Amjoie the plants - like the rugs are fine. Look at it this way - if you click on a object and the only reaction your sims get is veiw - then 99 percent of the time that object is okay to Moo - but in the scheme of things keep in mind the space the object will use if not mooed as sims will not see the space you have freed - they see things as if no moo was ever used - so just test it. But you are almost always fine mooing things that sims can only view or never inter act with.
Regarding ghosts -
Like I posted I am not sure if it will work with Sims ghosts not on your lot, but keep clicking on the ghost sims and see if they get the option to go to the Netherworld - if they do - say yes and they will take their tombstone and permanently vanish. (I have only sent ghosts to Netherworld on my home lot, and generally had befriended them and sometimes made them playable. But clicking on them eventually will give that option. Sometimes it takes a while though. It used to be easier.
Changing sims appearance and traits has not shown to ever be a problem. So change away. In fact EA made it easier to change appearance without getting problems when they created Salons and that career. It is made to do that just like plastic surgery is.
Deleting is easy - like I said because our sims we add to the game are not hardwired into that hood - just like we can add them - we can delete them - but you want to only try and do that with sims who have not formed any real relationships in the game. If EA made no way for us to delete our own sims - that would stink. I know I have made my share who looked perfect in CAS and in game went all freaky looking. Not so much now a days, but in the early days - oh my sweet Lord they were gory.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I am really glad you posted this issue, I have to say this is one of the most informative threads I've read on these forums. I have long suspected MOO to mess up my games some, though I noticed it with the base game and some of the houses that came with it were almost unlivable (because of the way objects were merged) so I avoided using it for years. Recently I have started using it for landscaping and lights but maybe I'll have to rethink that. The trees and fencing issues are really good to know about, I have never seen anyone mention them.
I am especially glad to know about the deleting sims issue! That is something I do pretty much in every game I start. I hate having to kill them off in game (I know they are just computer avatars but I still feel bad when I do it) so I usually move them out in edit town and trash them that way.
Thanks for all the helpful information that has been posted!
My games always seem to degenerate into lagfests, now I know a couple possible reasons. Up until Pets I never used cheats, cc, or mods (except motherlode and make all happy, occasionally). After Pets though I literally can not play with out mods because the game will systematically kill off all the toddlers in my towns (as well as adults too). Size of the town doesn't seem to be a factor as it will do it on half-empty ones as well as fuller ones. And as watcing a town develop and progress over time is a big part of the fun for me in Sims, I have to use mods now (Twallan's).
I have heard before that houses having outdoor items can lag neighborhoods. I have tried minimizing these items but have not really seen a difference. Recently, I have started minimizing skill items in neighborhood houses and instead incorporating them into commercial lots. So, for example, the art museum becomes a museum and art school with drafting tables, sculpting stations, and easels. I am not sure this will be an improvement or not as I am still in the process of rebuilding some lots. Does anyone know if this is as actual issue or not?
And one more question... does anyone know if using the ceiling light squares in buydebug affects the game (lag-wise or other)? I have just starting using them to augment some of the lights I love but that are too dim and I want to make sure I am not hurting my game.
No problem. I know if I was scared i would make a copy of my entire game and save it some where else - that way if I didn't like the results I would not lose it if I decide to go back where I was.
But I am always glad to help where i can. My game does play good - I also have a high end pc - which also helps me battle the demons for answers - so i know not everybody can waste all the time I do just looking from things. So I have the time and machine not everyone is fortunate enough to have - i am just glad I can answer questions people want help with.
I know in my case my game runs circles around to how it ran with 129 with the 133 update. Things seems much smoother and easier - but that is just my opinion.
Well off to go feed the kitties and make supper. I wish that was as easy as the sims doing it. hehehe
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Well according to the Sims team in their own words and this goes still as recent as when I beta Tested Showtime for them - NEVER DELETE SIMS. Kill them, and let them die, move them on - do not delete them.
So where do we find EA's information about this? Cos they must have publicly announced something as important as that and I'm afraid I missed it.
And what about moving sims from hood to hood? Are there any problems with doing that?
Hey Marie, I just saw your post and will quickly answer what I know - absolutely no - the buydebug lights do not cause any problems and is a great way to lighten dark places in and outside. At least I have never had any issues with any and most worlds I play have lots of them.
No lag is not generally created by the amount of content if your pc has the capability - that would be more an issue with older pcs with one or two processors that are slower to begin with and ram. I have 6 processors - fast ones - set factury at 3.2 mhz and they are the black edition so are fully overclockable - but I don't overclock - and I have 8 gigs of high speed gaming ram - but in my case it would take tons and tons of stuff and I would not get slowdowns. My sims have everything - the problem though comes if the stuff they have in their yard creates any routing problems then you will get lag. Especially if you have Pets installed it can be a big problem if strays get stuck by all your sims yard stuff. So if you have the ram and pc capable of handling the content, still keep the thought in mind that wild pets and neighbor pets might have a problem in your yard and other sims yards. And I think making community lots with these items a brillant Idea. I have a community college - an idea actually Happysimmer3 came up with eons ago and have rooms using the different item sims can use and skill with. Just remember to get them to take the finished work with them when they leave so they can sell or use the items.
