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virginblue4

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
2,017
682
United Kingdom
I just wondered if anyone here plays The Sims 3 on their new late 2012 21.5" iMac?

Please mention the specs of your system. What frame rates are you getting? Any lag? Do you have any expansion packs installed?

Thanks :)
 

johto

macrumors 6502
Jan 15, 2008
429
41
Finland
LOL. Of course Sims 3 will run on any 2012 machine. Its old game!
Have you heard, there are this thing called "external cd/dvd-drive" ?
..or if you dont want to use physical media, you can always use image file.
 

virginblue4

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
2,017
682
United Kingdom
Also, how the hell do you do it since it demands a DVD?

Using this magical device known as an external CD/DVD drive....

LOL. Of course Sims 3 will run on any 2012 machine. Its old game!
Have you heard, there are this thing called "external cd/dvd-drive" ?
..or if you dont want to use physical media, you can always use image file.

I know it will run, but will it run well? I know some people with 2011 iMacs and yet it still lags. And with expansion packs planned well into '13, it's not that old.

Has anyone got any useful information? Anyone play it on the new 21.5" iMac?
 

9367942

Cancelled
May 16, 2010
141
10
I think I should run absolutely fine on your machine, It runs smoothly on my 2009 3.06 Ghz iMac and the gameplay is fluid with no lag at all, so you really shouldn't worry. my model has the nvidia geforce card though
 

laryenhilllvr

macrumors regular
Dec 29, 2012
127
2
NYC
not sure if you have visited forum.thesim3.com mac section, if not i would recommend you pay it a visit.

i asked the same thing over there and there was one user that has a 21" (i forget her specs), but she said she had no lagging and the graphics were all on high. she was quite surprised at how drastic the gaming experience was from her mbp. from what i've heard simming through bootcamp is 10x better, but i just can't bring myself to not use the native os.

now to bring balance to the picture there are several very serious errors caused playing the game on mac (many are game ruining ie crashing within a few minutes of play, etc) so i would be careful or at least ready to play via bootcamp if you do play on the imac.
 

AQUADock

macrumors 65816
Mar 20, 2011
1,049
37
Using this magical device known as an external CD/DVD drive....



I know it will run, but will it run well? I know some people with 2011 iMacs and yet it still lags. And with expansion packs planned well into '13, it's not that old.

Has anyone got any useful information? Anyone play it on the new 21.5" iMac?

It should run fine but you would have much better performance if you played it in BootCamp as the Mac version is just a windows application running under Cider.
 

virginblue4

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
2,017
682
United Kingdom
not sure if you have visited forum.thesim3.com mac section, if not i would recommend you pay it a visit.

i asked the same thing over there and there was one user that has a 21" (i forget her specs), but she said she had no lagging and the graphics were all on high. she was quite surprised at how drastic the gaming experience was from her mbp. from what i've heard simming through bootcamp is 10x better, but i just can't bring myself to not use the native os.

now to bring balance to the picture there are several very serious errors caused playing the game on mac (many are game ruining ie crashing within a few minutes of play, etc) so i would be careful or at least ready to play via bootcamp if you do play on the imac.

It should run fine but you would have much better performance if you played it in BootCamp as the Mac version is just a windows application running under Cider.

If I begin playing it on OS X and then say 4 months down the line I decide to use Bootcamp, will I being able to transfer all of my saved game data over to Bootcamp or will I have to start fresh?
 

mslide

macrumors 6502a
Sep 17, 2007
707
2
If I begin playing it on OS X and then say 4 months down the line I decide to use Bootcamp, will I being able to transfer all of my saved game data over to Bootcamp or will I have to start fresh?

It should work fine. I've transferred saves from Windows to Mac.

I agree with playing under bootcamp. The Sims games have always been one of those games that no matter how fast your computer is, it's always somewhat of a pig and cider will just make it that much worse. Don't get me wrong, it will run just fine on your new iMac. Just not as wicked fast as one might expect considering how old the game is and how new your computer is.

Playing under bootcamp also opens up the possibility of playing it under Origin so you don't have to have the DVD loaded while playing it. I was able to register my physical copies of The Sims 3 and add ons with Origin. I was also able to register add ons I purchased through Steam during their Winter sale.
 
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