Sims 3 vs Sims 4?

[ROCKETMAN JOE]

Hello, I see this game is super cheap for the winter sales, but I was wondering how it compares to the third iteration. The third game isn't on sale, butI would like to know how 'complete' this game is compared to 3 ie what features are missing from 4 that are in 3 or which DLC's add more to gameplay.

The youtuber Robbaz still makes videos with SIms 3, so I was wondering whether 3 is the superior game or not.

[Victoria Raverna]

The Sims 3 is open world. You load and save the whole map/world. No loading screen when you go to visit other lots.

[Tiberius]

Sims 3 is better in almost every aspect, but it has performance issue (memory leaks and no 64bit support)

Sims 3 is almost unplayable with all xpac installed for me.

[𝔜𝔲𝔢]

Originally posted by Tiberius:

Sims 3 is almost unplayable with all xpac installed for me.

Same here, just barely playable with the overwatch-mod (and the loading-times are atrocious). Haven't touched it in a while and just played Sims 4 instead.

Sims 4 runs a lot better (no crashes, no lagging) for me, so that's a big plus. I'd say Sims 3 gameplay is quite a bit better and deeper overall, but the technical issues are really, really bad.
Go for Sims 4 if you like to play games without having to worry about freezes, lags, crashes, weird bugs and being forced to download mods to make it somewhat playable.
If you can handle frustration and are willing to download some mods, then Sims 3 might overall give you a more interesting experience due to open-world, more challenges and
superior gameplay compared to Sims 4.

[HiFive]

Sims 4 gives you a very small neighborhood to roam in. If you want to go to the park, or the gym, or the museum, you must use your computer to "travel" to that spot - which means a loading screen. Sims 3 has the entire town at your disposal, with cars and other vehicles to travel from place to place, or you can jog into town or into the mountains, or beaches, or whatever. In Sims 3, you only need to travel if you want to visit some of the other lands given to you in DLC that you've purchased.

Sims 3 and Sims 4 are really 2 different styles of games. Because of the way Sims 4 is configured, it runs smoother and usually has fewer problems (unless they've just put out an update that is bugged). I think it's probably best not to buy ALL of the DLC for Sims 3, since some of them have serious problems associated with them. For instance, I uninstalled "Pets" because it was way too buggy, and it took me forever to research how to get it completely uninstalled so the game would work again. (Uninstalling "Pets" broke the game.) I don't use Overwatch, or any other programs or mods to fix the game, and just use Seasons, Generations, Amitions, and World Adventures as DLC. It works pretty well for me as long as I save often, don't try to rush things, and don't use the speed button too much. I hope to eventually get a few more DLCs for it, but I'm checking to make sure they aren't full of bugs like the Pets one was, because it was just too hard to uninstall that one.

Edit: Also, I recently figured out that a lot of the times when I'm having glitches on the game, it's because Windows is downloading an update. Windows Notepad also messes up the game, for some reason. I like to leave it open to Alt-Tab out of my games and type some notes about the game, but I can't do that when I'm playing Sims 3 (because it will eventually crash the game), for some reason. Windows Notepad does not mess with my other games.

[ROCKETMAN JOE]

Interesting answers... I was not expecting this kind of agreement with regards to SIms 3... Too bad 3's not on sale though. And the performance issues seem to be a serious issue as well. Hopefully 5 will take the best of both worlds to make something truly fantastic.

[AtomicLugia]

Go with Sims 3 - even if they never bring it to sale to push the inferior Sims 4, the DLC's offer way more than Sims 4's DLC do

[Darkening Demise]

If you have an SSD Sims 3 runs so much better. Also shorter loading screen. The game isn't bad. These are just Sims 4 fanboys attacking the better game. Just don't activate all DLC in Sims 3 and it will run good on modern hardware. Pets and Seasons are the most demanding performance wise also just a heads up. The game is better gameplay wise but Sims 4 has better graphics. So its the old question you prefer graphics or gameplay?

[Old Cat 🐱]

SSD has almost no impact on performance, which is terrible if you use all Sims3 dlcs. Even on the most modern hardware.

And considering how good the Sims3 dlcs are, it's very hard to choose what to disable. Meanwhile in Sims4 you don't have to choose, you can play with all existing dlcs just fine.

[Jazz]

I've played both games (own both on origin) and in my opinion Sims 3 is better in basically every aspect (except graphics)... Runs perfectly fine on my pc too btw

[GMH]

I played The Sims 4 for 5 hours after purchasing on Autumn Sale, and it made me went back entirely to The Sims 3. I now have clocked 300 hours in a month. I cannot stand The Sims 4 loading screen to travel between lots. It is a big showstopper for me.