I hope I have answered all your questions. If I missed any, just leave a note here. I really must go - my hubby and pets are glaring at me. hehehe
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Elanor it has always been a fact with Sims since the beginning and according to the Devs this has not changed. Simmers tried to say it had, but it never did and why the big modders had to make a mod to do it safely. But I have often seen them tell simmers not to delete the game sims and one of the team mentioned it was still the same way and had not changed when I mentioned deleting a sim while on the beta testing group for Showtime as well. If that ever changes that will be if the EA hoods do not come populated in the base game so no sims are hardwired.
No there is no problem moving sims in Sims 3, unlike sims 2 because we technically are only moving clones of the sims in Sims 3. They are in every game in every hood after we load them to our library - so it is never a problem.
Hope that helps. sorry to rush the answers but I really have to go - I just hate to leave anyone hanging.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Amjoie the plants - like the rugs are fine. Look at it this way - if you click on a object and the only reaction your sims get is veiw - then 99 percent of the time that object is okay to Moo - but in the scheme of things keep in mind the space the object will use if not mooed as sims will not see the space you have freed - they see things as if no moo was ever used - so just test it. But you are almost always fine mooing things that sims can only view or never inter act with.
Regarding ghosts -
Like I posted I am not sure if it will work with Sims ghosts not on your lot, but keep clicking on the ghost sims and see if they get the option to go to the Netherworld - if they do - say yes and they will take their tombstone and permanently vanish. (I have only sent ghosts to Netherworld on my home lot, and generally had befriended them and sometimes made them playable. But clicking on them eventually will give that option. Sometimes it takes a while though. It used to be easier.
Changing sims appearance and traits has not shown to ever be a problem. So change away. In fact EA made it easier to change appearance without getting problems when they created Salons and that career. It is made to do that just like plastic surgery is.
Deleting is easy - like I said because our sims we add to the game are not hardwired into that hood - just like we can add them - we can delete them - but you want to only try and do that with sims who have not formed any real relationships in the game. If EA made no way for us to delete our own sims - that would stink. I know I have made my share who looked perfect in CAS and in game went all freaky looking. Not so much now a days, but in the early days - oh my sweet Lord they were gory.
OK. That's what I thought you meant, but I wanted verification about the plants. I don't usually move things sims use, except sometimes I have moved instruments. I'll just be sure to make a point of not using MOO on anything other than things like plants. I'm good with that. No tears.
I'll have to experiment with ghosts in graveyards, so I can find some way to get rid of them. I hate graveyards. If I have to keep ghosts in my game, I'm going to make it look like a big fancy Asian "home for the ancestors," with urns on a shelf. At least that wouldn't be creepy looking. I simply will not have a graveyard in my game.
I sure appreciate all your answers, and they are coming at a very fortuitous time. Since I am still in the process of setting up Lunar Lakes, it will be easy to fix mistakes before I make a backup of my world set-up. I'll just save all my commercial lots, as I clean them up, and then stick them in the library. Once I have that all done, I'll start up a new world, and place the commercial lots, properly. It appears I will be doing a giant makeover of in-game sims, one house at a time. Or going on a killing spree and sending family ghosts to the great beyond, except for one or two that I've redone, to thin the population a mite.
I will get a stable game. I will. If I say it often enough, I might start believing it. LOL
Hey Marie, I just saw your post and will quickly answer what I know...
I hope I have answered all your questions. If I missed any, just leave a note here. I really must go - my hubby and pets are glaring at me. hehehe
Thank you for taking the time to respond! Hopefully with all I've learnt today I can reduce the lag in my games. I only have 3 processors @ 3.1 GHz and 4 gigs of RAM which I am stuck with probably until next year. Though I have been hinting to my son that more RAM would make a great Mother's Day gift!
I think I am going to have to make a testing world like I've seen so many others write about and go through all my house builds one-by-one and test them. I know there are routing issues with some of them, especially ones with spiral stairs. I have had to rescue townies many times being stuck from them. I thought I had fixed them at the time but now I am wondering what else I may have missed.
I have thought of another question. I recently installed a flatter version of Sunset Valley that has no lots or sims at all. Will the game freak out expecting the regular sims to be there or will it be like a truly empty world? Basically I want to make sure I am not setting up a game doomed to fail from the start.
The only way I can imagine you plopped a driveway on terrain with a tree on it was that you had moveobjects on set so that the driveway ignored the tree. If not then there is something set wrong with the driveway that allows it to be placed on a tree.
If you did not have moveobjects on set then there is a likely possibility that you have some lot corruption issue that popped a tree up after the driveway was there, as a symptom of the corruption and at some point you may see more. Usually when something like that happens spontaneously I bulldoze and remove the lot and set down a new clean lot to get rid of whatever is going on and start over. Once there is a sign of corruption its a good chance that no matter what you try and do to solve it it will continue to corrupt at some pace and eventually you will just have a bad lot. It happens to me on test lots a great deal when I have tested numerous thing over a period of time and hit a few problems.
I tried both my driveways, where a tree was, even pulled back where the object (tree) was hidden and the driveways stayed red and could not be placed. I tried with moveobjects on and the driveway could be placed and I got you lag/freeze symptoms. Usually the worst that happens when you use moveobjects on is that the sim routing to an object that is layers is blocked or they interact with one one time and the other another time but then move away and it does not cause game problems.
