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Sudden lag

xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
I got a new laptop earlier this year. From my understanding, the specs surpass what is required for TS3. And for a while I was actually able to play and enjoy the game with minimal issues. All of a sudden, the game seems to be running horribly, and I honestly don't know what could have changed? Here are my specs:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960m 2Gb GDDR5
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700MQ CPU @ 2.40GHz-3.40GHz
8 Gb RAM
500Gb Hard Drive

I keep my drivers up to date and try to take care of my PC as best as possible. I have a handful of Twallan's mods and minimal CC. I've tried everything I can think of. Pulling mods, starting a new game, clearing cache files, I even recently uninstalled then reinstalled. No luck. I'm so confused because I can run games like Planet Coaster on high with no problem. Any help or insight into this issue would be appreciated, thanks.

Comments

  • SimplyJenSimplyJen Posts: 14,823 Member
    Do you have vsync turned on? This caps FPS (frames per second) to whatever your monitors refresh rate is. Without capping FPS, it's pumping out unnecessary frames which can cause lag and high temps.

    right-click desktop Nvidia Control Panel
    26767660101_141c4c169b_o.png
    You can track your FPS in-game with the cheat fps on. Small text will appear in the corner and it should be capping at whatever your monitor's refresh rate is. For most people this is 60. In order for vsync to work, you need to be in fullscreen mode. If this does not work then you may have to use Nvidia Inspector.

    Another question is how much space is left on your hard drive?
    i7-13700K • 16GB • RTX 4070
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  • CandydCandyd Posts: 1,261 Member
    Did you reset the whole town ?
  • xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
    edited December 2016
    @Simasaurus09 Yes, I do have vsync on in the NVIDIA control panel. Would changing it in game from default to 60 make any difference? I'll try NVIDIA inspector too.

    @Candyd I reset my towns regularly but I can't imagine that making much of a difference in a brand new save?

    Oh, I forgot to mention that I have about 200Gb of space left on my hard drive. But I thought that was just a myth when it came to game performance.
    Post edited by xitneverendss on
  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    @xitneverendss You need to leave at least 50 gb free while playing this game. If you have 200 gb free your fine

    Your laptop has two cards. One being intel. Some people had to do something with intel not just Nvidia. @igazor may remember what it is
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited December 2016
    Two critical things here. One is that while vsync is set in the control panel, what kind of results are you getting in-game with the fps on cheat code? If the actual fps rate is still all over the place, then vsync is not locking the frame rate in and another method such as Inspector should be tried. If the fps rate is being locked and never wanders much above 60 fps, then it's working and something else is causing the lag issue but it would be helpful to rule this out first if we could.

    The second is that (we don't really understand why) some players with dual graphics have found that the frame rate also has to be locked in on the Intel chip even if the game is supposedly not using it. How to do that escapes me, but there must be some sort of control panel into the Intel graphics as well.

    Needing freed up drive space is not a myth, I've heard many Windows users (not necessarily related to TS3 or games) claim that it is and that they should be able to use up every available byte of space on a volume running their operating system. This is just not true, even Macs need some free space to maneuver. The reason that the game itself needs free space is that when you start up and save, and as you play, it keeps reading and writing from RAM into and from the CurrentGame folder into Saves, the caches, and other drive locations and needs the extra space to do that effectively. But of course 200 GB is more than plenty for both Windows and the game to work with. If we were talking about 20 GB free, that could be more of a problem.
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  • xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
    I just noticed that in the photo @Simasaurus09 provided, it says to change the settings on ts3w.exe if you have the latest patch. I didn't know this and have only been changing he regular ts3.exe. Will try this first to see if it makes a difference then I will try using the fps cheat to see if there could be another problem @igazor
  • ChelleJoChelleJo Posts: 7,087 Member
    Actually, @xitneverendss ts3.exe is for the latest patch (1.69). ts3w.exe is for patch 1.67 (the one that you don't have to have origin with). If you have to have origin to play, that's patch 1.69 and you'll use ts3.exe, not ts3w.exe
    p8L4V6v.png
  • xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
    ChelleJo wrote: »
    Actually, @xitneverendss ts3.exe is for the latest patch (1.69). ts3w.exe is for patch 1.67 (the one that you don't have to have origin with). If you have to have origin to play, that's patch 1.69 and you'll use ts3.exe, not ts3w.exe
    Oh okay shoot never mind :/
  • ChelleJoChelleJo Posts: 7,087 Member
    ChelleJo wrote: »
    Actually, @xitneverendss ts3.exe is for the latest patch (1.69). ts3w.exe is for patch 1.67 (the one that you don't have to have origin with). If you have to have origin to play, that's patch 1.69 and you'll use ts3.exe, not ts3w.exe
    Oh okay shoot never mind :/

    Try tweaking it on global settings of Nvidia. When I was having my "horse" issue, none of the tweaks on ts3w.exe worked, but they did when I did it from global. If that still doesn't work, Chester got me on an amazing software that limits my fps even in windowed mode. It's called RivaTuner. It came with MSI Afterburner, but I'm sure you could download just it (you'd think). Before that, I always had to limit my fps with bandicam (since everything else I tried wouldn't limit since I play in windowed mode), which really was not ideal.
    p8L4V6v.png
  • xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
    ChelleJo wrote: »
    ChelleJo wrote: »
    Actually, @xitneverendss ts3.exe is for the latest patch (1.69). ts3w.exe is for patch 1.67 (the one that you don't have to have origin with). If you have to have origin to play, that's patch 1.69 and you'll use ts3.exe, not ts3w.exe
    Oh okay shoot never mind :/

    Try tweaking it on global settings of Nvidia. When I was having my "horse" issue, none of the tweaks on ts3w.exe worked, but they did when I did it from global. If that still doesn't work, Chester got me on an amazing software that limits my fps even in windowed mode. It's called RivaTuner. It came with MSI Afterburner, but I'm sure you could download just it (you'd think). Before that, I always had to limit my fps with bandicam (since everything else I tried wouldn't limit since I play in windowed mode), which really was not ideal.

    What do you mean by global settings?
  • ChelleJoChelleJo Posts: 7,087 Member
    You go into Nvidia Control Panel here:

    Nvidia_1.jpg



    Then under the "3D settings" (circled on the left) it should bring up this options circled on the right "Global Settings" (which if you are adjusting ts3.exe/ts3w.exe (depending on patch level) settings, that would be under "Program Settings" (not circled but right next to global settings).

    Nvidia_2.jpg

    You want the circled area that says "global settings".
    p8L4V6v.png
  • SimplyJenSimplyJen Posts: 14,823 Member
    The FPS cheat will let you know if it's working. Do you know what patch level you are on?
    i7-13700K • 16GB • RTX 4070
    S3 simblr: http://simplysimming.tumblr.com/
    S4 simblr: http://simlogic.tumblr.com/
  • xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
    NVIDIA Inspector seems to have done the trick guys! FPS now hovers around 60. Thanks so much to everyone who helped! Looking forward to a long play session tonight haha.
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