The Sims 3 Resources

July 19, 2009

tags: asilee, asilee.com, blog, Electronic Arts, Games, God Games, guide, help, lee, resources, Sim Games, Sims 2, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, tips, Video game

If you need help with The Sims 3. This blog archive will help. Just click here and you can skim through all of the blogs. If there isn’t anything there that can help you, feel free to make a suggestion and I will make a blog about it to the best of my abilities/knowledge.

Happy Simming!

The Sims 3: Patch Download Available for Windows FINALLY

July 19, 2009

tags: asilee, asilee.com, blog, downloads, Electronic Arts, Games, God Games, help, lee, patch, Sim Games, Sims 2, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, update, Video game

Yep, finally EA has came out with a patch for The Sims 3 PC game for Windows. You can download it through the download manager. I don’t need it though, my copy of The Sims 3 works perfectly fine.

Complete List of Changes:

Addresses some issues with Speed 2 and 3 moving too slowly. Some machines will have better results when using Speed 2 and 3 now.
Fix to story progression on/off selection toggle.
Fix for a possible crash with audio code.
Fix for babysitter routing off lots with babies.
Addresses some issues with Vsync and refresh rate problems.
Addresses some issues with DVD authentication errors and drive compatibility on startup.
This update deals with some issues on Mac systems that can crash the game while connecting to AFP servers.
Fix for a freeze that can occur when Sims attempt to clean out bad food from the fridge.

The Sims 2 & 3 Cheats

July 19, 2009

tags: cheat codes, cheats, Games, gaming, God Games, MAC, PC, Sim Games, Sims 2, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, The Sims Series, Video game

Warning: Some may or may not work in The Sims 3. You won’t know until you try them out in the game tomorrow.

The Sims Cheats:

Kaching
- Adds $1.000,- to household funds.
Motherlode
- Adds $50.000,- to household funds.
Moveobjects on/off
- Move unmovable objects.
Aging -on/-off
- Sims won’t age
StretchSkeleton (number)
- Make your sim smaller or higher 2.0 double size, 0.5 half size, etc..
intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims #
- You can invite more guests with a party and more Sims show up at community lots. Use in Neighbourhood screen
boolProp snapObjectsToGrid [true/false]
- Use ‘false’ to place objects out of grid.
boolProp testingCheatsEnabled [true/false]
- Use ‘true’ to enable CAS debugmode and more.
boolprop constrainFloorElevation [true/false]
- Use ‘false’ to make it possible to raise or lower the floor even when there are objects, flooring or walls on it.
boolProp simShadows [true/false]
- Use ‘false’ to make it possible to raise or lower the floor even when there are objects, flooring or walls on it.
boolProp simShadows [true/false]
- Turns shadow of sim on or off.
Vsync on/off
- Turning off increases game performance but with some graphical errors as the price.
floatProp tvVolume [0.0-1.0]
- 0.5 is default. Lower or increase number to manage tv sound.
boolProp displayPaths [true/false]
- True=You see the path where the selected Sim walks to.
boolprop unevenTilesFloorable [true/false]
- True=Can place floortiles on sloped ground.
boolProp useEffects [true/false]
- False=Turns off all effects like speech balloons, memories and the sky.
boolProp useShaders true [true/false]
- True=Makes the pool water clearer
faceBlendLimits -on/off
- When making a child in CAS, this cheat can turn off facial bounding limitations.

Somewhat Non-Useful Cheats:

boolprop renderOpaqueUI [true/false]
- True=Removes transparency in control panel.
boolprop lotTerrainCanvas [true/false]
- Paints the Terrain.
boolprop displayLookAtBoxes [true/false]
- True=blocks appear on the Sims faces and on parts where the Sims look at.
gameVersion
- After typing in ‘expand’, you can see the game version in the cheat box.
boolprop allObjectLightsOn [true/false]
- True= Lights up objects continuously instead of only when used, like fridges/television’s, et cetera.
floatprop particleDensity 1.000000
- Raise number to increase green damping on spoiled food.
boolprop lotInfoAdvancedMode [true/false]
- True=In Neighborhood shows the lot info. You can also just click on the ‘info’ button on the lot info screen.
Autopatch on/off
- Toggles notification of available game patches.

The Sims Neighborhood Cheats:

deleteAllCharacters
- Deletes all the pre-made Sim characters from the Neighborhood.
TerrainType desert/temperate/dirt/concrete
- Toggles between terrain types.
boolProp CameraDriftCamEnabled [true/false]
- False=Camera does not move in Neighborhood.
boolprop displayNeighborhoodProps [true/false]
- False=Removes props like rocks and towers from a Neighborhood.
boolprop displayNeighborhoodRoads [true/false]
- False=Removes the roads from a Neighborhood.
boolprop displayNeighborhoodFlora [true/false]
- False=Removes trees and plants from a Neighborhood.
boolprop displayNeighborhoodWater [true/false]
- False=Removes the water from a Neighborhood.
boolprop displayLotImposters [true/false]
- False=Removes houses from a Neighborhood [just the graphics, not the houses themselves].
boolprop displayNeighborhoodRoadsWithModel [true/false]
- False=Removes bridges from a Neighborhood.
boolprop lotTerrainLighting [true/false]
- False=Lots will not light up when you move your mouse over in a Neighborhood.
boolprop carsCompact [true/false]
- True=Cars in Neighborhood will have more details.
boolprop ShowLotPackageFilename [true/false]
- In a Neighborhood will show file name of house when you move your mouse over a lot.
boolprop nhoodWaterReflection [true/false]
- Turns on/off water reflection in neighborhood.
boolProp carsOnRight [true/false]
- Cars in Neighborhood can drive on either left or right side of road.

The Sims 2: Free Time Cheat:

modifyNeighborhoodTerrain [on/off]
- Modify Nhood terrain: [= Raise, ]=lower, \=level, p=Smooth terrain.

Sims Film Making Cheats:

Slowmotion 0-8
- Will allow you to have footage in slow motion. 0 being normal and 8 being the slowest.
boolProp enablePostProcessing true/false
- Must be true for all filmic cheats to function.
Bloom (r g b x)
- Creates a filmic look in which everything’s so bright it blurs together “r”, “g,” and “b” are color values (0-255) and “x” is the amount of blooming from 0 to 255
vignette (centerx centery X)
- Creates a film focus look in which a focal point is clear but everything around it is blurry.
filmgrain (0-1)
- Creates a film grain for your film.
letterbox (0.0-0.4)
- Creates a letterbox view of size specified.

The Sims 2: Apartment Life Cheats:

printLotClass
- Shows the current class of a lot.
changeLotClassification [low | middle | high]
- Changes the lot classification of the lot.
clearLotClassValue
- Undo the previous cheat.
boolprop controlpets [on/off]
- Makes roommates and pets controllable.
boolprop petactioncancel
- Cancel anything your roommate plan on doing.
boolprop petsfreewill [true/false]
- Use false to turn off free will for roommates.
boolProp aptBaseSpecificToolsDisabled [true/false]
- Use false to enable build/buy mode tools on an apartment lot.
boolprop aptsublotspecifictoolsdisabled [true/false]
- Use false to enable build/buy mode tools in an apartment room (can give problems when used outside room).
changeLotZoning [apartmentbase/secretwitchlot]
- Changes the zoning type of a lot.

The Sims 2: Seasons Cheat:

bugJarTimeDecay [on/off]
- Makes fireflies live forever in jars when set to off.

The Sims Lot Cheats:

boolprop lotWater [true/false]
- False=Removes water from lots (ponds).
boolprop lotTerrainPaints [true/false]
- False=Removes floorpainting on lot.
boolprop showFloorGrid [true/false]
- Shows grid or not in build or buy mode.
boolprop objectShadows [true/false]
- False=Removes shadows on objects outside of the house.
boolProp guob [true/false]
- False=Removes shadows on objects inside of the house.
boolprop renderSelectedSimLevel [true/false]
- True=Walls no longer cut away for selected Sim.
boolprop locktiles [true/false]
- False=You can place floortiles outside lot (Like on road).
boolprop reflectionWithExtraViewer [true/false]
- Turns on/off reflection in mirrors.
boolprop renderInsideObjectOnlyOnSelectedSimLevel [true/false]
- True=Objects only appear on levels the selected Sim is on and when that floor is selected.
boolprop renderSelectedSimLevel [true/false]
- True=Only see selected Sim level; like when Sim is on top floor, other floors are invisible.

The Sims 2 Pets Cheats:

boolprop ControlPets [on/off]
- Makes pets fully controlable, but you can’t cancel actions from their queue.
boolprop DisablePuppyKittenAging [true/false]
- Turns off aging for kittens and puppies.
boolprop ShowCatalogePFlags [true/false]
- Activates labels in the detail view of each Buy mode and Build mode objects to show which product they came from (EP or SP)
boolprop PetsFreeWill [true/false]
- Turns pet free will off.
DeleteAllAwnings
- Deletes all awnings on a lot.
DeleteAllFences
- Deletes all fences on a lot.
DeleteAllHalfWalls
- Deletes all half walls on a lot.
DeleteAllObjects [Doors/Windows/Stairs]
- Deletes all Doors, Windows or Stairs on a lot.
DeleteAllWalls
- Deletes all walls on a lot.
IndividualRoofSlopeAngle [15/75]
- Activates a tool to change the roof slopes of individual roofs on a lot.

The Sims 2 Open for Business Cheats:

AddneighbortoFamilycheat [on/off]
- Click on an NPC to add one to the current household.
Forcetwins
- With a pregnant Sim selected, using this cheat will transform the pregnancy into a twin birth.
Sethour [0-23]
- Convert the time to army time.
Plumbbobtoggle
- Makes the overhead plumb bob invisible.
Hold down Ctrl + Alt while an object is selected
- Allows you to put as many items on a wall as you want, even if they overlap.

The Sims 2 University Cheats:

boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation [true/false]
- Allows rotating any object in 45 degree increments with < and > keys.
setHighestAllowedLevel [level]
- Can build higher then 5 floors.
boolProp dormSpecificToolsDisabled [true/false]
- Enables build/buy mode tools in a dorm lot.
changeLotZoning [residential | community | greek | dorm | secretsociety]
- Changes the zoning type of the lot.

The Sims 2: Nightlife Cheats:

familyfunds [Familyname] #
- Add or extract money for a chosen family. For example, “familyfunds Jones +10000″ adds §10.000 to family Jones. -10000 extracts §10.000
roofslopeangle [15-75]
- Adjusts the slope angle on all roofs on a lot.
showHeadlines [on/off]
- Makes all thought balloons invisible.
unlockCareerRewards
- Unlocks all career rewards for selected sim.
MaxMotives
- Sets all needs for all sims on the lot to full.
motiveDecay [on/off]
- Turns natural need decay on or off.
aspirationPoints #
- Adds the specified number of Aspiration points to selected Sim.
lockAspiration [on/off]
- Freezes aspiration point decay for all sims on the lot.
aspirationLevel [0-5]
- Changes Sims’ aspiration level. 0=lowest, 5=Platinum level.
agesimscheat [on/off]
- Adds ’set age’ to interaction menu. Any sim you click on, can be set to any age group.
setLotLightingFile [filename]
- Change lighting by choosing an alternate lighting file. Original can be found in /Nightlife/TSData/Res/Lights. To restore use “setLotLightingFile clear”

The Sims 2 Cheat Codes still can be applied in The Sims 3 which I hope everyone know/knew. There some I didn’t even know about. Maybe those will work in The Sims 3 as well. I will try them out but I’m not the type to like using cheats. That takes the fun out of the game…Please note that some of the cheats if not most probably won’t work in The Sims 3 because I’ve read some where that there are going to be different cheats but they do the same thing.

To bring up this cheat box(CTRL+C+Shift)
The correct way to type the ‘BoolProp’ cheats is ‘BoolProp Testingcheatsenabled true’ capitalization is important.

Make your pregnant Sim wear normal clothes instead of maternity clothes.

Make sure your in neighborhood view, and type in ‘BoolProp Testingcheatsenabled true‘.
Go into your families house and hold the shift button down and left click on the pregnant Sim.
Select spawn & then select ‘Rodney’s Clothing Tester‘. A clothing rack should appear.
Click on the clothing rack and select ‘force redress’.

Infinite Pizza!

Bring up the cheat box and type in ‘move_object on‘.
Grab a piece of pizza and when it’s in your Sims hand hold onto the pizza and press shift and you should have clone of the pizza. Of course with it being infinite pizza, you can eat it forever.

Quick Promotion

Get the cheat bar up and type the ‘BoolProp‘ cheat, press shift then click the newspaper and check out the menu.

Get 999,999 Simoleons

You can usually just sit there and type in the ‘motherlode‘ cheat code numerous times but that will take too long right?

You’re going to need the Expansion Pack – Open for Business.
Buy a lot then open up a store, select something decorative and cheap and sit it on the ground. Set the price at 999,999.
Bring up the cheat bar and type in the ‘BoolProp Testingcheatsenabled true‘ cheat.
Press the shift key then select a person.
Click on ‘Make Selectable‘.
As the customer, go and click on the gnome and buy it. Go the the register and click pay for items. Just before they finish paying, press shift again and click ‘make unselectable‘.
The person that is purchasing whatever it was you sat on the ground will pay you 999,999 Simoleons.

Honestly, typing in motherlode seems like a lot simpler and easier than this. That’s just my opinion.

The Sims 3 Features

July 19, 2009

tags: features, Games, gaming, info, MAC, PC, Rod Humble, Sims 2, Sims 2 Exchange, Sims 3, Sims 3 Exchange, Sims 3 Store, The Sims 3, Video Games

Game Features:

Create-a-Sim
- Create-a-Sim is the character (Sim) builder, where the polygon 3-D models of Sims can be modified by changing a wider variety of properties than what was available in previous installments. This opens the door to creating completely unique Sims with regard to weight, fitness, hair, and clothing, etc. Footwear and head-wear can now be chosen individually. Players can customize nearly everything in the game, including furniture, clothes and shoes. Rod Humble described the new interface in Create-A-Sim as “drastically different”. Prominent birthmarks such as freckles can also be added to Sims. A preview tour of The Sims 3 with Ben Bell showed that players could create their own eye color with the color wheel (As used with Create-a-Style tool.) Individual fitness bars have been added to adjust the Sims’ obesity and muscularity between extreme levels. In The Sims 2, there were only three body types—fat, normal and fit. As in The Sims 2, body shape varies with diet and exercise, so that Sims created as overweight can become slim by exercising and Sims created thin may become fat by eating too much and not exercising. Skin color is also continuous, instead of the four colors of The Sims 2, and exotic colors such as blue and green are available. When customizing hair, the player is shown a circle with all shades and hues of colors, and able to choose the base hair color, tips, roots, and even highlights. Texture for clothing follows a similar formatting scheme. Players will also be able to adjust the pitch of their Sim’s voices.
- According to those who attended the Creators’ Camp event held, a “Create-a-Twin” feature has also been added, allowing players to create identical twins.
Sim’s Personalities

Personality configuration for Sims has also been made more complex, with the original ‘percentage bar’-style personality points replaced by a combination of traits, similar to those in the personals section of newspapers. Toddlers have two traits, and a new one is added for each new life stage, until they reach young adulthood—so they will have 3 as a child, 4 as a teen, then 5 as a young adult, which are the five traits they will stay with for the rest of their lives. When creating a Sim, however, all trait spots do not need to be filled.