Why a tree planted in a driveway or a driveway planted over a tree would cause issues I am not sure except it may cause a glitch when then trying to place a car and that started some corruption going on the lot.
Two things I try to be careful of with moveobjects on when testing or building is to make sure no two objects that I overlay have a third thing they can do - including a an interactive slotting - such as driveway that holds a car and then shifts it to teh street (car disappears and reappears). With a tree there the game might have had an issue with that. Decorator slots don't seem to cause issues.
Its a good idea when building or testing to turn off moveobjects on until you need it and then accidentally these things don't happen. I would watch that lot carefully and if you get any other symptoms consider bulldozing the lot completely and setting down a fresh lot to use for testing so you know for sure when you have an issue in the future whether its really the object you are testing or old corruption rearing up again since it happened once.
I think this is how we get, now and then with an EP a lot that is corrupt after install for some people who play that lot, but not everyone. Something went wrong when the EP team was building the lot and they fixed that problem and continued to build but the lot already had on instance of corruption, that depending on what a player did later cause the corruption to continue on, while it did not for other people. I learned this back in my big building days for lots I uploaded to my site and backed up my game and saved manual backups when building so if I did something that caused a corruption - even tiny - I could go back to an early backup before I did that part of the build and just not repeat what I had done - saved me from losing all the work I did up to that point and kept me from releasing a lot that had corrupted once.
Well according to the Sims team in their own words and this goes still as recent as when I beta Tested Showtime for them - NEVER DELETE SIMS. Kill them, and let them die, move them on - do not delete them.
Very helpful information to know. That explains why my Sunset Valley world started to lag and eventually became corrupted. Everytime I had a paparazzi sim come to my sims home, I would delete them. Now I know why it started to act up after that. Thank you!
Along with that, this entire thread is helpful. I like to use MOO when creating lots(clubs and homes) to get a realistic feel but with only decorative items, and sometimes couches so they are against a wall when at an angle. I never use CC, I despise them, and always thought that there was some CC hiding in my game that I couldn't delete, but now I know that the issue is as simple as a bush or tree being too close to a driveway most of the time. What surprises me is that something so small could cause such a big issue for everyone. I'm not surprised though that EA did not release that info, though I do understand why. Having an issue that you know of and release it may just causes a lot of backlash. Most people would just say "fix it before you give it to us." I guess they just figured that no one would even think about hiding a driveway in bushes.
What happens in my game is that I like to have a lot of parking spaces so when my sim is at a club, the parking lot is full, but now I should go delete some of them so they are not interfering with their grid space.
The only way I can imagine you plopped a driveway on terrain with a tree on it was that you had moveobjects on set so that the driveway ignored the tree. If not then there is something set wrong with the driveway that allows it to be placed on a tree.
If you did not have moveobjects on set then there is a likely possibility that you have some lot corruption issue that popped a tree up after the driveway was there, as a symptom of the corruption and at some point you may see more. Usually when something like that happens spontaneously I bulldoze and remove the lot and set down a new clean lot to get rid of whatever is going on and start over. Once there is a sign of corruption its a good chance that no matter what you try and do to solve it it will continue to corrupt at some pace and eventually you will just have a bad lot. It happens to me on test lots a great deal when I have tested numerous thing over a period of time and hit a few problems.
I tried both my driveways, where a tree was, even pulled back where the object (tree) was hidden and the driveways stayed red and could not be placed. I tried with moveobjects on and the driveway could be placed and I got you lag/freeze symptoms. Usually the worst that happens when you use moveobjects on is that the sim routing to an object that is layers is blocked or they interact with one one time and the other another time but then move away and it does not cause game problems.
Why a tree planted in a driveway or a driveway planted over a tree would cause issues I am not sure except it may cause a glitch when then trying to place a car and that started some corruption going on the lot.
Two things I try to be careful of with moveobjects on when testing or building is to make sure no two objects that I overlay have a third thing they can do - including a an interactive slotting - such as driveway that holds a car and then shifts it to teh street (car disappears and reappears). With a tree there the game might have had an issue with that. Decorator slots don't seem to cause issues.
Its a good idea when building or testing to turn off moveobjects on until you need it and then accidentally these things don't happen. I would watch that lot carefully and if you get any other symptoms consider bulldozing the lot completely and setting down a fresh lot to use for testing so you know for sure when you have an issue in the future whether its really the object you are testing or old corruption rearing up again since it happened once.
I think this is how we get, now and then with an EP a lot that is corrupt after install for some people who play that lot, but not everyone. Something went wrong when the EP team was building the lot and they fixed that problem and continued to build but the lot already had on instance of corruption, that depending on what a player did later cause the corruption to continue on, while it did not for other people. I learned this back in my big building days for lots I uploaded to my site and backed up my game and saved manual backups when building so if I did something that caused a corruption - even tiny - I could go back to an early backup before I did that part of the build and just not repeat what I had done - saved me from losing all the work I did up to that point and kept me from releasing a lot that had corrupted once.
This is all good advice. And yes, MOO was on. I wasn't testing for viability, at that moment, but for making collection folders. I had just built a room for the Club Casual set, and had used MOO for making a group of plants look good together. I never even thought of turning MOO off, because I was just comparing two cars. I deleted the cars, and simply forgot to delete the driveways, as I had intended to do. But I thought nothing of it, being unaware I had plopped the driveway on top of a tree. It was just one of those silly things that happened under unusual circumstances. But I'm glad it happened, because otherwise I would never have learned all these other things that are going to make a big difference in the health of my game.
