Hi! I have an issue where when I click on items in live mode in my sims home, they get the option to purchase the item. Say when clicking on Bonehilda's coffin it gives me the option to purchase it.. and also to "scroll through" items.(it lists items that are on display and able for purchase in the house.) It's like my sim is living in a store..... I am so confused. I googled this a lot but couldn't find anything. Is this a bug or some kinda weird game option? Any suggestions?
Thanks, @igazor - I will limit my CAS/building to the when I first start the game and hopefully that will make these crashes rarer! Ha! I must have missed that "requirement" for the world. It really is pretty though! And worth it, until it suddenly may not be.
I've got this latptop which I'm just beginning to learn more about for this side of games on: ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15, with an i7-10750H. It is working pretty well, but it really runs things too hot until I limit the fps on most other games too. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-m15-15-6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-2070-max-q-1tb-ssd-prism-gray/6403815.p?skuId=6403815
Any tips for limiting the role/service population? I was doing some searching and saw you can limit the cap for residents via story progression, which I will do to keep this massive world under-populated. However, in Roaring Heights even with the 150 resident cap it got up to 300+ with the addition of role/service sims. Do these role/service sims create memory/issues? If so I was already planning on deleting registers/bars etc. If I delete the bar, do I need to delete the service sim as well or will they be naturally culled with Overwatch?
Final question I swear: To possibly reduce the load of the world, if I turn some of the community lots into like, no visitor lots etc and remove any rabbit holes/reasons to go there, would that help with memory as there could be fewer things to load/no sim activity? Or is it really about the number of lots rather than lot types for memory use.
Hi! I have an issue where when I click on items in live mode in my sims home, they get the option to purchase the item. Say when clicking on Bonehilda's coffin it gives me the option to purchase it.. and also to "scroll through" items.(it lists items that are on display and able for purchase in the house.) It's like my sim is living in a store..... I am so confused. I googled this a lot but couldn't find anything. Is this a bug or some kinda weird game option? Any suggestions?
What you are describing is what happens when your sim is living on a lot that is coded as a retail store or has content in it (like product rugs, they can look like regular carpeting) that make whatever sits upon them available for sale rather than for use.
Where did this lot/world come from that you are playing, is it an EA production or is it custom made by another player (or you)? If you haven't set up a retail store or placed the rugs yourself, then I would have to say either its designer did or something is just wrong with the lot in question. As a test, if you move your sim to a new home does the issue follow them over? What if you move them to an empty residential lot and place a few items on it for them to use? (you don't have to save after doing these things, they are just for testing)
Any tips for limiting the role/service population? I was doing some searching and saw you can limit the cap for residents via story progression, which I will do to keep this massive world under-populated. However, in Roaring Heights even with the 150 resident cap it got up to 300+ with the addition of role/service sims. Do these role/service sims create memory/issues? If so I was already planning on deleting registers/bars etc. If I delete the bar, do I need to delete the service sim as well or will they be naturally culled with Overwatch?
The key number to be concerned about (usually) is number of residents, not total number of sims. Assuming MasterController is in play, on City Hall or an in-game computer, NRaas > MC > Demographics > Population > "X" to dismiss the filter. It's the number of resident sims that should be staying under your cap of 150, unless you add sims or push pregnancies and adoptions to happen yourself in-game (SP will allow these things even when over the cap if they are player-directed).
The homeless sims are not subject to progression, and the Role Sims can be sometimes, but usually they are too busy working for that to have much of an impact. The Service Sim count will always seem high relative to the population because most of them are hiding off the map hibernating while their services are not being called for, and some will be tiny bundles of data like stray animals and the adoption rosters that all together have no real impact on performance. If you have way too many Role Sims managing their assigned stations though (and again, how many is too many will be up to interpretation), then that can be a drag on game performance. A world with 150 residents does not need 75 assigned and working bartenders (mixologists), for example, no matter how thirsty everyone might seem to be. It doesn't need 75 homeless street performers either and these can easily overspawn if Showtime is in play because NRaas SP and Register don't have any real control over that process. Most of us step in and get rid of the excess every once in a while and fiddle around with other homeless NPC assignments when we feel like it, but assuming a huge mob of street performers aren't all actually trying to perform then that's not much of drag on resources either.
If the Demographics report were to show around 150 residents but 800 homeless and service, then I would say something is way off kilter and needs to be looked at more closely.