Create-A-Sim now features more than 60 unique traits to choose from. It is not possible to give a Sim traits that contradict each other (such as Brave and Cowardly). The player can also edit a Sim’s favorite color, music genre, and food.

Buy and Build Modes

- The build and buy modes have received their own makeover. The square outlines that appeared on the ground in previous Sims games’ build and buy modes are now four times smaller to give the player more liberty to place objects where they want. However, wallpapers will not configure to fourth tiles. The square grid allows the player to see where they can possibly place the objects in the game. The player can also turn off the grid and rotate objects freely. This feature will make objects easier to locate at the player’s desired location. If a counter or connecting objects is placed on a diagonal wall, it will automatically snap into place and furniture such as chairs and tables can easily be moved together. Also, many small objects can be put on a table very close together.
- The overall game has the option to “customize everything”, choosing a color through all 32-bits and use different patterns (the game has predefined samples for objects, etc). For instance, on a couch the player will be able to customize the arms, cushions, base and seats separately.
- The “auto-roof” function now updates the roof when walls are rebuilt. Features such as wide staircases and basements are also easier to build.The spray paint terrain feature returns from the Sims 2, but this time allows the player to spray square floor tiles. A “wall drag” tool allows the player to grow or shrink a room, moving the furniture with it. A new “slot” system gives several choices where to place decorative objects on surfaces, such as tables and dressers. Most existing objects can be recolored and re-textured.

Movie Making Tool

- The official website has announced that there will be a movie making tool. This tool, known as the Movie Mash Up tool will enable the player to create and share movies on the Sims 3 exchange using footage from their own game. As the camera angles within the game will be more accurate and the graphics will be better, the quality of these movies will be greater than those produced using The Sims 2.

Lost Features

- Almost everything from the original The Sims 2 can also be found in the original The Sims 3, but among the “lost” features are separate underwear styles (though Sims can wear underwear as their pajamas style), hot tubs, pianos (replaced by the guitar), physical aspiration rewards (replaced by lifetime happiness bonuses), diving boards, private school, visible retail stores (they are now hidden from the player), the cleaning skill and the slacker career.

Site Features:

The Exchange: Building off of The Sims 2 Exchange’s success of more than 100M downloads, The Sims 3 Exchange highlights featured items, most popular downloads, powerful search and browser capabilities, along with giving players the ability to see what other players are recommending.
Create a Movie and Create a Story: New easily accessible tools inspire creativity and allow players to create movies and stories and then show them off or share them with friends. Players can show off their Movies with the Create a Movie Tool by embedding them on external sites or with an email link back to their Movie on TheSims3.com.
My Page and My Studio: The Sims 3 product site will allow players to maintain their profile pages on their My Page section as well as offering them the new My Studio section to manage all their creations – Movies, stories, Exchange objects. My Page is also a blog space where players can post news, customize it with a personal avatar, track favorites and more. Users can make friends with other The Sims 3 players and share their content across a number of social network sites.

Site Elements:

The Sims 3 Store: Included with purchase of the game is £6 worth of SimPoints, which players receive when they first register their game online at TheSims3.com. They can use their SimPoints towards downloading exclusive in-game items from The Sims 3 Store, to customize their game. For additional items, players can purchase bundles of 500, 1000 and 2000 SimPoints in $USD, EUR, GBP and other major international currencies using a variety of payment methods including international and national credit cards, PayPal, and EA cash cards (in North America only). Whether it’s the must-have new outfit or the latest style of plaid furniture, players have the opportunity to further customize and populate their Sims world with additional items.
Game Launcher: The Game Launcher is the key entry point for players into TheSims3.com community. This hub page connects players to both the Store and the Exchange, and provides them with news and information about game updates. Players can keep track of their downloads, uploads, installs, game updates and their media portfolio that includes the videos and photos they can capture while playing the game. The Game Launcher also alerts players to new content in the store, localized game and store promotions along with relevant updates to the Store and cool new content from the community.
TheSims3.Com Site: With the launch of the game on June 5, the marketing website at TheSims3.com will be replaced with the full community and product site for the game. The site will not only connect players, encourage new ways to be creative in the game, and offer personally relevant information for each user, it also will serve as the hub site where players can share their content with other members, and embed them on social networking sites and blogs.

The Sims 3 Personality Traits and Their Descriptions

July 19, 2009

tags: Arts, descriptions, Evil, facts, Family, gaming, Home, information, Interpersonal relationship, Junk food, list, MAC, PC, personality traits, Relationships, Television, The Sims 3, tips

Absent-Minded
- Absent-Minded Sims get lost in their thoughts and occasionally forget what they are doing, or where they are going.
Ambitious
- Ambitious Sims dream big and are more rewarded when their wishes are satisfied in life. They are driven to move up the corporate ladder more quickly, but fall prey to low mood if they don’t quickly receive the promotion they desire.
Angler
- Anglers catch fish better then other Sims. They also like fishing more then anyone else.
Artistic
- Artistic Sims are naturally gifted artists with a paint brush. They also make pretty good writers and musicians!
Athletic
- Athletic Sims are the best athletes in town. They can push themselves harder and longer than others, and will do so to feel the burn.
Bookworm
- Bookworms have a passion for reading that surpasses their other desires. They also tend to become good writers.
Brave
- Brave Sims are fearless individuals that will fight fires, wrangle burglars and work to protect those around them.
Can’t Stand Art
- Sims that Can’t Stand Art will never appreciate the latest masterpiece of expensive home decor. They are the anti-connoisseur.
Charismatic
- Charismatic Sims love to socialize with others and often know the perfect thing to say in every conversation. They also like to throw parties!
Childish
- Childish Sims find it difficult to ‘act their age’. They love playing with children’s toys, see things through the eyes of a child and need to be constantly entertained.
Clumsy
- Clumsy Sims muck up both precious and every day moments in life with shady footwork and poor planning.
Commitment Issues
- Sims with Commitment Issues don’t really want to settle down into a long-term relationship or a lifelong career. Marriage is out of the question!
Computer Wiz
- Computer Wiz’s love spending time on the computer. They are great at tinkering with computers and can even make money as hackers if they choose.
Couch Potato
- Couch Potatoes are perfectly happy sitting on the couch to watch TV and eat junk food. They’ll need additional prodding to lead active lives.
Coward
- Cowards are terrified of everything that can and will go bump in the night. They are scared of the dark and will frequently faint in ‘dire’ situations
Daredevil
- Daredevils seek the extreme side of life, even if it means taking an everyday chore extreme. They also love fire.
Dislikes Children
- Sims that dislike children do not want to have anything to do with children. No talking, no playing and certainly no reproduction.
Easily Impressed
- Easily impressed Sims are easily astounded by everyday stories and are always pleased with the smallest of accomplishments.
Evil
- Evil Sims love the dark, take great delight in the misfortune of others and prefer to lead a life as far away from goodness as possible.
Excitable
- Excitable Sims get excited about… pretty much everything. They enjoy an extra dose of self-satisfaction when good things happen for them in life.
Family-Oriented
- Family-Oriented Sims make great parents. They have big families and being love surrounded by their children.
Flirty
- Flirty Sims are constantly looking for romance and are most often quite successful in this endeavor.
Friendly
- Friendly Sims smile frequently at others and are quick to make friends.
Frugal
- Frugal Sims love to clip coupons to save money, relish a good deal and hate being wasteful.
Genius
- Geniuses are logical thinker, masters of chess and excellent hackers. They saviour pursuit of the mind.
Good
- Good Sims go out of their way to help friends and family in need, are charitable with their money, and frequently comfort those around them.
Good Sense of Humor
- Sims with a Good Sense of Humor tell the best jokes that never fall flat or fail to entertain.
Great Kisser
- Great kissers kiss better then any other Sims. They give kisses that are not easily forgotten.
Green-Thumb
- Green-thumbs are the best gardeners. They find solace and comfort amongst their garden and can revive plants in the worst of conditions.
Grumpy
- Grumpy Sims are rarely in a good mood. It’s quite difficult to make them happy because they simply don’t want to be happy.
Handy
- Handy Sims are the best tinkerers. They will never fail when repairing or upgrading a household item which makes electrical objects far less dangerous!
Hates the outdoors
- Sims that hate the outdoors despise being outside and will always remain indoors whenever possible.
Heavy Sleeper
- Heavy Sleepers will sleep through any situation, no matter how loud or alarming. They also tend to snore.
Hopeless Romantic
- Hopeless romantics passionately seek their soul mate. They want romance, true love and surround themselves with cheesy romantic television and novels.
Hot-Headed
- Hot headed Sims are quick to anger. Broken household items, conversations gone awry or even the slightest negative mood let will all send them into a boiling rage.
Hydrophobic
- Hydrophobic Sims are terrified of swimming. They loathe every second they have to spend in the pool.
Inappropriate
- Inappropriate Sims talk about the wrong thing the wrong time, never think to dress properly, and never think to apologize when they’ve wronged someone. They enjoy mocking others with harsh words.
Insane
- Insane Sims respond to events in life unpredictably. They say what they want, do what they want and even wear what they want. Even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
Kleptomaniac
- Kleptomaniacs ‘accidentally’ end up with things owned by others. They often ‘permanently borrow’ items from work, school or even their neighbor’s homes!
Light Sleeper
- Light sleepers toss and turn throughout the night and are woken up by the slightest bump in the night.
Loner
- Loners enjoy time spent alone more than time spent with others. Quite shy, they will never approach anyone that isn’t a close friend. They prize their solitude and get nervous around large groups.
Loser
- Losers encounter woo and misfortune throughout their lives beginning with school and continuing into their careers. They will fail and fail often. They wont’get mad even when life falls apart. They’ll just cry.
Loves the Outdoors
- These Sims love spending time outdoors and find a special joy amidst nature that others do not.

Lucky
- Lucky Sims are closely followed through life with a comforting sense of luck. They win often and they win big.
Mean
- Mean Sims love to fight, mostly because they never lose in a brawl. They take satisfaction with every new enemy made and dream of new ways to be nasty to others.
Mooch
- Moochers can mooch food and money from their neighbors who for the most part just go along with it.

Natural Cook
- Natural Cooks are able to kick any dish up a notch, making their food the most delicious to eat. They learn to cook more quickly than others, and never burn down the kitchen in the process!
Neat
- Neat Sims always find time to clean, regardless of their mood. They are easily devastated by filthy surroundings, but will never leave a mess behind.
Neurotic
- Neurotic Sims will freak out at the most minor of provocations. They can become stressed easily and can be difficult to mellow. Luckily they take solace in sharing their worries with others.
Never Nude
- Never Nudes despise nudity and will never, ever, completely remove all of their clothing.
No Sense of Humor
- Sims with No Sense of Humor tell terrible jokes, so they tend not to tell them. They also don’t enjoy the jokes of others. Humor is simply wasted on them.
Over-Emotional
- Over-Emotional Sims experience greater mood swings than other Sims when both good and bad things happen to them. They are constantly shedding tears of joy whether it’s of a wedding or just on their couch watching romantic television.
Party Animal
- Party animals love to party, and others love to party with them. When a party animal hosts a party, everyone comes and has a great time. Woo!
Perfectionist
- Perfectionists spend more time cooking, writing or even painting, but what they eventually finish is noticeably better than something created by other Sims. Perfectionists accept nothing shy of perfection.
Slob
- Slobs constantly leave messes in their wake. To make matters worse, they won’t offer to pick up or clean! Luckily common filth won’t offend their senses.
Snob
- Snobs are very hard to impress though they love hearing about themselves and will never turn down a compliment. They dream of owning only the finest things and being associated with the highest echelon of neighborhood Sims.
Technophobe
- Technophobe Sims hate television. They will never watch television except in dire circumstances and will always look for an alternative source of entertainment.
Un-flirty
- Un-flirty Sims do not appreciate the romantic advances of others and will be difficult to woo. It’s not that they don’t want to love, just that it’s difficult for them.
Unlucky
- Things rarely go right for unlucky Sims. They often lose at everything they touch. Though some do take pity on their misfortune.
Vegetarian
- Vegetarian Sims never choose to eat meat, and doing so causes them to quickly become ill.
Virtuoso
- Virtuosos have a natural gift with musical instruments and are often considered the best musicians. As such, they earn more as musicians when playing for tips and learn more quickly.
Workaholic
- Workaholics love to work and rarely become stressed from working. Their mood suffers when they miss work, but they are able to make it up by working from home. Workaholics make the best employees.

Remember, you can’t contradict the traits for Ex…: You can’t be a coward and brave at the same time. That’s silly.

Facts About The Sims 3 [Game-Play et cetera et cetera]

July 19, 2009

tags: game facts, game faqs, Games, gaming, God Games, list, MAC, Maxis, PC, Sim Games, Sims 2, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, Trait theory, Video game

List of facts about The Sims 3 PC Game:

The Sims 3 Neighborhood(s)

Confirmed community places are the: Pool, Gym, Park, Bistro, Art gallery, Library, Clothing store, City Hall and Bookstore.
You can zoom out to see the whole Neighborhood at once or zoom in to a single Sim.
You can move a house to a bigger lot.
The Neighborhood stories and inhabitants will be a prequel to the Sims 1 Neighborhood
There will be public events, such as music concerts, movie premieres, pool parties, barbecues, etc.
You can follow your Sim in the taxi or car by right clicking their thumbnail.
Cars disappear when you reach your destination, and they reappear when you leave.
You must go to the grocery store to buy food.
You can choose to move to a new lot, and you can either sell your furniture or take it with you.
There’s a community spa where you can get a facial, manicure, pedicure, or massage.
You can modify both community and residential lots. Some community lots, like parks and swimming pools, can be totally customized. For work places, you can only add few things outside.
Households can be merged, evicted and broken up.
Seamless Neighborhood(s): Your Sim can visit neighbors, parks and shops without a loading screen.
All the neighboring Sims will live their life and age simultaneously as your Sim (They’ll get married, get jobs,etc).
The game will ship with 1 Neighborhood.
That Neighborhood will consist of about 90 different lots. It will contain both Maxis made houses and empty lots.
Several weeks after the launch, there will be a tool available to create your own Neighborhoods.
When the game is out, you can download towns, made by other people.
All buildings in the Neighborhood can be interacted with, so no prop buildings.
There are 2 kinds of buildings; Buildings that you can build yourself and look into, and buildings where your Sim disappears into and re-appears after some time.
These buildings are plop-able; it means that you can just select them from a menu and put it in the Neighborhood all made and ready.