I'm trying to find a viable easy way to get rid of ghosts, without causing game corruption. I aged up Timothy Su from childhood to elder and then to a ghost. After he came out the first time to haunt the household, I clicked on him and got no option for sending him to the netherworld.
So I decided to see what happened if I used cheats. I enabled testing cheats, and shift-clicked on him. I had the option to trigger age transition, and I used it. I immediately got a popup with the following message:
The ghost of Timothy Su has finally lost his grip on the mortal realm. He may leave the Netherworld occasionally to visit, but cannot be restored.
I am assuming this is the message that you would receive if you had clicked normally on the ghost and had the option to send to it the netherworld. So I am guessing (hoping) that the game is going through the normal process, even though a cheat was used.
What think you? Is this safe?
If this is safe, then is it also safe to throw away Timothy Su's gravestone/urn?
Another question: When I went to the graveyard in Lunar Lakes, three ghosts were out at night. I used the cheat on Bella Goth with no problem, etc. Do the other gravestones have ghosts attached? They were able to be moved, in the daytime, when the three gravestones that ended up having ghosts at night said they could not be moved because they were in use, even during the daytime. So, if I have successfully sent the three active ghosts to the netherworld, can I safely delete the whole graveyard lot, despite the other gravestones?
Thanks for the info folks! very, very useful for future issues though you do make it sound as if playing the game scary! XD
I had this curious issue in a game I run in Starlight Shores.
On two occasions every human Sim except my house would go to a particular location and stay there. They weren't stuck and you could interact normally with them, but they wouldn't go to home, work etc. When invited to parties, they would arrive but almost immediately run back to the location they were previously in. The first time it was outside the gym, the 2nd it was the park.
resetSim * did send everyone home, however, everyone would quickly run back to the 'popular' location.
I had to re-start the map in both occasions to fix the issue. I had very little custom content (it crept onto my game via the exchange... I was naive), but a fair few store items I had appeared to be corrupted in the game launcher as was the game launcher itself [it would go white with several red crosses over it].
Still I am guessing it had something to do with corrupt hotspots?
I clean installed the game and re-downloaded all my store content. This seems to have fixed the launcher issue and World Adventures and from now on I will be keeping my game CC free unfortunately. I really wanted to get more Japanese items .
Marie you are good to go on both accounts. You have fast processors as processors 2.6 and higher are good and even better if the processors are all faster than 3.0 and yours is. 4 gigs of ram is good - more is always better, but the 4 will be a very good safe number. Believe it or not there are simmers trying to play this game on 2-3 gigs of ram. I'd be bald pulling my hair out with that. You can get a bit more of omph out of your game if you go into options and move shadows and lighting down to medium too as you really don't need it on high as there is little difference between high and medium visually, but it saves the pc enormously with nothing lost. Of course you do not have to do that, it just may be something you might want to consider. After resetting that particular setting you will need to quit the game and reboot the pc for that one setting to take affect - I believe it lets you know that also. But for now you sound good to go.
You are also good to go with the that empty version of SV - is that Magic Dancers as i know that one is good - just get the one with the lots already added as the ingame editor has it's own problems, so it is better if you make sure the world has lots and try not to add many using that world editor. You can generally get away with adding 3-4 before it starts breaking routing or appears to be breaking routing - but anyway that is based off of the CAW Sunset Valley lite that EA added to CAW for people to build their own worlds and it has never had sims in it to worry about. Hope that helps.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Stormwench, beware replacing too many lots with the ingame editor - it breaks routing. It has gotten worse with every ep. Then you will see lag you can't find a source to. The only safe way to replace lots is in CAW where they can reset the routing after placing all the lots. There have been many discussion on that world editor as it progressively gets worse. I don't even have an idea how they can fix it though, as there is no feasible way to do anything with routing if you are not in CAW.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Amjoie - that is the message you get when you get the option. In my case my ghosts took their tombstone with them - so I am wondering - did you quit the game after you did that and then come back later - as it may be the game had to dispense of them - but if they are not gone when you get back and the game said they are gone to the Netherworld - then yes they are safe to delete. You can put them in your sims inventory and have them sell them and make money also. Tombstones with a ghost are in use whether the ghost is in them or out of them, but generally I have been able to move occupied tombstone to my home lot - so that was weird - generally I just bring a sim with me in the daytime and put the grave stone with ghost in it in their inventory. Send the sim home then move the stone into their yard. So I am surprised you couldn't pick it up. I wonder if it was a glitch, or the cheat, or something changed. I have not interacted with ghosts since Showtime came out as i have been busy adding Venues and things to the many worlds I have in my game - as some even needed Pets things as well, so I figured I'd do both things to all of them and be done with it. But I will check tonight and see whats what with the graveyards -if anything. It may have just been the cheat - but yes that is what the game tells you when Sims are technically removed by the game permanently the safe way.