Final question I swear: To possibly reduce the load of the world, if I turn some of the community lots into like, no visitor lots etc and remove any rabbit holes/reasons to go there, would that help with memory as there could be fewer things to load/no sim activity? Or is it really about the number of lots rather than lot types for memory use.
Generally speaking yes, a less busy world with fewer things for sims to do will be less of a drag on resources, and will reduce the chances of the residents available to actually do anything (when they are not working/going to school) to spread themselves out too thinly across town thus making it seem like every venue is empty.
But RAM usage overload doesn't seem to be the problem you are currently facing, as things now are and given the numbers you have reported on.
> @igazor said: > (Quote) > What you are describing is what happens when your sim is living on a lot that is coded as a retail store or has content in it (like product rugs, they can look like regular carpeting) that make whatever sits upon them available for sale rather than for use.
Thank you so much for the answer! I had used product rugs all around the house without knowing that was even a thing. I haven't played TS3 in ages :') That's a cool feature. Again, thank you!
> @igazor said: > Hi, everyone! > > Those with New Member status cannot begin their own threads. If you have a Sims 3 game issue and are unable to find a recent thread to post on, then please use this one and there will be simmers who will try to help. > > As a reminder, you need 25 Points, 15 Posts and have an account older than 24 hours to become a Member. > > The original, really long version of this thread ran for almost four years. It is being locked up by our friendly moderators and is still available for reference here. > > Happy simming! :)
Hi. I'm new to the forum but not the game. I just repurchased sims 3 for my new pc. But haven't played in a while. I have been building a theme park and want magicians and acrobats to be permanent employees without needing to hire by phone each day. Is there a mod somewhere that will let me do this? I can't find anything.
Hi ,I just bought a new laptop and the specs are nvdia geforce 1650 ti and Intel i5 10300 H. I did all the instructions I read online to limit the fps in the game and it worked , but I have some screen tearing whenever the camera moves fast . Is there any way I can fix this or is there something wrong with my graphics card ? Should I follow the steps to make the game recognize my video card ?
Hello, I've recently come back to playing Sims 3 after Sims 4 and all was okay for a while but now my game keeps randomly crashing to desktop. In my Sims folder in the xcpt DESKTOP file it mentions an 'access violation writing address'. I have done extensive research on this but i am still confused as to what is causing it and have tried several things: DEP settings close background processes disabled internet ( slow internet was causing other issues with launcher not showing installed packs, show with no internet though) took game back to factory settings-removed all cc (which was only from a reputable site) and NRAAS mods but have since returned NRAAS mods removed all bad saves i routinely clean files after each game I was playing in a custom world downloaded from the exchange (currently uninstalled from game) & thought maybe this was the reason so i went back to a Sunset Valley save but with the same family. It still happened so i'm not sure if my family are the issue, if it's my PC or something else. I play with all packs apart from: Into The Future, Island Paradise and Showtime. I believe my PC can handle the game but have read that lack of Ram can be the problem. I am looking into adding/changing my RAM if so I have done a DxDiag report but can't see how to attach it to this message.
I have just started a new game using a different family and so far after 2 or so hours of play it hasn't happened.
My OS is Windows 10 Home edition 64-bit operating system Installed RAM 8GB Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz 3.00 GHz Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (MSI) In the exception it states that my OS is Windows Vista which it's not but i've seen in past posts that this isn't anything to be concerned about. Thank you to anyone who can shed light on this for me!
@sharronbw There's no way to upload a dxdiag directly onto this site, but you can post it on a site like pastebin.com and link it. (You may need to break up the link with spaces or something.) It sounds like the issue might be the save itself though. Have you tried a town reset with NRaas MasterController, if you have it? Click on City Hall, select NRaas > MC > Town Options > Reset Everything; use "save as" to rename the save, quit, delete your cache files, reload, and see whether the save runs any better.
If that doesn't help, do the crashes always happen at the same in-game time, or when you or your sims do something specific, or is there any other pattern? Sometimes an in-game event can cause repeated crashes, although there are plenty of other reasons as well.
@cornliagoth Getting your graphics card recognized probably won't have any impact on performance, although you can try if you want. (If you'd like to try, please post the first 40 or so lines of deviceconfig.log, in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3.) For the screen tearing itself, try switching between fullscreen and windowed modes, to see whether either one is better. And when you say the fps limiter worked, what kind of framerates do you get: is it an even 60 or whatever limit you used, or does it fluctuate wildly or consistently drop much lower?
