@igazor Sorry for asking too much questions , could my previous comment be deleted? After rereading the question, I don’t think i wrote it correctly. I ran a factory reset where the missing object warning still occurred. I’m currently in the process to reinstall the sims again. Everything in my launcher shows up , but I’m still getting the warning. Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.
There are two kinds of sims3packs content. One is Custom Content (CC), these are things that are created by other players who make them available for us to enjoy and can be found on the Exchange or by way of other third party websites. They are installed by way of the Launcher and, once installed, land in dbc bundles in the DCCache folder.
Hi, I just bought a new laptop and I'm trying to run Sims 3 on it. My graphics card is a NVidia GTX 1660 Ti , I have managed to get the game to find it and the game opened to check that it finds it but when I change the graphics rules so the card gets matched, the game won't open. I open the game via origin as I am on patch 1.69 and it brings up the launcher and when I click play on the launcher it then closes and takes me back to origin. I have tried uninstalling etc and it doesn't work. Is there any way to fix this problem? Thank you in advance!
@sophie4fv Have you also fixed it so your game frame rate, aka FPS, is capped at 60, or whatever your monitors refresh rate is? That's MUCH more important than getting your graphics card recognized. If you don't do that your nice 1660 Ti will suffer badly, and eventually burn itself out, and it could happen sooner than you think.
There are two kinds of sims3packs content. One is Custom Content (CC), these are things that are created by other players who make them available for us to enjoy and can be found on the Exchange or by way of other third party websites. They are installed by way of the Launcher and, once installed, land in dbc bundles in the DCCache folder.
That is technically correct. But I would like to think that the OP would know if they had created their own content for themselves to use and wouldn't require us to tell them that.
There are two kinds of sims3packs content. One is Custom Content (CC), these are things that are created by other players who make them available for us to enjoy and can be found on the Exchange or by way of other third party websites. They are installed by way of the Launcher and, once installed, land in dbc bundles in the DCCache folder.
That is technically correct. But I would like to think that the OP would know if they had created their own content for themselves to use and wouldn't require us to tell them that.
Yes, I know it is. Which means that it's technically incorrect to say that .dbc files are created by "other players". They certainly can be, but not necessarily. The ones I have in my DCCache folders aren't.
As always I think it's important to get the facts straight.
OK, so I have a problem. I tried moving my sim to a new town today, from Bridgeport to Starlight Shores. Every time I do it it loads up to one specific point and then it just stops forever loading. Besides from that, my sims have been glitching all over while playing... When I would click the "Go Home" button, they would get home but there would still be the button there to click. And so I would click again and they would just stand there as if they are completely lost in time and space. This caused some other problems, like not being able to get the repair technician to fix the dish washer, or organizing a birthday party at home. They are in the house, but the game doesn't recognize the lot as the sims' home. I've spent multiple hours trying to fix this and haven't found a way. I don't have any mods or custom content, only some things bought from SimStore or whatever it's called.
My game's going crazy, and it's never been like this...I'm going crazy, so please help!
@ninosafar - On the Go Home not really registering all the way issue, there could be something suddenly wrong with the home lot but I would suggest first trying the following kinds of resets.
Before you launch the game the next time, clear (delete) the five cache files on the top level of the TS3 user game folder in Documents if you don't already do this on a routine basis and see if that helps. Not the DCCache, the five standalone cache files on the top level.
If no better, then in-game retreat to Edit Town, evict the entire household to the side of the screen, copy the uninhabited lot down to the bin, bulldoze the original, replace it with a copy, and move everyone back in without having left the screen. If this doesn't help or somehow makes things worse, or if they get stuck midway in the process, then quit without saving (if the game hasn't frozen up or crashed on you by then) and you will be back to where you were before. You may also want to try moving them to a new (to them) lot to see if that helps clear any of the problems.
While you are there though, or on the next try, also make a copy of your entire household to the bin for placement in a new world which you can get to by starting up a fresh game and choosing the new place for them to live. Moving to a new world the in-game way (without mods) doesn't really do anything different than this, it's essentially a way of starting over except with the same sims. Either way, your active household will have no memory of sims or experiences of things that were in the world left behind.
Those would be the standard non-mod things to try first.
If not averse to using mods, a collection of those from NRaas work pretty hard to prevent this kind of thing from happening as games bog down and can tend to become broken while remaining in the same homeworld for a while, as well as provide some tools that can help fix things. How long "a while" is can be several generations or just one or two, it varies. The mods in particular are Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Register, Traffic, to an extent GoHere, and MasterController.
