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Optimization for a (not that big) dummy
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Posts: 35 Member
Hello fellow simmers!
It's my first thread on this forum, so at first I would like to welcome you all and excuse you for my English, as it's not my native language. Secondly I am finally oficially a member, after not using the account for 9 years.
And now straight to the chase:
I recently got back to The Sims 3. I obtained all of the expansions available. My PC is way above the requirements (I won't be posting the specs unless it's really necessary, but I wouldn't say it is), so basically I installed whole Sims 3 on my system, and then got to the optimization part.
So, to sum up what I use:
- I got the FPS limiter setting my game to 60 fps (30 is not enough for me, frankly speaking).
- I downloaded NRAAS Overwatch, Master Controller + Integration and ErrorTrap
- I set the vehicle cleaning every Sim hour in Overwatch
- I turned off the memories
- I turned off the interactive menu screens
- I turned lots loading to 2 at the time so more won't be loaded during my sim's driving, as it's a waste
- started from optimizing the game through GeForce Experience (then toning the lots loading)
- I edited the ini file and let my Sims use half of my RAM (so it uses 8Gb, or at least I let it use as much)
Thing is that the game still crunches at times, not as much as it would without all of this, but there are moments when I'm rotating the screen and it stops for a few seconds.
Any advices on what could I add to make the game even smoother?
PS: I would also appreciate useful/interesting mods that you have and that make your game look better/adds interesting features (if you can't post them here then I would be grateful for names on the PM)
It's my first thread on this forum, so at first I would like to welcome you all and excuse you for my English, as it's not my native language. Secondly I am finally oficially a member, after not using the account for 9 years.
And now straight to the chase:
I recently got back to The Sims 3. I obtained all of the expansions available. My PC is way above the requirements (I won't be posting the specs unless it's really necessary, but I wouldn't say it is), so basically I installed whole Sims 3 on my system, and then got to the optimization part.
So, to sum up what I use:
- I got the FPS limiter setting my game to 60 fps (30 is not enough for me, frankly speaking).
- I downloaded NRAAS Overwatch, Master Controller + Integration and ErrorTrap
- I set the vehicle cleaning every Sim hour in Overwatch
- I turned off the memories
- I turned off the interactive menu screens
- I turned lots loading to 2 at the time so more won't be loaded during my sim's driving, as it's a waste
- started from optimizing the game through GeForce Experience (then toning the lots loading)
- I edited the ini file and let my Sims use half of my RAM (so it uses 8Gb, or at least I let it use as much)
Thing is that the game still crunches at times, not as much as it would without all of this, but there are moments when I'm rotating the screen and it stops for a few seconds.
Any advices on what could I add to make the game even smoother?
PS: I would also appreciate useful/interesting mods that you have and that make your game look better/adds interesting features (if you can't post them here then I would be grateful for names on the PM)
Nice pants.
1
Comments
- I got the FPS limiter setting my game to 60 fps (30 is not enough for me, frankly speaking).
There is usually no need to limit the fps rate to less than 60. It can go higher, but only if you have a monitor that can run higher than 60 Hz.
- I set the vehicle cleaning every Sim hour in Overwatch
NRaas Traffic has settings that prevent the unnecessary vehicles from spawning, thus giving Overwatch much less to clean up. Running the cleanup routine every hour seems unnecessary and excessive if it can be avoided. I typically see Overwatch cleaning up 1 or 2 vehicles on its overnight runs now, if even that many, I think once it found 6 or 7.
- I edited the ini file and let my Sims use half of my RAM (so it uses 8Gb, or at least I let it use as much)
Afraid that is not possible. TS3 is a 32-bit application and as such can only address 4 GB of RAM. The actual limit is ~3.7 GB due to some overhead, with the usual danger zone being somewhere around 3.5 GB for most players. If you have found and changed the .ini setting I think you have, it actually said 20 GB to begin with (so you have changed it to 80 GB) and it's a measure of the theoretical upper limit on the script heap, not really RAM usage. We advise against doing that.
There are (still...sigh) sites out there that instruct players to make this change, but it's really an urban legend that doesn't do what it might appear to do. Or you may have found something else, but regardless 32-bit only applications cannot do this. It's a laws of physics/mathematics kind of thing.
Any advices on what could I add to make the game even smoother?
A few.
https://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Actually I didn't notice any change in performance after editing the .ini file, so thanks for clarifying it for me
As for the 60fps then nope, my monitor is 60Hz, thus I didn't feel like I need more FPS. Actually for some strange reason the cap is set on 57fps even though I set it for 60, but that doesn't bother me this much.
And thanks for the useful link, time to get into reading process, perhaps I will come back with some questions