Thank you puzzleaddict. Here is my dxdiag, hopefully i've done it correctly as i'd never heard of pastebin before! https://pastebin.com/BFtsgXM0 I had done the town reset some time ago but i have just followed your instructions and will see how it goes, thank you. I have got quite a few saves with the same family as i often do the 'save as' so would you suggest i go back to an earlier save (if it happens again) to maybe when i can remember the crashes not happening ie i think before they had children? Also, do you think i can add back some cc, the EA hairs are just so awful :D
I forgot to answer about the crashes. They seem to happen anytime when doing anything: in build mode (happens a lot), just general playing and also when i tried to load China and University in edit town mode but the last 2 were only when playing my family save, with a new save it didn't happen. I had a couple of error 12 when trying to save one time too.
puzzlezaddict I used my nvidia control panel 3d settings to limit fps to 40 bc the screen was tearing worse at 60 in full screen mode , then I used my in game nvdia fps counter in settings . It was not jumping around the fps were very stable I could see it at the top right corner of the game . Yes , it goes away with full screen but it’s hard for me to play on windows mode .Sorry if this sounds picky , but I don’t like the borders in windowed mode and I don’t have the biggest screen . But I could learn to live with it lol
@sharronbw Sorry for the late reply. The Sims 3 errors in your dxdiag could be due to the game running out of a resource, whether RAM or something else. The fact that a new save doesn't have the same issues makes this more likely: your existing save could be overloaded and difficult for the game engine to handle, but a new one doesn't have the same problem.
How did you move the sims to Sunset Valley? There are a few different ways, and the in-game mov (via phone) is the least reliable one. If you don't care about your sims keeping connections to their previous town or its inhabitants, the most efficient way is to save your sims to the bin, save their house separately if you want to preserve it, quit to desktop, clear the cache files, start a new save where you want your sims to live, and place them and their house in that save. There's also the NRaas Traveler method, which works quite well provided its procedure is followed exactly.
If you originally used the in-game method to move your sims, and you have a save from before the move, it may help to try one of the above methods. It's also worth placing your sims in a completely different house, at least initially, in case their existing house is overly complicated.
When playing, it's a good idea to keep other tasks to a minimum. While your computer should in theory be able to manage the game and whatever else you want at the same time, paging to virtual memory when necessary, in practice, Sims 3 gets unstable when its resources are offloaded to the page file. So it's better to avoid those situations entirely, as well as managing the RAM use of the game itself. Keep an eye on memory use in the Task Manager, both for Sims 3 and for your system overall, and if either the game goes over about 3.3 GB or your system goes over about 7 GB, it's time to save, quit, and reload. In the latter case, restarting your computer can help too.
There are a number other useful tips to help keep resource use down here:
You don't have to do all of them—just pick a combination that works for you—but disabling memories can make a significant difference.
Finally, have you taken steps to manually limit your in-game framerates? Your GPU is fast enough to generate much higher fps than is necessary, and that can also cause crashes, although it's more likely to affect most or all saves rather than just one. Still, it's good for the long-term health of your card.
To see your framerates, bring up the cheats console (crtl-shift-C) and enter "fps on" without quotes. A number will appear in the upper right corner of your screen, and it should never go above the refresh rate of your monitor, in your case 60 Hz. If it's consistently high or fluctuates wildly, there are plenty of ways to manually cap it; let us know if you'd like help with the process.
@cornliagoth If windowed mode works better but you don't like the look of it, you could try Windowed Borderless Gaming, which works like borderless mode in other games. It's a free download and works well with Sims 3:
puzzleaddict, no problem, i appreciate your help! I don't know about the GB part but i know when playing in the crashing save that my CPU went from 8% to 71%, memory 52% and GPU 0% to 50%. The power usage was moderate to very high and the power usage: CPU, disk & GPU was very high, in the red. I could hear the change in my PC when this was happening.
I moved my family within the house by saving to the bin and going to an older save of Sunset Valley not a totally new Sunset Valley. I shall try them in another house and see if that helps. I'm also currently playing a new SV with a sim i've created to see how that goes. My old family aren't in this save nor is the house.
Do you think it is worth me purchasing more RAM? I get confused as i'd read that it doesn't matter if you have more RAM as sims 3 can only access so much anyway, but then i'm not very tech minded so i certainly could be wrong on that!
I'm going to try everything you've suggested and see how that goes, thank you very much.
Oh, how do i prevent a save from becoming overloaded in the future, if possible?