Further, NRaas Traveler and Porter offer several options for moving to a new world that would allow some or all of the sims from your current one, and even the world itself, to remain in play so there is usually not as much of a need to keep starting over depending on the nature of the original problems.
Hi all, I’m having a huge problem with my copy of The Sims 3.
Ok, so I have a house that has cc built into it, and all the cc shows up just fine. It’s all in the game inventory and is placeable.
However, I started to download some new lots for my sims, but then suddenly, the custom content for only the new lots I installed broke! They were all replaced by the ugly basic objects! When I installed the lots via the launcher, it says that it’s installed successfully. It’s very strange to me how the game doesn’t seem to generate the cc, but you can place it from the inventory just fine. I’m on version 1.67.2 by the way.
I’ve literally tried EVERYTHING, but nothing seems to work. The cc just isn’t showing up. Please someone help! A nice step by step guide would be very helpful!
> @SuzyCue72 said: > (Quote) > > @sophie4fv Have you also fixed it so your game frame rate, aka FPS, is capped at 60, or whatever your monitors refresh rate is? That's MUCH more important than getting your graphics card recognized. If you don't do that your nice 1660 Ti will suffer badly, and eventually burn itself out, and it could happen sooner than you think. :'(
Hi @SuzyCue72, I have only just seen this! I have vertical sync on, which I turned on in the NVIDIA control panel for the sims 3, will this limit my FPS to 60? Thanks in advance!
> @SuzyCue72 said:
> (Quote)
>
> @sophie4fv Have you also fixed it so your game frame rate, aka FPS, is capped at 60, or whatever your monitors refresh rate is? That's MUCH more important than getting your graphics card recognized. If you don't do that your nice 1660 Ti will suffer badly, and eventually burn itself out, and it could happen sooner than you think.
Hi @SuzyCue72, I have only just seen this! I have vertical sync on, which I turned on in the NVIDIA control panel for the sims 3, will this limit my FPS to 60? Thanks in advance!
That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
> @SuzyCue72 said: > (Quote) > > @sophie4fv Hi to you too! :) > > That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
@SuzyCue72 - I have just checked and the FPS is running at more than 60fps, so that means I have a dual graphics laptop. I have just checked and it looks like my second graphics card is an AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics. Do you know how I can limit my FPS then? Thanks!
> @sophie4fv said: > > @SuzyCue72 said: > > (Quote) > > > > @sophie4fv Hi to you too! :) > > > > That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum. > > @SuzyCue72 - I have just checked and the FPS is running at more than 60fps, so that means I have a dual graphics laptop. I have just checked and it looks like my second graphics card is an AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics. Do you know how I can limit my FPS then? Thanks!
@SuzyCue72 Sorry it doesn't seem like it tagged you properly in the previous post! :smile:
> @SuzyCue72 said: > (Quote) > > @sophie4fv Hi to you too! :) > > That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
Sorry for all the posts but I can't edit anything - @SuzyCue72 I have managed to find the settings for my other graphics card and there is an fps limiter, which I have set to 60fps. I have just tested it in game and it doesn't show more than 60fps so it's fixed. Thanks for all your help! :)
> @SuzyCue72 said:
> (Quote)
>
> @sophie4fv Hi to you too!
>
> That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
Sorry for all the posts but I can't edit anything - @SuzyCue72 I have managed to find the settings for my other graphics card and there is an fps limiter, which I have set to 60fps. I have just tested it in game and it doesn't show more than 60fps so it's fixed. Thanks for all your help!
@sophie4fv Yay, that's really good news! Many people cannot fix these things without a lot of help, but you managed to do it! I think you should be proud of yourself.
Alright so I searched for answers to my problem, but there doesn't seem to be any solutions. My issue is that for some reason, the swimwear bottoms for toddlers does not exist in CAS. The section is missing and so when a toddler is in swimwear their legs are missing.
Can't post a picture directly, so here's the link. https://imgur.com/KgdeMET
I checked my CC to see if there is anything that affects toddler swimwear but there is nothing. The only CC I have for toddlers is hair. I'm not sure what could be causing this. It doesn't break the game or anything, but it is pretty jarring when a toddler goes swimming and their legs vanish.
