For some odd reasons on many various graphics cards The Sims 3 will have high FPS (frames-per-second) rates.  It’s said that having too high of FPS could possibly crash your game or worse, cause your graphics card to overheat.  I don’t know much about the situation to be honest other than what I’ve picked up from various forums.  When I ran Fraps (a program that detects FPS) it reported my card was pumping out on average 320-350 FPS.  Most games are usually 30-60.

I haven’t experienced any problems as of yet with graphical glitches or overheating – but that could be due to the fact that I rigged two extra fans over my graphics cards in my PC to begin with.  For those of you who are less savvy and are worried about this problem, I think there is a tool called ‘FPS Limiter‘ that should lower the FPS to a more acceptable standard.

EA is aware of this issue, as SimGuruBGY posted the following in this thread:

Hey, folks.

Discussion of the FPS limiter will not get anyone in trouble – EA, however, cannot endorse the use of that particular program since we haven’t checked the code for bugs; use at your own risk.

We are looking into solutions for the excessive FPS issue, and when we have more information, we’ll be posting it here.

Regards,

-Big Guy-

Any questions about the FPS Limiter program…I don’t think I’ll be able to help you out with that as I’ve yet to use the program and haven’t experienced any signs of failing hardware or graphical glitches.  Just thought I’d through this out there so folks will know EA is aware of the problem.

*update* – Another FPS Limiter program can be found here (base game only).  Thanks to Riley for pointing this out!