Empty tombstones are just statues to the game - or yard decor and is always safe to delete. or sell.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Sir Timid - I assure you that is not a problem due to store content. The red X's on the launcher is an indication the launcher needs fixing - and Origin is the fixer of the launcher - Origin has 3 requirements - to be installed and up to date. For you to install and keep updated Adobe Flash player and Adobe Air. Then your launcher will stay pristine and fully operational. i have almost the entire store - i have all the set - i am only missing maybe 2 dozen of the early outfits and a couple of hair style I didn't want - I have everything else ever put in that store. NO third party content though and I am very careful about the exchange. i never download anything directly to my game. I download it to a folder I keep on my desktop. Then I use a tool call custard to check the lot for third party content. If it has any, out it goes. If it comes testing clean, then I will try the lot. But I rarely go to the exchange - I have a list of Simmers I generally only download the stuff they make as none use third party content and make the most beautiful lots. As you get to know the different simmers you will learn all the lots builders who do not use third party CC. But all the store japanese stuff is great. I have it all. Just make sure your launcher is allowed to be taken care of with Origin, and you keep things updated as they are updated and you will be fine.
That problem with the launcher has actually been a problem since either Pets or Generations - I forget which, but it is probably why Origin was utilized to keep the launcher running properly and it especially needs Adobe flash player and the game up to date in order to do that.
Pretty soon Origin will be able to fix other game problems too if all goes as the Origin team intend. I know it does a good job with the launcher until you forget to check for the different updates. hehehe
Anyway - the japanese store content is good - so don't be afraid of it.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
There I hope I didn't miss anyone. BUt just had to jump back in before I head off to a nice hot relaxing bath, and then bed. Amjoie, I will check the graveyard in the morning. If things are the same as always I won't hurry in to report - that means you are okay - but if i see any changes I will jump right back here and let you know.
Whoops missed Darksim - sorry about that - community lot parking should allow space in between for walking space and if you have Pets installed you need it two full spaces or more apart so a horse or deer don't get stuck. Also don't block door ways. You really do not have to worry about having lots of spaces as sims will actually park their cars in their pockets - literally - if there are none at all. It is just for appearances. I prefer to have fake parking lots so the game does not find a good excuse for stealing my sims car or loading the parking lots with junk cars. If you have Latenight, it loads community lots with parked cars nobody owns which can also create lag when the numbers get to many. So I just genrally remove all community lot parking in my own game and just make what looks like parking spots that are not useable. Then no excess cars and my sims cars never get left behind. It hurt when it's a 100,000 simolean luxury sports car - believe me - so it's the way I play so that does not ever happen.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Thanks so much about the info on MOO. I use that a lot. Most of the time I have no problem because I use it mostly with only decorative items. Once in a while it does if I use it with something else but I can usually figure it out when my sims throws a fit cause they can't do what I'm telling them to.
One thing I've found that may help others. Sometimes I get a horse stuck where it can't move (I think because I've put a jump too close to a fence with MOO or something similiar like that). When that happens I've found that just pausing the game, going to the buy mode, you can use the hand, and pick up the horse and move it out of the situation, and then go back to live mode, unpause the game, and continue. It's saved me a few times AFTER I got stuck with my horses needs down and got them taken by the humane society, before I could figure a way to unstick them and get their needs back up. Was a real bummer to lose my horses that way
Thank you amjoie for that info. I'll gladly add that to my list of possible causes for lags.
I have to agree with WR about MOO. Use with care. To place stuff without being restricted to the grid, use the ALT-key. It's a lot better. Never place stairs or doors with MOO, very bad idea.
I found that with pets, lots of spiral staircases became an issue, you have to turn them to make them usable again and in a world I tested, people used a fancy method of making an entrance with archways. While that does look very neat, it's actually bad. If you do that, you have to place walls so you can put in the arch. This makes the actual front door an 'inside door'. While your own Sims can use that just fine, the visitors are getting confused, especially if use a porch as well. In that world, I had a Sim constantly stamping their foot cause they couldn't ring a door bell since the house had no front door.
If you have a back door, that will become your front door for the visitors. The mail man might get confused too. In Starlight Shores there is actually a house build like that and I daresay that can lead to routing issues as well.
As for deleting Sim, I find Total Anniliating with Twallan's mods no issue at all. Deleting with moo or testingcheats is indeed a bad idea but I'm unsure about sending them clipboard diving. That should not be an issue in my opinion. I've cleaned out SV that way before and did not get any problems.
As for stuck cars after resetsim *: Stuck cars might not get cleaned by Overwatch. You have to manually delete with the testingcheats cheat. So make sure you check your hoods for them. I've also had stuck cars with drivers in that did not get cleaned out by Overwatch (Note to self: Ask Twallan about that).
If you have a back door, that will become your front door for the visitors. The mail man might get confused too. In Starlight Shores there is actually a house build like that and I daresay that can lead to routing issues as well
Sorry, crin, I'm confused! Are you saying that any house with a back door can lead to routing issues?
No, I'm saying a house with no front door can lead to routing issues.
Don't know if you ever saw a house like that but it basically has a wall in front of the actaul front door and arches put in that wall. Looks very fancy but it makes the front door an indoor door. IF that house has a back door, that is actually a good thing.
There's one in Starlight Shores. I'll go get the name/address.