The Sims

Fulfilling wishes of a Sim (like the wish to get a big screen television, getting married,etc), gives you Lifetime Happiness points to buy Lifetime Rewards for your Sims. An example is Steel bladder (never pee again) and Haggler (All your shopping is cheaper).
There are 32 different Rewards.
There are 6 needs in total: Hunger, Social, Bladder, Hygiene, Energy and Fun.
Sims have Traits. Choose 5 from 65 types like Dreamer, Evil, lucky, etc. These Traits will affect how a Sim behaves towards others and affects their moods, like the mood of an Outdoorsy-person will raise when he/she is outside. An evil Sim may slap another Sim.
Toddler: 2 traits, Child: 3 traits, Teens: 4 traits, Young adult and older: 5 traits.
They will look after themselves better.
If you eat 3 servings of watermelon it increases chances of girls and apples increase chances of boys while pregnant.
Every single item you interact with gives your Sim a good or bad mood boost depending on their traits/personality.
You can change a Sim’s outfit by clicking on them, anywhere at anytime.
Sims automatically have a cell phone and you can change the ring-tone.
You can take pictures with your Cell Phone to hang on your wall or sit on your tables.
Bad Mood Sims are less likely to listen to your commands.
You can have a private wedding or give a wedding party alone or in a community lot (in this case you should rent the lot and pay a fee).
No more wedding arch: Just click on the wife or on the husband and choose “get married”. They’ll talk a bit, then exchange the rings and kiss.
You can donate money to different foundations based on your personality trait. This will give you good mood-lets.
Sims can take classes to learn skills much faster than reading or doing.
You can visit your neighbors, just click on the door and choose “Ring bell”. You can enter their houses too.
Traits can be changed later in the game with one of the buy-able lifetime rewards.
If you have many people in your family, then you’ll start with more than 20.000 Simoleons.
Sims cannot be invited to a townies party, but they can be invited to a community party with the right opportunity cards.
Sims will still do what’s in their action queue, even if you are looking at another Sim all the way across town.
Mood-lets instead of a mood bar. If something happens like a marriage, the Sim gets a mood-let. These mood-lets will affect your Sims’ mood and give abilities like learning faster. An example: Getting fired will get you a long lasting, big impact mood-let, while going to a small party will get them a short, non-dramatic mood-let.
Hair will not grow but you can ‘paint’ certain parts of the hair.
Sims have certain skills like cooking or fishing.
You can fulfill needs by simply clicking on an icon.
Instead of fixed interaction (like Talk or Joke), the options are filtered on your current Mood and Traits.
Certain traits have unique interactions.
There will be 7 age groups: Baby, Toddler, Child, Teenager, Young adult, Adult, Elder.
Athletic skill can help Sims stay fitter and even live longer.
Paintings that a Sim makes, will be unique to each Sim. It’s based on its personality and mood.
You may control how much time a Sim spends on certain tasks like sleeping, fishing etc.
You can set lifespans to range from 25–1,000 days or turn aging off completely.
Free Will is on a slider bar. You can choose None, Low, or High.
Sims don’t need ladders to get in or out of the pool but can still drown if you cancel the action from their queue.
When you are socializing, there is a small pop up that tells you what the other Sim is thinking about your ’socializing’. You are irresistible, moving too fast, hilarious, boring, etc.
Sims can not get hit by cars.
Every article of clothing is always available to you in the game, and are always recolor-able. So no need to ‘buy’ clothing.

Technical Requirements to Run The Sims 3

PC requirements are 2.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM and a 128 Mb Video Card
You require at least 6,5 GB of hard-disk space
There’s no online multiplayer
No DRM. To authenticate, you type in a serial code just as in Sims 2
Houses have difficulty levels based on the age and number and amount of Sims living there.
You can save your game in different slots
The game will be released on June 2nd 2009
The Mac version will be released at the same day as the PC version
There will be no weather in the game.
The amount of Sims per lot is still 8.
There are 4 speeds of game-play.
When someone dies, all his belongings are added to family inventory, so you won’t lose them.
Every townie has a home, NPC’s do not.
There are 35 to 40 different food recipes.
You can hire Magicians for parties.
Most current Sims 2 cheats will be in Sims 3 as well.
Wind will move the trees.
Ghosts are playable, can marry living Sims, and even make ghost babies.
There are still same-sex couples and they can still adopt children.
There is a Party Planner that allows you to set the time for your party, the location, and the dress code.
You can pick up items (garbage, books,etc) yourself with a Hand cursor.
Shadows move across the ground as the sun goes up/down.

CAS

There is no underwear section anymore.
Male Sims can wear makeup.
There’s a “Create-a-Twin” tool for every age.
Changing hair/clothing/face is easy. You can just click on them and the CAS takes you directly to the right menu for editing whatever you selected.
There is an eyelash length slider bar.
There are sliders for weight and fitness.
Sims you created fat, can become thin by exercising, thin created people get fat by eating a lot.
You can choose specific Asian and African models.
You can choose a Sims’ favorite color, music type and food.
Shoes are separate and can also choose barefoot.
Shirts and jackets are separate and can hang over the pants
Clothes are customizable from CAS; Change the color of a certain piece of clothes or use your own patterns.
You cannot change the height of a Sim.
You can choose from 3 different voices for each gender. Can also change the pitch height.
There are no curly hairs, but there are some very long hairs.
There is no underwear section anymore.
Male Sims can wear makeup.
There’s a “Create-a-Twin” tool for every age.

Pregnancies, Babies, Toddlers, Children

The changing table is gone. You have to click on the toddler to change diaper or clothes.
Using the highchair, you can feed toddlers with the same food you prepare for the other family members, but you have to use the food processor first.
Toddler interactions: Change diaper, change outfit, feed on floor, pick up, snuggle, teach to talk, potty train, tickle, teach to walk, toss in air.
Pregnant Sims get few days of paid rest from work and fathers will get few days after the baby is born.
You can have the baby at home or at the hospital. The father can take the mother to the hospital, but she can go there alone too. There’s no ambulance.
Sims that were happy during pregnancy have babies with better traits.
You can announce pregnancy to others, feel tummy and talk to tummy.
Infants are wrapped in blankets instead of only wearing diapers.
You can see the infants mood-lets and motives bars.
There is School Detention for children who fall asleep in class or cheat on schoolwork.
Children can wander the neighborhood alone, but toddlers must be carried.
There’s a babysitter.

Buy Mode & Build Mode

There’s a button that paints / carpets the entire room (instead of holding Shift).
You can set light colors and brightness levels (both indoor and out).
There is now a square terrain paint brush. Imagine using it to paint a sidewalk.
You can change the floor / walls of a pool.
There are single tile doors, double tile doors, single tile doors that center on double tiles, and even three tile doors.
There are ceilings under ANY floor tile placed. At this time, you cannot recolor the ceiling.
There are no 1/2 walls yet.
You cannot move objects up and down on walls.
You cannot import patterns into the game yet.
You can move the mailbox anywhere you’d like on your lot. Whatever door is closest to the mailbox is considered the front door.
You can use your own patterns/colors and then apply it to anything through a drag-and-drop interface.
Each item has between one and four customizable regions that can be modified
The game will have modding tools built into it.
You can move objects 360 degrees.
You can build 5 stories high.
Fences rise with terrains.
There are only 4 television channels: Sports, Kids, Action, and Romance.
There is no diving board for the swimming pools yet.
On the easel, there are three sizes of paintings.
If you tinker on some objects, you can get upgrades like, fireproof, self cleaning and unbreakable.
On a computer, you can: find coupons, browse the web, play chess, play computer games, tinker, and get a job. Computer Whiz Sims can also hack and overclock.
You can buy an empty bookcase and then buy and place books in it.
Table and chairs link and can move as 1 object (same with beds and end tables).
You can make a certain stair wider (up to 4 tiles wide) with a slider.
You can position stuff on counters as long as the objects aren’t overlapping.
Grid size is 4 times smaller. Can also choose no grid at all.
You can move whole walls and everything on it (wallpaper/paintings/etc) will move with it.
There is a button that lets you choose to buy houses furnished or unfurnished.
Sledge hammer tool has been enhanced, you can now drag an area to delete multiple objects.
When placing objects against a diagonal wall the object will snap into place perfectly.
There’s a roof height slider.
The biggest lot size is 64×64 (same as a 5×5).
There is an option for Auto-Roofs. So, while you build, the roof automatically appears.

Careers & Jobs

When a Sim is at the top of its career, the others Sims are aware and react to it. Rock ‘n’ roll-star Sims will ask for an autograph; a high-ranked soldier is saluted in the street.
If you interact with your boss, you can ask to increase your salary or to get promoted.
You won’t see your Sim working; He/She will disappear in the building.
Every career has its own building in the Neighborhood.
Advancing in career is changed as it depends on skills, personality, relationship with colleagues/boss and even certain goals that has to be fulfilled. For example taking work home.
These are the confirmed careers: Athletic, Journalism, Medical, Music, Military, Business, Law Enforcement, Criminal, Politics, Entertainment, Cooking, Education and Science.
Sims can take part-time jobs; Bookstore clerk, grocery store clerk, Spa receptionist, Spa specialist, Burial specialist.
Besides the newspaper, you can also apply for a job at the specific career building.
Jobs pay hourly, not daily.
Options at work: Business as Usual, Work Hard, Take it Easy, Meet Coworkers, Hang Out with Coworkers, Suck Up to Boss, or Practice a Skill.
You can become business partners with community businesses. Once you own the company you can rename it, fire the staff and make use of its facilities for free.

The Sims 3 Issues, Glitches, Patches, Mods

July 19, 2009

tags: bugs, DirectX, errors, fixes, gaming, GeForce, glitches, info, Intel Core 2, Intel GMA, MAC, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, mods, patches, PC, Radeon R520, Sims 3, The Sims 3, tips, tricks, troubleshooting, Windows Vista, Windows XP

The Sims 3 game of course has been like a game of Russian Roulette today. The game is having Authorization code issues, there are even glitches with in the game, the site is not loading some if not most of the pages. A lot of people cannot download their free content from TheSims3.com with their codes they got with the The Sims 3 Collectors Edition. Then there are those who aren’t having problems at all. People are becoming a bit skeptical, hell I am too and that’s because I haven’t installed mine yet because my computer parts do not come until tomorrow which is in 25 minutes.

Some people are having problems because they decided to buy the game without looking at the system requirements first; they’re getting blocky people, letters, environments etc etc. Other people are having problems installing the game because there is this Authorization error going around… its either ‘disc authentication failure’ or its ‘make sure the disc is in the drive’ then there are people getting a authentic error basically saying the copy they are using isn’t authentic. The glitches well…

The cheapest shower’s arrow ‘faces’ the wrong direction, It’s supposed to point where you enter from but is on the wrong side.
This makes it annoying while building a small house. I didn’t pay a maid $125, so he went to steal a chair.
BUT now the chair is “attached” with the desk… and on the desk was a laptop…
I owed him $125 and he took over $5500 worth…

Maybe that’s a glitch, maybe it isn’t. As far as downloading anything from the site, well it could work or not. Some people get to downloading their items and it lags, freezes or just stops. Speaking of which, people games are crashing a lot as well, the game will crash while creating a Sim in the Create-a-Sim area. Hopefully there will be a patch for this game really soon. I know there are a lot of mad and angry Sim fans out there. Also there are people who are having trouble viewing their Sims in the community lots. Maybe its their computer, maybe its the game but being that this is EA we’re talking about who knows? Even some people received their Sims 3 Collectors Edition and didn’t get their Carabiner. It comes with the The Sims 3 Collectors Edition by the way, I should know. Some now are missing roofs to their houses, the Sims are even bald.

In other news, ModTheSims.com has started on making mods for the The Sims 3 games. Feel free to click the link and see for yourself. From my understanding, these downloads from that site are free so you won’t need any Sim Points.

If you are having problems you can go here and submit your problems in the forum. I haven’t been able to see the forums since this morning and that was around 5 A.M.. You must be a registered user meaning, your game has to be registered to post topics or replies. If you would like to see if your computer can run The Sims 3 game you can go to Can You Run It?. If you don’t know it by that name but by another, its also called EA System Requirements Lab.

I just tried the forums again and now I can finally get into the forums after I’ve been waiting all day. Then again, I was able to get into them before the http 404 error earlier but the forums was just showing raw CSS when I selected ‘reply’.

Anyway, here are the minimum specifications to run The Sims 3 game.

FOR WINDOWS XP
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
* Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
* 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1.5 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows, the game requires at least:
* Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
* 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
* 0.5 GB additional RAM

FOR MAC OS X
* Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
* Intel Core Duo Processor
* 2 GB RAM
* ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100.
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games
* This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards.

Windows Supported Video Cards
—————————–

NVIDIA GeForce series
FX 5900, FX 5950
6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
9300, 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150
GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295

ATI Radeon(TM) series
9500, 9600, 9800
X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
2400, 2600, 2900
3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
4850, 4870

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly.

Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants may default to settings that are higher than what would be optimal for them. Graphics settings can be lowered to improve performance.

The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.

MAC OS X Supported Video Cards
——————————

NVIDIA GeForce series
7300, 7600
8600, 8800
9400M, 9600M GT
GT 120, GT 130

ATI Radeon(TM) series
X1600, X1900
2400, 2600
3870,
4850, 4870

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
GMA 3-Series

As far as Patches go, people on TheSims3.com are making online petitions to recieve them faster because it hasn’t been 24 hours and the game is really messed up for a lot of folks.
Also people who don’t read, if you’re trying to install a DVD-ROM game with a PC-ROM then you deserve not to play the game, as well as those who decided to get the game knowing they have a Celeron Processor Dell Dimension 3000.

I will update if anything new happens until then, those who are glitch free HAPPY SIMMING!

Note:

Those who feel they aren’t getting the answers they need, feel free to contact Customer Support here.

Some Suggestions:

I don’t know if this would work but I heard if you’re getting an error about the game being fake, try installing it offline. Disconnect from your internet then install it. If there is some reason to why you can’t install while you’re offline then EA is more fail than I thought.

