Troubleshooting The Sims 3 on PC and Mac

Updated 1 week ago1 min read

Överblick

Find help for common troubleshooting issues for The Sims 3 on PC and Mac.

Table of Contents

Minimum specs

Before troubleshooting, make sure your computer meets the minimum requirements for The Sims 3 and for the most recent Expansion Pack you have installed.To keep everything running smoothly, we also recommend keeping your graphics drivers up-to-date. For Mac users, macOS does this automatically with each new version of the operating system.Need to check what kind of graphics card is in your PC? Read our article to find out how to check what graphics card you have. 

Graphics troubleshooting

If your PC or Mac meets the minimum specs, but the game is slow or choppy, try turning down some of your graphics settings:
  1. 1
    Open The Sims 3.
  2. 2
    Select the … (options) button or press F5 on your keyboard.
  3. 3
    In the Graphics tab, move all the sliders under Graphics details to low.
  4. 4
    Select the check mark to save your changes.
 Still having issues? Try running in Windowed mode:
  1. 1
    Open The Sims 3.
  2. 2
    Select the … (options) button or press F5 on your keyboard.
  3. 3
    In the Graphics tab, check the box beside Enable Fullscreen Mode.
  4. 4
    Select the check mark to save your changes.
Depending on your graphics card, you may need to make a few more adjustments to get the best out of your game.

PC

Check Advanced Rendering is switched on:
  1. 1
    Open The Sims 3.
  2. 2
    Select the … (options) button or press F5 on your keyboard.
  3. 3
    In the Graphics tab, check the box beside Advanced Rendering.
  4. 4
    Select the check mark to save your changes.

Mac 

Check your Energy Saver settings:Some Macs have two graphics cards in them, one that’s built into the processor and used for standard tasks, and another that’s used for high-performance applications, like games.Use About this Mac to check what kind of graphics cards you have.If your Mac has a dedicated graphics card and you notice your Mac slowing down when you’re playing The Sims 3, check your Energy Saver settings.
  1. 1
    From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
  2. 2
    Select Energy Saver.
  3. 3
    Check these two things:
    • Graphics options: if you see this, select Higher Performance.
      • You’ll need to log off and log back on to your Mac to apply this change.
    • Automatic graphics switching: turn this off to force your Mac to use the dedicated graphics card all the time.

Custom content troubleshooting

If you’re still seeing glitchy graphics, there could be a problem with custom content you have installed. Disable or remove custom content and try loading the game again. 

Other troubleshooting steps for PC

Game crashes when it’s loading

Custom content can cause The Sims 3 to crash when you’re loading into the game. To check if this is the cause, disable custom content in the launcher and try loading the game again.
  1. 1
    Exit the Sims 3 launcher.
  2. 2
    Restart it, then select Installed Content.
  3. 3
    Check the box beside Run without custom content. Select OK on the pop-up warning to continue.
If your game loads properly after following these steps, it’s most likely that a piece of custom content was causing the problem. Add your custom content back into the game one-by-one to find out which item was causing the issue. Once you’ve found it, remove it using the launcher.

Version incompatible error in the launcher

This error can appear if you’ve uninstalled a Pack and a leftover file causes an issue. To troubleshoot this:
  1. 1
    Go to My Documents > Electronic Arts.
  2. 2
    Open The Sims 3 folder.
  3. 3
    Look for a file named Version.tag, and delete it (the game will automatically remake it the next time you play).
  4. 4
    Restart the launcher.

Other troubleshooting steps for Mac

Disk authorization failure error

If you’re playing on macOS X Yosemite or earlier, repairing your disk permissions can help with this error. Follow the steps in this Apple support article to run Disk Utility on your Mac.Newer versions of macOS automatically maintain and protect system file permissions, so there’s no need for you to repair file permissions.

Clearing your cache

If there’s a problem with a corrupted save file or a piece of custom content, try clearing The Sims 3 cache on your Mac.
  1. 1
    In Finder, select your hard drive (usually Macintosh HD unless you renamed it).
  2. 2
    Select Users, then your username.
    • On older Macs, this can be called Places.
  3. 3
    Open Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3.
  4. 4
    Delete these files (they’re safe to remove, the game will create them again when it relaunches):
    • CASPartCache.package
    • compositorCache.package
    • scriptCache.package
    • simCompositorCache.package
  5. 5
    Open the Thumbnails folder and delete the files inside it.
  6. 6
    Empty your Trash and try loading The Sims 3 again.
In the Electronic Arts folder, a red line surrounds The Sims 3 folder. A red arrow points to the CASPartCache.package file.If you’re still seeing the same problem, run through the previous steps again, then open the World Caches folder and delete the files inside it. If you’ve followed these steps and are still seeing a problem, try removing your custom content and mods too.

Removing custom content and mods

Before removing any custom content and mods make sure you back them up by copying their folders to your desktop.
  1. 1
    In Finder, select your hard drive (usually Macintosh HD unless you renamed it).
  2. 2
    Select Users, then your username.
    • On older Macs, this can be called Places.
  3. 3
    Open Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3.
  4. 4
    Delete these files (they’re safe to remove, the game will create them again when it relaunches):
    • CASPartCache.package
    • compositorCache.package
    • scriptCache.package
    • simCompositorCache.package
  5. 5
    Open the Thumbnails folder and delete the files inside it.
  6. 6
    Open the Mods folder and delete the files inside it.
  7. 7
    Open the Packages folder and delete the files inside it.
  8. 8
    Empty your Trash and try loading The Sims 3 again.

Changing your language

To change your language in The Sims 3:
  1. 1
    Open Finder, then the Applications folder.
  2. 2
    Select The Sims 3 > TheSims™3.app.
  3. 3
    Select the cog icon and choose Show Package Contents.
  4. 4
    In the new window that opens, select Contents.
  5. 5
    Select Resources, then Preferences.
  6. 6
    Choose the update_always.reg file, then select the cog again.
  7. 7
    Select Open With and choose Other.
  8. 8
    In the Choose Application window, select TextEdit.app , then Open.
  9. 9
    Change the Locale to match the language you want to use, using the list of languages below.
  10. 10
    Save and close the file. Launch The Sims 3 and check that it’s now running in the correct language.

To change your language in The Sims 3, replace the locale in the text file with the locale code for your preferred language.
  • English: en-US
  • Chinese (Simplified): zh-CN
  • Chinese (Traditional): zh-TW
  • Danish: da-DK
  • Dutch: nl-NL
  • Finnish: fi-FI
  • French: fr-FR
  • German: de-DE
  • Greek: el-GR
  • Hungarian: hu-HU
  • Italian: it-IT
  • Japanese: ja-JP
  • Korean: ko-KR
  • Norwegian: no-NO
  • Polish: pl-PL
  • Portuguese: pt-PT
  • Portuguese (Brazilian): pt-BR
  • Russian: ru-RU
  • Spanish: es-ES
  • Spanish (Mexican): es-MX
  • Swedish: sv-SE
  • Thai: th-TH
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