Game Help:TS3 System Requirements

The Sims 3 System Requirements

A note on these requirements: The requirements listed below are taken directly from the official TS3 site. These are the absolute bare minimums you need to get the game up and running. These are NOT the minimum requirements for a playable game experience! If you have just the bare minimum and a low-end graphics card, you will NOT be able to play the game! It will run... but it will not look good, run well, or run consistently without crashing.

In order to find the specs on your system, see: Game Help:System Specs. If you are looking to upgrade your system, please see Help: Computer & Software Help for lots of advice, recommendations, and a place you can ask questions on specific hardware.

Sims 3 Base Game PC Requirements

From: http://www.thesims3.com/game/systemreq (with some slight changes based on advanced graphics card knowledge)

Items marked in green are those which are also recommended by MTS for playing The Sims 3.

FOR WINDOWS XP

• 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent (2.0ghz Core 2 Duo or higher is recommended)
• 1 GB RAM (2GB of RAM is recommended)
• A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0 (256 MB dedicated video card - mid-range or higher - is recommended)
• 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 (2.0ghz Core 2 Duo or higher is recommended)
• 1.5 GB RAM (at least 2.5GB of RAM is recommended)
• 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0 (256 MB dedicated video card - mid-range or higher - is recommended)
• 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, 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

SUPPORTED VIDEO CARDS: (MTS staff note: Model numbers listed in italics are likely to run the game well)

NVIDIA GeForce series:

• FX 5900, FX 5950
• 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
• 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
• 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
• 9600, 9800
• GT100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150
• GT 220, GTS 240, GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 275, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295

ATI Radeon series:

• 9500, 9600, 9800
• X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
• X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
• 2400, 2600, 2900
• 3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
• 4830, 4770, 4850, 4870, 4890

Note: The official list no longer includes the anything below the 4850 from the Radeon 4000 Series graphics cards. However, we have expanded the list to include some these cards which should work just fine.

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)

• GMA X3x00 series *GMA X4x00 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.

Intel integrated chipsets featuring underclocked parts will not perform adequately. 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.

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.

The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.

Sims 3 Base Game MAC Requirements

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.

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 X3x00

Related Pages

• Game Help:System Specs
• Game_Help:System_Requirements/MTS2_Recommendations