Comments
Regarding ghosts -
Like I posted I am not sure if it will work with Sims ghosts not on your lot, but keep clicking on the ghost sims and see if they get the option to go to the Netherworld - if they do - say yes and they will take their tombstone and permanently vanish. (I have only sent ghosts to Netherworld on my home lot, and generally had befriended them and sometimes made them playable. But clicking on them eventually will give that option. Sometimes it takes a while though. It used to be easier.
Changing sims appearance and traits has not shown to ever be a problem. So change away. In fact EA made it easier to change appearance without getting problems when they created Salons and that career. It is made to do that just like plastic surgery is.
Deleting is easy - like I said because our sims we add to the game are not hardwired into that hood - just like we can add them - we can delete them - but you want to only try and do that with sims who have not formed any real relationships in the game. If EA made no way for us to delete our own sims - that would stink. I know I have made my share who looked perfect in CAS and in game went all freaky looking. Not so much now a days, but in the early days - oh my sweet Lord they were gory.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Thanks for all the information. I've made myself a list of the pit falls that you have mentioned.
All of these potential problems are easily avoided, so I might just get brave enough to patch.
I am especially glad to know about the deleting sims issue! That is something I do pretty much in every game I start. I hate having to kill them off in game (I know they are just computer avatars but I still feel bad when I do it) so I usually move them out in edit town and trash them that way.
Thanks for all the helpful information that has been posted!
My games always seem to degenerate into lagfests, now I know a couple possible reasons. Up until Pets I never used cheats, cc, or mods (except motherlode and make all happy, occasionally). After Pets though I literally can not play with out mods because the game will systematically kill off all the toddlers in my towns (as well as adults too). Size of the town doesn't seem to be a factor as it will do it on half-empty ones as well as fuller ones. And as watcing a town develop and progress over time is a big part of the fun for me in Sims, I have to use mods now (Twallan's).
I have heard before that houses having outdoor items can lag neighborhoods. I have tried minimizing these items but have not really seen a difference. Recently, I have started minimizing skill items in neighborhood houses and instead incorporating them into commercial lots. So, for example, the art museum becomes a museum and art school with drafting tables, sculpting stations, and easels. I am not sure this will be an improvement or not as I am still in the process of rebuilding some lots. Does anyone know if this is as actual issue or not?
And one more question... does anyone know if using the ceiling light squares in buydebug affects the game (lag-wise or other)? I have just starting using them to augment some of the lights I love but that are too dim and I want to make sure I am not hurting my game.
But I am always glad to help where i can. My game does play good - I also have a high end pc - which also helps me battle the demons for answers - so i know not everybody can waste all the time I do just looking from things. So I have the time and machine not everyone is fortunate enough to have - i am just glad I can answer questions people want help with.
I know in my case my game runs circles around to how it ran with 129 with the 133 update. Things seems much smoother and easier - but that is just my opinion.
Well off to go feed the kitties and make supper. I wish that was as easy as the sims doing it. hehehe
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
And what about moving sims from hood to hood? Are there any problems with doing that?
No lag is not generally created by the amount of content if your pc has the capability - that would be more an issue with older pcs with one or two processors that are slower to begin with and ram. I have 6 processors - fast ones - set factury at 3.2 mhz and they are the black edition so are fully overclockable - but I don't overclock - and I have 8 gigs of high speed gaming ram - but in my case it would take tons and tons of stuff and I would not get slowdowns. My sims have everything - the problem though comes if the stuff they have in their yard creates any routing problems then you will get lag. Especially if you have Pets installed it can be a big problem if strays get stuck by all your sims yard stuff. So if you have the ram and pc capable of handling the content, still keep the thought in mind that wild pets and neighbor pets might have a problem in your yard and other sims yards. And I think making community lots with these items a brillant Idea. I have a community college - an idea actually Happysimmer3 came up with eons ago and have rooms using the different item sims can use and skill with. Just remember to get them to take the finished work with them when they leave so they can sell or use the items.
I hope I have answered all your questions. If I missed any, just leave a note here. I really must go - my hubby and pets are glaring at me. hehehe
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
No there is no problem moving sims in Sims 3, unlike sims 2 because we technically are only moving clones of the sims in Sims 3. They are in every game in every hood after we load them to our library - so it is never a problem.
Hope that helps. sorry to rush the answers but I really have to go - I just hate to leave anyone hanging.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
OK. That's what I thought you meant, but I wanted verification about the plants. I don't usually move things sims use, except sometimes I have moved instruments. I'll just be sure to make a point of not using MOO on anything other than things like plants. I'm good with that. No tears.
I'll have to experiment with ghosts in graveyards, so I can find some way to get rid of them. I hate graveyards. If I have to keep ghosts in my game, I'm going to make it look like a big fancy Asian "home for the ancestors," with urns on a shelf. At least that wouldn't be creepy looking. I simply will not have a graveyard in my game.
I sure appreciate all your answers, and they are coming at a very fortuitous time. Since I am still in the process of setting up Lunar Lakes, it will be easy to fix mistakes before I make a backup of my world set-up. I'll just save all my commercial lots, as I clean them up, and then stick them in the library. Once I have that all done, I'll start up a new world, and place the commercial lots, properly. It appears I will be doing a giant makeover of in-game sims, one house at a time. Or going on a killing spree and sending family ghosts to the great beyond, except for one or two that I've redone, to thin the population a mite.
