Please some tips, advice for beginners - own world creation? I downloaded a tutorial that shows how to use the program, tools, and so on, but I still need to explain more clearly how to create the world. For example, I have no idea how big what should be to make it look as realistic as possible, if you understand me. I mean the surroundings, like mountains, rivers, etc.
@Eleanor015 - Hi there. I realize that there are limits to what you can do with posts while you have New Member status and ordinarily when it comes to TS3 this is a pretty good place to start. But I'm afraid yours is more of an art/design tool usage series of questions rather than technical ones. Not every player is well-versed in CAW usage. I've never even tried to design a world myself, and hold those who are able to do so in very high regard as by all accounts it's a very tricky process. Perhaps you require a better tutorial than the one you found, but I believe most world designers also acquired much of their skills through trial and error.
You may want to peruse and possibly participate in threads on the Creative Corner > The Sims 3 World Builders forum board here and on other sites where world designers congregate like ModTheSims in order to get more useful information and tips.
Hello. I'd like some help, please. I had a playable ghost Sim who just...disappeared. After playing with my other families for a little while I checked her house and she was completely gone. She seems to only exist in the family tree for her daughter and there's some oddities there: · She was still listed as married to her husband, who apparently both does and doesn't have a partner now. (The relationships panel and family tree said he didn't but when he found a new romantic interest he was given the option to break up with the missing Sim.)
·She isn't listed as her daughter's mother on the tree anymore, it just shows a blank space.
·Her picture takes a long time to load and sometimes won't unless I click it.
No other characters have vanished like that, not even minor ones who I've barely played with. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi everyone, I’m wondering if anyone has any tips for making my game less laggy?
I used to play on a pretty high end MacBook Pro, then when I got the newest one (with Catalina) the game wasn’t compatible anymore, so I decided to buy a gaming laptop instead to play.
My laptop specs are: - ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop - Windows 10 64 bit - AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 Ghz - NVidia GeForce GTX 1650 - 8GB RAM - 512 GB SSD
About my game: I have all expansion and stuff packs except for Katy Perry Sweet Treats. My game is at patch 1.69.43.024017 using Origin. I have NRaas MasterController and Overwatch installed. I don’t really use supernatural beings and have the wild horses turned off in population control since I know they take a lot of power to generate. I don’t have a lot of cc and rarely use the stuff I do have (nothing on CAS). I have Monte Vista and Hidden Valley but no other store content and I play offline. I’ve already gone through the steps to make the game recognize my graphics card.
Finally, I play at pretty low graphics settings: Reflection quality: off Edge smoothing: off Visual effects: medium Lighting and shadows: low Tree detail: low Draw distance: low High detail lots: 1 Texture detail: medium Sim detail: high
The issue: When I go to the world map it takes a few seconds to load beyond just blue blocks where the lots are. And then when I go to a specific lot, it takes about 10 sec (3 for very small and simple lots) to load all the objects. At first it’s empty, then gray objects with no texture, then finally the texture starts to load. Also, there’s a lot of lag when panning and moving around. It’s almost impossible to build anything in a non-empty world. Even building a lot in a completely empty world there’s still a bit of lag. I tested starting a new save on just Sunset Valley and the issues were exactly the same. I’m wondering if given my laptop specs this sort of performance is to be expected? Obviously on a PC I don’t have as many game crashes as when I played on a Mac but the performance is definitely a lot worse. I’ve been doing a bit of research but haven’t found many fixes I haven’t already tried. I’m a software engineer so I’d feel comfortable trying any fix even if it involves getting into code or game files.
@T0roko - Are you using or open to using mods at all? Under EA standard, we have no control over what happens to households who are inactive (not player controlled). Of course the tools are there for players to rotate gameplay around different households making them active in turns, but it often enough just doesn't work out well when the households rotated through fall apart or move out of the world when those would be the last things that the player would want.
NRaas mods provide tools to prevent these things from happening, but one has to embrace the NRaas kind of story progression for them to be effective.
@ml1837 - There are two things I'm not seeing mentioned in your description. You have sought and obtained formal game recognition for your Nvidia 1650. but have you also addressed the 32 MB texture memory override? This doesn't hit all players on modern cards, but its impact could be significant if not tended to. If you would like some simple instructions to fix that, please copy and paste the first 40 lines or so of the file called DeviceConfig.log into a response to a PM that I will send you so we can confirm that your card is recognized correctly and see whether or not this needs to be fixed.
