Sudden Jump in FPS at startup on Sims 3 = Instantaneous Panic Mode

One of the perils of playing Sims 3 on a 2.2GHz machine with an integrated graphics chip - highly NOT recommended.

You end up with a graphics fps rate that is nothing to write home to Mom about: between 7-18fps at the most and 23 in bursts. Since Sims 3 is capped at 60fps...anything more than that can potentially burn out the CPU as well as the graphics chip.