What if I say I learnt a way to make ts3 run even smoother🙀 The game is currently running on 2.5+gb of RAM and 5+gb of VRAM… This is insane.
I'll explain what I did below, before making any change please back up relevant files and make sure you have a decent computer (or at least a good video card, mine is Nividia RTX 2060 6GB). This method was initially posted by Foul Play in Discord, so a big thanks to them!!! We all know that The Sims 3 is a 32-bit old game that can only use less than 4GB of RAM, making it prone to crash due to memory overflow. Moreover, the game loads some texture memory into RAM, resulting in high RAM usage and low VRAM usage. Even the most powerful computers can't leverage their advantages. Therefore, what we need to do is to allow the game to fully utilize the performance of modern computers, while reducing RAM usage and increasing VRAM usage.
- Download and install dxvk. Copy the d3d9.dll from the x32 folder to your bin folder (where you installed smooth patch and reshade/gshade). If you have installed reshade/gshade before, you will be prompted to overwrite files, please choose yes. If reshade/gshade stops working after entering the game, reinstall reshade/gshade, and choose Vulkan instead of d3d9 when installing. If you are not familiar with dxvk, it is recommended to check out this post (the 7th page).
- Download the dxvk.conf file and place it in the same folder. Open this file with Notepad, delete all content, and add the following text. The first line must be added, and the second and third lines are used to set vertical synchronization and frame rate lock (It's just my personal preference, you can set it up based on the documentation on GitHub). d3d9.textureMemory = 1 d3d9.presentInterval = 1 d3d9.maxFrameRate = 75 At this point, you can enter the game and observe if a TS3W.dxvk-cache file is generated in the bin folder. If so, dxvk is successfully installed. After entering the SIMS 3, the game settings will be reset, so you need to back up the original settings or readjust them directly. For me, simply installing dxvk converted the game's RAM usage of over 300MB to VRAM usage. The Sims 3 became more stable. It's harder for it to reach 3.7GB RAM usage and then crash.
- Next, open your GraphicsRules.sgr, search and find two lines seti MemCacheBudgetValue, which determine the size of the game's VRAM Cache. The values behind represent 200MB (209715200) and 160MB (167772160) respectively. Modify these two values to larger numbers. You can choose according to your computer and then have a test in the game. You can check how much RAM and VRAM the game is using in the Task Manager after modification. If you don't install dxvk, increasing these values will make your RAM usage higher! I set MemCacheBudgetValue to -1 during testing, which represents no limit. Before using dxvk and modifying GraphicsRules.sgr, the game only used less than 1.5GB of VRAM. But now, the game is using over 5GB of VRAM after 2 sims day playing. However, RAM usage continues to increase at the same time and does not remain at a certain size as I expected. Maybe MemCacheBudgetValue should be set to an appropriate size to prevent the game from eventually using over 3.7GB+ of RAM. After applying all these changes, with 6GB of mods and all graphics settings set to the highest, my game now runs as smooth as butter. I recommend you to try these steps above. Results may vary from person to person, so please share your test results in the comments^^