The other issue is actually much more important. TS3 being an older game has no functional built-in fps limiter and requires at least vertical sync, triple buffering, and frame rate capping set up on a profile for the TS3.exe executable by way of the Nvidia Control Panel especially for more powerful GPUs. Sometimes, quite often, an extra tool is required to lock things in. To see the actual frame rate you are getting in-game, ctrl+shift+C to bring up the cheats console, type fps on (enter). As you play and move the game camera around, the displayed fps rate should never exceed the refresh rate of your monitor/screen. Most are 60 Hz, so the goal for an upper limit should be 60 fps. To make the display go away, cheats console again and type fps off (enter).
It should also be noted that slow to render scenes will be made worse by clearing the game's cache files. We usually recommend clearing them on a regular basis anyway, and strong enough systems should recover the first time these scenes are rendered certainly better than you have described. But although the game becomes healthier for the cache clearing, and it's essential if one is working with adding new content and/or the Mods Framework, it doesn't actually help things in this regard.
Umm so i sent my second generation sim to university, and at the "meet & greet" there was this mascot named Autumn (can't remember her lastname). Anyways my computer shut down and i couldn't save the game, now i sent my sim back to university but i can't find her anywhere...what do i do?
@leanansidhe47 - The Mascot is classified as a Global Role Sim and is usually a homeless NPC in whichever world they appear. They won't always, at all times, actually be on the map anywhere as homeless NPCs will go into hibernation when they aren't being simulated.
If you are using NRaas mods, you might try MasterController's Invite Over command to see if that brings her up on the list and pushes her to go to wherever your active sim is. But on a different play session/different trip to Uni World than the original one, the Mascot(s) spawned may not be the same sim(s).
Without mods, the best you would be able to do is keep looking for her or anyone else who is wearing the distinctive mascot costume.
Although this is not what you asked about, I would be more concerned about why your computer shut down entirely in the middle of a game session. Does this happen often and was it a surprise, or did it shut down for some known reason unrelated to the game?
Hey! I have been playing sims 3 since 2010 but I didn’t play for a while cause my computer had a problem and it got fix, i basically had to install everything again but now that i try to open the game it won’t open,and it’s only when my mods carpet it’s on the sims 3 carpet,i don’t really like the idea to play without my mods bc of the cc and i’m used to have nraas,and I don’t know how to fix it, i tried by deleting all my cache and I even tried by removing only the core mods but it still won’t open:(
@alexandramm1 - I think something is getting lost in translation (or auto-correct) there, as I'm not really sure which "carpets" you might be talking about.
But if your TS3 user game folder in Documents, which is where your mods and all of your other content and game saves would be, stayed in place during a re-install, then it might have become damaged. Please pull it out to the Desktop or rename it, thus forcing the game to spawn a fresh, no-content user game folder in its place on the next startup. Your content, game saves, etc. won't be there anymore, but they will still be safe in the pulled-out or renamed folder. Can you then set up the Mods Framework on the new folder, test it, and install a small amount of content or mods to see if things work correctly on a newly started game?
Also this might just be a matter of semantics, but there are only five Core Mods in popular usage for TS3. NRaas ErrorTrap happens to be one of them. Do you really have many others?
@igazor yes,i was talking about the game folder sorry english is my second language,i also tried to pull the game folder and forced the game to do a new one and add a little cc and it still went black screen,I also tried to put only the items from downloads folder and installed them in parts and not all in once but it appeared that the game crashed, and on core mods I don’t have that many,but I do have a lot of cc on .package, would you recommend me to search it all over again and install it on the new folder? or put the mods folder in the TS3 that I saved in an usb before fixing my computer instead of the one that was re-installed? Also my doubt is that if I can put my old savings on the new folder?:(
Then it can't be a patch level problem because Origin takes care of patching automatically. You say the game works correctly with no mods or content added at all?
You might try an Origin Repair Game on Sims 3 to see if that helps.
If not, you may want to bring this issue to our friends on EA's Answers.HQ board. There may be something about your system that is making adding content more difficult than it should be and they would know the best questions to ask first. https://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/bd-p/the-sims-3
Thank you so much for the response, i guess i will try finding her with mods. About the computer; it ran out of battery, that's why it shut down so nothing to worry about. Thanks for the concern! :)
Hi, I'm having somethink akin to the known bug, according to this forum, of NPC trying to use private pools and complaining, which is already annoying in and of itself not to mention gating your pool can ruin your build but at least it's manageable this way.
