Sims 3 Tips

Huge list of tips including recommended mods for better performance: Nraas Tips

Crashing? (I don’t know how well this works because mine wasn’t crashing but it can’t hurt right?)  Make the game recognize more than 2GB & Data Execution Prevention

Wondering what the heck all of those files are in your Sims 3 folder in My Documents? User Files Explained

And which of these are safe to delete ie clearing caches?  I recommend doing this before each play session.  If you use CC Magic to launch the game you can also clear caches with one click! Sims 3 Caches

New to Sims 3 Mods and CC here’s a good guide that gives you the Mods folder to add what has the resource.cfg file that allows subfolders… TS3 CC Basics and if you want to learn more about subfolders… Organizing Custom Content

Some quick advice: It’s already mentioned in the huge Nraas article but I thought I’d mention it again since it’s kind of a big deal.  Use Delphy’s Dashboard to check for conflicts and corrupted CC and mods!  It works so good.  If you have two mods you want to keep that conflict put one of them into the Overrides folder.  Then, use CC Magic to organize all of it for you.  I leave my Overrides as is but everything that would normally be in my packages file is filtered through CC Magic and it’s speeded up loading time by almost 3 minutes and that’s with having most of the Sims 3 store content and a ton of mods!  There are a bunch of tutorials for it.  I can’t imagine you’d be able to figure it out without one.

This might be linked in one of the above tips pages but I thought it might be helpful anyway especially if you move neighborhoods like I have.  The game stores a snapshot of pretty much every sim that ever loads into the neighborhood.  SNAP files.  These can slow down your load and save times because each time you load and save it’s accessing those including sims that you no longer have in your neighborhood or that are in another neighborhood altogether.  Now, after doing this the first time you load whatever neighborhood you live in it will lag the first few minutes because it’s creating SNAPs for everyone currently living there all over again. But at least this way you don’t have them for sims that you’ll likely never interact with again.  Here’s the link telling you how to do this in S3pe: Deleting SNAP resources.  There’s also a link there you might find helpful if you take a lot of photos or have prom pictures or memories enabled in the FAQ and travel.  Apparently, each time you travel it makes a duplicate of these leading to a huge amount of space taken up by duplicates.

Mods and Tweaks…

Hate how everything seems to glow?  Remove Bloom Effect

Is it too dark outside?  Environment Lighting Tweaks

I have a bunch of mods to stop different annoying actions like them freaking out when they can’t get somewhere or their needs are low or making stupid faces when idle.  I’m not linking them all here but I got them all on Mod the Sims. I got a bunch more at Naughty Sims Asylum.

Don’t like that rubber-like skin but don’t want to mess with editing everyone to change skins?  Look for a default replacement.  It will override the default Maxis skin.  I’m using the HD one on this page: Primer HD Skin for all ages (The sims features look exactly the same just improved.  They won’t look like whole new sims or anything like I’d worried would happen.)

On the same topic, I changed default eyes too.  But no matter what I’ve tried I can’t get rid of that weird glow at night that drives me nuts, especially on darker skin tones.  I’ve searched and searched and all I can find are mods to add more glow!  What?  They look creepy with their shining eyes at night.  Hopefully, one day I will stumble upon a fix.

Default eyebrow, beard replacements: Simple Life

Default hair replacements: OneEuroMutt Hair

Default face overlay with new teeth, lashes, added sclera, and blackheads for teens: OneEuoMutt Overlay

There are also a ton of sliders on that site but I haven’t added them… yet.  OEM Sliders

Not default replacements…

Moar moles! OneEuroMutt Moles

You can never have too many freckles! Vasilla Freckles Part 1 and Part 2

I’ve been downloading entirely too many mods today but amazingly I stumbled upon a few that I totally didn’t expect!  I’d searched when I first started playing Sims 3 for some kind of a solution to the plumbob.  The only thing I could find to do was type in hideheadlineeffects on each time I started the game.  So you’ll understand my shock and joy at finding this mod by TheNay83 on their website when looking for another mod.  It’s called No Effect Mod and it takes away practically everything!  Scroll down to the bottom of the linked page. 

On the above-mentioned page, they link to an invisible plumbob mod by Pocci.  But the download link doesn’t work!  I was sooo sad. But, I’ve found that other modders usually pick up where the original left off and searched and searched.  Finally, I found this thread on MTS where a member named Sweetdevil has generously reuploaded all of Pocci’s mods!  Now, I myself couldn’t figure out how to get the plumbob mod on its own at first and downloaded the whole thing!  But, when typing this up I realized that you can click on the … and it will bring up the option to download the individual file.  It’s on the far left about halfway down.  Look for the pic of a dog next to it.

Anyone that reads my blog knows I have this love for autonomous behavior.  I enjoy watching my sims and screenshotting their actions as opposed to posing them to do my bidding for the screenshots.  But, the autonomy is always so messed up in all of the Sims games!  They are obsessed with a few objects and completely ignore others.  And when you go to a venue it’s even worse with the townies.  Yet again I stumbled upon this mod.  The link to the download is on Naughty Sims Asylum but it’s not actually supported there.  If it works half as well as advertised I’ll be a happy camper!  Especially since it adds autonomy to all those darned store objects I got, lol.  Here’s the thread link.  Obviously, if you’re not a member there you’ll have to sign up to see it.  But it only takes a few minutes and there are so many awesome modders there I can’t see the drawback of not doing it!  Balanced Autonomy by Nadira.  She also has another mod called Venues and Bars that she suggests works well with it and I’m going to try that out as well.   Note: I had the mod in for a while.  I didn’t really see any change.  If anything the townies seemed to be doing less.  But I think this may also be caused by the neighborhood I had my sims living in having far too many places that they could go which spread things too thin.  I’ll test it again once I’m in a neighborhood with places to visit again… I don’t have any right now.