I've been talking to EA for 2 hours trying to get this figured out. I recently got a new PC for my birthday because my old one finally retired on me lmao. The game runs great until I get into actual gameplay and then it gets choppy and my sims move slow which I'm not used to at all. My question is: I have money leftover from my birthday. Should I get a new computer or is this fixable?
System Specs:
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 18362) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202) Language: English (Regional Setting: English) System Manufacturer: Dell Inc. System Model: OptiPlex 745 BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 2.6.4 (type: BIOS) Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz (2 CPUs), ~1.9GHz Memory: 4096MB RAM Available OS Memory: 4022MB RAM Page File: 3759MB used, 1643MB available Windows Dir: C:\windows DirectX Version: DirectX 12 DX Setup Parameters: Not found User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent) System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent) DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled Miracast: Not Available Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported DirectX Database Version: Unknown DxDiag Version: 10.00.18362.0387 64bit Unicode
@gtforobyn - Is this report really on the new computer on which you are trying to play? I understand it may be new to you, not a new machine, but the PC whose specs you are listing was among a product line released in 2007. Those were actually pretty good office machines back in their time, but they were never meant to run graphics intensive games and their strong suits (back then) were more around office and school types of applications.
I'm actually kind of surprised that an Optiplex 745 can run Win 10, that must have been a close call. Anyway, in theory it should be able to run the base game (only) on the lowest of graphics settings across the board in Game Options. It might be able to take a very early Expansion Pack or two (WA, Ambitions, maybe Generations instead) before performance would be expected to fall apart or the game would just stop loading. But it probably wouldn't be all that satisfying to play TS3 on this system with all of the performance barriers and restrictions that the much older hardware set would be presenting and depending on how hard it's been used all this time there may not be much point in trying to add more RAM or coax a little more performance out of it.
It might do a pretty good job with TS2 though, if you have access to that game.
@igazor it was gifted to me for my birthday so I didn’t really check into it until afterwards. I have $300 left so I’m trying to find good pcs or laptops to run it. I’ve heard Inspiron is a good choice, but I’m still looking. Do you have any suggestions?
@gtforobyn - Inspiron is a huge product line and they kind of range all over the place, as many do.There's nothing magical about the brand name though, and there are many other product lines under Asus, HP, Lenovo (sometimes), Acer, and others that would do just as well or better. As long as the build is of high enough quality, it's really the components that matter more than the brand name on the final package.
It's going to depend on your expectations, but desktops to run all or most TS3 expansions on at least medium settings are going to start in the $600s (US Dollars), not including monitor if one is needed. Laptops will start somewhere around the $800s, and both types will run through much higher price ranges if more performance or other uses like more modern games are required. Prices will also be very different (usually way higher) in other countries.
From there we can talk about occasional sales, cutting corners to bring/keep the price tag down a bit, and used hardware is usually going to be cheaper than new, but there's never any guarantees that we can get what we expect out of used systems. If $300 is your total budget right now though, I can't really recommend trying to find a decent system on which to play TS3. Even just the base game is pretty demanding, not really so by 2020 standards, but it's going to require more processor power, RAM, graphics ability than Win 10 systems can really provide in the lower-end price tiers, and a decent cooling system would also be required. Most systems in the $200s and $300s are going to be meant for web browsers, email, video streaming, and maybe some light office/school tasks run one at a time or so, but not so much on the gaming front.
Maybe others here will have more helpful suggestions, though.
Hello! Thank you for any help in advance. I have a memory crash question that I'm not seeing a resolution for yet.
In short, I use tiny saves and I'm still getting "max memory" crashes and I'm not sure what else to do.
Steps I've Taken:
* Used the GPU "add on" app for the game to recognize my beefy new graphics card * Merged my small amount of cc (only 121mb) * Deleted caches/run save cleaner after every quit maintain small save file (43mb)
I have reinstalled and playing TS3 relatively successfully with all necessary Nraas mods and keep a small save file (43mb) and a small merged CC folder (121mb). However, usually after exiting CAS or going from Edit Town/Live Mode my game will sometimes crash. This is usually after I've been playing for 2+ hours - not in gameplay, building or in CAS. I've been using the TS3 Crash Log Analyzer, and it says crashed due to Max Memory Used.
I love playing on max settings as my computer runs it beautifully when I cap the fps (except these handful of times). Right now I am playing in Sao Paten, which is a beautiful and large (unpopulated but for my family) world at 1.95Gb. However, I had this same issue when I was playing in Roaring Heights.