However, the issue I'm now encountering a similar issue when trying to run a hotel. The staff just won't stop using the pools instead of doing their jobs. I'm at loss as what to do, if you've ever run a hotel is ts3 you know a pool with diving boards and waterfalls is necessary if you want to get that 5 stars rating, I can't gate it either since the hotel guest need to be able to access it (plus you can't lock doors the way you would in a household unless you make it a VIP area but hotel employees are not stop by this kind of locks anyway so that would not work.)
It's really becoming a major issue because objects in the hotel are not repaired as a result, things stay dirty and trash piles up because the staff is too busy having fun in the pool to do their jobs. Plus when they eventually do go their jobs they stay in swimsuits, and having a maid walking around with palms doesn't say luxury hotel.
I don't understand why this is an issue all of sudden, I have run hotel before in ts3 and staff were doing their jobs and not taking advantage of the pools. The only difference is that this time instead of downloading a CC hotel lot I downloaded a CC lot and then turned it into a hotel myself.
Is there any way of fixing this? I tried to search for a mod that would replace the script of the hotel staff or something of the sorts but I can't seem to find any that fits my issue. I'm getting desperate tbh, running hotel is something I really enjoy in this game but this is making it impossible.
I recently started to download Sims 3 on my computer I took it off awhile back seems now I am unable to reinstall this I get a error code 327682:0 no explanation as what I am to do can someone here help me?
@candy8 - Are you by any chance attempting to install on a Mac running macOS Catalina (10.15)? There are other possible causes for that error, but most often this is it. TS3 will not currently install or run on that operating system. But let us know if you could and we can help pinpoint its cause if it's not that.
Also, if you could in the future, please create a new thread as help or discussion might be needed. This one is really for those with New Member status who cannot do so yet.
Hi all! New to forums, but I've played the Sims for many moons. I couldn't find an answer to my problem while doing some general searching elsewhere.
My issue is about traveling as a household with World Adventures. I have a family consisting of an elder and two teens (and a cat). I can't get them to travel all together. Whenever one sim calls travel services, they're the only one who I am able to confirm travel for- whenever I move one or both of the other two household members from the "staying home" section of the travel services screen to the "traveling" section, the checkmark that lets me confirm and start the vacation grays out. It does not matter who calls; only the caller will always be able to travel solo but I can't bring the other two. Everyone is at Visa level 0, but I can't even get the lowest number of travel days to work. The household does have enough money for everyone to travel. The cat being left alone could be the issue, but I don't think that would be the case.
@toucan97 - The cat will not be able to travel under EA standard; a mod is required to unlock that (in particular, NRaas Traveler). But it's fine to leave animals unattended at home because time is frozen and nothing happens in the homeworld while the active household is on a vacation. Visa levels should not be an issue because Level 0 only impacts the length of stay and the ability to purchase a vacation home, not the ability to visit in the first place.
So that leaves us with the question of why can't 2 or 3 members of your household travel together as a unit. Usually lack of funds is indeed the cause but you have ruled that out. I can't even remember how certain portions of the game behave without mods anymore, but do you not get a tooltip popping up over the greyed out checkmark after you select the second sim explaining why they cannot travel together? This is almost a wild guess, but do the three sims have at least a friendly relationship with each other?
If not averse to using mods, you may want to try NRaas Traveler anyway and see if that unlocks things or at least provides a better explanation of why they are being blocked.
Hello! I have a question about mods. Where exactly are the files stored? I have .sims3packs in the Downloads folder, and I also have .package files in the Mods folder in the packages and overrides subfolders. I have uninstalled and re-installed in the past trying to fix problems with the game. And I always take out the CC in those areas before I re-install. But when I re-install, there are still mods that show up in the game. So where else are mods being stored?
@dirtdetectives - Uninstalling and reinstalling the game only affects the program files and does not generally accomplish anything as the program files do not change over time unless you were suffering from hard drive failures. Mods and other player added content are kept in the TS3 user game folder in Documents. If you wish to try a fresh start with no player added content, then you could pull this folder out (or rename it) and a new no-content user game folder will spawn to take its place on the next startup. This is also what is called a "factory reset."
When not removing the entire user game folder, the five cache files located on the top level of the TS3 user game folder need to be cleared (deleted) whenever the contents of the Mods folder changes in any way. If you find that removing the package files and clearing the caches does not remove the actual content from the game, then you have another user game folder somewhere on your system (such as in OneDrive) that is being used instead of the intended one.
