Hello,

I have alle Sims 3 expansion packs and stuff packs and a heap of EA CC.
In addition I like playing large, detailed custom worlds like Miyaco etc.
Also I cannot play without bunch of mods from mts and of course almost all mods form Twallan. Especially the cpu intensive StoryProgression.
Many, many other CC from TSR and other similar sites is also in use.

Yes, this is a lot, but its the only way I can play sims3 so that its fun for me.

Currently I play (max. settings) with a Intel Core2 3GHZ, 6GB Ram and a Geforce 8800 GTS. Or I should say I cannot play it really, because - no wonder - its too laggy.
Without StoryProgression is playable, but non really smooth. Even on small original EA worlds without mods or CC its non really fun too play. If I play so, there are no lags, buts still too slow for my taste and of course as I said, I enjoy sims3 only heavily modded.

I bought a fast 256GB Sasmung SSD, but the improvement for the loading times is very disappointing. The SSD has only a few percent workload from Sims3..so even for loading times it seems only the cpu matters. (The loading time for savegames doesnt matter, it would be nice if it would be faster, but my concern is only the gameplay performance.)

So now my question for your guys here,
I am planning to buy a new CPU/RAM and graphic card, but even with the newest generation of hardware, will it work with all the addons, mods, CC, as I described at the beginning of my post.

My concerns are these:
RAM: I havent seen Sims3 using more than 2GB even on 64bit systems, so it doesn't really matter. I will get only a little improvement form new DDR3 RAM in comparison to my old ones. Nothing of worth of course.

graphic card: My old one is good enough to play on the highest setting, Sim3 has no high demands on the card anyway. So a new one will not change much, only the bigger amount of VRAM will be in handy for texture loading times.

CPU: This is the only thing really matters in Sims3.
If I get a new Core i5 or even a i7 with 4/8 cores á 3,2-3,4GHZ will it make a big difference? So far as I know Sims3 doesn't use more than 2 cores anyway.
So now I have 2x 3GHZ, if I upgrade I would have 2x 3,2-3,4GHZ + Intel Turbo. Of course windows can have the other cores for it self, but windows only use 3-4% Cpu anyway.
On the paper it sounds not much, if it breaks down on only this..I could overclock my old cpu on 4GHZ and would have the same increase - for the price of a new cpu heat sink.
Or I am wrong on something?

So the abbreviation from my post, is it even possible to play sims3 smooth, lag free, even on very fast with all the mods, worlds, CC, I wrote on the beginning. It would be nice, if someone can answer this form this own personal experience..
Or must I wait for Sims4 and hope that EA will program Sims4 decent and not so shitty like Sims3, with real support for all 8 or for the future 16 cores.

Thanks for your replies.
PS. Before someone ask this; of course the performance matters only sims3 and the hardware, there are no bad, broken mods, CC, so please stay by the original question.

Intel Core 2? Don't you mean Core 2 Duo?
When buying, make sure your motherboard supports the new processor, and that you have a good enough power supply to support the new video card.
I am sure it's possible to play the game smoothly but beware, too much CC might not only slow down everything, it might make your game unusable after some time and not criticising your way of playing but I think that too much downloads are a pain when something goes wrong and you need to find the culprit or when you update the game.

Your computer isn't that bad. I think the real problem problem lies on the CC.
Read those articles:
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...ackage_File_Lag
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...s_3_Performance
Also change your graphics settings.
Medium-low should be enough... or maybe medium-high.

Did you put your My Documents folder onto the SSD?