The Sims 3

What works

1. Running the Sims 3 Installer
2. Installing Expansion Packs (Ambitions, World Adventures, Late Night, Generations, Showtime and Pets were tested in particular)
3. Installing Expansion Packs via mounted ISOs and not discs (due to technical difficulties I had to use this, but I did nothing illegal as I used the same serial. But I'm assuming cracking and/or illegal versions would work)
4. Running the Sims 3. All expansion packs present.
5. Inserting/replacing files into Documents/Electronic Arts/Sims 3 and the inserted files being affective.
6. Adding Mods through Documents/Electronic Arts/Sims 3/Mods/Packages when mod environment and scripts are present
7. Adding Custom Music through Documents/Electronic Arts/Sims 3/Custom Music
8. Adding and replacing saved games manually (through the file system c_drive in WINE)
9. Patching manually using the installer

View Extra comments on instructions to load.

The game generally works. Occasionally there are bugs (which I have yet to file but will) but only very minor and not a huge problem.

What does not

1. The Launcher, therefore
2. Installing Custom Content via .sims3pack files which are meant to be installed through the Launcher
3. Upgrading, updating and patching (through Origin, which at present does not work on WINE)
4. Installing Expansion Packs on Origin, since it does not currently work on WINE
   

That's about it. As you can see, the pros definitely outweigh the cons, and technically because the game itself can be loaded flawlessly (but not the Launcher) and no 3rd Party content was needed, I will mark this as Platinum.

Workarounds

What was not tested

1. Some other Expansion Packs (Supernatural, Seasons - not released yet) and
   
2. All Stuff Packs were not installed or tested/played

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

To load game: 1) Open 'Browse C: Drive' from the Applications listed (wherever yours may be) with a wine logo certifying that it is a Wine program. 2) Open 'Program Files' (for x32/86 OSes) or 'Program Files x86' (for x64 OSes) 3) Open 'Electronic Arts' To create a desktop li 4) Open 'The Sims 3' (the Vanilla folder. You could open the SP/EP folders and do the following but I have tested and know all works with the Vanilla folder) 5) Open 'Game' 6) Open 'Bin' 7) Double click or Right Click>Open As...>Wine Program Loader on the TS3.exe 8) Your game should execute How to Create a desktop 'Short Cut': 1) Do as above to locate TS3.exe 2) Right click > Make Link... 3) In the Sims 3 Folder of which you are in, there will be a new file called 'Link to TS3.exe' with an additional arrow to signal its a shortcut (link) 4) Right Click>Move To...>Desktop (Or Cut/Ctrl+X and Paste wherever) 5) You know have a working shortcut. Notes: DO NOT Copy and Paste the file to the desktop! Or Cut and Paste. The game will be ineffective if you do so, but it can be fixed by moving the file back to its original folder

THE GAME WORKS AMAZINGLY WELL!
How to install in Linux:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8hRxlyeyIo
Old gameplay in Linux:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxaEwRoNsWQ
New gameplay in Linux (recorded with GLC)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfusLZHwQ58

Thankyou Jake Ward

• If you make a new starter on your desktop, then type "xgamma -gamma 1" (w/o quotes) as the command to run. Quickest way to reset gamma.
• You should leave the game set to fullscreen and set the "Screen Size" option to the resolution you chose in winecfg. The game will change your screen's brightness, which is annoying, but attempting to run it windowed inside the virtual desktop causes odd problems. Although this is dependent on your video card and I myself did not get the problem.
  
  
• "Enable Advanced Rendering" may not work for some. It's worked fine in 1.1.21, but had some odd problems with it in 1.1.23. Sometimes the screen, starting at the top left corner, would become tinted with a colour, usually red, purple, or white. This hasn't happened to in the slightly older wine, only 1.1.23.
  
  
• Lighting and Shadows is slightly buggy at higher settings. Specifically, there is a lot of flicker at times with certain shadows.
  
  
• SAVE OFTEN. There still seems to be another memory leak, even with the patched source. Try to save once or twice a day, game time. Depending on what you're doing, the game may crash often or may only crash rarely, but it will eventually crash. Large events, frequent travel, and build mode all seem to cause this to occur faster. *Please note this may be fixed in newer wine versions
  
  
• Downloading content doesn't work, but the launcher itself does, and can be accessed easily from within Sims 3 (the "Open Launcher" menu item). If you have access to a windows PC with the game installed, you can download content, such as the Riverview town, there and then transfer the .Sims3Pack files to your Linux install. Put the .Sims3Pack files in My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Downloads\ ('My Documents' being the path you set My Documents to above) and the launcher should be able to install them. *Please note this may be fixed in newer wine versions
  
  
• If the Sims3Launcher crashes of an error such as "Unhandled Exception: System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory" it's probably a truetype font problem. See appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=3754 for details on how to fix.
  
  
• Seting OffscreenRenderingMode to fbo in regedit, the texture problems seem to have disappeared altogether
  

To use the launcher you need to install dotnet20 via winetricks!

Receiving the following?
fixme:actctx:parse_depend_manifests Could not find dependent assembly
L"Microsoft.VC80.CRT" (8.0.50727.762)
err:module:attach_process_dlls "MSVCR80.dll" failed to initialize, aborting
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for
L"\\Program Files\\The Sims 3\\Game\\Bin\\TS3.exe" failed, status c0000142

Fix by installing vcrun2005sp1 with "winetricks vcrun2005sp1"

If you have nvidia card and are having brightness issues, after entering the game, use the command 'nvidia-settings -l' (in terminal) or just launch the nvidia panel to solve the brightness problem. If the problem appears again, just repeat the command.
For ATI on Ubuntu 10.04 x64 the following works fine; Go to System->Control Center->ATI Catalyst Control Center->Color and click the Default button. The colors now change back to normal.

Bug 18991 (crash loading a town) fix:
env WINEPREFIX="~/.wine" TZ="America/Bahia" wine "TS3.exe"
Note: It might be best to change America/Bahia to your own TimeZone

Note that Greg Noe was able to download content (at least the Rivertown) by launching the Launcher from within the game, killing the TS3.exe process (launcher won't let you download while the game is running), and then just downloading like usual.

Here are the patch links: (if you have any more, feel free to post them)

PLEASE VIEW HERE FOR MORE PATCHES: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/175477.page

1.0.631.00001: http://na.llnet.eadownloads.ea.com/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/Sims3_1.2.7.00001_from_1.0.631.00001.exe

1.0.631.00002: http://na.llnet.eadownloads.ea.com/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/Sims3_1.2.7.00002_from_1.0.631.00002.exe

1.0.631.00003: http://na.llnet.eadownloads.ea.com/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/Sims3_1.2.7.00003_from_1.0.631.00003.exe

1.0.631.00005: http://na.llnet.eadownloads.ea.com/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/Sims3_1.2.7.00005_from_1.0.631.00005.exe

1.0.631.00107: http://na.llnet.eadownloads.ea.com/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/Sims3_1.2.7.00107_from_1.0.631.00107.exe

1.3.24.00001: akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_1.3.24.00001_from_1.2.7.00001.exe

1.3.24.00002: akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_1.3.24.00002_from_1.2.7.00002.exe

1.3.24.00003: akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_1.3.24.00003_from_1.2.7.00003.exe

1.3.24.00004: akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_1.3.24.00004_from_1.2.7.00004.exe

1.3.24.00005: akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_1.3.24.00005_from_1.2.7.00005.exe

1.3.24.00107: akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_1.3.24.00107_from_1.2.7.00107.exe

Simply type the following into a terminal which should fix the brightness/gamma change the game performs: xgamma -gamma 1