I will get a stable game. I will. If I say it often enough, I might start believing it. LOL
Thank you for taking the time to respond! Hopefully with all I've learnt today I can reduce the lag in my games. I only have 3 processors @ 3.1 GHz and 4 gigs of RAM which I am stuck with probably until next year. Though I have been hinting to my son that more RAM would make a great Mother's Day gift!
I think I am going to have to make a testing world like I've seen so many others write about and go through all my house builds one-by-one and test them. I know there are routing issues with some of them, especially ones with spiral stairs. I have had to rescue townies many times being stuck from them. I thought I had fixed them at the time but now I am wondering what else I may have missed.
I have thought of another question. I recently installed a flatter version of Sunset Valley that has no lots or sims at all. Will the game freak out expecting the regular sims to be there or will it be like a truly empty world? Basically I want to make sure I am not setting up a game doomed to fail from the start.
If you did not have moveobjects on set then there is a likely possibility that you have some lot corruption issue that popped a tree up after the driveway was there, as a symptom of the corruption and at some point you may see more. Usually when something like that happens spontaneously I bulldoze and remove the lot and set down a new clean lot to get rid of whatever is going on and start over. Once there is a sign of corruption its a good chance that no matter what you try and do to solve it it will continue to corrupt at some pace and eventually you will just have a bad lot. It happens to me on test lots a great deal when I have tested numerous thing over a period of time and hit a few problems.
I tried both my driveways, where a tree was, even pulled back where the object (tree) was hidden and the driveways stayed red and could not be placed. I tried with moveobjects on and the driveway could be placed and I got you lag/freeze symptoms. Usually the worst that happens when you use moveobjects on is that the sim routing to an object that is layers is blocked or they interact with one one time and the other another time but then move away and it does not cause game problems.
Why a tree planted in a driveway or a driveway planted over a tree would cause issues I am not sure except it may cause a glitch when then trying to place a car and that started some corruption going on the lot.
Two things I try to be careful of with moveobjects on when testing or building is to make sure no two objects that I overlay have a third thing they can do - including a an interactive slotting - such as driveway that holds a car and then shifts it to teh street (car disappears and reappears). With a tree there the game might have had an issue with that. Decorator slots don't seem to cause issues.
Its a good idea when building or testing to turn off moveobjects on until you need it and then accidentally these things don't happen. I would watch that lot carefully and if you get any other symptoms consider bulldozing the lot completely and setting down a fresh lot to use for testing so you know for sure when you have an issue in the future whether its really the object you are testing or old corruption rearing up again since it happened once.
I think this is how we get, now and then with an EP a lot that is corrupt after install for some people who play that lot, but not everyone. Something went wrong when the EP team was building the lot and they fixed that problem and continued to build but the lot already had on instance of corruption, that depending on what a player did later cause the corruption to continue on, while it did not for other people. I learned this back in my big building days for lots I uploaded to my site and backed up my game and saved manual backups when building so if I did something that caused a corruption - even tiny - I could go back to an early backup before I did that part of the build and just not repeat what I had done - saved me from losing all the work I did up to that point and kept me from releasing a lot that had corrupted once.
Very helpful information to know. That explains why my Sunset Valley world started to lag and eventually became corrupted. Everytime I had a paparazzi sim come to my sims home, I would delete them. Now I know why it started to act up after that. Thank you!
Along with that, this entire thread is helpful. I like to use MOO when creating lots(clubs and homes) to get a realistic feel but with only decorative items, and sometimes couches so they are against a wall when at an angle. I never use CC, I despise them, and always thought that there was some CC hiding in my game that I couldn't delete, but now I know that the issue is as simple as a bush or tree being too close to a driveway most of the time. What surprises me is that something so small could cause such a big issue for everyone. I'm not surprised though that EA did not release that info, though I do understand why. Having an issue that you know of and release it may just causes a lot of backlash. Most people would just say "fix it before you give it to us." I guess they just figured that no one would even think about hiding a driveway in bushes.
What happens in my game is that I like to have a lot of parking spaces so when my sim is at a club, the parking lot is full, but now I should go delete some of them so they are not interfering with their grid space.
This is all good advice. And yes, MOO was on. I wasn't testing for viability, at that moment, but for making collection folders. I had just built a room for the Club Casual set, and had used MOO for making a group of plants look good together. I never even thought of turning MOO off, because I was just comparing two cars. I deleted the cars, and simply forgot to delete the driveways, as I had intended to do. But I thought nothing of it, being unaware I had plopped the driveway on top of a tree. It was just one of those silly things that happened under unusual circumstances. But I'm glad it happened, because otherwise I would never have learned all these other things that are going to make a big difference in the health of my game.
So I decided to see what happened if I used cheats. I enabled testing cheats, and shift-clicked on him. I had the option to trigger age transition, and I used it. I immediately got a popup with the following message:
The ghost of Timothy Su has finally lost his grip on the mortal realm. He may leave the Netherworld occasionally to visit, but cannot be restored.
I am assuming this is the message that you would receive if you had clicked normally on the ghost and had the option to send to it the netherworld. So I am guessing (hoping) that the game is going through the normal process, even though a cheat was used.
What think you? Is this safe?
If this is safe, then is it also safe to throw away Timothy Su's gravestone/urn?