Try Deleting programs you aren’t using if you’re getting an Authorization error. If you have EA games on your computer that you did not buy and you have cracks, patches, hacks for them, that can mess with an legit game. I don’t know how true that is but someone told me after they deleted their games they illegally got, the game started working. That may not be the case for everyone though cause everyone probably don’t have pirated games on their PC or anything else stolen, cracked or patched. Or then it could just be the disc that its on.

My Computer Stats:

Time of this report: 6/3/2009, 01:33:57
Machine name: ASILEE
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-7374
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor, MMX, 3DNow (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 3328MB RAM
Page File: 635MB used, 4575MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

To check out your stats in Windows XP:

Start > Run > ‘DXDiag’ without the ” and it will pop up after selecting ‘yes’. I don’t know if its the same for Windows Shista…I mean Windows Vista but it should be. Also, it has come to my attention that if you use Windows XP 64bit that you are likely to come across some issues being that there are a lot of things that cannot be ran on 64bit or it at least give people problems. So take that into consideration if you’re using Windows XP 64bit.

Please READ BELOW

If you need advice, try telling me the specifics about your computer. That’s why I suggested that people do the DXDiag. When you want to save it, just select ‘Save all information’ and it will save in Notepad format. The only thing you will need is the first part that says ‘System Information. Copy and Paste that with your comment and that will help me better with trying to assist you.

List of The Sims 3 Glitches & Bugs

July 19, 2009

tags: bugs, errors, Game, Games, gaming, glitches, God Games, list, mods, patches, Sim, Sim Games, Sims, Sims 3, Simulation, technical support, Television, The Sims 3, The Sims Series, trial, troubleshooting, Video game

Maybe if I made a list of glitches that people are having then maybe they can realize they aren’t the only ones having the same problems.

Decreasing/increasing body weight on my Sim in CAS, the body parts detach from the whole Sim. For example, when I’m increasing body weight, the Sim’s torso detaches from the body. Likewise, while I’m decreasing the body weight, the Sim’s torso moves away from the rest of the body. Another glitch/bug is that when I increase my Sim’s muscle mass in CAS, there is no visible change.

Changing the category of clothing, Sim’s hair color changes, Sim gets a different hairstyle, Sim gets added accessories, and Sim’s eyebrows change.

The cheapest shower’s arrow ‘faces’ the wrong direction, It’s supposed to point where you enter from but is on the wrong side.
This makes it annoying while building a small house, I didn’t pay a maid $125, so he went to steal a chair.
BUT now the chair is “attached” with the desk… and on the desk was a laptop…
I owed him $125 and he took over $5500 worth…

Audio making weird crazy noises.

Applied for a job in the athletic career, there’s this spot by the stadium that won’t go away.

Random single males have babies with no mothers.
The game randomly deletes families and asexually reproduces kids with no explanations.
Children moved out of the house, took a life of their own with story progression off.

You CAN toggle the family, but when you go back to the original it will have changed. Some Sims may not even be there, or have new kids…and your saved wished and promises will be gone.

Can get to Create- a-Sim for a while, 10 minutes or so, computer screen turns black and system shuts down.

Female character had a small glitch in moodlet panel, the “Cozy Fire” moodlet when the family did not have a fireplace.

This only seems to affect the mom Sim. Once mom had her first baby, she would pretend to hold an infant, and when sitting or laying down she would alternate between the correct position and a standing position. There were some spacial issues while she attempted to train her toddler to walk for the first time.

Roofs are disappearing after modifying house.
Hair disappearing.
Game going black, causing computer to freeze.
Negative moodlet fails to leave after 10 minutes.

Halfway through loading the screen start blinking and goes into a blinking version of the Create-a-Sim mode where it will continue to blink. [Sounds like a graphics card problem.]

Protesters are blocking the walkway, other Sims can’t/won’t move around them.

Taught a toddler to talk and now neither her or the mom can do anything except sit there, frozen.

Having troubles downloading; says the code was ‘already used or invalid’.
Baby bottle that can’t be deleted or a Sims can’t pick it up. [There's a cheat code that can fix this one.]

Had a paper to recycle and threw it away in trash can then all of a sudden there’s a message saying that the Sims was being inappropriate and was kicked out of the house and was told to leave making the Sims hate that Sim.

Sim put on formal wear to go to bed and bathing suit to go out. When told to change into a certain outfit, it still doesn’t work. [This is only a bug/glitch if you don't have the Insane Trait for your Sim.]

Time controls not changing.
The television never cuts off even in ‘buy/build mode’ or when the game is paused, the television even still have sound coming from it.
Families losing cars.
Sims getting stuck in showers.

Carpool still arrives even when Sims have a car. Sometimes the Sims would leave from work carpool but it would take a cab with the carpool sitting next to the cab.

Download manager isn’t managing [working].

Okay, I got my Sim to call up on a maid, and as she came (and actually wrecked the house), I decided to go get some groceries (they were holding a sale or something). As my Sim was walking to the grocery store, the maid said she was done and was leaving.So my Sim got all the goods and such. When I tried directing him home, I noticed something funny on the map. When I clicked on the green house sign, it said “No interactions available.” Huh? It’s my own house!When my Sim came back he was as dumbfounded as me as to how to get inside his house when the game didn’t think it was his. He knew it was his house though, and recycled the newspapers outdoors (neat trait).

Cutting ‘Story Progression’ to ‘off’ does not work.

When the pizza is delivered and my Sim wants to try to eat it, but no table space anywhere and it goes into inventory, but in the inventory when I click “Grab a Slice” My Sim will go to the closest table and go into an infinite loop of finding table space, look at yummy pizza, no table space -> put into inventory -> repeat.

The Story Progression toggle is broken – it is on whether you want it on or not.
Crazy endless spawning of babies in households that I am not playing.
Single men all of a sudden have a baby on their porch.
Family households that are not being played will all of a sudden have some single Sim move in with them.
Guitars get stuck to Sims in very odd positions.
Girl Sim stands up in the middle of her bed and her arms are posed as if she is holding a baby, and then she snaps back to bed for a few seconds, and repeats.

Saves don’t function on all parts of a lot or family: If you switch from one active family to another, you cause everything in Personal Inventory of family A to be sold, and give you the appropriate funding, unless it’s a used item, such as a laptop or a guitar, which stays. This includes the Lifetime Reward “Collection Helper” (the $6000 is NOT compensation IMO).

Turning off aging is buggy: The time bar ’til next age will fill randomly, but they will not age, and it will reload when next you go to Map View.

Experiment Auras will not always show (Going to Map View and coming back will fix this).

Sim and her toddler are floating in space next to my house. They are selectable, but they can’t move anywhere.

When you have a toddler sitting on the floor watching TV, and the parents are also watching the TV. They are talking back and forth. When the toddler speaks it’s upper body stretches.

Taught a toddler to talk and now neither her or the mom can do anything except sit there, frozen.

Items purchased with Sim Points through the TS3 store disappearing after downloading and installing requiring them to be re-downloaded and reinstalled.
Entire families disappearing and reappearing from the Main Menu.
Lighthouse not seen anywhere in map view appears in view from my Sim’s lot.
Message telling you that bills are due, but no mail being delivered. Or bills already paid not being “credited”.
Items that I never bought or downloaded from the store are showing up in my account history purchases list.
Unable to ride bike after purchasing in Buy mode. Message appears saying that no interactions are available.
All color disappearing from household items that have been designed/recolored.

I’ve tried running the game in windowed mode and it likes to freeze up on me. The game will lock up for a minute or two and then unfreeze only to freeze up when I click on another command. I didn’t notice it last night while playing but this morning it happened constantly while in build mode.

Some of these sound like computer issues and not the game others sound like glitches due to the computer and well so on and so forth. Hopefully, EA will come through with that ‘Same day patch’ before people start flipping over cars and setting their houses on fire. [I mean in the Sims game.]

The Sims 3: A Note From EA & Possible Tips About Issues With the Game

July 19, 2009

tags: Apple, bugs, EA, Electronic Arts, error, Games, gaming, glitches, help, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, patches, Sims 3, Simulation, technical support, The Sims 3, Video Games

The Sims 3 Team worked very hard to make your Sims 3 experience as enjoyable and defect-free as possible. Due to the size and complexity of a game like The Sims 3, and due to our flawed, mortal forms, [at least they're honest]it is possible that you are still experiencing some problems as you play Sims 3. We wish to provide our dedicated fans with a simple method to report any problems you may encounter. Our intention is to identify and fix as many issues as possible in game updates [No telling when this will be.]. If you run into something you believe to be a defect, you can help the entire community by spending a couple minutes to provide us some information about what you are experiencing. The better the description of the problem, the more likely we will be able to identify, and address, your issue in a game update.

1) A detailed description of the problem is required.
2) If the problem you encounter can be triggered commonly, or at will, some basic steps outlining the method of reproduction are greatly appreciated.
3) If the problem is a crash, game performance, or graphical in nature, attaching your DXDiag or System Profile to your email will help us diagnose the problem. See the end of the post for a description of how to generate your DXDiag (PC) or System Profile. (Mac)
4) If you are experiencing a visual problem, a screenshot or short, in-game movie can’t hurt.

As much as we love to hear compliments about all of our hard work, please try to keep the email sent to this address on topic. [What about hearing negative statements about your work?] We will make sure to review the forums if our egos need love [HUH?!!?]. Inquiries outside of gameplay (i.e. installation difficulties, copy protection, store purchases, and website) should be directed to customer support rather than this email address.

For the time being, we have set up an email address where you can send your reports. mailto:TS3TechHelp@ea.com At some point in the future, this email address will be replaced by a web submission form. There will be warning on the official The Sims 3 forums before the email address is deactivated.

Unfortunately, due to the limited number of hours in the day, it is unlikely that you will receive a human response to your email report. Don’t fear. As long as the email address is not being heavily abused [Hell they should not just be abused but RAPED! People have been bamboozled! Where the hell is Ashton Kutcher?], we will review all bug reports and will be working diligently to fix the most prevalent and problematic issues. [THAT DEFEATS THE WHOLE PURPOSE IN SENDING AN E-MAIL!!!]

While we hope you never need to use this address, please know that it is here if it is needed.

System Information Instructions:

Windows PC:
1) Click the “Start” menu.
2) Click “Run.”
3) Type “dxdiag” at the prompt.
4) Click the “Save All Information…” button.
5) Save the info off to a file and attach it to your composed email.

Mac OS:
1) Click on the Apple Menu.
2) Select “About this Mac.”
3) Select “More Info…”
4) Under View select “Mini Profile.”
5) Under File select “Save As…” and save the information out in RTF. (Rich Text Format) Attach this file to your email.

Soft Crashes:

If your game is crashing to desktop, the game will attempt to place crash dump files in your \My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\ directory. There will be two files, a .mdmp and .txt file that are time stamped at the point the game crashed. If these files have been created, then attaching these files to your description of what was going on in game will help us.

Hard Crashes:

The first thing you should do if you are experiencing ingame crashes or graphical issues is update your drivers. (video card drivers most importantly) Depending on your video card manufacturer, you can find drivers at:

NVidia: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
ATI: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
Intel: http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/detect.htm

If you already have updated your drivers and are still experiencing blue screens or reboots while playing The Sims 3, you will find time-stamped crash dumps in \WINDOWS\Minidump\. Attaching these to your email along with your DXDiag will be helpful.

Bold means I was laughing.

[Statements like these are just my thoughts about what's being said].

Not only does the game needs fixing but the site links that was with the game to register and to get that car, those site links on thesims3.com were/are broken. How stupid was that? Who half-assed did that site?

The Sims 3 Uncensored Patch

July 19, 2009

tags: computer, Computer file, Electronic Arts, File folder, Games, gaming, God Games, MAC, Microsoft Windows, mods, patches, PC, Program Files, Sims 2, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, Video game, Video Games, Windows XP

Don’t know how many already knew about the The Sims 3 Uncensored Patch but I decided to blog about it. Anyway, this patch was out before the game was even released. I won’t be using it but I believe it works if you would like to try it out for yourselves; I mean if your game is working. If you would like to download it, you will have to register to the site first here. Before downloading and installing this patch, make sure you put the original blur option some place just in case you want to install it back.

For Windows XP Users:

Replace the file in C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

For Mac Users:

Go to your Sims 3 application (most likely in your applications folder).
Right-Click (or Control-click) on it to bring up the pop-up menu.
Select “Show Package Contents” (which will open a new window showing the contents).
Navigate through the folders inside the package as follows: Contents/Resources/transgaming/c_drive/Program Files/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Game/Bin/ (careful not to go one further into the next “Bin” folder).
Replace the Shaders_Win32.precomp file in this folder with the one from this download.
Close the package window and start the game.

[Download the patch here]

[Source]

The black censor bars you see in the picture above is just for safety of viewers purpose. You won’t see those when you install the patch.

Possible Sims 3 Cheat Codes

July 19, 2009

tags: cheat codes, cheating, cheats, Games, gaming, help, list, MAC, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, PC, Sims 3, Simulation, Television, The Sims, The Sims 3, Video game, Video Games, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Disclaimer: I don’t use cheats so I haven’t tried these at all. I received these in a e-mail from someone at a Sims site. So I decided to post them. If they don’t work for you then well I don’t know what to say. They worked for a lot of people maybe you’re doing something wrong. Either that or they just don’t work [hence 'POSSIBLE'].

While playing the game, press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + C to display the console window. Then, type one of the following codes and press [Enter] to activate the corresponding cheat function. Note: In Windows Vista you may need to press [Ctrl] + [Windows] + [Shift] + C to display the console window.

help
- Display most cheats.
Kaching
- 1,000 more Simoleons.
Motherlode
- 50,000 more Simoleons.
shazaam
- +2,500 lifetime happiness points to active Sim.
freerealestate
- Ignore the cost when buying a lot.
modify traits
- Set or clear traits.
add to household
- Add active Sim to current household.
set age [number]
- Set age of the Sim.
edit in cas
- Take the Sim back to Create-a-Sim.
set career [career/level]
- Give selected Sim a career.
force opportunity
- Click career building you work at to force an opportunity.
force event
- Click career building you work at to force an event.
force all events
- Click career building to display all events for the career consecutively.
force service sim [name]
- Force a specific service Sim to appear.
force visitor
- Forces a neighbor to show up.
make me know everyone.
- Selected Sim knows every other Sim.
make friends for me
- Make several random friends for selected Sim.
make happy
- Sets all mood/moodlets for everyone in the house to perfect; removes negative moodlets.
make motives [static or dynamic]
- Set motives static or dynamic for entire household.
unlockOutfits [on or off]
- *View career outfits and service uniforms [*means see below].
moveObjects [on or off]
- No limitations for placing/moving objects.
resetSim [first name] [last name]
- Return Sims to safe and nuetral state at home.
constrainFloorElevation [true or false]
- Force terrain adjustments regardless of objects, Sims, and other structures.
disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt [on or off]
- Objects will not snap to slots while holding [Alt].
fadeObjects [on or off]
- Objects fade when camera gets close to them.
snapObjectsToAngle [true or false]
- Toggle 45 degree angle object snap.
snapObjectsToGrid [true or false]
- Toggle snap to grid for placed objects.
hideHeadlineEffects [on or off]
- Show talk/thought balloons above Sim’s head.
jokePlease
- Print random joke to console.
enablellamas [on or off]
- Llamas enabled message.
slowMotionViz [0-8]
- Slow motion visuals; 0 is normal, 8 is slowest.
testingCheatsenabled [true or false]
- *Enable testing cheats [*means see below].
fps [on or off]
- Toggle framerate display at top right.
fullscreen [on or off]
- Full screen.
quit
- Quit game.

