need urgent help- lost all sims 3 saves.[SOLVED]

done 2 things sins our last game playing, which was o.k:

1.downloaded and installed Monte Vista and the Greenhouse from mediafire.

2.planned to make copy of my saves to the desktop, but instead made cut /paste.
after trying to play with the game and discovering that nothing saved we found that the saves folder in documents/electronic arts/ the sims 3 is empty.
copied back the saves to it right place( from the one saved on desktop), and even after restarting the pc, didn't help. all we built in the game doesn't show.

help please.

//EDIT

o/k i solved it.
it was a stupid thing that i even not sure that is was that, but it is the only thing i did.
when i opened the saves folder i found that it leads to an additional saves folder
and he is the one with all the saves content. ( i guess it something that happened when i copied back the saves).
so i fixed it so the content will be in the first and only folder, and that did it.
the good news is that this incident proved me that the 'saves' back up thing really works.

i would like to ask some other thing please.
recently, loading the game takes a lot of time.
can it be because we installed a lot of store content?
is there anything to improve it?

second question is - our pc graphic card is a very basic one.
recently i'm thinking of upgrading it.
do you think it will improve our game playing efficiency?

thank you for giving me those links.
my graphic card is an onboard one, so I'm planning to upgrade it anyway.
the CC Magic thing is interesting.
is it complicated to use it?

sounds simple.
o.k , i'll try it.
thank you.

o.k ,
you cat actually close this topic as solved, if I'll need any help after installing CCmagic i'll ask again.
btw, the site that you gave me it's link, that check system requirements, helped me a lot.
i had problems to install some game ( purchased cd) , and now i understand why.
thank you.