The Sims 4™

Published by Electronic Arts Inc. and developed by MAXIS, The Sims 4™, put simply, is a basic life simulator. Sims live, grow old, and even die, and, as you play the game, your goal is to simply watch all of this happen. Like any diety, you can take a hands off or a very active role in guiding and directing your Sims lives. More than this, The Sims 4™ provides a platform for content creators, storytellers, programmers, to do more than just watch the lives of Sims, and occassionally "accidently" lead them to a Cowplant.

Tsukiyomi Miu

Though The Sims4™ has been out for quite some time, I have only discovered the joys of this game back in 2019. Despite this I have surprised myself by logging several hours of gameplay when I first started. I could not believe exactly how addictive a game about life could be. I don't play nearly as much anymore, but I still enjoy a long session every now and then.

Not all of my time, however, as been spent playing the game, and some of my time performing Sims related tasks has not been logged. This is because I have spent many hours customizing my game by finding or even creating my own custom content and mods.

The Sims 4™ is designed to be customizable and many parts can be changed or added to the game with some ease. I am a web designer/developer by background, but have also dabled in 3D modeling and 2D art. As such I have spent many hours not just searching for content to make my game more interesting, but also, creating my own. Hence this site. Rather than using a blogging platform, or some other prexisting site, I decided to use the resources I have accumulated, as well as my own knowledge and experience to create a custom place to host my content, and tell my stories!

The Machines

Not that anyone asked, but I thought I'd take a few moments to also introduce the two main computers that I use to play The Sims™ as well as get my work done. There used to be only one, but I've found having separate work and play computers is quite helpful and the second one was given to me, so, why not?

Lexi

Lexi is a Windows 10 PC. She was designed primarily has a Home-Theatre Personal Computer, or HTPC, but she is much larger than most HTPCs, because she had to do more. At the time of her build, and yes Lexi is a custom-built PC, Lexi had to not only play media, watch and record live TV and play light games she had to play more demanding PC games, handle blender renders, edit at least 1080p content, compress large files as well as general work and web browsing. A larger case was used to accomodate all the add-on cards she would need to perform some of these tasks, including a full-sized dedicated graphics card.

Specs

CPU

Intel Core i7-7700 base clock 3.4GHz, boost to 4.1GHz

RAM

16GB dual-channel DDR4

GPU

NVIDIA GeForce GTX-960 (old)

NVIDIA GeForece GTX 1650 super

VRAM

4GB GDDR5

Storage

• System Drive: Western Digital Black, NvME SSD (512GB)
• Game Drive: Western Digital Black, SATA Hybrid HDD (1TB)
• Media Drive: Wester Digital Passport, USB 3.0 External HDD (1TB)

Izzie

Not to be confused with Izzie Smith this Izzie is the second addition to my computer family. Izzie is a late 2012 iMac. She was given to me by my sister who won her at work. She had taken over most of the work that Lexi has been doing. Lexi's hardware and set up still make her better suited for playing games or blender rendering, but Izzie could run The Sims™, though at lower settings, and was perfect for testing new CC and Mods. In addition I used Izzie for editing this site as well as creating various art assets for CC and Mods not to mention general web browsing and school work. Izzie has since been given a new home on my mom's desk and no longer contributes to my work. She was replaced by a new MacBook Air.

Specs

CPU

Intel Core i5-3330S, base clock 2.7GHz

RAM

8GB single-channel, DDR3

GPU

NVIDIA GT640M

VRAM

512MB

Storage

System Drive: SATA HDD (1TB)

Madoka

I recently acquired a 2020 MacBook Air. This is definately the newest computer in my collection. I've been suprised on how well this machine handles the tasks that Izzie used to perform. That computer was great, but beginning to show her age. It was sometimes frustrating waiting several minutes for things to load, but this is no longer a problem. With a dongle, Madoka can be, and often is, plugged into a large 1080p TV (the same one Lexi is plugged into in fact) and is great for editing this site as well as working on art assets in this state, not to mention playing The Sims™.

Specs

CPU

Apple M1

RAM

8GB unified memory

GPU

Apple M1 (8-core)

VRAM

8GB unified memory (shared with system RAM)

Storage

System Drive: Apple SSD (512 GB)