1. Is my game really out of memory or is it crashing for some other reason?
2. If so, what is causing the large spikes in memory that seem to push it over the 4Gb threshold?
3. What else can I do to lower the memory?
Here is a text file that shows up in my mods folder after a crash: EA_PLATFORM: Windows on X86 OS name: Windows Vista OS version number: 6.2.9200 OS service pack: Debugger present: no CPU count: 12 Processor type: x86 Processor level: 6 Processor revision: 42242 Memory load: 61% Total physical memory: 16166 Mb Available physical memory: 6293 Mb Total page file memory: 22054 Mb Available page file memory: 3722 Mb Total virtual memory: 4095 Mb Free virtual memory: 101 Mb
My graphics card: RTX 2070
Thank you for all of your help for new/returning players! So happy to be back and playing.
@kmbat101 - Crash logs, with or without the CLA (Crash Log Analyzer), often get things all wrong. However, this one shows us something important in that very last line -- what TS3 calls "virtual memory" and what the rest of us in the real world call it are two totally different things, but what it does show us is at that point your game is out of usable resources. It also shows us that your system is using paging (now that's what we really call virtual memory) like crazy, if we can believe that section of it, and TS3 is not stable when that much paging is required.
Long CAS or Edit Town sessions with lots of building and changes being made will do this. Saving (or Saving As) frequently throughout often helps reduce the load, as does starting new game sessions more often when engaged with CAS and Edit Town activities as opposed to actual gameplay.
Let's try something else if we can. Load up your usual save and check actual total RAM usage in the Task Manager (actual GBs used by TS3, not percentages). Play for a short while, go into CAS or Build/Buy and make some small changes, don't save the game yet, and check again. How close are you to the over 3.5 GB danger zone?
Then repeat with Sunset Valley, a new instance if you don't have a save handy. Any different?
Also, have you checked on those actual frame rates in-game with the fps on cheat code to make sure that they are really staying capped as you have set up?
It's difficult to say without more details on what you are working with, but it should be noted that most very large beautiful TS3 custom made worlds are known to not be very playable. I don't know if Sao Paten falls into that category, but seems like it might. We get player reports about other huge worlds like this all the time and all the players can really do is bulldoze half the world (which then kind of defeats the purpose of playing them) and control the population more or move their sims to more medium sized ones.
Thank you! Yes- my fps when I use the "fps on" code it remains under the 70 cap I set.
You are right I'm probably taking a risk on a player world, but this one is just so stunning it's hard to leave (https://potato-ballad-sims.tumblr.com/post/96825816398). And I will read through those performance tips!
Here is the RAM usage via Task Manager:
1. RAM usage during 30 minutes or so of straight "live mode" gameplay after loading up an existing Sao Paten save below: Averaging between 1,900 and 2,300ish MB.
2. RAM usage in same Sao Paten save after using CAS for a long period with many changes and switching back/forth between households to do it: Jumped up to over 2,500MB with the highest spike I saw was 2,800MB. Then during gameplay it would go back to the lower 2,000's.
3. RAM on new save in Sunset Valley: Averages between 1,700 and up to 2,100MB after about 20 minutes and the higher end is when I use CAS. EA's story progression was on as well.
I'm able to play relatively well (up til now) on most worlds it seems but these random crashes mean I'm always super anxious about hitting CAS/Edit Town. You are absolutely right, it seems like they happen when I've been playing a long time straight and the "crash" part only happens I'm transitioning between something like CAS/Live Mode and Edit Town/Live Mode.
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* How can I then reduce the amount of paging that my computer is doing so it doesn't spike past that limit? Is it a setting I could do in my graphic card's control panel or a setting in the game?
* Is it OK to keep going on higher graphics settings in game, or that what could be causing these crashes?
* Is there anything I can do to reduce the load on TS3 and put it on other programs. For example, lowering edge smoothing etc and getting reshades to do it instead? That... could be a ridiculous question I'm not sure how that works yet.
Also: I realized I had Chrome on in the background while I was playing. It was averaging less than 1,500MB of RAM so let me know if that could be an issue.
@kmbat101 - I'm really nervous about one of the stringent requirements as stated by the world's designer on that blog page, "Knowledge of where South America is on a map." Really? Uh...wait. South is "down," yeah, so South America is like Virginia or Oklahoma? Or is it "left" and more like Vancouver? I always get these mixed up, guess the world is not for me. (just kidding, of course)
I didn't mean to imply that custom player made worlds are always risky, actually some of them from notably talented world designers are made better and play better than many EA worlds. It's the overly large, ornate, and intricate ones that can push the boundaries of resource usage that make them still beautiful to look at and poke around, set up scenes and take pictures/videos of, but might not be as useful for actual longer term gameplay spanning several generations if that is what the player is interested in. And many of them, even the huge ones, might function quite well as vacation destinations for relatively brief (in sim days) visits rather than homeworld play, using the NRaas Traveler mod.
