Dumb Question but.....

ilikethesims30

What happens when you play a bad save? Will it harm your computer or your game? Can you make a bad save...good?

Thanks in advance

KatyFernlily

No question is dumb.
/waits for igazor

igazor

When a save is deemed "bad" by the game, it means that it is not complete or has gone corrupt. Not complete means that the system ran out of usable resources during the save process (usually resulting in an Error12), so data that could be critical to the running of that save again would be missing. Corrupt means that data has been deemed to be landing in the wrong places thus providing a game that if loadable would be all mixed up or just wouldn't run properly; once this starts happening the data corruption tends to just get worse. Think of a saved game as a tremendously huge spreadsheet or database, where much of the data is garbled or unfortunately landing in the wrong columns.

In theory, yes one can remove the .bad suffix and try to load a bad save. No harm would come to our computers, but chances are that the save just wouldn't load or it would be total garbage to play. If the goal is to get the save loaded just long enough to extract let's say one sim or household from it, then the extracted elements could still be incomplete or corrupt and mess up another game session/save into which they may be inserted. I would never risk trying this.

And sorry, one has to work pretty hard to find or construct them but there are examples of dumb questions (this isn't one of them). Here's a few:
"How long is a piece of string?"
"Answer me please, are you asleep?"
"What is the actual point of drinking coffee"? (this one is admittedly a bit subjective)
"Why does (sibling's name) get to do everything just because they are older?"

ilikethesims30

Why do bad saves happen? I'm trying to send my Sims on vacation to celebrate their anniversary. First to Barcelona, then to Setra. Is the size of the world that cause the dreaded "Error 12"?

Turjan

Your game just runs out of memory. Make sure you use a freshly started game before you travel, and after you arrive, save once more and restart the game again. This usually shaves off a few 100 MB of used memory.

I haven't tried Setra yet but heard that it's just a little bit too big for its own good.

ilikethesims30

Turjan wrote: »

Your game just runs out of memory. Make sure you use a freshly started game before you travel, and after you arrive, save once more and restart the game again. This usually shaves off a few 100 MB of used memory.

You mean start over in a new world? Or use an old save?

Turjan

No, restart the same save you just produced. Not the bad one, of course. For example, if I travel to China from my Sunset Valley, my memory usage is usually close to 3000 MB. Note that saving itself has the potential to increase memory usage by several hundred MB, and my game tends to fail around 3250 MB. If I save, exit the game, restart and load that same save again, it's somewhere like 1750 MB (in China; SV is a lot more).

If you meant what to do in your current situation, you should revert to the last save before the bad one. Maybe, clean that one out.

igazor

I'm not familiar with the sim version of Barcelona, but it should be noted that Setra is an example of a beautiful custom designed world that is just too large and intricate to run properly. Another popular example of such a world is Alpine County. But we can overload just about any world by shoving too much content and too many sims into it. TS3 is a 32-bit only application and can only address up to 4 GB of RAM (the actual limit is ~3.7 GB). One spike into or above the danger zone, which is around 3.5 GB for most of us, and the game will lose its mind if it tries to reach for more and continue. The actual saving process will spike RAM usage up a bit as it runs.

Of course the player must have enough RAM installed and free for use (not being taken up by other applications at the same time) to work with properly. But we cannot improve upon the built-in limits of 32-bit applications no matter how much RAM the player has installed. We can advise all kinds of ways to help stay under that limit, but I'm afraid one of them is don't play in worlds that are too overwhelming for the game to handle.
http://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE

ilikethesims30

When I click on the game folders, they have every world I ever visited saved inside. Is it safe to remove or delete those?

Turjan

In case my comment about cleaning your save triggered this, this is not what I meant.

Anyway, it's safe to remove any world you never intend to visit again from your savegame. The game will create a completely new copy if you ever decide to go there again, of course without remembering you ever were there.

KatyFernlily

I don't think those are dumb questions, igazor. It seems to me the asker is a child and very curious about string and sibling rivalry. I can answer all those questions.

1. Depends on the length of the string.
2. I am now!
3. For the flavor and to help stay awake while at work.
4. As we age we gain more privileges and more responsibilities.

igazor

@KatyFernlily - I didn't say the questions didn't have any possible or even reasonable answers (your # 2 seems like more like a creative version of the truth than an answer though). But they do not impart the notion of the one asking being overly informed about how life works in general, child or otherwise. Would you like some more examples?

"How long does it take to drive from Detroit to Michigan? (for those who might not know, Detroit is a city in the state of Michigan already)
"If this escalator breaks down while we are standing on it, how are we supposed to get home?"
"If an airplane crashes right on the border between two countries, where do they bury the survivors?'
"What is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything for which the answer is 42?"

ilikethesims30

If you have little space on your computer, that would affect your Sims game, right? I just had to delete and clear up a ton of space on my computer this morning.

Turjan

I guess here the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, for which the answer is 42, might be a good ballpark for the goal to shovel free. In GB.
Or maybe a little less.

KatyFernlily

I hope you are just teasing me, igazor
Or I'm not very funny.
(I'm from Michigan)

ilikethesims30

Have you ever tried to send your Sims on vacation? I did, as you know. But the game loaded for a long time. I fell asleep. And then somehow, I wound up back at the main menu? The Sims' regular home is featured on the picture, not the vacation world.

rubyskywalker

*cough* typed a super long paragraph about vacations when I reread the previous post... so all I shall say now is...

@ilikethesims30 do you have Nraas Traveler? It's recommended to get if you travel as it prevents many issues. @igazor could explain it better why it's important.

igazor

We have to assume the OP has NRaas Traveler in play. There wouldn't be any way to vacation to those that are not WA (or Uni, ITF) worlds without it. Hopefully they have Overwatch and ErrorTrap in play as well.

They are for some reason unable to complete the travel transition at the point described. As I've already stated, some worlds are just too large and complicated for the game to manage. Others (some custom worlds in particular) are just not going to work with Traveler at all, due to design imperfections.

simmerLella

igazor wrote: »

When a save is deemed "bad" by the game, it means that it is not complete or has gone corrupt. Not complete means that the system ran out of usable resources during the save process (usually resulting in an Error12), so data that could be critical to the running of that save again would be missing. Corrupt means that data has been deemed to be landing in the wrong places thus providing a game that if loadable would be all mixed up or just wouldn't run properly; once this starts happening the data corruption tends to just get worse. Think of a saved game as a tremendously huge spreadsheet or database, where much of the data is garbled or unfortunately landing in the wrong columns.

In theory, yes one can remove the .bad suffix and try to load a bad save. No harm would come to our computers, but chances are that the save just wouldn't load or it would be total garbage to play. If the goal is to get the save loaded just long enough to extract let's say one sim or household from it, then the extracted elements could still be incomplete or corrupt and mess up another game session/save into which they may be inserted. I would never risk trying this.

And sorry, one has to work pretty hard to find or construct them but there are examples of dumb questions (this isn't one of them). Here's a few:
"How long is a piece of string?"
"Answer me please, are you asleep?"
"What is the actual point of drinking coffee"? (this one is admittedly a bit subjective)
"Why does (sibling's name) get to do everything just because they are older?"

LOLOL

"Answer me please, are you asleep?" Oh, no, I'm guilty!
"What is the actual point of drinking coffee"? (this one is admittedly a bit subjective) It's to punish your taste buds, as far as I can tell. (I'm sure alternative forms of caffeine are not hard to obtain.)
"Why does (sibling's name) get to do everything just because they are older?" That's not a dumb question at all! BTW, I'm an only child but I stand by that.