A Different Cloud

First of all, my specs:

Why am I sharing this? Because I think it's always good to know what a person is running with before you install their entire mods list. Just in case you're wondering if your pc would be able to handle the same amount of mod load.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10850K CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3501 Mhz, 10 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s). RAM: 32 GB GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB VRAM Storage disk my game is installed on: 1TB SSD SAMSUNG MZVLB1T0HBLR-000L7

Game version: Steam edition.

How I improved my game's performance:

DXVK: this has stopped *all* access violation crashes in my game since I installed it. I know I'm probably jinxing myself by typing this, but I for real haven't had my game crash to desktop since I followed these instructions.

Turbotravel (scroll down in the comments to find the files): I followed this pretty recently as I have a good SSD with plenty of space left. So far I haven't noticed a massive improvement in game performance aside from the fact that thumbnails now instantly load in build mode and CAS and my sims change their clothes faster, which was worth it for me. Only do this if you own Sims 3 on Steam and your game is installed on an SSD drive and you have plenty of space left.

Nraas Errortrap, Overwatch, Mastercontroller, Saver: Errortrap catches in-game bugs and glitches and fixes them by resetting the sim automatically for you. Overwatch cleans up the game overnight. Mastercontroller (+ cheats and integration modules) gives you compact mode in CAS and allows you to fully reset the town which is recommended to do once every sims week or after you had a big party event with many sims. Saver prompts you to save your game every 30 minutes as 'Save as...' and this will save your life from losing your game to a crash after hours of gameplay.

Smooth Patch: I use this *without* the .package files, because they're not compatible with Mastercontroller compact mode. But the bin files do a lot to make your game smoother on their own, and this mod allows you to play your game in windowed borderless mode (necessary for proper use of reshade) and it gives you an easy way to max your FPS (which is ESSENTIAL!!). My TPS is set to 500. Setting it to 1000 lags out my game a lot even though my PC is high end so I don't recommend it.

GPU Patch: I have a very new GPU and need this for my game to recognize my graphicscard. It is basically mandatory to do this unless your pc is over a decade old.

Intel Extreme Tuning Utility: I overclock my CPU with this program. I sincerely advice against you doing this unless you are 100% sure you know what overclocking is, whether your CPU is capable of overclocking, and what a healthy overclock speed is for your CPU. The tuning utility will help you with this. If you run the 'speed optimizer,' it'll pick a conservative setting that should still make your CPU faster. I really don't recommend you use this if you don't know what you're doing. But if you're a seasoned gamer and you know what overclocking is: yes, a CPU overclock definitely makes Sims 3 a LOT smoother. If you blow up your computer because you decided to do this while you didn't educate yourself on the consequences of overclocking a CPU, it's your own fault (that should be enough of a warning, right?).

Tweaking my GraphicsRules.sgr: I will be mentioning this one later as well as I also tweaked it to improve my visual graphics. I honestly only do this because other guides told me to. I have no clue if it actually does something. But change these settings to these numbers. They're at the top of the file: seti cpuLevelUber 4 seti cpuLevelHigh 3 seti cpuLevelMedium 3 seti cpuLevelLow 3

CC Magic: USE THIS FOR YOUR CC. Like, for real, USE IT. It is a life saver! Especially if you own multiple gigabytes of CC, CC Magic will make your game so much smoother. It's worth the hassle of redoing your CC (I did it a while back, cost me half a day, got me a lifetime of less lag). I feel like an idiot for spending over a decade playing this game without CC Magic. Follow this video for easy instructions.

Regul Save Cleaner: I use this every other session. The downside is that using it will require the game to reload some stuff like portraits and if you include the cache cleaning (which is pretty much essential) it'll have to reload your sim textures, object textures, that sort of stuff. So the game is actually a bit slower right after you use Regul Save Cleaner. But it cleans up a lot of bloat that your game doesn't need anymore and is a life-saver if you play one save for multiple generations. If you have that issue where you game is just trying to save forever, make sure to use this. It's worth the minor inconvenience at the start of a game session.

Turn off memories, lessons, online features, interactive loading screen: yes, these all cause lag in your game. If you still want to keep some of the memories, use this mod instead.

Set the max amount of fully active/rendered lots to 2 or 4. This will reduce camera lag. I recommend setting it to the amount of houses in the direct vicinity of your sim's house. So if there's only 2 neighbors set it to 3, if there's 3, set it to 4. Don't go any higher than this and don't set it to 1.

Just a rule: don't use Sims3Packs. Don't install CC through the Sims launcher period. You can use Delphy's Sims 3 Pack Multi-extractor to turn Sims3packs into .package files. Installing through the launcher works alright, but uninstalling stuff through the launcher is not clean. It leaves behind a lot of bloat. Keep your CC organized and clean, otherwise you'll regret it when you're years into playing Sims 3 and everything is an unsolvable mess. The only thing I install through the launcher is custom worlds. Everything else is converted to .package. If you convert lots to .package, don't forget to put a copy of the .package file in your library folder.