By the way, your sims3packs do not need to stay in Downloads after they have been installed as that only adds to the clutter that the Launcher needs to deal with. Most of us store these things elsewhere, outside of the user game folder. The already installed sims3pack content lives in bundles in the DC Cache folder. The dbc bundles are CC, the ebc bundles are store content. All of that would go away as well if you did the entire TS3 user game folder reset thing.
Comments
You may want to peruse and possibly participate in threads on the Creative Corner > The Sims 3 World Builders forum board here and on other sites where world designers congregate like ModTheSims in order to get more useful information and tips.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
· She was still listed as married to her husband, who apparently both does and doesn't have a partner now. (The relationships panel and family tree said he didn't but when he found a new romantic interest he was given the option to break up with the missing Sim.)
·She isn't listed as her daughter's mother on the tree anymore, it just shows a blank space.
·Her picture takes a long time to load and sometimes won't unless I click it.
No other characters have vanished like that, not even minor ones who I've barely played with.
Any help would be appreciated.
I used to play on a pretty high end MacBook Pro, then when I got the newest one (with Catalina) the game wasn’t compatible anymore, so I decided to buy a gaming laptop instead to play.
My laptop specs are:
- ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop
- Windows 10 64 bit
- AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 Ghz
- NVidia GeForce GTX 1650
- 8GB RAM
- 512 GB SSD
About my game:
I have all expansion and stuff packs except for Katy Perry Sweet Treats. My game is at patch 1.69.43.024017 using Origin. I have NRaas MasterController and Overwatch installed. I don’t really use supernatural beings and have the wild horses turned off in population control since I know they take a lot of power to generate.
I don’t have a lot of cc and rarely use the stuff I do have (nothing on CAS). I have Monte Vista and Hidden Valley but no other store content and I play offline.
I’ve already gone through the steps to make the game recognize my graphics card.
Finally, I play at pretty low graphics settings:
Reflection quality: off
Edge smoothing: off
Visual effects: medium
Lighting and shadows: low
Tree detail: low
Draw distance: low
High detail lots: 1
Texture detail: medium
Sim detail: high
The issue:
When I go to the world map it takes a few seconds to load beyond just blue blocks where the lots are. And then when I go to a specific lot, it takes about 10 sec (3 for very small and simple lots) to load all the objects. At first it’s empty, then gray objects with no texture, then finally the texture starts to load. Also, there’s a lot of lag when panning and moving around. It’s almost impossible to build anything in a non-empty world. Even building a lot in a completely empty world there’s still a bit of lag.
I tested starting a new save on just Sunset Valley and the issues were exactly the same.
I’m wondering if given my laptop specs this sort of performance is to be expected? Obviously on a PC I don’t have as many game crashes as when I played on a Mac but the performance is definitely a lot worse. I’ve been doing a bit of research but haven’t found many fixes I haven’t already tried. I’m a software engineer so I’d feel comfortable trying any fix even if it involves getting into code or game files.
NRaas mods provide tools to prevent these things from happening, but one has to embrace the NRaas kind of story progression for them to be effective.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
The other issue is actually much more important. TS3 being an older game has no functional built-in fps limiter and requires at least vertical sync, triple buffering, and frame rate capping set up on a profile for the TS3.exe executable by way of the Nvidia Control Panel especially for more powerful GPUs. Sometimes, quite often, an extra tool is required to lock things in. To see the actual frame rate you are getting in-game, ctrl+shift+C to bring up the cheats console, type fps on (enter). As you play and move the game camera around, the displayed fps rate should never exceed the refresh rate of your monitor/screen. Most are 60 Hz, so the goal for an upper limit should be 60 fps. To make the display go away, cheats console again and type fps off (enter).
It should also be noted that slow to render scenes will be made worse by clearing the game's cache files. We usually recommend clearing them on a regular basis anyway, and strong enough systems should recover the first time these scenes are rendered certainly better than you have described. But although the game becomes healthier for the cache clearing, and it's essential if one is working with adding new content and/or the Mods Framework, it doesn't actually help things in this regard.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
If you are using NRaas mods, you might try MasterController's Invite Over command to see if that brings her up on the list and pushes her to go to wherever your active sim is. But on a different play session/different trip to Uni World than the original one, the Mascot(s) spawned may not be the same sim(s).