@sharronbw Yes, that fps is way too high, both for the long-term health of your GPU and quite possibly for the stability of Sims 3 as you play. It's usually easy enough to get under control, although you may have to try a couple of tools before you get one that works.
The easiest fix, if you play in fullscreen, is to enable vertical sync in the (usually) built-in Nvidia Control Panel. Right-click on your desktop, open the CP, choose Manage 3D Settings, then Program Settings, and select TS3.exe for your Origin install (not TS3W.exe, which is for disc and Steam installs). Then set vertical sync to either On or Adaptive; if one doesn't work, try the other. If you'd like a visual, there's one in this post, under the first spoiler:
If you play in windowed mode, or the vertical sync setting isn't helping, open the CP again, and under Manage 3D Settings > Global Settings, scroll down to Max Frame Rate, turn it on, and set it to 60, the refresh rate of your monitor.
If neither of these settings works, there are other free tools you can download instead, but try the above first.
From the way you describe the crashes, it sounds like there was a problem in-game that the game couldn't properly resolve. While 71% CPU use is high, it's nothing your processor shouldn't be able to handle, but the game engine itself may not have been able to handle it. Without knowing what was happening in-game, it's impossible to say what this might have been, but one example that could cause this is a stuck sim or two: the game tries to recalculate routing to unstick them, but that fails, thousands of times a second, until you get a crash. There are plenty of other possibilities too though.
The best methods of keeping a save running well are all on the NRaas Tips for Better Game Performance page. Some settings, like disabling memories, help more than others, but everything that's known to be useful is listed on that page. Using NRaas mods also helps a lot, as does running a MasterController town reset every few sim-weeks. There are also certain worlds that don't run well, either because they're broken (e.g. Isla Paradiso) or they're too large (some custom worlds). But Sunset Valley should be fine.
I don't know which NRaas mods you use, but I'd never play without ErrorTrap and Overwatch, as well as MC. Traveler is critical if your sims travel; Register and Traffic are especially helpful too. Other than MC, they all do their work without needing any player input, although you can of course change their settings to your liking.
When you want to transfer sims to a new save, it's best to save them and their house separately, although it doesn't always matter. But the house itself could be a source of lag, so if you place sims in a new save and the game doesn't seem to be running well, it might be worth at least testing the sims without their existing house.
The fact is, a lot of this is guesswork, and some luck, and some quitting a game session without saving if something seems off. I get nervous and often quit right away if my save takes too long to load, but then it's a new enough save that I only lose a couple minutes when I start over. As long as you pay attention to how your game runs, you'll start to notice when something is off, and you can step in and try to figure it out before a small problem becomes a large one.
As for getting more memory, the question is whether other tasks on your machine are using close to 4 GB RAM while you play. When I start my computer, Windows is using 2 GB, so I wouldn't need more than 8 GB RAM total if I were only playing Sims 3 and not doing anything else. But if you like to have other apps open, maybe they're using enough memory that there's less than 4 GB left over for TS3. The only way to know for sure is to check the Task Manager or another monitoring app while you play, and either adjust accordingly or buy more RAM so you don't have to manage things.
Memory is cheap now and would be a good investment if you plan to keep this computer for a couple years. Sims 3 isn't changing any time soon, at least as far as we know, but other apps and Windows itself generally use more RAM as they get more complicated.
Your motherboard has two RAM slots, and if only one is occupied, you could get a matching stick (by product number, printed on the memory module itself) for something like $30-40. If both are occupied, you'd need to replace them; a 2x8 GB kit running at 2133 MHz (the speed your board uses) would be around $55. If you're not getting a matching module, you can buy anything on your board's list of compatible memory:
Since your board won't run the memory faster than 2133 MHz, it would be a waste of money to get anything faster. Even if you're planning on building a new PC in a couple years and want to recycle parts, RAM will be faster and probably cheaper then than it is now, so it would be better to wait, and of course to get something compatible with that system.
I looked up how to change the fps before you replied, thank you. It is now running at 59. I have MC cheats, Story progression, Woohoo, Relativity, overwatch & just added Errortrap but i'm now getting script errors (not in game, i see them when i look in the games folder after quitting) Now i'm scared :D Do i need to be concerned about these? Sorry to keep asking you so much, i really appreciate your help. I shall look at the Traveler one, thank you for the tip.
I have turned scrapbook memories off through the in game settings. I also have been doing some of the tips mentioned on Nraas better performance page but i shall keep referring back to it just to be sure!