How I make my game look pretty:

Some of these things work smoothly in my game because I have a very good graphics card. However, even I sometimes get render issues where my sims look like they come from a playstation 1 game for a minute before they render in properly. I live with it, because I like pretty screenshots. I recommend trying these things one by one and seeing how your game handles it. If something makes your game an unplayable mess, just uninstall and forget about it.

More GraphicsRules tweaks: I like HD textures. I have 2K screen, and the regular 'very high' sim detail setting just doesn't cut it for me. If you want your sims to look as 'HD' as mine, change the below settings to the following (use Crtl + F to find them): setting $VeryHigh prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimLODDistances "25, 50, 100, 1000" prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimTextureSizes "3072, 2048, 512, 128" prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimUseSpecular "1, 1, 1, 1" Make sure your simdetail settings are set to 'very high' in your options menu to enable this. Also, I highly advice against randomly changing these numbers to other values, except if you wanna go even higher to 4096 instead of 3072. Sims will actually have *more* rendering issues if you change these to a random lower number. Don't ask me why, they just do. I have messed with this setting more times than you can count and this is my sweetspot that gives me as little PS1-looking sims as possible.

Reshade 6.4.1 (with add-on support): Why add-on support? Well, you don't need any add-ons (skip that bit when you install) but this version doesn't connect to the network. Other versions do, and then the anti-cheat system will disable MXAO and Depth of Field. Do not update to newer Reshade versions, they don't work with Sims 3. I have two of my presets up for download: Novelesque and Novelesque Gemstone Edition. They work well with 6.4.1. When you install reshade, make sure your 'edge smoothing' setting is turned off. You can enable anti alias through your Nvidia or AMD control panel instead. I've got instructions for that in the 'Novelesque' preset post (Nvidia, I don't have AMD so please look it up elsewhere if you do). Here's a full guide on how to install Reshade 6.4.1.

S-club's 3D lashes: Gives your sims nice 3D eyelashes, available in the eye-liner make-up category and in accessories. Don't forget to download the sliders. And also, I recommend downloading the mod that removes EA's eyelashes. Apologies for the TSR link, they're not available elsewhere.

Mango-smoothie default skin replacement: Nice, smooth HD skin replacement. there is also a link for non-defaults if you prefer it. I also use a bunch of other non-default skins but these are the main ones.

Yumedust's Eye love set conversion by Brntwaffles: my default replacement for the eyes. I use V2.

Agnelid's default hair replacements: these are proper low-med poly and give me the least render issues out of all those default hair replacements out there, so I highly recommend them.

Angelsimoleon's make-up default replacements: These are really good, because now default make up doesn't look like your sim is trying to be a clown anymore. I also recommend the color presets default replacement.

Default replacement for eyebrows: ugly EA eyebrows begone.

Default beard replacements: ugly beards BE GONEE. Also, more beards here. Can't have enough beards.

Simstate's Blackout UI: I also love the Cloud UI hype going on, but I decided to go for this one because I love dark mode and this one has a bit more readable text in some areas.

Plants default replacement: Omedapixel made a lot of default replacements for plantable crops. They only work for newly planted crops. Please read their instructions carefully, it requires some set-up.

Sims 3 HD Textures terrain: I use the 1k version because I was too scared of overloading my game with HD textures. Still makes a nice difference though.

Sims 3 lighting mod: I use Rollo Roll's edited combo of BB's and BrntWaffles lighting mods.

Simsi45 Improved EA Lights: For better indoor lighting.

Sims 3 Medieval facial expressions override: I've been playing with these for so long I don't even remember what the normal facial expressions used to look like.

Pigtails glitch fix: Ugly pigtails on every random sim, begone.

LazyDuchess Random Sim fixes 2.0: Fixes the puddingface syndrome and the ugly green-blonde haircolor some sims were born with. Also comes with some other minor fixes. This also makes male sims gain body hair on age up, which is tuneable.

Sliders: for better sim creation.

How I make my game more fun:

Nraas Storyprogression: I also have the modules Career, Extra, Money, Population, Relationship and Skill. This mod is absolutely essential to me. I can't play this game without it. However, it is a heavy mod. It will cause some lag in your game. To me it's absolutely worth it. I highly recommend setting the speed to 'snail pace' to make the lag problem minimal (except maybe pregnancy, I have that one manually edited to speed 500, because I need people to make lots of babies, okay.) and to turn off notifications for anyone who's not related or romanced with your sim, it'll save you some hassle. Storyprogression also allows you to: edit the chances of gay or bi sims, tweak the amount of celebrities in your town or how fast you gain celebrity points to begin with, change the rules of who takes whose name at birth or marriage. It also does one very important thing: it makes sure service and role sims aren't part of the romance pool. Without Nraas SP, town residents might actually end up marrying the local mixologist or proprietor. Nraas SP prevents this and makes sure your town residents only get it on with other town residents. It also prevents sims from emigrating and disappearing.

Nraas Retuner: essential for more autonomy control. It requires a bit of practice to be able to use it properly. I highly recommend you go into the settings of this mod (City hall -> Nraas -> Retuner) and turn on the retuner menu for objects. That way you can, for example, click on the computer, go to the retuner menu, and turn off autonomy for playing computer games. Or click on the radio and turn off autonomy for sims to turn it on. I have personally also used it to turn off the imaginary friend doll (Retuner -> by tunable XML -> sims.actors or something like that -> Occult.ImaginaryDoll or something similar), set the chance of it being sent to your mailbox to 0.