*Unlock Outfits - This code must be enabled before entering Create-A-Sim mode.

*Enable Cheats – You can move your Sims’ status bars as desired by clicking and dragging (hygiene, energy, fun, etc).

Watching your own Vids on TV

Use the following trick to watch your own videos on the Sim television. Place the video you want into the “/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 3/Movies/Broadcast/[television station]” folder. Turn on the television in the game, and you can watch it. The video must be in .avi format, with a resolution no larger than 128×128 pixels, and frame rate not greater than 15 frames per second.

Listening to your own music on the radio

Place the desired .MP3 files in the “/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 3/Music/[radio station]” folder. Start the game, go to “Options” menu, select “Music Settings”, then choose radio station. Select which songs you want the radio to play.

Easy Money

Start writing novels on your computer. Write fiction novels as they take the least amount of time. They will not bring you too much Simoleons. When you write, your skill will automatically advance. If your skill is high enough, you will be able to write more novel types/genres. The most money can be made from “Romance Novels“. You will get royalties for six weeks once you finish a book. With the “Writing” skill maxed out, you can make approximately 40,000 Simoleons every week, which is more than the 34,800 Simoleons you can get by purchasing all neighborhood businesses, and takes less time to achieve. In three game weeks you should have a very high speed writing, 9 or 10 novels as best sellers, and 100,000 Simoleons.

Saving Money

No matter how many times you use an object, if you sell it the same day you got it you can get all your money back. If your Sim is poor and needs body points or something else, buy a body machine and keep selling it back to get a refund of all your money.

Free Bookcase Skills

Buy a bookcase, then have your Sim begin to study. Interrupt the action so that the book is placed on the ground. Sell the bookcase. The book can now do everything the bookcase could have done for free.

Making Friends

Buy a guitar. Play it to learn how to play guitar. Keep playing until you reach 5/10 level, which gives you the ability to “Play For Tips”. When you have that ability, go to the park with the guitar in your inventory. When you are in the park, click the guitar in your inventory, and select “Play For Tips”. People watching you will become your friends if you keep playing. The higher your guitar skill, the faster they will become friends with you.

New Clothes

To get new clothes, you first have to buy a dresser from “Buy Options”. Once there, click “Plan Outfit”. You can put a total of three different clothes for each type (formal, every day, athletic, etc).

Strange Faces

There is a glitch in Create-A-Sim mode that allows to you to make very strange faces. Go to the face designing area. Select a face part such as the eyes, and max out all the sliders one way or the other. Then, go to a different face part, and select one of the predesigned parts. Return to the eyes. The sliders will have reset to the middle, but the eyes will still look the same. This works for all of the face adjusting tabs. You can then continue to max out the size of the eyes and repeat. You can make eyes the size of dinner plates, very long cheekbones, huge noses, and more.

Hording Pizza

Have a Sim call for pizza. When the pizza delivery man arrives, do not accept the pizza. The delivery man will eventually leave the pizza on the front porch, and it will never get stale. You can stack as many pizzas there as you want. If your Sims get hungry, just tell them to get a pizza from the front porch.

The Sims 3: Disc Authorization Error Help

July 19, 2009

tags: Disc Authorization, disc drives, Drive Letter Access, Electronic Arts, error, Games, gaming, help, info, letter, MAC, PC, Roxio, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, tips, Toshiba, tricks, troubleshoot, troubleshooting, Video game

From EA:

We are in the process of researching possible causes of the Disc Authentication Failure errors that some of you are dealing with. While we don’t have one solution that will address everyone’s issue we have discovered a few things that we want to pass along to you. Hopefully this information will enable you to get started playing The Sims 3.

We’ve been able to identify a couple of causes for the Disc Authentication Failure message.

In many of the dxDiag reports we’ve received a specific DVD drive is listed. That drive, MATSHTA DVD-RAM UJ-841S, appears to be common to many users who are getting disc failure messages. This drive is also commonly used in Toshiba laptops. It is recommended that you visit the Toshiba or MATSHTA support forums to better understand how to fix this drive.

We will continue to research issues associated with this specific DVD drive and post anything conclusive on The Sims 3 forum.

Another potential cause that we are researching has to do with the existence of software that manages DVD drives. This software provides features such as the ability to drag and drop files directly on to a drive letter for the purposes of burning DVDs. Examples of software that we are aware of that cause problems include Sonic and Roxio and they use DLA (Drive Letter Access) applications. This software is known to cause issues with games and disc authentication.

Below you will find some things you can try if you have this software or something similar on your system.

- In My Computer, right click on the DVD drive letter that you are using to run your game. If you are running Sonic or Roxio you will likely see a ‘DLA’ tab in the properties panel. You should be able to disable the software from this panel. After you disable this software you will need to reboot your system for it to take effect.

- Updating the version of software that is used to access and use your DVD drive may help.

- Uninstalling the DLA software completely may help.

- DLA appears to be specific to Sonic and Roxio. Other DVD management software may be doing something similar and the steps above may apply to those applications as well.

This is what we know so far. We will update the forum as we learn more.

The Sims 3: Story Progression Help

July 19, 2009

tags: bugs, Electronic Arts, Games, gaming, glitches, God Games, help, how to, MAC, PC, Personal computer, progression, Sim Games, Sims 3, Simulation, story, The Sims 3, tips, tricks, tutorial, Video game

From EA:

We are working to address this asap but in the meantime there is a workaround for PCs.

For PC:
1) Find your game executable. It should be here: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin
2) Create a shortcut on your desktop to the TS3.exe.
3) Right-Click on the shortcut and choose “Properties”
4) In the top line “Target:” go to the end of the line and add this tag –disablestoryprogression
** You Simmers have been awesome and pointed out you need to make sure there is a space BEFORE the dash in your target line. Thanks guys!
5) From this point on you will need to run your game from this shortcut and NOT through your launcher.

There isn’t a work around for Mac at this time.

I realize this is a certainly not ideal but it will address the issue while we are working on a real fix.

I also want to mention that there are a few events that can still occur even if story progression is completely off.
- Any pre-made pregnant Sims will still have their babies.
- If Aging is on, Sims will still die.
- As YOUR Sims get new jobs, other Sims in the neighborhood may have their careers reassigned to become your boss or co-workers.

The Sims 3: Game FAQs

July 19, 2009

tags: answers, Antivirus software, CD-ROM, DirectX, Games, gaming, guide, MAC, PC, questions, Sims 3, Splash Screen, The Sims 3, tips, tricks, troubleshoot, troubleshooting, Video card, Video Games, Windows Vista

My Sim is stuck in the bathtub how can I un-stuck her/him?

Your Sim will not be able to get out of the tub (or shower) if you placed any objects near the tub while your Sim was bathing. If your Sim gets stuck in the tub without being able to get out, time will still pass by as normal, and your Sim will get bored or hungry from being stuck in the tub. Do not wait to see if your Sim will be able to get out by itself. Remove any obstructions or objects near the tub and assign a new interaction to your Sim to force it to get out.

I just tried to save my game and got an error, why?

The Sims 3 will not let you save your game if there are any special characters in the title of your game. Make sure there are no special characters in your title, such as periods, commas, asterisks, exclamation points, ampersands, or dollar signs. Anything that is not a letter or number can be considered a special character in this instance. Removing the special characters from your save game should allow you to save correctly.

Why are my graphics flickering in my game?

If you are experiencing graphical issues in Sims 3, such as textures flickering, you should check to see if you have disabled ‘Advanced Rendering.’

Some users might choose to disable Advanced Rendering for better game performance on mobile or earlier released chipsets. While disabling Advanced Rendering should not cause graphical issues, turning off this setting can oftentimes result in graphical corruption.

Follow the steps below to re-enable Advanced Rendering:

Click on the ‘…‘ button to call up the Options menu

Click on ‘Options‘

By default, the first tab open should be the ‘Graphics‘ tab

Under Graphics Details, make sure the ‘Advanced Rendering‘ option is checked

Restart your computer to see the changes. You should see an improvement in graphics quality after re-enabling Advanced Rendering.

Why is my game chopped up and slow?

There is a minor graphics card compatibility issue running The Sims 3 on computers with Windows Vista and Intel (R) G45/G43 Express chipsets or other Mobile graphics cards.

Follow the steps below to check if you have this graphics card on your machine:

Note: This issue only affects users with Windows Vista.

From the Windows Vista start menu, type ‘DxDiag‘ in the search bar

The DirectX Diagnostics window should appear.

Click on the ‘Display‘ tab

Under ‘Chip Type,’ you should be able to see the type of graphics card you have.

If after checking DxDiag, you confirm that you have the Intel (R) G45/G43 Express chipset, your game is probably running at a lower frame rate than what your graphics card requires. Follow the instructions below to fix the frame rate in your game:

Open The Sims 3

Click on the ‘…‘ Options button on the lower left-hand corner or press ‘F5‘ on your keyboard

Click on the ‘Options…‘ menu item

By default, Sims 3 should load the ‘Graphics‘ tab first

Why when does my screen go black and crashes?

Crashing after a black screen can be caused by a few different things, including (but not limited to): an incompatible video card, older drivers for a compatible video card or sound card, or a corrupted version of DirectX. There are several steps you can try in order to resolve this issue:

First, ensure that all of the game’s minimum requirements are met.

The minimum system requirements can be found on the bottom of the game packaging. You can also search our Technical Support database for these requirements.

Also, be sure you have the latest drivers available for your video and sound card.

Make sure any unnecessary background tasks are terminated. These tasks could interfere with the running of the game.

Make sure to get the latest patch available for your game. You can find patch information by clicking the “Patches” link on the left side of the Support.EA.com site. If you cannot locate your patch there, go to EA.com and look for your game’s homepage.

Why does my game crash after the Splash Screen?

Crashing after the first game screen or splash screen can be caused by a few different things, including (but not limited to) an incompatible video card, older drivers for a compatible video card or sound card, or a corrupted version of DirectX. There are several steps you can take to try and resolve this issue:

First, ensure that all of the game’s minimum requirements are met.

The minimum system requirements can be found on the bottom of the packaging for the game. You may also search our Technical Support database to find the system requirements.

Second, be sure you have the latest drivers available for your video and sound card.

Next, make sure any unnecessary background tasks are terminated. These tasks could interfere with the running of the game.

The crash could be caused by various CD-ROM reading errors. While most times the game will display an error about reading the CD, in this circumstance it does not necessarily display such an error.

Also, anti-virus software can cause conflicts with the game; it is recommended that you disable or configure your anti-virus software to minimize conflicts with the game. Anti-virus software can cause errors when your games try to open files or establish connections because of the active scan and similar settings. EA Download Manager, PunkBuster, etc. are all programs sensitive to active scan and anti-virus filtering.

When I get the Splash Screen it crashes, why?

The splash screen is the first initial screen that appears after you choose to start the game. This is a colored box with the logo and title of the current expansion in it. When this splash screen appears, the game is verifying the game by reading the disk in the drive so that the program can start. If your game crashes or freezes at this point, it means that the game can’t read or recognize the disk. There are a few CD-ROM troubleshooting steps you can follow to resolve this issue.

Why can’t my disc drive read my disc?

When a game displays an error describing an inability to read the CD, or a game will not load once installed, there are several potential causes. The reason usually falls among three areas: the CD-ROM drive, the game disc, or a software issue between the two.

Follow these tips…

Verify that the disk is clean/undamaged and the drive is able to recognize the disk.

For games that have multiple discs, the installation program will prompt you to insert the next disc during installation. If the installation program stops responding, it may be due to clicking the OK button too quickly after inserting the next disc or inserting a dirty disc.

The following steps will help prevent lockups during installation.

After inserting the disc that the installation program is prompting you to insert, please wait at least 10 to 15 seconds (the indicator light will stop blinking on the CD-ROM drive) before clicking the OK button. This will allow the CD-ROM drive to initialize the disc properly and allow the installation to resume properly.

Make sure that the disc is clean and free from defects. Fingerprints and scratches could also cause lockups during installation. Use a soft dry cloth to wipe any smudges or fingerprints from the disk.

Verify that the correct game CD/DVD is inserted in the correct drive.

Many games now come with multiple CDs, and it may not be immediately apparent which CD is required to start the game.

Note: If you are unsure which CD is required to launch the game, please refer to the game documentation, or attempt to start the game with each of the discs that came with the game.

Games are now being offered in a DVD disc format to reduce disc swapping during installation, and reduce the confusion for the consumer. The catch to this is that you cannot install or play a DVD version game unless you have a DVD-ROM drive in your computer.

Log on as Administrator. (This only applies for Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 2000, and Microsoft Windows XP)

Many games now will only work properly when installed and played on an account with Administrator level access.

Disable Compatibility Mode .

Right-click the shortcut used to launch the program and choose Properties.

Click the Compatibility tab.

Uncheck the box next to Run this program in compatibility mode for.

Click the Apply button, then click OK to close the window.

Launch the game from the shortcut that you just modified.

Install and then start the game from a different CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive .(This only applies if you have a secondary CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive in the same computer.)

If the game is currently installed, uninstall the software.

Click Start.

Click Control Panel.

Double-Click Add/Remove Programs.

Select the game you are troubleshooting and click the Remove or Add/Remove button (depending on your operating system).

Next, install the game using your secondary CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.

Insert the game disc.

Choose Install from the autoplay screen.

Once the game is installed, start the game while the game CD is in your secondary CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.

Disable Emulation software.

Emulation software converts physical hard drive space to mimic a removable storage device, such as a CD-ROM drive. This can prevent the software from being read properly. Below are a few emulation drives and basic instructions for disabling them. Should your particular emulation software not be listed, please refer to the software manufacturer’s website for further information.