Yes, there is a lot of trial and error with this game but it's worth it! I shall try adding back some of the cc and keep monitoring performance and everything else. I'll be a PC whizz by the end of it all...Hmm, maybe not.
I'm thinking that i'll change my RAM now (both slots used) so shall replace them both. As you say, not expensive and worth it for the future as i've only had this PC for 2 years or so, bought it with Sims 4 in mind but have gone back to Sims 3.
@sharronbw ErrorTrap does routine cleanup and will list what it fixed in its scripterror logs; it's normal to get one or two every time you launch the game, although I tend to not get one right after doing an MC town reset. Those are nothing to worry about. In general, the ones to pay attention to are repeated errors, during the run of gameplay, that involve the same sim; a few errors at once, again in the run of gameplay; or any errors that happen before a game crash.
If you're not sure what you're looking at, you can always take the scripterrors to the NRaas site and ask. The people there will read the logs and let you know what, if anything, needs to be addressed.
I'll be a PC whizz by the end of it all...Hmm, maybe not.
You'd be surprised at how much people end up learning just by troubleshooting Sims 3. (I include myself in that as well.) Even if you don't learn the inner workings of Windows, paying attention to the game-related details can be illuminating, not to mention make your life a lot easier in other ways.
> @puzzlezaddict said: > @cornliagoth If windowed mode works better but you don't like the look of it, you could try Windowed Borderless Gaming, which works like borderless mode in other games. It's a free download and works well with Sims 3: > > https://westechsolutions.net/sites/WindowedBorderlessGaming
I've been having a problem for the last day or so. I can't log into my account via the launcher. It tells me that my email address and password are valid, and yet I can log into my EA account and Sims 3 account just fine on the web, using the same credentials. How can I fix this?
@greyjoy717 - Assuming you are on the Windows version of the game (as opposed to Mac), try clearing the cache for Internet Explorer. It must be IE, even if you never use it anymore it's in there someplace, the game uses its resources, and the cache very often gets clogged with useless data. Be sure to also deselect the option to preserve data for Favorites. https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=15141
Second thing to try is changing your password, sometimes if it's not the cache issue then this helps. Be sure to only use English keyboard letters and numbers, no special symbols or accented letters.
Hi. I've just downloaded Sims 3 on to my new Acer Aspire 5. The game itself plays excellently but I've just added Master Controller to it and the game keeps crashing. I've used the mods folder set up from Mod the Sims, like I've always done in the past. All of my mods work well on my old laptop with no problem. How can I fix this?
@GeneralSnips501 - Hi there. We usually recommend that players bring NRaas mod performance issues to us at NRaas because that is, after all, what we are there for. But anyway, is the crashing happening while the game is still starting up or later, during gameplay? One thing that catches players all the time is easy to fix -- you can't have the MC Progression add-on module in play if you don't also have StoryProgression (a different mod). That will crash the game on startup every time.
But if that's not it, the next thing I would suggest would be clearing (deleting) the scriptCache file that will be in your TS3 user game folder in Documents if you don't already routinely do this. That file needs to be deleted whenever the contents of Mods\Packages changes in any way. And then third, perhaps try a fresh download of MC, perhaps you got a "bad" one there.
And from there the next question would be, do any of your mods work on your new setup including the two test ones that come from the MTS suggested Framework download?
Comments
I've got this latptop which I'm just beginning to learn more about for this side of games on: ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15, with an i7-10750H. It is working pretty well, but it really runs things too hot until I limit the fps on most other games too. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-m15-15-6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-2070-max-q-1tb-ssd-prism-gray/6403815.p?skuId=6403815
Any tips for limiting the role/service population? I was doing some searching and saw you can limit the cap for residents via story progression, which I will do to keep this massive world under-populated. However, in Roaring Heights even with the 150 resident cap it got up to 300+ with the addition of role/service sims. Do these role/service sims create memory/issues? If so I was already planning on deleting registers/bars etc. If I delete the bar, do I need to delete the service sim as well or will they be naturally culled with Overwatch?
Final question I swear: To possibly reduce the load of the world, if I turn some of the community lots into like, no visitor lots etc and remove any rabbit holes/reasons to go there, would that help with memory as there could be fewer things to load/no sim activity? Or is it really about the number of lots rather than lot types for memory use.
Thank you for all you do to help players!