Thanks for the RAM stats, but it actually sounds like that's not currently the problem for you. At 2.5 GB with spikes as far as 2.8 GB during routine play, that sounds great and well within safety limits for any large world. Where you have to be careful as we've said is with long and complicated CAS and Edit Town sessions, especially while already well into a longer game session. If you could bring yourself to restrict these CAS and Edit Town binges to near the beginning of your sessions or save and reload completely before embarking on them, you might get much more stable results. The game can only really work with 800 MB of vRAM for example and your graphics card carries much more than TS3 can ever use, so that can be one of the resources that's running away on you.
Your system is certainly strong enough to handle all of the highest settings in Game Options, but we usually recommend no more than about 2 for High Detail Lots (maybe you can stretch that a little if 2 seems too restrictive) and no higher than medium for Water/Reflections as these two particular ones are very resource heavy vs. the benefits they provide. I didn't see what you have for a CPU, but with that graphics card I'm assuming it's equally as strong and powerful although I really should have asked -- I mean, you haven't by any chance jammed an RTX 2070 into a system running a processor that is too weak to keep up with it? (this doesn't really sound likely from what you have described)
Chrome is a total resource hog and likes to reserve tons of RAM for itself in anticipation of the user opening up more tabs or revisiting the ones they just closed under the apparent assumption that our computers are built to run Chrome and for no other purpose. But you have 16 GB so it should be sufficient to just close the browser out occasionally and start it up again as needed during gameplay. Firefox used to be much better/more resource efficient, and it still is somewhat, but the gap between the two has closed over the years.
The Tips page I linked to has all kinds of suggestions on how to reduce resource usage, some of which will resonate or be more helpful to some players than others. Off the top of my head, here are some big ones:
- Use NRaas Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Register, Traffic, GoHere to keep things running cleaner, and MasterController for its Town > Reset Everything command to be run from City Hall every few sims weeks or so.
- Play offline (not logged in at the Launcher or in-game levels) whenever possible
- Disallow the in-game TS3 store shopping experience and the hidden object interactive startup game
- Switch off scrapbook memories or use a mod to control them
- Keep the world's resident population down to reasonable levels (difficult to define what reasonable means, this will depend on the world and what's going on within it)
- Use SaveCleaner or an equivalent method to control the size of the nhd file within game saves, but it certainly sounds like you are already doing that
But I think you're well onto the right track if you can scale back those CAS and Edit Town sessions, try to keep them closer to the beginning of your longer game sessions, or Save (As) and reload more often during and around them.
Comments
Or by yourself, for example with the help of the Create a Pattern tool.
@sophie4fv Have you also fixed it so your game frame rate, aka FPS, is capped at 60, or whatever your monitors refresh rate is? That's MUCH more important than getting your graphics card recognized. If you don't do that your nice 1660 Ti will suffer badly, and eventually burn itself out, and it could happen sooner than you think.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Yes, I know it is.
As always I think it's important to get the facts straight.
My game's going crazy, and it's never been like this...I'm going crazy, so please help!
Before you launch the game the next time, clear (delete) the five cache files on the top level of the TS3 user game folder in Documents if you don't already do this on a routine basis and see if that helps. Not the DCCache, the five standalone cache files on the top level.
If no better, then in-game retreat to Edit Town, evict the entire household to the side of the screen, copy the uninhabited lot down to the bin, bulldoze the original, replace it with a copy, and move everyone back in without having left the screen. If this doesn't help or somehow makes things worse, or if they get stuck midway in the process, then quit without saving (if the game hasn't frozen up or crashed on you by then) and you will be back to where you were before. You may also want to try moving them to a new (to them) lot to see if that helps clear any of the problems.
While you are there though, or on the next try, also make a copy of your entire household to the bin for placement in a new world which you can get to by starting up a fresh game and choosing the new place for them to live. Moving to a new world the in-game way (without mods) doesn't really do anything different than this, it's essentially a way of starting over except with the same sims. Either way, your active household will have no memory of sims or experiences of things that were in the world left behind.