Another question: When I went to the graveyard in Lunar Lakes, three ghosts were out at night. I used the cheat on Bella Goth with no problem, etc. Do the other gravestones have ghosts attached? They were able to be moved, in the daytime, when the three gravestones that ended up having ghosts at night said they could not be moved because they were in use, even during the daytime. So, if I have successfully sent the three active ghosts to the netherworld, can I safely delete the whole graveyard lot, despite the other gravestones?
I had this curious issue in a game I run in Starlight Shores.
On two occasions every human Sim except my house would go to a particular location and stay there. They weren't stuck and you could interact normally with them, but they wouldn't go to home, work etc. When invited to parties, they would arrive but almost immediately run back to the location they were previously in. The first time it was outside the gym, the 2nd it was the park.
resetSim * did send everyone home, however, everyone would quickly run back to the 'popular' location.
I had to re-start the map in both occasions to fix the issue. I had very little custom content (it crept onto my game via the exchange... I was naive), but a fair few store items I had appeared to be corrupted in the game launcher as was the game launcher itself [it would go white with several red crosses over it].
Still I am guessing it had something to do with corrupt hotspots?
I clean installed the game and re-downloaded all my store content. This seems to have fixed the launcher issue and World Adventures and from now on I will be keeping my game CC free unfortunately. I really wanted to get more Japanese items
Cheers,
S.T.
You are also good to go with the that empty version of SV - is that Magic Dancers as i know that one is good - just get the one with the lots already added as the ingame editor has it's own problems, so it is better if you make sure the world has lots and try not to add many using that world editor. You can generally get away with adding 3-4 before it starts breaking routing or appears to be breaking routing - but anyway that is based off of the CAW Sunset Valley lite that EA added to CAW for people to build their own worlds and it has never had sims in it to worry about. Hope that helps.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Empty tombstones are just statues to the game - or yard decor and is always safe to delete. or sell.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
That problem with the launcher has actually been a problem since either Pets or Generations - I forget which, but it is probably why Origin was utilized to keep the launcher running properly and it especially needs Adobe flash player and the game up to date in order to do that.
Pretty soon Origin will be able to fix other game problems too if all goes as the Origin team intend. I know it does a good job with the launcher until you forget to check for the different updates. hehehe
Anyway - the japanese store content is good - so don't be afraid of it.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Whoops missed Darksim - sorry about that - community lot parking should allow space in between for walking space and if you have Pets installed you need it two full spaces or more apart so a horse or deer don't get stuck. Also don't block door ways. You really do not have to worry about having lots of spaces as sims will actually park their cars in their pockets - literally - if there are none at all. It is just for appearances. I prefer to have fake parking lots so the game does not find a good excuse for stealing my sims car or loading the parking lots with junk cars. If you have Latenight, it loads community lots with parked cars nobody owns which can also create lag when the numbers get to many. So I just genrally remove all community lot parking in my own game and just make what looks like parking spots that are not useable. Then no excess cars and my sims cars never get left behind. It hurt when it's a 100,000 simolean luxury sports car - believe me - so it's the way I play so that does not ever happen.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
One thing I've found that may help others. Sometimes I get a horse stuck where it can't move (I think because I've put a jump too close to a fence with MOO or something similiar like that). When that happens I've found that just pausing the game, going to the buy mode, you can use the hand, and pick up the horse and move it out of the situation, and then go back to live mode, unpause the game, and continue. It's saved me a few times AFTER I got stuck with my horses needs down and got them taken by the humane society, before I could figure a way to unstick them and get their needs back up. Was a real bummer to lose my horses that way
I have to agree with WR about MOO. Use with care. To place stuff without being restricted to the grid, use the ALT-key. It's a lot better. Never place stairs or doors with MOO, very bad idea.
I found that with pets, lots of spiral staircases became an issue, you have to turn them to make them usable again and in a world I tested, people used a fancy method of making an entrance with archways. While that does look very neat, it's actually bad. If you do that, you have to place walls so you can put in the arch. This makes the actual front door an 'inside door'. While your own Sims can use that just fine, the visitors are getting confused, especially if use a porch as well. In that world, I had a Sim constantly stamping their foot cause they couldn't ring a door bell since the house had no front door.
If you have a back door, that will become your front door for the visitors. The mail man might get confused too. In Starlight Shores there is actually a house build like that and I daresay that can lead to routing issues as well.
As for deleting Sim, I find Total Anniliating with Twallan's mods no issue at all. Deleting with moo or testingcheats is indeed a bad idea but I'm unsure about sending them clipboard diving. That should not be an issue in my opinion. I've cleaned out SV that way before and did not get any problems.
As for stuck cars after resetsim *: Stuck cars might not get cleaned by Overwatch. You have to manually delete with the testingcheats cheat. So make sure you check your hoods for them. I've also had stuck cars with drivers in that did not get cleaned out by Overwatch (Note to self: Ask Twallan about that).
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
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Don't know if you ever saw a house like that but it basically has a wall in front of the actaul front door and arches put in that wall. Looks very fancy but it makes the front door an indoor door. IF that house has a back door, that is actually a good thing.
There's one in Starlight Shores. I'll go get the name/address.
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
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The house does not have an actual front door. You can set the patio door as front door if you want but the actual front door, is an indoor door.
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
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AHQ Tutorial