All other Nraas mods I have: Consigner, DebugEnabler, Dreamer, Gohere, Hybrid, OnceRead, Porter, PortraitPanel, Register, RelationshipPanel, Tagger, Tempest, Traveler, Woohooer, WrittenWord. Just check out their respective pages to see what they do. They're all useful because they either help you control your game more (Register can turn off paparazzi!!), or they add other handy gameplay things. There's even more Nraas mods that I currently don't use (yet), feel free to check them all out.

Simler90's Gameplay core mod: This fixes a lot of annoying stuff in the game. However, if you want to use it alongside Nraas Overwatch and LazyDuchess Random Sim Fixes, it requires a small bit of tuning. To make it compatible with Overwatch: change the Overwatch clean up hour to 5AM (default is 3AM). You can do this in the game by clicking City Hall/any computer -> Nraas -> Overwatch -> Settings. To make sure Lazyduchess puddingface fix takes priority over the one in Simler's core mod (I did this because the one by LD is better), you need to open Simler90's tuning file in S3PE and set the puddingface fix to false. If you don't know how to do this, here you go. There's more things to tune in this mod, so learning this is a good idea regardless.

More interactions mods: There's a bunch of them. I highly recommend the following: - Moar Interactions - More Pregnancy Interactions - More Baby Interactions - More Toddler Interactions - More Romantic Interactions - Outdoor activities for Toddlers - Toddlers Can Ride Rocking Rider - Children Can

Neuroblazer's Random Genetics: This makes the genetics system a lot more complex and varied. While EA default will copy-paste certain areas of the face and body from the parent to the baby sim (like a sim will 100% have their mom's eyes and their dad's nose etc.), Neuroblazer's mod makes it so sims can be more of a mix between the two parents. It really helps with keeping your sims genetically varied, even after many generations. It takes a few seconds to start up each time you boot up your game just like Nraas SP, so don't get scared by the momentary lag.

No Mutant Hair or Eyes: No more mutations in haircolor or eyecolor, because these were way too common in the Sims 3. Your sims will now always inherit their eye and haircolor from a relative (parent or grandparent etc.).

Expanded Genealogy: adds a lot more family relations to your family tree, so your game will recognize more sims as family members. Like 2nd cousin and such.

Painting Replacements: Makes the painting skill a ton more fun because it adds so many painting variations to the game!

Routing fixes and less whiny sims: Sims 3 is a lot more fun when your sims aren't constantly suffering from routing errors or blocks. Here's a whole list of them: - Ohrudi's routing fixes - Twoftmama's routing fixes (need a free Sims Asylum account) - No whining about motives - No whining about route fails - Better routing for game objects (need a free Sims Asylum account) - No foot tapping - More Entry Points: This one makes it so sims don't wait in line forever to go into the school building and such!

Human Lifespan for Supernatural Sims: If you're like me and you avoid occults like vampires or fairies because they tend to live forever, this mod makes it a lot more fun to play around with occults. It gives them a regular lifespan, like any other sim.

Traits enabled for all ages: Tired of your born sims all having the same traits because the choices are so limited at a young age? This mod enables all traits for all ages.

Autonomous toddler skilling: makes teaching toddlers their skills fun, so sims will do it autonomously. Requires a free Sims Asylum account to download.

Faster Gardening: I have picked the 50% option. Now my gardening sims can finally have a life again since weeding and harvesting doesn't take them all day.

No Social Groups (Uni only): Your sims won't instantly turn into nerds just because they like to play games or browse the web. I picked the one that does enable the groups in the university world.

CrossEye Fix: No more crossed eyes when Sims age up.

Be Productive: sims will clean up after themselves more often.

Opportunity Phone Call Fix: If you have into the future installed, this fixes the bug where you'd not get any opportunity phone calls anymore.

NoAutoAnswerPhone and NoAutoSmartPhoneTasks: prevent your sims from dropping everything just to answer their phone or browse the web.

New Lifetime Goals: Normally, when your sims complete their LTW, the Midlife Crisis LTR to pick a new one will disappear. Your sim can therefore only complete one LTW by EA's default settings. This mod prompts your sim to pick a new LTW once they have completed theirs, so they always have a new goal to strive for.

Famous Artists: changes the celebrity system so you earn celebrity points for skills and jobs that actually make sense.

School Delinquency: adds more gameplay for baddie sims in their school years.

No Autonomous Pranks: Because pranks suck unless you actually want them to happen and then you can just do it yourself. You can also just do this with Nraas Retuner of course, but it'll be a bit of a hassle.

Get to Know fix: Sims will learn other sims' traits more often when using the Get to Know interaction.

Scolding mod: will prompt you to ask you whether you actually want to scold your child instead of it becoming an interaction you can't cancel.

Baking mod: adds a baking skill to the game

Flower Arranging: adds a flower arrangement skill to the game.