Alcohol 10%

Start Alcohol and click the Emulation option on the left window.

Select Emulation from the option tree.

Uncheck the Ignore Media Types box to turn off the media type emulation.

Select Extra Emulation from the options tree.

Uncheck the BAD Sectors Emulation to turn off this type of emulation.

Exit Alcohol and restart the game.

CloneCD

On your Windows Taskbar in the bottom right of your screen (next to the clock), locate the CloneCD tray icon.

Right-click the icon and uncheck Hide CD-R media.

Restart the game.

Daemon Tools

Locate the Daemon Tools icon, which should be located on the Windows Taskbar (next to the clock).

This icon can differ, so hover your mouse over each icon for a description of what it is.

Once you’ve found the Daemon Tools icon, right-click on it.

Select the Emulation tab.

Deselect SafeDisc.

Restart the game.

Veritas DLA

Double-click My Computer.

Right-click the CD Drive.

Click Properties.

Click the DLA tab.

Uncheck Enable DLA on your Drives.

Nero Image Drive

Launch Nero ImageDrive.

Click on Start.

Next click on All Programs.

Next click on Nero.

Next click on Nero 6 Ultra Edition.

Last click on Nero ImageDrive.

Select Disable Nero ImageDrive located at the bottom left side of the program.

Install SafeDisc Updates.

Before you install the SafeDisc update, follow these steps to see if they are required for your computer.

Insert the game play disc.

Click Start.

Click Run.

Type cmd in the available text box and press OK.

At the command prompt, type in the CD-ROM drive letter that your play disc is currently in, followed by a colon.

Example: D:

Press the Enter key on your keyboard.

Note: This should change your current prompt to match the drive letter you typed.

Type dir /a:h in the new prompt, and press Enter on your keyboard.

This will display all of the hidden files on the disc. If there is a file named SSIFSDAT.SYS listed among them, you do not need this update however it may benefit other games.

Next, download the SafeDisc update.

Now, follow the instructions listed on the “Microsoft website”. Once the update has been successfully installed, restart the game.

Download and install the DCOM update .(This only applies to Windows 95/98 users)

For Windows 95 users:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d7a4de78-81a9-4db7-beb6-84ff99342172&displaylang=en

For Windows 98 users:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=08b1ac1b-7a11-43e8-b59d-0867f9bdda66&displaylang=en

Download the latest firmware version for your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive .

Contact your CD-ROM drive hardware manufacturer to obtain and install the latest version of the firmware. For information about how to contact your CD-ROM drive hardware manufacturer, click the appropriate article number in the following list to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

65416 Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, A-K

60781 Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, L-P

60782 Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, Q-Z

Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.

Scan your computer for viruses.

The game may quit, generate an error message, or stop responding during start or when you play the game if your computer is infected with a virus.

Important: If you already have an anti-virus program installed on your computer, update your antivirus program with the latest signature files before scanning your computer. Most software companies that create antivirus programs release a new signature file each month. After you obtain the latest signature files, scan your computer. For help obtaining the anti-virus signature files, contact the antivirus software manufacturer.

If you do not have anti-virus software installed, click on one of the free online virus scanners listed below to scan your system for viruses:

http://security.symantec.com

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

Remove Spyware from your computer.

Spyware is software that collects personal information without your knowledge or permission. You might be the target of Spyware or other unwanted software if you download music from file-sharing programs, download free games from sites that you do not trust, or download other software from an unknown source. Spyware may affect the game play and the startup process.

To learn more about the symptoms of Spyware and other unwanted software, how to remove Spyware, and how you can help protect your computer, visit the following Microsoft web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/default.mspx

If you have updated your CD Rom driver firmware after installing Windows XP, you may have an issue with your device running in PIO mode.

Microsoft has released a hotfix update to address this issue. The hotfix information can be found by:

Visit the Microsoft Support website.

In the search box in the upper right search for article 920918.

Click on the first answer found.

Change DMA transfer mode to PIO mode (This applies only to Windows 9X users).

Note: This is not recommended for use with the Windows XP operating system.

Click Start.

Click Control Panel.

Double-click on System.

Click on the Hardware tab.

Click on the Device Manager button.

Click Switch to Classic View in the left pane.

Double-click IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

Double-click Secondary IDE Channel.

Click on the Advanced Settings tab.Note : If you do not see the Advanced Settings tab, your computer probably has a SCSI (small computer system interface) drive. DMA transfer mode options are not available for SCSI drives.

Under Device 0, select PIO only in the Transfer Mode box.

If you have more than one CD or DVD drive, also select PIO only in the Transfer Mode box under Device 1.WARNING : If Current Transfer Mode under Device 0 or under Device 1 states Not Applicable, that device is not in use. Change only the Devices that do not state Not Applicable. If both devices state Not Applicable, your CD or DVD drive is on the Primary IDE Channel.

Double-click Primary IDE Channel.

Click on the Advanced Settings tab.

Under Device 1, select DMA if available in the Transfer Mode box.WARNING : Device 0 is most likely your hard drive and should not be changed.

Click OK.

Restart your computer, and then restart the game.

Further issues may indicate a possible issue with SecuROM. If you have a more recent EA release, the most efficient way for us to assist is to have you produce an analysis file for evaluation. In order to generate this analysis file, please do the following:

Make sure the original ‘play’ disc is in a physical, local CD or DVD drive.

Restart your computer (the reboot is to assure that there are no additional instances of the software running when generating the file).

Right-click on the application’s Desktop shortcut, or the actual application’s executable file in the installation folder, and a menu will appear.

Select Launch Analysis from the menu.

A disclaimer window may appear on your screen. To proceed from there, click Yes. Another window may appear stating that an analysis log will be generated; if so, click OK. If any error messages appear, click Cancel to continue.

After a period of time, the program will generate a file named AnalysisLog.sr0 and place it at the root of your hard drive (usually C:). When the file has been generated, a dialog may appear stating it has finished. Click OK to complete the process. To locate it, go to My Computer and open your hard drive (usually C:).

Note: Microsoft Vista users should refer to the further instructions below.

Please compress the file using a program such as WinZip, WinRAR, or WinAce (to avoid email corruption), and attach it to your email to support@securom.com.

For Microsoft Vista Users:

Follow the steps outlined above through step 6. Since you’re using Vista, the file will be stored in the following path:

C:\Users\[YOUR USER]\AppData\Local\Temp\AnalysisLog.sr0 Note: If by chance this folder is hidden, you may have to display hidden folders. To do so, please follow these steps:

Click the Windows button on the Windows Taskbar.

Select Control Panel.

Click Appearance and Personalization and select Folder Options.

Click the View tab, then select Show hidden files and folders. (You should now have access to the folder.)

If you do not see the Launch Analysis option available in the menu after you re-start your computer, you can generate it using the command line. Please follow these steps:

Make sure the original ‘play’ disc is in a physical, local CD, or DVD drive.

Restart your computer. (The reboot will ensure that there are no additional instances of the software running when generating the Analysis file).

Right-click the application’s Desktop shortcut and a menu will appear and select Properties.

Highlight and copy everything in the Target window.

Click the Windows button on the Windows Taskbar.

Click All Programs.

Click Accessories.

Click Run.

Type cmd in the text box and press the Enter key. (A ‘DOS’ window will appear.)

Type cd\ and press the Enter key to get to the root of your hard drive. (You may have to type cd.. several times to get to C:\).

Right-click on an empty area inside the ‘DOS’ window and select Paste.

Press the Spacebar on your keyboard once, add the text /secuexp and press the Enter key.

A disclaimer window may appear on your screen. To proceed from there, click Yes. Another window may appear stating that an analysis log will be generated; if so, click OK. If any error messages appear, click Cancel to continue.

After a period of time, the program will generate a file named AnalysisLog.sr0 and place it at the root of your hard drive (usually C:). When the file has been generated, a dialog may appear stating it has finished. Click OK to complete the process. To locate it go to My Computer and open your hard drive (usually C:).

Please compress the file using a program such as WinZip, WinRAR, or WinAce (to avoid email corruption), and attach it to your incident when you click on E-mail Us button.

How do/can I update my drivers?

The key to making sure a game will work on your computer is making sure your computer hardware and software meets the minimum requirements. The software drivers used to operate your video and sound cards must be up-to-date.

Follow these tips:

Launch the DirectX Diagnostic tool.

Note: This will bring up the DirectX Diagnostic tool, which will give you a comprehensive report of the hardware and drivers in your computer

If you have Microsoft Windows XP:

Click the Start button on the Windows Taskbar

Select Run

Type dxdiag in the available text field

Click OK

Go to Part Two below

If you have Windows Vista and do not have a Run selection:

Right click the menu bar and select Properties

Click the Start Menu tab

Click the Customize Button

In the upper window, scroll down until you see the Run command and Click the corelating check box

Click OK

Click Start

Click Run

Type dxdiag into the text field and click OK

Go to Part Two below

Identify your hardware

System - you can determine the following basic computer information by clicking on the System Tab

Processor – The type of processor you have, as well as its speed, listed in megahertz or gigahertz

Memory – The amount of RAM (random access memory) in megabytes or gigabytes

DirectX Version – Shows the current version of DirectX on your computer (the version of DirectX is a key requirement in making sure all in-game features are enabled)

Display – you can determine your device, driver, and features by clicking on the Display Tab

Device

Name- The common name for your graphic card, most commonly the name of the card sold in stores.

Manufacturer – The Company who made your video card

Chip Type – The name of the graphics chip on your video card. This is important, because third-party companies will often sell a video card with an odd name, but with the same chipset as sold in other cards.

Approximate Total Memory – The amount of video memory available. This may be misleading if you have an integrated video card (which uses System RAM to mimic video memory)

Current Display Mode – The current screen resolution, color depth, and video refresh rate in hertz.

Monitor – The name of the driver currently installed for the monitor.

Driver

Version – The version number and language of the driver installed for your video card. This is important in determining if you have the most recent drivers installed.

Date – Not necessarily an important field. However it’s a good indicator for determining if it’s time to update your drivers.

DirectX Features

DirectDraw Acceleration – This feature controls your 2d graphics abilities and needs to be enabled for any game to run on your computer.

Direct3D Acceleration – This feature controls your 3d graphical abilities and needs to be enabled for games requiring a 3d graphs card to run.

AGP Texture Acceleration – This feature may not be available if you do not have an AGP video card, but is not required.

Sound – you can determine your sound device, driver, and features on the Sound Tab

Device Name – The common name for your audio device, most commonly the name of the device sold in stores.

Default Device – If more than one audio device is installed in this computer, this will allow you to determine if the one you are looking at is the one being used by games.

Driver Version – The version number and language of the driver installed for your sound card. This is important in determining if you have the most recent drivers installed.

Date – Not necessarily an important field, however it’s a good indicator for determining if it’s time to update your drivers.

Features Hardware Sound Acceleration Level -The hardware acceleration slider will determine if advanced audio features are used when launching a DirectX application.

Find the latest drivers:

It’s a good idea to always make sure your drivers are up to date. Now that you are aware of how to check your drivers and their status, you will want to do a comparison against the manufacturer’s website, and what the DirectX Diagnostic tool shows you. Once you’ve done that comparison, you’ll be able to quickly download and verify that you’ve updated your drivers.

Identify - The first thing you want to do is identify your Video and Sound card from the DirectX Diagnostic tool.

Type & Name

On the Display and Sound Tab, you will want to use the Chip Type area to determine the manufacturer of the chip, as their drivers are the most commonly supported and tested throughout the industry.

Should that field not have anything listed, you can use the Name field to determine the common card name which is the next best thing.

Once you’ve identified the card, you’ll want to check if there are any updates available.

Select the driver page for your video and sound card manufacturer from the lists provided below.

Note: The links below should take you directly to the driver page; all you need to do is find the correct driver for your video card and operating system.

Compare

On the driver page, every driver should be marked by a date; you will want to compare this date to the date listed on the Display and Sound tab in the DirectX Diagnostic tool.

If the date on the driver page is more recent than what DirectX shows, you’ll want to update your drivers.

Note: Should no driver date be listed on the web site, it’s best to download the latest drivers available from the web site to make sure you have the newest software installed.

Download – Now that your ready to download and install the new drivers, there are a few things you want to be aware of:

Make sure that when you click on the link to initiate the download that you choose ‘Save‘ rather than ‘Open‘ when presented with the option.

Warning: Choosing ‘Open‘ will attempt to install the driver directly from the driver website; should your internet connection be interrupted during the install, your drivers will not install properly and can cause you other system issues.

Once you’ve chosen ‘ Save‘, you’ll want to designate an easy to find location to download the driver.

Note: A good idea is to save the driver to your Desktop so that you an easily install it and delete it once it’s completed.

Now that the driver is downloaded, you’ll want to install it. Most drivers are simple executables, requiring you to only double-click on the file to start the installation.

Note: Should the driver not be an executable, please refer to the driver page for instructions on how to install them.

Common Video Manufacturer Sites:

ATI Technologies Inc.
http://www.atitech.com/support/driver.html

Intel
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/support_intel.asp

Matrox
http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/latest/home.cfm

Nvidia
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

S3 Graphics
http://www.s3graphics.com/drivers.jsp

SiS
http://download.sis.com/

Common Sound Manufacturer Sites:

Creative Labs
http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/

Yamaha LSI
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/lsi/us/support/downloads.html

Realtek
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/

Sound MAX
http://forms.analog.com/Form_Pages/soundMAX/soundMAXtechSupport.html

Install and verify your new drivers.

Now that your drivers are installed, you’ll want to verify that the installation went properly. To verify that the driver has been installed, compare the date listed on the Display and Sound tab in the DirectX Diagnostic tool to the date listed on the driver website.

If they match, your drivers are updated and your system is prepared to play.
If they do not match, you will want to repeat the previous section until the date displays correctly.

[Courtesy of EA.com]

The Sims 3: Readme

July 19, 2009

tags: answers, errors, GeForce, help, info, list, Nvidia, questions, Radeon, Radeon R520, readme, Sims 3, The Sims 3, tips, tricks, Video card, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Readme for The Sims ™ 3
(c)2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All Rights Reserved.
June 2, 2009
Version 1.0

== Table of Contents ==
General
System Requirements
Known Hardware Issues
Performance Tips
Notes
Controls and Shortcuts
Mac Controls and Shortcuts
Compatibility Notes

GENERAL
=======

Welcome to The Sims 3! We hope you have a blast with it.
For the latest information on the game and associated products,
please visit

http://www.thesims3.com

System Requirements
===================

The Sims 3 requires at least the following:

FOR WINDOWS XP
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
* Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of
additional space for custom content and saved games

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
* 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1.5 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of
additional space for custom content and saved games

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows,
the game requires at least:
* Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
* 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
* 0.5 GB additional RAM

FOR MAC OS X
* Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
* Intel Core Duo Processor
* 2 GB RAM
* ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or
Intel Integrated GMA X3100.
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB
additional space for custom content and saved games
* This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac
systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards.

