It's a "reduced engine." A lot of things were stripped. The Sims 2 Castaway Stories doesn't allow to place new lots and TS2 Pet Stories doesn't have elders but they are good for what they are. The point of this thread was to compare the improvements of The Sims Medieval compared to The Sims 3, not to point out all that's missing. There's no aging or focus on family play (it may be a deal breaker for some), but I enjoy it for what it is. You can forgo questing and just play without any objectives or responsibilities. And nope, it's not a glorified choose your own adventure. Other than missing some life stages (toddlers, teens and elders), aging (babies become children but that's it) and a build mode, it's not that different to The Sims 3. It has traits and a fatal flaw that affect behavior. Sims go around their lives and do certain activities, they socialize and form relationships, children are born. Simulation is pretty good, albeit limited, in Medieval. There's only so much we can do with such an outdated tech.
Constant read/write cache swapping creates latency even on a ramdisk.
However, even so, it is still limited by the 32-bit 3.4GB limitation. So to render this, if you have 64 GB of RAM and can put the whole TS3 on a ramdisk, you can reach the maximum potential of TS3. are all loaded from HDD while the game is in play. Game still loads dynamically as you play, such as texture, objects, cache, etc. The only thing that is limiting it at the moment is the HDD read/write speed. TS3 is a 32-bit 2009 game, it has reached its potential limit to some degree. no weather effects (season is a big one for TS3 performance) sims with no true simulation, aging, etc. much much reduced build mode, only furnishing. They're premade and you can only furnish, cannot rebuild. 5-10 lots, not to mention they're not true lots. It has less simulation than TS2 or even TS1. TSM is just a glorified choose your own adventure. TSM and TS3 are completely different games! This comparison is not accurate. TS3's world are too big and it takes a lot of Sims to make the world look this lively and lots of Sims affect TS3 performance so it's a lose-lose situation. Probably a side-effect of the world being rather small, but I love the fact there are Sims everywhere (and most of them have interesting pre-defined behaviors). It probably helps that there are less patterns, but there's certainly an improvement overall compared to The Sims 3. I don't show it off too much here (38:50), but CASt works super smooth. No textures popping in? I know it takes 1 second to load the interior of a building but I didn't see any texture popping in the way it does in TS3.
AI was running at full speed at all times (Sims were doing things at all times). Simulation run at full speed at all times even on Ultra Speed. Not only routing is better but Sims seem to be able to dodge each other (55:10) and they don't need as much space to perform actions. There are still some quirks here and there, like my monarch Sim choosing to go to her bedroom to eat (when there were chairs available in the dining room). It probably helps that Medieval has a smaller world than TS3, but they definitely did a better job at painting routable and unroutable terrain. I think there was only one routing failures in the whole video (a guy at the church), and no stuck Sims in the world. The end of one interaction and the beginning of another is not very noticeable. You'll notice it when Sims walk up the stairs, and even when they're socializing. Animations are more fluid and the transition between animations is smoother. Character models are way better proportioned and new features such as subsurface scattering make them look better than in any other Sims game. Obvious graphic improvements compared to The Sims 3. Some things I noticed while playing Medieval: I know most of us have managed to improve The Sims 3's performance and make it playable and enjoyable, but Medieval runs fine (better than TS3 ever will) out of the box. I recorded a video showcasing Medieval's gameplay as well as the 100% lag-free open world: Considering the fact Medieval runs on The Sims 3 engine, this is something truly mesmerizing to experience. Even Create-A-Style is faster and lag-free. At least on my computer the game runs way better than The Sims 3 and completely, 100% lag-free. The Sims Medieval is an open world Sims game with ABSOLUTELY no lag whatsoever. I've been playing a lot of Medieval recently and I noticed something amazing. 100% Lag-Free Open World: The Sim Medieval and the potential of The Sims 3