Where did this lot/world come from that you are playing, is it an EA production or is it custom made by another player (or you)? If you haven't set up a retail store or placed the rugs yourself, then I would have to say either its designer did or something is just wrong with the lot in question. As a test, if you move your sim to a new home does the issue follow them over? What if you move them to an empty residential lot and place a few items on it for them to use? (you don't have to save after doing these things, they are just for testing)
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
The homeless sims are not subject to progression, and the Role Sims can be sometimes, but usually they are too busy working for that to have much of an impact. The Service Sim count will always seem high relative to the population because most of them are hiding off the map hibernating while their services are not being called for, and some will be tiny bundles of data like stray animals and the adoption rosters that all together have no real impact on performance. If you have way too many Role Sims managing their assigned stations though (and again, how many is too many will be up to interpretation), then that can be a drag on game performance. A world with 150 residents does not need 75 assigned and working bartenders (mixologists), for example, no matter how thirsty everyone might seem to be. It doesn't need 75 homeless street performers either and these can easily overspawn if Showtime is in play because NRaas SP and Register don't have any real control over that process. Most of us step in and get rid of the excess every once in a while and fiddle around with other homeless NPC assignments when we feel like it, but assuming a huge mob of street performers aren't all actually trying to perform then that's not much of drag on resources either.
If the Demographics report were to show around 150 residents but 800 homeless and service, then I would say something is way off kilter and needs to be looked at more closely.
Generally speaking yes, a less busy world with fewer things for sims to do will be less of a drag on resources, and will reduce the chances of the residents available to actually do anything (when they are not working/going to school) to spread themselves out too thinly across town thus making it seem like every venue is empty.
But RAM usage overload doesn't seem to be the problem you are currently facing, as things now are and given the numbers you have reported on.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
> (Quote)
> What you are describing is what happens when your sim is living on a lot that is coded as a retail store or has content in it (like product rugs, they can look like regular carpeting) that make whatever sits upon them available for sale rather than for use.
Thank you so much for the answer! I had used product rugs all around the house without knowing that was even a thing. I haven't played TS3 in ages :') That's a cool feature. Again, thank you!
> Hi, everyone!
>
> Those with New Member status cannot begin their own threads. If you have a Sims 3 game issue and are unable to find a recent thread to post on, then please use this one and there will be simmers who will try to help.
>
> As a reminder, you need 25 Points, 15 Posts and have an account older than 24 hours to become a Member.
>
> The original, really long version of this thread ran for almost four years. It is being locked up by our friendly moderators and is still available for reference here.
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Hi. I'm new to the forum but not the game. I just repurchased sims 3 for my new pc. But haven't played in a while. I have been building a theme park and want magicians and acrobats to be permanent employees without needing to hire by phone each day. Is there a mod somewhere that will let me do this? I can't find anything.
Thanks.
DEP settings
close background processes
disabled internet ( slow internet was causing other issues with launcher not showing installed packs, show with no internet though)
took game back to factory settings-removed all cc (which was only from a reputable site) and NRAAS mods but have since returned NRAAS mods
removed all bad saves
i routinely clean files after each game
I was playing in a custom world downloaded from the exchange (currently uninstalled from game) & thought maybe this was the reason so i went back to a Sunset Valley save but with the same family. It still happened so i'm not sure if my family are the issue, if it's my PC or something else.
I play with all packs apart from: Into The Future, Island Paradise and Showtime.
I believe my PC can handle the game but have read that lack of Ram can be the problem. I am looking into adding/changing my RAM if so
I have done a DxDiag report but can't see how to attach it to this message.
I have just started a new game using a different family and so far after 2 or so hours of play it hasn't happened.
My OS is Windows 10 Home edition 64-bit operating system
Installed RAM 8GB
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz 3.00 GHz
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (MSI)
In the exception it states that my OS is Windows Vista which it's not but i've seen in past posts that this isn't anything to be concerned about.
Thank you to anyone who can shed light on this for me!
If that doesn't help, do the crashes always happen at the same in-game time, or when you or your sims do something specific, or is there any other pattern? Sometimes an in-game event can cause repeated crashes, although there are plenty of other reasons as well.
@cornliagoth Getting your graphics card recognized probably won't have any impact on performance, although you can try if you want. (If you'd like to try, please post the first 40 or so lines of deviceconfig.log, in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3.) For the screen tearing itself, try switching between fullscreen and windowed modes, to see whether either one is better. And when you say the fps limiter worked, what kind of framerates do you get: is it an even 60 or whatever limit you used, or does it fluctuate wildly or consistently drop much lower?