Those would be the standard non-mod things to try first.
If not averse to using mods, a collection of those from NRaas work pretty hard to prevent this kind of thing from happening as games bog down and can tend to become broken while remaining in the same homeworld for a while, as well as provide some tools that can help fix things. How long "a while" is can be several generations or just one or two, it varies. The mods in particular are Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Register, Traffic, to an extent GoHere, and MasterController.
Further, NRaas Traveler and Porter offer several options for moving to a new world that would allow some or all of the sims from your current one, and even the world itself, to remain in play so there is usually not as much of a need to keep starting over depending on the nature of the original problems.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Ok, so I have a house that has cc built into it, and all the cc shows up just fine. It’s all in the game inventory and is placeable.
However, I started to download some new lots for my sims, but then suddenly, the custom content for only the new lots I installed broke! They were all replaced by the ugly basic objects! When I installed the lots via the launcher, it says that it’s installed successfully. It’s very strange to me how the game doesn’t seem to generate the cc, but you can place it from the inventory just fine. I’m on version 1.67.2 by the way.
I’ve literally tried EVERYTHING, but nothing seems to work. The cc just isn’t showing up. Please someone help! A nice step by step guide would be very helpful!
> (Quote)
>
> @sophie4fv Have you also fixed it so your game frame rate, aka FPS, is capped at 60, or whatever your monitors refresh rate is? That's MUCH more important than getting your graphics card recognized. If you don't do that your nice 1660 Ti will suffer badly, and eventually burn itself out, and it could happen sooner than you think. :'(
Hi @SuzyCue72, I have only just seen this! I have vertical sync on, which I turned on in the NVIDIA control panel for the sims 3, will this limit my FPS to 60? Thanks in advance!
@sophie4fv Hi to you too!
That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
> (Quote)
>
> @sophie4fv Hi to you too! :)
>
> That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
@SuzyCue72 - I have just checked and the FPS is running at more than 60fps, so that means I have a dual graphics laptop. I have just checked and it looks like my second graphics card is an AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics. Do you know how I can limit my FPS then? Thanks!
> > @SuzyCue72 said:
> > (Quote)
> >
> > @sophie4fv Hi to you too! :)
> >
> > That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
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> @SuzyCue72 - I have just checked and the FPS is running at more than 60fps, so that means I have a dual graphics laptop. I have just checked and it looks like my second graphics card is an AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics. Do you know how I can limit my FPS then? Thanks!
@SuzyCue72 Sorry it doesn't seem like it tagged you properly in the previous post! :smile:
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> @sophie4fv Hi to you too! :)
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> That depends on whether you have a dual graphics laptop or not. If not, turning on vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel should work. You can easily check it by starting the game, bring up the cheat line, and type in "fps on" without quotation marks, and then Enter. Look in the top right corner of your screen, if vsync is working the little white numbers there should stay at 60 maximum.
Sorry for all the posts but I can't edit anything - @SuzyCue72 I have managed to find the settings for my other graphics card and there is an fps limiter, which I have set to 60fps. I have just tested it in game and it doesn't show more than 60fps so it's fixed. Thanks for all your help! :)
@sophie4fv Yay, that's really good news!
Can't post a picture directly, so here's the link. https://imgur.com/KgdeMET
I checked my CC to see if there is anything that affects toddler swimwear but there is nothing. The only CC I have for toddlers is hair. I'm not sure what could be causing this. It doesn't break the game or anything, but it is pretty jarring when a toddler goes swimming and their legs vanish.
System Specs:
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 18362) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: OptiPlex 745
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 2.6.4 (type: BIOS)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz (2 CPUs), ~1.9GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4022MB RAM
Page File: 3759MB used, 1643MB available
Windows Dir: C:\windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
Miracast: Not Available
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported
DirectX Database Version: Unknown
DxDiag Version: 10.00.18362.0387 64bit Unicode
Thank you!
I'm actually kind of surprised that an Optiplex 745 can run Win 10, that must have been a close call. Anyway, in theory it should be able to run the base game (only) on the lowest of graphics settings across the board in Game Options. It might be able to take a very early Expansion Pack or two (WA, Ambitions, maybe Generations instead) before performance would be expected to fall apart or the game would just stop loading. But it probably wouldn't be all that satisfying to play TS3 on this system with all of the performance barriers and restrictions that the much older hardware set would be presenting and depending on how hard it's been used all this time there may not be much point in trying to add more RAM or coax a little more performance out of it.
