April 2019
Sims 3 has always kind of lagged on my computer when I play through Origin but lately it's gotten pretty bad. The last 3-4 times I've played, I create a family of two sims and after about 5 minutes of building a little home, the game freezes and I have to restart my computer, which obviously doesn't save anything I've created. I have a Mac without much on it so I don't think that has much to do with it. Any help? Also I'm not technologically inclined AT ALL so any sort of advice would be much appreciated! Thank you
April 2019 - last edited April 2019
@Klwiese12 It looks like your post originally landed somewhere else, so I moved it to the dedicated Sims/mac forum.
There could be any number of issues, but the most likely one is that the game runs out of memory (RAM). Unlike the Windows version, TS3 in mac OS can only use 2 GB RAM before crashing. This is due to the way the game was ported into mac OS, and it can't be changed. CAS and Build/Buy take more memory to run than regular gameplay, so it's not surprising that you'd hit the RAM limit quickly when you're creating a new family and building a house.
You can monitor the game's memory use while you play to try to avoid the crashes. Purging RAM helps a bit, but when you get too close to the 2 GB limit, the only thing to do is quit to desktop and reload.
https://bluebellflora.com/resetting-ram-during-gameplay/
There are a number of things you can do to lower TS3's memory use:
If you still get crashes despite TS3's RAM use being nowhere near 2 GB, please list your mac's specs, as described in the post linked below, as well as which packs you have installed.