews before telling idiocies. Two 4870 are faster than a single 4870X2 and this last whipe the floor with a single GTX 280, period.

As for the processor you can be right, but not for what the TC is saying. The bottleneck of a Quad 2 Quad @ 3.2 GHZ has high frame rates (above 60) so they don't produce any lag whatsoever. Sure there's a difference between running an i7 with two 4870s and a Core 2 Quad @ 3.2 GHZ but the frames are ovewhere high enough to don't cause any stutter problem.

So, as you see he was not a troll and you are wrong. The only thing a bit right you said is the thing about SSD, and yet neither this last is fully true. The latest SSDs from Intel have a good random access I/O and are far superior to a normal HDD in any application. So, as you see, it depends.

As for the TC, I never played SIMS 3 so I don't know the usual FPS of the game so others knows about it better than me to help.

 

[daship]

It's obvious your a troll and prove me wrong.

Looks like someone already did, and your the troll!!!!!!!!!

 

[jasondm4]

SSD has actually been proven to be slower when given high demand to the point of data jamming or bottleneck I read somewhere compared to a regular hard drive but when it comes to loading into Windows and other smaller tasks it's faster. If you have a graphics setup and adequate processor the difference between a 7,200 and 10,000+ RPM drive is slim to none. I'm willing to bet it's your slow processor and weak graphics card setup. 4780 crossfire doesn't even = 1 GTX 280 (which still isn't even good for what your demanding). When I mean slow processor meaning it's not 3.2Ghz which frees up any graphics bottleneck. Definately your weak graphics card setup

Woah what are you talkin about dude? crossfire 4870's dont equal one GTX 280?! thats just crazy talk. You abviously dont know ****. And you also said my processor is slow?! are you kidding?! you have to be......Q9650 core 2 QUAD 3.0 ghz. I am at a loss for words lol

 

[bpogdowz]

You stated that two 4870 in crossfire is less than a single GTX 280. This is ABSOLUTELY incorrect. Read more reviews before telling idiocies. Two 4870 are faster than a single 4870X2 and this last whipe the floor with a single GTX 280, period.

As for the processor you can be right, but not for what the TC is saying. The bottleneck of a Quad 2 Quad @ 3.2 GHZ has high frame rates (above 60) so they don't produce any lag whatsoever. Sure there's a difference between running an i7 with two 4870s and a Core 2 Quad @ 3.2 GHZ but the frames are ovewhere high enough to don't cause any stutter problem.

So, as you see he was not a troll and you are wrong. The only thing a bit right you said is the thing about SSD, and yet neither this last is fully true. The latest SSDs from Intel have a good random access I/O and are far superior to a normal HDD in any application. So, as you see, it depends.

As for the TC, I never played SIMS 3 so I don't know the usual FPS of the game so others knows about it better than me to help.

I'm just going off of the sum of all FPS Tom's Hardware charts. Now your insulting site staff. You still haven't proved anything about SSD other than your mouth moves.

 

[selea]

I'm just going off of the sum of all FPS Tom's Hardware charts. Now your insulting site staff. You still haven't proved anything about SSD other than your mouth moves.

Please post some, I'm curious what you are looking at.

One example:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-295,2107-2.html

You wil clearly see that you are totally wrong with just this simple one. I can give you many more others. You probably base what you say on some high OC 280 GTX on liquid cooling (watch the article on top of the tops GPU here on TH).

Please before say something and pass yourself as an idiot, do more research.

As for the SSD I already proved you wrong. Reading the article on the Intel X25 it's enough to do that. Do it then shut up.

 

[Guest]

Maybe 8gb of ram and disabling the pagefile would help.

 

[JofaMang]

After reading this thread, I ran my wife's install of sims3 to see how it plays (On the computer in my Sig @ 1920x1080). Fraps shows a rocksteady 30fps with all the shiny stuff turned on. I get a bit of stutter the first time I turned around and zoomed out, but after initial texture load, the game is smooth. Well, smooth enough for a 30fps limit, i guess. My graphics card barely works at it, too. GPU usage on the single 4870 512mb didn't break %60, and the temps only went about 10c above 48c idle, to 58c. It is just a poorly coded game.

 

[tdx_kid]

well i play sims3 a lot and i have an i7 950. along with a radeon 6970, and sata 2 raid 0 set up. i use a program called fraps which tells me my fps, and its usually around 250 fps with all graphics cranked, and it still lags when i scroll. so i can see its a code problem 🙁

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey