The Sims™ 3 Minimum Hardware Requirements
FOR WINDOWS XP
  • 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
  • The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
  • Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
  • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games
FOR WINDOWS VISTA
  • 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
  • 1.5 GB RAM
  • 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
  • Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
  • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games
For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows, the game requires at least:
  • Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
  • 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
  • 0.5 GB additional RAM
FOR MAC OS X
  • Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
  • Intel Core Duo Processor
  • 2 GB RAM
  • ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100.
  • At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games
  • This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards.
Windows Supported Video Cards
NVIDIA GeForce series
    FX 5900, FX 5950
    6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
    7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
    8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
    9300, 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
    G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150
    GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295
ATI Radeon™ series
    9500, 9600, 9800
    X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
    X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
    2400, 2600, 2900
    3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
    4850, 4870
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
    GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series
Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly.
Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants may default to settings that are higher than what would be optimal for them. Graphics settings can be lowered to improve performance.
The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.
MAC OS X Supported Video Cards
NVIDIA GeForce series
    7300, 7600
    8600, 8800
    9400M, 9600M GT
    GT 120, GT 130
ATI Radeon™ series
    X1600, X1900
    2400, 2600
    3870
    4850, 4870
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
    GMA 3-Series