Without mods, the best you would be able to do is keep looking for her or anyone else who is wearing the distinctive mascot costume.
Although this is not what you asked about, I would be more concerned about why your computer shut down entirely in the middle of a game session. Does this happen often and was it a surprise, or did it shut down for some known reason unrelated to the game?
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
But if your TS3 user game folder in Documents, which is where your mods and all of your other content and game saves would be, stayed in place during a re-install, then it might have become damaged. Please pull it out to the Desktop or rename it, thus forcing the game to spawn a fresh, no-content user game folder in its place on the next startup. Your content, game saves, etc. won't be there anymore, but they will still be safe in the pulled-out or renamed folder. Can you then set up the Mods Framework on the new folder, test it, and install a small amount of content or mods to see if things work correctly on a newly started game?
Also this might just be a matter of semantics, but there are only five Core Mods in popular usage for TS3. NRaas ErrorTrap happens to be one of them. Do you really have many others?
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Also my doubt is that if I can put my old savings on the new folder?:(
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
You might try an Origin Repair Game on Sims 3 to see if that helps.
If not, you may want to bring this issue to our friends on EA's Answers.HQ board. There may be something about your system that is making adding content more difficult than it should be and they would know the best questions to ask first.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/bd-p/the-sims-3
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
However, the issue I'm now encountering a similar issue when trying to run a hotel. The staff just won't stop using the pools instead of doing their jobs. I'm at loss as what to do, if you've ever run a hotel is ts3 you know a pool with diving boards and waterfalls is necessary if you want to get that 5 stars rating, I can't gate it either since the hotel guest need to be able to access it (plus you can't lock doors the way you would in a household unless you make it a VIP area but hotel employees are not stop by this kind of locks anyway so that would not work.)
It's really becoming a major issue because objects in the hotel are not repaired as a result, things stay dirty and trash piles up because the staff is too busy having fun in the pool to do their jobs. Plus when they eventually do go their jobs they stay in swimsuits, and having a maid walking around with palms doesn't say luxury hotel.
I don't understand why this is an issue all of sudden, I have run hotel before in ts3 and staff were doing their jobs and not taking advantage of the pools. The only difference is that this time instead of downloading a CC hotel lot I downloaded a CC lot and then turned it into a hotel myself.
Is there any way of fixing this? I tried to search for a mod that would replace the script of the hotel staff or something of the sorts but I can't seem to find any that fits my issue. I'm getting desperate tbh, running hotel is something I really enjoy in this game but this is making it impossible.
Also, if you could in the future, please create a new thread as help or discussion might be needed. This one is really for those with New Member status who cannot do so yet.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
My issue is about traveling as a household with World Adventures. I have a family consisting of an elder and two teens (and a cat). I can't get them to travel all together. Whenever one sim calls travel services, they're the only one who I am able to confirm travel for- whenever I move one or both of the other two household members from the "staying home" section of the travel services screen to the "traveling" section, the checkmark that lets me confirm and start the vacation grays out. It does not matter who calls; only the caller will always be able to travel solo but I can't bring the other two. Everyone is at Visa level 0, but I can't even get the lowest number of travel days to work. The household does have enough money for everyone to travel. The cat being left alone could be the issue, but I don't think that would be the case.
So that leaves us with the question of why can't 2 or 3 members of your household travel together as a unit. Usually lack of funds is indeed the cause but you have ruled that out. I can't even remember how certain portions of the game behave without mods anymore, but do you not get a tooltip popping up over the greyed out checkmark after you select the second sim explaining why they cannot travel together? This is almost a wild guess, but do the three sims have at least a friendly relationship with each other?
If not averse to using mods, you may want to try NRaas Traveler anyway and see if that unlocks things or at least provides a better explanation of why they are being blocked.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
When not removing the entire user game folder, the five cache files located on the top level of the TS3 user game folder need to be cleared (deleted) whenever the contents of the Mods folder changes in any way. If you find that removing the package files and clearing the caches does not remove the actual content from the game, then you have another user game folder somewhere on your system (such as in OneDrive) that is being used instead of the intended one.
By the way, your sims3packs do not need to stay in Downloads after they have been installed as that only adds to the clutter that the Launcher needs to deal with. Most of us store these things elsewhere, outside of the user game folder. The already installed sims3pack content lives in bundles in the DC Cache folder. The dbc bundles are CC, the ebc bundles are store content. All of that would go away as well if you did the entire TS3 user game folder reset thing.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net