It might do a pretty good job with TS2 though, if you have access to that game.
NRaas has moved!
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It's going to depend on your expectations, but desktops to run all or most TS3 expansions on at least medium settings are going to start in the $600s (US Dollars), not including monitor if one is needed. Laptops will start somewhere around the $800s, and both types will run through much higher price ranges if more performance or other uses like more modern games are required. Prices will also be very different (usually way higher) in other countries.
From there we can talk about occasional sales, cutting corners to bring/keep the price tag down a bit, and used hardware is usually going to be cheaper than new, but there's never any guarantees that we can get what we expect out of used systems. If $300 is your total budget right now though, I can't really recommend trying to find a decent system on which to play TS3. Even just the base game is pretty demanding, not really so by 2020 standards, but it's going to require more processor power, RAM, graphics ability than Win 10 systems can really provide in the lower-end price tiers, and a decent cooling system would also be required. Most systems in the $200s and $300s are going to be meant for web browsers, email, video streaming, and maybe some light office/school tasks run one at a time or so, but not so much on the gaming front.
Maybe others here will have more helpful suggestions, though.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
In short, I use tiny saves and I'm still getting "max memory" crashes and I'm not sure what else to do.
Steps I've Taken:
* Used the GPU "add on" app for the game to recognize my beefy new graphics card
* Merged my small amount of cc (only 121mb)
* Deleted caches/run save cleaner after every quit maintain small save file (43mb)
I have reinstalled and playing TS3 relatively successfully with all necessary Nraas mods and keep a small save file (43mb) and a small merged CC folder (121mb). However, usually after exiting CAS or going from Edit Town/Live Mode my game will sometimes crash. This is usually after I've been playing for 2+ hours - not in gameplay, building or in CAS. I've been using the TS3 Crash Log Analyzer, and it says crashed due to Max Memory Used.
I love playing on max settings as my computer runs it beautifully when I cap the fps (except these handful of times). Right now I am playing in Sao Paten, which is a beautiful and large (unpopulated but for my family) world at 1.95Gb. However, I had this same issue when I was playing in Roaring Heights.
1. Is my game really out of memory or is it crashing for some other reason?
2. If so, what is causing the large spikes in memory that seem to push it over the 4Gb threshold?
3. What else can I do to lower the memory?
Here is a text file that shows up in my mods folder after a crash:
EA_PLATFORM: Windows on X86
OS name: Windows Vista
OS version number: 6.2.9200
OS service pack:
Debugger present: no
CPU count: 12
Processor type: x86
Processor level: 6
Processor revision: 42242
Memory load: 61%
Total physical memory: 16166 Mb
Available physical memory: 6293 Mb
Total page file memory: 22054 Mb
Available page file memory: 3722 Mb
Total virtual memory: 4095 Mb
Free virtual memory: 101 Mb
My graphics card: RTX 2070
Thank you for all of your help for new/returning players! So happy to be back and playing.
Long CAS or Edit Town sessions with lots of building and changes being made will do this. Saving (or Saving As) frequently throughout often helps reduce the load, as does starting new game sessions more often when engaged with CAS and Edit Town activities as opposed to actual gameplay.
Let's try something else if we can. Load up your usual save and check actual total RAM usage in the Task Manager (actual GBs used by TS3, not percentages). Play for a short while, go into CAS or Build/Buy and make some small changes, don't save the game yet, and check again. How close are you to the over 3.5 GB danger zone?
Then repeat with Sunset Valley, a new instance if you don't have a save handy. Any different?
Also, have you checked on those actual frame rates in-game with the fps on cheat code to make sure that they are really staying capped as you have set up?
It's difficult to say without more details on what you are working with, but it should be noted that most very large beautiful TS3 custom made worlds are known to not be very playable. I don't know if Sao Paten falls into that category, but seems like it might. We get player reports about other huge worlds like this all the time and all the players can really do is bulldoze half the world (which then kind of defeats the purpose of playing them) and control the population more or move their sims to more medium sized ones.
Also, in case this helps, here is a large collection of tips to help improve and preserve game performance. Many of them involve mod usage, but not all of them do.
http://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
You are right I'm probably taking a risk on a player world, but this one is just so stunning it's hard to leave (https://potato-ballad-sims.tumblr.com/post/96825816398). And I will read through those performance tips!
Here is the RAM usage via Task Manager:
1. RAM usage during 30 minutes or so of straight "live mode" gameplay after loading up an existing Sao Paten save below:
Averaging between 1,900 and 2,300ish MB.