Windows Supported Video Cards
—————————–

NVIDIA GeForce series
FX 5900, FX 5950
6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
9300, 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150
GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295

ATI Radeon(TM) series
9500, 9600, 9800
X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
2400, 2600, 2900
3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
4850, 4870

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run
comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in
vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some
GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly.

Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA
TurboCache variants may default to settings that are higher
than what would be optimal for them. Graphics settings
can be lowered to improve performance.

The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.

MAC OS X Supported Video Cards
——————————

NVIDIA GeForce series
7300, 7600
8600, 8800
9400M, 9600M GT
GT 120, GT 130

ATI Radeon(TM) series
X1600, X1900
2400, 2600
3870,
4850, 4870

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
GMA 3-Series

Unsupported Video Cards
———————–

Please note that attempting to play the game using video
hardware that isn’t listed above may result in reduced
performance, graphical issues, or cause the game to not
run at all.

Known and Possible Hardware Issues
==================================

Audio hardware acceleration is unsupported.

Mac OS X:
On Mac OS X systems that have NVIDIA cards with less than
256 MB of VRAM, you may need to reduce the graphics quality
in the game options menu for improved performance.

If running the game on a Mac Book Pro with display mirroring
turned on, ensure that you select a resolution which is
supported by both the internal and external displays.
A workaround for this issue is to ensure that the internal
LCD is the main system monitor before turning on display
mirroring, and you will be presented with the proper
resolutions.

Occasionally the game audio will stop playing when headphones
are connected after the game is started. In order to prevent
this from occurring, please ensure that your headphones are
connected to your Mac before starting the game.

If you experience frame rate issues while running on ATI X1600
or X1900 cards, reduce your Lighting Quality setting to low.

If you are using two NVIDIA GeForce graphics card with an
SLI-enabled motherboard and the game locks up, try updating
your drivers. If you still have problems, try disabling SLI.

Performance Tips
================

When you run The Sims 3 for the first time, the game will
automatically select the most appropriate options for your
graphics card, CPU, and audio card. To improve performance,
use the options control panel to lower graphics and audio
settings to “medium” or “low”.

You can also improve the performance of the game by
lowering the resolution at which the game is rendered.
The options 800 x 600 and 640 x 480 render the scene at that
resolution, but it is displayed at 1024 x 768, so the size
of the actual game window is 1024 x 768.

The Sims 3 is a real-time 3D game that requires the majority of
your computer’s processing power. Other programs operating in
the background may slow it down or cause framerate hitches.
For best results, be sure to close any background applications
while playing The Sims 3.

Fullscreen performance is generally better than windowed
performance.

If you are playing in a downloaded town for the first time,
it may take a while for Sims and textures on objects to appear.
It is normal to see off-white objects until their textures
have been regenerated.

Notes
=====

Online Help
———–

The Electronic Arts Customer Support site is located at

http://support.ea.com

for North American users or

http://eusupport.ea.com

for European users.

Use the search tools to find the information you need. The
Knowledge Base is updated as new information becomes available,
so check back for the latest news and information.

Installing the Game
——————-

Windows (disc users):
* Insert the disc into your disc drive and follow the on-screen instructions.
* Once the game has installed you can launch it by locating the game
through the Start menu.
* Games on Windows Vista™ are located in the Start > Games menu and on
earlier versions of Windows™ in the Start > Programs (or All Programs) menu.

Windows (EA Store users):
* Once the game has been downloaded by EA Download Manager, click the install
icon that appears and follow the on-screen instructions.
* Launch the game (once it is installed) directly from the EA Download Manager.

In Windows Vista Classic Start menu style, games are located in the
Start > Programs > Games > Games Explorer menu.

Mac OS X:
* Insert the game disc into your CD/DVD-ROM drive. A CD icon
representing the game disc appears on your desktop. Double-
click the icon to open the game’s launcher.
* Select the game’s installer icon at the bottom of the
launcher to prompt the installation menu.
* Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the
installation.

Digital Retail Installation
—————————

Please contact the digital retailer through whom you purchased
this game for instructions on how to install the game or how
to download and reinstall another copy of the game.

Note: If you’d like additional information about your game as
well as tips and patches please visit http://www.ea.com or

http://www.eastore.com.

Uninstalling the Game
———————

Windows XP:
* Open Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel.
* Click on Change or Remove Programs.
* Click on The Sims 3 program entry.
* Click on the Remove button.
* Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the
uninstallation.

Windows Vista:
* Open the Programs and Features control panel.
* Click on The Sims 3 program entry.
* Click on the Uninstall button.
* Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the
uninstallation.

Mac OS X:
* Ensure you are logged in using an account which has
Administrative privileges.
* Delete The Sims 3 folder from your Applications folder.
* Additional files can be found in
/Users/<Username>/Library/Preferences/The Sims 3 Preferences
* To remove the content created by The Sims 3, remove the folder
/Users/<Username>/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3

Locations On Disk
—————–

The Sims 3 keeps your saved games, towns, videos, screenshots,
and custom content in a folder called “The Sims 3″.
The location of this folder depends on your operating system.

Windows XP:
* “The Sims 3″ is located in your “My Documents” folder
under Electronic Arts.

Windows Vista:
* “The Sims 3″ is located in your “Documents” folder
under Electronic Arts.

Mac OS X:
* “The Sims 3″ is located in your “Documents” folder.

Controls and Shortcuts
======================

Camera
——

Holding the right mouse button and dragging moves the camera.

Scrolling the mouse wheel zooms the camera in and out.

Holding the mouse wheel down and moving the mouse changes the
angle and rotation of camera.

Arrows      Move the camera
< and >     Rotate the camera
+ and -     Zoom in or out

General
——-

Control-Z    Undo
Control-Y    Redo
Escape       Cancel

Live Mode
———

M            Toggle map view
I            Inventory
J            Journal
C            Take screenshot
V            Toggle video capture
F10          Toggle whether the UI is hidden

House Control
————-

Page Up / Page Down     Next / Previous floor
Home / End              Next / Previous wall mode
Shift Return            Center on selected Sim’s home

Build / Buy Modes
—————–

, and .                 Rotate held object
Delete / Backspace      Delete held object
Wall Tool: Shift Drag   Create room
Floor Tool: , and .     Rotate floor tile
Floor Tool: Ctrl F      Toggle between full / quarter tile

Microsoft Windows:
Alt-Enter Toggle between windowed and fullscreen modes.

Note that when the game is minimized, it will not pause,
but will continue running in the background.

Mac OS X Controls and Shortcuts
===============================

Command-Return Toggle between windowed and fullscreen modes.
Command-Tab Minimize the game when in fullscreen mode.

Note that when the game is minimized, it will not pause,
but will continue running in the background.

House Control
————-

MacBook:
Fn + Up Arrow/Down Arrow Next / Previous floor
Fn + Left Arrow/Right Arrow Next / Previous wall mode

- Right and Middle Mouse Button Functionality on Mac OS X -

This game contains features that require a right mouse button and
middle mouse button. If you have an Apple Mighty Mouse, you
can enable the Right Mouse Button in System Preferences->Keyboard and Mouse.
Change the “Right Click” drop down to Secondary Button.

Most PC USB mice are supported on the Macintosh as well.
The Left, Right, and Middle mouse buttons are detected and work
correctly on these mice when first plugged in.

If you have an Apple legacy single button mouse, or a MacBook
Pro with a Track Pad, you can emulate a right mouse button
click by holding down the Command key while clicking the mouse
button.

To emulate the middle mouse button using a single button mouse,
hold down the Control and Command keys while clicking the mouse button.

Cheats
——

To enter cheats in the game, first open the command console by
simultaneously pressing Ctrl-Shift-C. Press the enter button
or Escape to close the command console. Some of the cheats that
can be used here are as follows:

help: Lists all the cheats currently available.
help <cheatname>: Displays specific information about the cheat.
quit: Exits the game.
[up arrow]: Recalls the most recent cheat typed into this window
for this instance of the game.

resetSim <full Sim name>: In the rare case that a Sim gets “stuck”
in an interaction or somewhere around town or gets something
stuck to it, use this cheat. It may take a while for the Sim
to appear because it is being entirely rebuilt.
Usage example: resetSim Mortimer Goth

fps [on|off]: Turns the frame rate display in the upper
right corner on or off.

moveObjects [on|off]: Removes footprint limitation for all object
placement in Buy Mode and Build Mode. Removes limitations placed
on hand tool for when objects are in use or for objects that
normally are not movable. Is known to cause issues with game
elements, routing, hidden object generation and manipulation,
etc. Note that using this cheat allows you to move and delete
objects that normally cannot be manipulated such as Sims.
If you delete these objects, there is no way to get
them back, so be careful!

constrainFloorElevation [true|false]: Allows all terrain adjustments
regardless of objects, Sims, and other structures on them.
Walls, floors, and objects will move with the terrain,
allowing you to create sloped walls and floored hills.
However, placing new walls/floors will still flatten
terrain, and placing objects will still require the terrain
to be flat initially if the objects normally require it.

disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt [on|off]: When on, objects will
not snap to slots while holding ALT. Useful for placing
objects such as chairs near tables without them snapping
or placing counters near other counters, etc.

hideHeadlineEffects [on|off]: Hides all Sim overhead effects
such as thought balloons and speech balloons.

fadeObjects [on|off]: Toggles whether objects fade when the
camera gets close to them. Does not apply to Sims.

slowMotionViz <level>: Puts the visuals of the game in slow motion.
Entering a “level” value is optional. Valid values range from
0 = normal speed to 8 = slowest.

unlockOutfits [on|off]: Includes career outfits and service Sim outfits
as options in Create a Sim. The cheat must be entered before
going into CAS.

Compatibility Notes
===================

The Sims 3 is designed to run on Windows XP compatible graphics and
sound cards. Drivers for these devices are provided by the
respective card manufacturer and may result in compatibility
issues beyond our control.

If you are experiencing any issues, it is always recommended
that you obtain and install the latest drivers for your
hardware. The majority of hardware vendors have the latest
drivers available for download via their websites.

More information on known technical issues is available at

http://www.thesims3.com.

Sharing Videos Online
———————

The Sims 3 Exchange supports a maximum file size of 1 GB per video clip.
If you record at the “Medium” size (640 x 480) and “High” quality,
you should be able to record about 20 minutes of footage and still
be within the 1 GB limit.

Note that if you have changed the in-game capture settings to record
uncompressed video, the resulting files can exceed the 1 GB limit
quite quickly.

Videos edited with third party movie editing tools may result
in a format that cannot be converted properly for use with the
online editing tool.

Mac OS X:
Videos recorded in The Sims 3 use the VP6 codec. Apple users
can view their videos with a plug-in like Perian available at

http://www.apple.com/downloads

Game Resolution
———–
If you happen to get your game into a state where the resolution
is completely incompatible with your monitor and you cannot
change the resolution through the game itself, you can fix it
by deleting the Options.ini file from
“My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3″ for XP
or
“Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3″ for Vista
or
“User/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3″ for Mac

A new Options.ini file will be generated when you run the game
and it will default to 1024 x 768 resolution.

MP3 Playback
———–
MP3 files encoded at bit rates higher than 320 kbs will not
play in The Sims 3. Also, if an MP3 in the Custom Music folder
is corrupt, the game may behave unpredictably when trying to
play it.

Save-Related Error Messages
———–
Below are some error messages that you may see from the game.
Please contact customer support if you encounter any of these errors.

01: No save file information.
02: No active world.
03: The save path is empty.
04: Cannot save directory.
05: Cannot find the requested file.
09: Failed to create header record.
10: Failed to write header record.
11: Pre-save callback failure.
12: World file save failure.
13: Post-save callback failure.
14: No load/save manager found.
15: Other error. Sorry.

Thanks for playing the game!
The Sims 3 Team

The Sims 3: Q&A [For Windows]

July 19, 2009

tags: DVD, gaming, Hard disk drive, help, MAC, Microsoft Windows, PC, q&a, qna, question and answers, Svchost.exe, Taskbar, The Sims 3, tips, tricks, troubleshooting, Windows, Windows Explorer, Windows Task Manager, XP

Why when I place disc in drive nothing happens?

Manually Start Disc

1. Double click “My Computer”
2. You will see your drives listed in the window that comes up.
3. Locate the CD/DVD-ROM drive that contains the CD/DVD you are attempting to install.
4. Right-click on the CD/DVD-ROM drives, and choose “open”. This should start the auto-run process.

If you do not get an auto-run screen after opening the CD in this manner and your game came with multiple CD’s, you may want to repeat the steps above with another disk

In addition, if your computer has multiple CD/DVD-ROM drives you might try repeating the steps above with the other drive.

My CD/DVD is in the drive but installation still asks to put disc in drive, why?

Troubleshooting DVD/CD

Sometimes installations will ask for a previous or next CD/DVD. Be sure that the CD/DVD you have inserted into the drive is indeed the CD/DVD that the installation is asking for. If it is, you may need to wait up to a minute before pressing “ok” to continue installation.

Sometimes the computer needs a minute to register that the appropriate CD/DVD is in the drive. If the disk still cannot be found try minimizing the installation and checking through ‘My Computer’ to see if the disk was recognized.

To do this:

1. Minimize the install by clicking the minimize icon. You can also minimize by right clicking the installations entry on the task bar and selecting the option to minimize.
2. Click “Start” then click “My Computer”.
3. Locate your CD/DVD-ROM drive.
4. Double click the drive letter corresponding to your drive. If Windows allows you to do this it means that the OS did detect your CD/DVD-ROM. Maximize your install and click ok to proceed with the install.

Why does my game locks up and the game audio repeats over and over?

Repeating sounds with a game often are indicative of an issue with your sound card driver or possibly a background task that is using a resource the game may need. To address this issue, please try the following:

You may need to adjust the acceleration for your sound card.

Adjust the Sound Card Hardware Acceleration

1. Left-click “start”
2. Left-click “run”.
3. Type DXDIAG in the box that appears
4. Click “Ok
The next panel that should appear is the Directx Diagnostic Tool.
5. Left-click the “sound” tab
In the center of this screen, you will see an acceleration level. By default, this level is set to “full”. Left-click and hold down the slider bar and move it until the setting above says “basic”.
6. Click on the “exit” button.

Once you have done this your sound acceleration will be “basic”.

Update your sound card’s driver.