I had done the town reset some time ago but i have just followed your instructions and will see how it goes, thank you. I have got quite a few saves with the same family as i often do the 'save as' so would you suggest i go back to an earlier save (if it happens again) to maybe when i can remember the crashes not happening ie i think before they had children? Also, do you think i can add back some cc, the EA hairs are just so awful :D
How did you move the sims to Sunset Valley? There are a few different ways, and the in-game mov (via phone) is the least reliable one. If you don't care about your sims keeping connections to their previous town or its inhabitants, the most efficient way is to save your sims to the bin, save their house separately if you want to preserve it, quit to desktop, clear the cache files, start a new save where you want your sims to live, and place them and their house in that save. There's also the NRaas Traveler method, which works quite well provided its procedure is followed exactly.
If you originally used the in-game method to move your sims, and you have a save from before the move, it may help to try one of the above methods. It's also worth placing your sims in a completely different house, at least initially, in case their existing house is overly complicated.
When playing, it's a good idea to keep other tasks to a minimum. While your computer should in theory be able to manage the game and whatever else you want at the same time, paging to virtual memory when necessary, in practice, Sims 3 gets unstable when its resources are offloaded to the page file. So it's better to avoid those situations entirely, as well as managing the RAM use of the game itself. Keep an eye on memory use in the Task Manager, both for Sims 3 and for your system overall, and if either the game goes over about 3.3 GB or your system goes over about 7 GB, it's time to save, quit, and reload. In the latter case, restarting your computer can help too.
There are a number other useful tips to help keep resource use down here:
https://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE
You don't have to do all of them—just pick a combination that works for you—but disabling memories can make a significant difference.
Finally, have you taken steps to manually limit your in-game framerates? Your GPU is fast enough to generate much higher fps than is necessary, and that can also cause crashes, although it's more likely to affect most or all saves rather than just one. Still, it's good for the long-term health of your card.
To see your framerates, bring up the cheats console (crtl-shift-C) and enter "fps on" without quotes. A number will appear in the upper right corner of your screen, and it should never go above the refresh rate of your monitor, in your case 60 Hz. If it's consistently high or fluctuates wildly, there are plenty of ways to manually cap it; let us know if you'd like help with the process.
https://westechsolutions.net/sites/WindowedBorderlessGaming/
I moved my family within the house by saving to the bin and going to an older save of Sunset Valley not a totally new Sunset Valley. I shall try them in another house and see if that helps.
I'm also currently playing a new SV with a sim i've created to see how that goes. My old family aren't in this save nor is the house.
Do you think it is worth me purchasing more RAM? I get confused as i'd read that it doesn't matter if you have more RAM as sims 3 can only access so much anyway, but then i'm not very tech minded so i certainly could be wrong on that!
I'm going to try everything you've suggested and see how that goes, thank you very much.
Oh, how do i prevent a save from becoming overloaded in the future, if possible?
The easiest fix, if you play in fullscreen, is to enable vertical sync in the (usually) built-in Nvidia Control Panel. Right-click on your desktop, open the CP, choose Manage 3D Settings, then Program Settings, and select TS3.exe for your Origin install (not TS3W.exe, which is for disc and Steam installs). Then set vertical sync to either On or Adaptive; if one doesn't work, try the other. If you'd like a visual, there's one in this post, under the first spoiler:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/16540301/#Comment_16540301
If you play in windowed mode, or the vertical sync setting isn't helping, open the CP again, and under Manage 3D Settings > Global Settings, scroll down to Max Frame Rate, turn it on, and set it to 60, the refresh rate of your monitor.
If neither of these settings works, there are other free tools you can download instead, but try the above first.
From the way you describe the crashes, it sounds like there was a problem in-game that the game couldn't properly resolve. While 71% CPU use is high, it's nothing your processor shouldn't be able to handle, but the game engine itself may not have been able to handle it. Without knowing what was happening in-game, it's impossible to say what this might have been, but one example that could cause this is a stuck sim or two: the game tries to recalculate routing to unstick them, but that fails, thousands of times a second, until you get a crash. There are plenty of other possibilities too though.
The best methods of keeping a save running well are all on the NRaas Tips for Better Game Performance page. Some settings, like disabling memories, help more than others, but everything that's known to be useful is listed on that page. Using NRaas mods also helps a lot, as does running a MasterController town reset every few sim-weeks. There are also certain worlds that don't run well, either because they're broken (e.g. Isla Paradiso) or they're too large (some custom worlds). But Sunset Valley should be fine.