2. RAM usage in same Sao Paten save after using CAS for a long period with many changes and switching back/forth between households to do it:
Jumped up to over 2,500MB with the highest spike I saw was 2,800MB. Then during gameplay it would go back to the lower 2,000's.
3. RAM on new save in Sunset Valley:
Averages between 1,700 and up to 2,100MB after about 20 minutes and the higher end is when I use CAS. EA's story progression was on as well.
I'm able to play relatively well (up til now) on most worlds it seems but these random crashes mean I'm always super anxious about hitting CAS/Edit Town. You are absolutely right, it seems like they happen when I've been playing a long time straight and the "crash" part only happens I'm transitioning between something like CAS/Live Mode and Edit Town/Live Mode.
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* How can I then reduce the amount of paging that my computer is doing so it doesn't spike past that limit? Is it a setting I could do in my graphic card's control panel or a setting in the game?
* Is it OK to keep going on higher graphics settings in game, or that what could be causing these crashes?
* Is there anything I can do to reduce the load on TS3 and put it on other programs. For example, lowering edge smoothing etc and getting reshades to do it instead? That... could be a ridiculous question I'm not sure how that works yet.
Also: I realized I had Chrome on in the background while I was playing. It was averaging less than 1,500MB of RAM so let me know if that could be an issue.
Thank you, again!
I didn't mean to imply that custom player made worlds are always risky, actually some of them from notably talented world designers are made better and play better than many EA worlds. It's the overly large, ornate, and intricate ones that can push the boundaries of resource usage that make them still beautiful to look at and poke around, set up scenes and take pictures/videos of, but might not be as useful for actual longer term gameplay spanning several generations if that is what the player is interested in. And many of them, even the huge ones, might function quite well as vacation destinations for relatively brief (in sim days) visits rather than homeworld play, using the NRaas Traveler mod.
Thanks for the RAM stats, but it actually sounds like that's not currently the problem for you. At 2.5 GB with spikes as far as 2.8 GB during routine play, that sounds great and well within safety limits for any large world. Where you have to be careful as we've said is with long and complicated CAS and Edit Town sessions, especially while already well into a longer game session. If you could bring yourself to restrict these CAS and Edit Town binges to near the beginning of your sessions or save and reload completely before embarking on them, you might get much more stable results. The game can only really work with 800 MB of vRAM for example and your graphics card carries much more than TS3 can ever use, so that can be one of the resources that's running away on you.
Your system is certainly strong enough to handle all of the highest settings in Game Options, but we usually recommend no more than about 2 for High Detail Lots (maybe you can stretch that a little if 2 seems too restrictive) and no higher than medium for Water/Reflections as these two particular ones are very resource heavy vs. the benefits they provide. I didn't see what you have for a CPU, but with that graphics card I'm assuming it's equally as strong and powerful although I really should have asked -- I mean, you haven't by any chance jammed an RTX 2070 into a system running a processor that is too weak to keep up with it? (this doesn't really sound likely from what you have described)
Chrome is a total resource hog and likes to reserve tons of RAM for itself in anticipation of the user opening up more tabs or revisiting the ones they just closed under the apparent assumption that our computers are built to run Chrome and for no other purpose. But you have 16 GB so it should be sufficient to just close the browser out occasionally and start it up again as needed during gameplay. Firefox used to be much better/more resource efficient, and it still is somewhat, but the gap between the two has closed over the years.
The Tips page I linked to has all kinds of suggestions on how to reduce resource usage, some of which will resonate or be more helpful to some players than others. Off the top of my head, here are some big ones:
- Use NRaas Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Register, Traffic, GoHere to keep things running cleaner, and MasterController for its Town > Reset Everything command to be run from City Hall every few sims weeks or so.
- Play offline (not logged in at the Launcher or in-game levels) whenever possible
- Disallow the in-game TS3 store shopping experience and the hidden object interactive startup game
- Switch off scrapbook memories or use a mod to control them
- Keep the world's resident population down to reasonable levels (difficult to define what reasonable means, this will depend on the world and what's going on within it)
- Use SaveCleaner or an equivalent method to control the size of the nhd file within game saves, but it certainly sounds like you are already doing that
But I think you're well onto the right track if you can scale back those CAS and Edit Town sessions, try to keep them closer to the beginning of your longer game sessions, or Save (As) and reload more often during and around them.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net