To update the driver for your sound card, first determine what type of sound card you have. This information can be found in the Directx Diagnostic Tool panel. To run the Directx diagnostic tool and determine which type of sound card you have, follow the steps below:

1. Click the “start” button on your Windows system tray.
2. Click the “run” option.
3. Type DXDIAG in the box that appears
4. Click “ok”.
The Directx Diagnostic tool will appear on your screen.
5. Left-click the “sound” tab.

On this tab you will see an area labeled “Device” in the top left-hand corner of the panel. Your video card type is listed in this section under “name”. Also, on the right, will be the driver version number – make a note of this. Each sound card manufacturer has a different website, and a quick web search for name of your sound card should direct you to their site.

Once there, look for a “download driver” section, and follow the steps on the web page for updating your sound driver. The company may list the latest driver version number – check this against the one you have to see if you actually need to download a new driver.

Close background applications

For best results, you will need to end most programs on your computer before installing or running this program.

To do this, please follow the steps below:
- Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys on your keyboard.
- Tap the Delete key one time.
The Windows Security window will appear.

Click Task Manager. The Windows Task Manager will appear.

There are three tabs on this screen – Applications, Processes and Performance. In the Applications screen, click on each of the entries and then click on End Task. Once you have closed all entries and the list is empty, click on the Processes tab.

In the Processes screen, click on any entries that are not listed below and click on End Process.
NB: Do not click on End Process for any of the processes listed below.
System Idle Process
System
winlogon.exe
services.exe
svchost.exe
spoolsv.exe
csrss.exe
hidserv.exe
MSTask.exe
WinMgmt.exe
taskmgr.exe
IEXPLORE.EXE

Explorer.EXE

Once you have closed all your Applications and Processes as just described, your system is free of any background programs that may be causing problems with your game.

Why does my game crash after a random amount of time?

You may not have enough disc space to run the game or there are programs interfering with the game itself.

Make sure you have enough disc space

If you do not know how much hard drive space you have, follow the steps below:

1. Double-Click “My Computer”
2. Right-Click on the drive on which you want to install the game. (Usually C $:\$ )
3. Left-Click “Properties”.

You will see the properties panel for the drive you are viewing. On this tab you can see the current hard drive space free and hard drive space used. If the amount of hard drive space free is lower than the minimum required to the game, or within about 100MB, you may experience issues installing or running the game. To make more hard drive space, you can follow the steps below:

1. Double-Click “My Computer”
2. Right-Click on the drive on which you want to install the game. (Usually C $:\$ )
3. Left-Click “Properties”.

You will see the properties panel for the drive you are viewing. Simply click the “Disk Cleanup” button. This will take you to a panel that lists the files on the computer that are safe to delete. From this panel you see the option to delete these files.

See above for tips.

I get an error message when my game crashes, why?

See above also for tips.

Depending on the error message you are receiving, there could be a number of things that might cause this issue. If you are receiving a data transfer or disc read error then it’s probably the CD/DVD itself causing the issue. You could try cleaning it, using a different drive if you have more than one or installing on another machine. If you get an invalid page fault, you may want to end the other programs running at the same time as the installation.

My installation is taking a long time, why?

Installation help

Some installs are quite large and may take a bit of time to install. Before trying to troubleshoot this issue, be sure that you have given your computer some time to complete the install process. Look for activity from your computer before taking action. Look for the Hard drive CD/DVD-ROM drive lights flickering, listen to hear if the drives are busy and most importantly look at the install progress indicators to see if these are moving.

If the install is still slow or does not seem to be responding check the following:

See above for tips.

What is DirectX?

DirectX is a utility made by Microsoft that allows your software, hardware, and computer to speak a “common language”. DirectX is an update to your Operating System that allows the most efficient graphics and sounds to be utilized. Like most software, programs for Windows DirectX must be installed to your computer.

If you experience issues installing DirectX to your computer, try the following:

The two most common causes for the installation hanging when DirectX tries to initialize itself is lack of hard disk space and problems with your video and sound card drivers. While DirectX itself doesn’t take up that much hard disk space, you must compensate for the fact that Windows is using some hard disk space for virtual memory (a swap file).

Get information from Microsoft on DirectX. http://www.microsoft.com/directx

I get the Splash Screen then an error message, any reason why?

Sometimes while running a game, other processes or applications that are running can interfere with the game and causes it to crash or to receive an error message. Check above for tips. If this fails to resolve the issue, take a look at the “Details” of the error message. Often there will be reference to a file that is causing the issue. Sometimes it can be linked to another program on the system that need not be installed or running at the time of playing the game. A search for this file will give you an idea of what it is. You can then disable or uninstall this program if possible.

Do I have enough Hard Drive space?

If you do not know how much hard drive space you have, follow the steps below:

1. Double-Click “My Computer”
2. Right-Click on the drive on which you want to install the game. (Usually C $:\$ )
3. Left-Click “Properties”.

You will see the properties panel for the drive you are viewing. On this tab you can see the current hard drive space free and hard drive space used. If the amount of hard drive space free is lower than the minimum required to the game, or within about 100MB, you may experience issues installing or running the game. To make more hard drive space, you can follow the steps below:

1. Double-Click “My Computer”
2. Right-Click on the drive on which you want to install the game. (Usually C $:\$ )
3. Left-Click “Properties”.

You will see the properties panel for the drive you are viewing. Simply click the “Disk Cleanup” button. This will take you to a panel that lists the files on the computer that are safe to delete. From this panel you see the option to delete these files.

Can I configure my monitor settings?

Yes you can and here’s how…

To configure your monitor properly for the game:

Check the Display control panel and make sure your monitor type is not set to VGA 640×480 256 colour. If it is, try changing it to support the specific model of your monitor, or try using SVGA 800×600 (16-bit colour).

If this fails to help you, try updating the driver for your video card by checking out the manufacturer’s website.

Can I update my Video Driver?

Yes you can and here’s how…

1. Click the “start” button on your Windows system tray.
2. Click the “run” option.
3. Type DXDIAG in the box that appears
4. Click “ok”.
The DirectX Diagnostic tool will appear on your screen.
5. Left-click the “display” tab.

On this tab you will see an area labeled “Device” in the top left-hand corner of the panel. Your video card type is listed in this section under “name”. Also, on the right, will be the driver version number – make a note of this. Each video card manufacturer has a different website, and a quick web search for name of your video card should direct you to their site.
Once there, look for a “download driver” section, and follow the steps on the web page for updating your video driver. The company may list the latest driver version number – check this against the one you have to see if you actually need to download a new driver.

What type of Video Card do I have?

To find out what type of video card you have installed in your computer follow these directions:
1. Click “Start”.
2. Click “Run”.
3. Type “Dxdiag” in the box and click “Ok”.
When the DirectX Diagnostic Tool panel appears, click the “Display” tab on the top. Then locate the “Driver Name” which is usually the second line down on the left side. The “Driver Name” is usually the manufacturer name. For example, if your driver name is “NVIDIA Geforce 4”, then you have an NVIDIA card.

To update your video card driver, simply go to the website of the company that makes your card and look for an “Update Driver” section.

Warranty?

If you have determined that your CD has been damaged, you can return your CD for a sealed copy. To replace your software you will need a sales receipt dated within the 90-day warranty period. Electronic Arts warrants its software to the original purchaser that Electronic Arts’ software is free from defects for a period of 90-days as stated in the manual. If the disk has been misused, or the 90-day warranty has passed, then a fee will be assessed to replace the software.

FEES:
PC products:
£7.50 per CD
All console game discs:
£10 per disc
All manuals:
£3.00 per manual
(details subject to change without notice)
ADDRESS
EA Customer Warranty
P. O. Box 181
Chertsey
KT16 0YL
United Kingdom
Please send the disk, a brief note describing the defect and a sales receipt dated within the 90-day warranty. If a fee is applicable, please include a check or money order payable to ELECTRONIC ARTS for the corresponding amount to replace the disk.

Hope that this Q&A has helped some. I know how frustrating it can be to anxiously want to play a game just to have to get out the bugs, errors, glitches first.

Is there anyone NOT having problems with The Sims 3?

July 19, 2009

tags: bugs, Electronic Arts, flaws, Games, GameStop, glitches, God Games, help, info, mods, patches, problems, Sims 2, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, tips, tricks, Video game

I haven’t came across too many people besides myself that’s not having any technical errors with the game. But the launcher and uploading Sims for me can be an issue but its not me its the server so it say.

I can leave the game running, its on the highest settings it can go, there’s no lag no nothing. I got the game before I was able to build my PC by the way. I pre-ordered my game from GameStop, haven’t had any problems worth getting mad over. I’m just grateful that I got lucky enough to get a working copy. So my thing is this, how many people out there have the game and can actually play it with no problems [that don't have a pirated version of the game]? I’m only asking because I don’t see too many people that can play the game with no problems. I actually feel really bad that they can’t because the game is awesome even though it feels like I’m Photoshopping at times but other than that the game is cool. Hopefully, EA will get a patch for Windows being that Mac has already gotten their patch but some are saying it isn’t working well for them.

Now I would like to get The Sims 2 on my PC, I still enjoy playing that version of the game because they had so many features in that one that they didn’t put in the 3rd one and that kind of made me a bit sad. Like my main one is the services, I can’t work, get my skills up and take care of my garden too. I can’t complain though, there are still other awesome features that I enjoy, like …um…hell I’ll get back to you on that.

I truly hope before June of 2009 is over with that EA will come through with an un-flawed patch for these paying customers who so patiently/impatiently waited for this game after it was pushed back just to receive The Sims 3 to be treated as a game of Russian Roulette. I’m just glad the barrel of the gun was empty when I pulled the trigger.

The Sims 3: How to Change The Active Household

July 19, 2009

tags: active, change, Electronic Arts, Games, gaming, God Games, household, how to, info, MAC, PC, Sim Games, Sims 2, Simulation, The Sims 3, The Sims Series, tips, tricks, tutorial, Video game

Click Me

That should help a lot of people, if you still need help just contact them or leave a comment on my blog.

Download The Sims 3 Torrent

July 19, 2009

tags: cracks, download, Electronic Arts, Games, gaming, God Games, keygens, MAC, patches, PC, Pirate Bay, Sim Games, Sims 2, Sims 3, Simulation, The Sims 3, torrent, tricks, Video game

People have been asking me for links to a torrent to a working copy of The Sims 3 since the copy they bought doesn’t work…well here ya’ go.

The Sims 3 Download 1

The Sims 3 Download 2

If you don’t know how to use torrents, go here and this should help you.

If you need help with .iso files feel free to leave a comment, I can either help you through via comment or you can wait until I make a tutorial on using PowerISO.

You may need WinZip or WinRar as well, depends on which one you download. Or if its required.

You are also going to need BiTorrent or uTorrent as well.

Disclaimer: Don’t use ThePirateBay.org

I haven’t downloaded either one of these copies of this game. Not because I don’t want to. Its because I bought a copy and my copy actually works. Those who feel they should comment saying that they hate people who ….steal well not really much you can do about that now is it? Most of these people who have bought this game are having problems with it. So they haven’t gotten their money’s worth. If you need help with torrents, click here. People who have used torrents are saying that the torrent works better than the copy that they bought from the store or the site. Can’t really blame people for looking for an alternative can you?

The Sims 3: Workshop Download [Beta]

July 19, 2009

tags: beta, download, downloading, downloads, Game, God Games, help, info, Sim Games, Sims 2, Simulation, The Sims 3, The Sims Series, tips, tricks, Uploading and downloading, Video game, workshop

There is a workshop to design items like there was on The Sims 2. I can’t use it yet because I need/want a better graphics card, so I haven’t been playing my game at all lately. Anyway, you can go here but you have to sign up and log in to download it. Yea I hate how they get people to join their site as well but its clever, I guess.

OR!

You can see if you can click this link and see if it works that way for you. [It works for me]

The Sims 3 Workshop BETA
Right now the only available plug in is the Pattern Tool.

Update: This is a new beta version (1.0.0.2), released 2009-06-17
Changes includes a workaround for the compression problem that could occur in the previous version, tiled preview and some other small fixes. If you have the previous version please update to this one.

This release has the following changes/fixes:

Compression bug workaround, please remake any patterns made with v2 of the tool (info below)

Automatic addition of correct category when uploading to File storage from within the tool, this makes the submission process faster and more accurate.

Automatic tile preview added to the site. This is to make sure your creation does tile properly and also gives a nice preview of how it looks when tiling (other then in the game). We consider this a quality insurance.

Minor bug fixes

Info regarding updating: Those of you that needs to update patterns created with v2 of the tool will get the chance to do so sometime tomorrow (Wednesday). Until then feel free to submit new patterns using the new version of the tool. More info about this will be posted tomorrow.

If you have problems with this download, contact the site.

Happy Simming!

Everything Sims!

Related articles by Zemanta

Complete List of Changes:

Related articles by Zemanta

The Sims Cheats:

Somewhat Non-Useful Cheats:

The Sims Neighborhood Cheats:

The Sims 2: Free Time Cheat:

Sims Film Making Cheats:

The Sims 2: Apartment Life Cheats:

The Sims 2: Seasons Cheat:

The Sims Lot Cheats:

The Sims 2 Pets Cheats:

The Sims 2 Open for Business Cheats:

The Sims 2 University Cheats:

The Sims 2: Nightlife Cheats:

Related articles by Zemanta

Create-a-Sim

Sim’s Personalities

Buy and Build Modes

Movie Making Tool

Lost Features

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

The Sims 3 Neighborhood(s)

The Sims

Technical Requirements to Run The Sims 3

CAS

Pregnancies, Babies, Toddlers, Children

Buy Mode & Build Mode

Careers & Jobs

Related articles by Zemanta

Please READ BELOW

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

My Sim is stuck in the bathtub how can I un-stuck her/him?

I just tried to save my game and got an error, why?

Why are my graphics flickering in my game?

Why is my game chopped up and slow?

Why when does my screen go black and crashes?

Why does my game crash after the Splash Screen?

When I get the Splash Screen it crashes, why?

Why can’t my disc drive read my disc?

Follow these tips…

How do/can I update my drivers?

Related articles by Zemanta

Why when I place disc in drive nothing happens?

My CD/DVD is in the drive but installation still asks to put disc in drive, why?

Why does my game locks up and the game audio repeats over and over?

Why does my game crash after a random amount of time?

I get an error message when my game crashes, why?

My installation is taking a long time, why?

What is DirectX?

I get the Splash Screen then an error message, any reason why?

Do I have enough Hard Drive space?

Can I configure my monitor settings?

Can I update my Video Driver?

What type of Video Card do I have?

Warranty?

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

OR!

Email Subscription

Blogroll

Archives

Follow “The Sims Life”