I don't know which NRaas mods you use, but I'd never play without ErrorTrap and Overwatch, as well as MC. Traveler is critical if your sims travel; Register and Traffic are especially helpful too. Other than MC, they all do their work without needing any player input, although you can of course change their settings to your liking.
When you want to transfer sims to a new save, it's best to save them and their house separately, although it doesn't always matter. But the house itself could be a source of lag, so if you place sims in a new save and the game doesn't seem to be running well, it might be worth at least testing the sims without their existing house.
The fact is, a lot of this is guesswork, and some luck, and some quitting a game session without saving if something seems off. I get nervous and often quit right away if my save takes too long to load, but then it's a new enough save that I only lose a couple minutes when I start over. As long as you pay attention to how your game runs, you'll start to notice when something is off, and you can step in and try to figure it out before a small problem becomes a large one.
As for getting more memory, the question is whether other tasks on your machine are using close to 4 GB RAM while you play. When I start my computer, Windows is using 2 GB, so I wouldn't need more than 8 GB RAM total if I were only playing Sims 3 and not doing anything else. But if you like to have other apps open, maybe they're using enough memory that there's less than 4 GB left over for TS3. The only way to know for sure is to check the Task Manager or another monitoring app while you play, and either adjust accordingly or buy more RAM so you don't have to manage things.
Memory is cheap now and would be a good investment if you plan to keep this computer for a couple years. Sims 3 isn't changing any time soon, at least as far as we know, but other apps and Windows itself generally use more RAM as they get more complicated.
Your motherboard has two RAM slots, and if only one is occupied, you could get a matching stick (by product number, printed on the memory module itself) for something like $30-40. If both are occupied, you'd need to replace them; a 2x8 GB kit running at 2133 MHz (the speed your board uses) would be around $55. If you're not getting a matching module, you can buy anything on your board's list of compatible memory:
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/H110M-PRO-VD-PLUS-#support-mem-5
Since your board won't run the memory faster than 2133 MHz, it would be a waste of money to get anything faster. Even if you're planning on building a new PC in a couple years and want to recycle parts, RAM will be faster and probably cheaper then than it is now, so it would be better to wait, and of course to get something compatible with that system.
I have MC cheats, Story progression, Woohoo, Relativity, overwatch & just added Errortrap but i'm now getting script errors (not in game, i see them when i look in the games folder after quitting) Now i'm scared :D Do i need to be concerned about these? Sorry to keep asking you so much, i really appreciate your help.
I shall look at the Traveler one, thank you for the tip.
I have turned scrapbook memories off through the in game settings. I also have been doing some of the tips mentioned on Nraas better performance page but i shall keep referring back to it just to be sure!
Yes, there is a lot of trial and error with this game but it's worth it! I shall try adding back some of the cc and keep monitoring performance and everything else. I'll be a PC whizz by the end of it all...Hmm, maybe not.
I'm thinking that i'll change my RAM now (both slots used) so shall replace them both. As you say, not expensive and worth it for the future as i've only had this PC for 2 years or so, bought it with Sims 4 in mind but have gone back to Sims 3.
If you're not sure what you're looking at, you can always take the scripterrors to the NRaas site and ask. The people there will read the logs and let you know what, if anything, needs to be addressed.
You'd be surprised at how much people end up learning just by troubleshooting Sims 3. (I include myself in that as well.) Even if you don't learn the inner workings of Windows, paying attention to the game-related details can be illuminating, not to mention make your life a lot easier in other ways.
> @cornliagoth If windowed mode works better but you don't like the look of it, you could try Windowed Borderless Gaming, which works like borderless mode in other games. It's a free download and works well with Sims 3:
>
> https://westechsolutions.net/sites/WindowedBorderlessGaming
Thank you @puzzlezaddict :)
https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=15141
Second thing to try is changing your password, sometimes if it's not the cache issue then this helps. Be sure to only use English keyboard letters and numbers, no special symbols or accented letters.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
But if that's not it, the next thing I would suggest would be clearing (deleting) the scriptCache file that will be in your TS3 user game folder in Documents if you don't already routinely do this. That file needs to be deleted whenever the contents of Mods\Packages changes in any way. And then third, perhaps try a fresh download of MC, perhaps you got a "bad" one there.
And from there the next question would be, do any of your mods work on your new setup including the two test ones that come from the MTS suggested Framework download?
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net