@igazor so even if I disable the weather it'll still slow down my game? I'll give it a shot, but I guess if it gets too slow I'll just disable it. Thanks!
@PantasticalCat - No, what I meant was that even if you disable the weather, the EP gives the game more overhead to work through than not having it at all does. Whether that results in slowing down the game or not will depend on a lot of other things including the overall strength of your new system as well as the size and complexity of the worlds you play and your overall playstyle. Hope it works out well for you either way, though.
Hello! In the last two weeks, I have been experiencing freezing all the time, making the game completely unplayable! It does not matter what I do; interact with something, cook food, clean the house, shower, play with toys, pay the bills, go to school/work, open up a new window in build mode, eat, sleep, even just walk anywhere or move the camera! My game constantly freezes every time I do anything, with intervals of about a minute or two, and the freezes hold on for at least five minutes if not more! I can still hear music in build mode or ambient sounds like wind in the background in play mode, but everything else is just stuck. Sims, pets, cars, wild animals, trees, everything!
To start off, I have all the expansions and a few select worlds and items from the store. No CC, no mods or patches! I only have two saved games at this point, one takes place in Dragon Valley, and the other in Sunlit Tides.
My computer is extremely beefy, and can run Fallout 4, Minecraft, The Forest, and Slime Rancher all at the same time without any problems whatsoever! I do not know much about the graphics card I have, or even what is inside of it, my dad bought it from a friend who had built it himself a few years ago for me. I don’t understand much about the hardware side of computers, unfortunately…
But what I can tell you is that the game is installed on an external HDD USB device, and I know that if it’s installed on an SSD it will run better, but unfortunately, my SSD does not have enough space for the game and trust me, I have cleared out SO much from it, but it has a very small capacity. Even then, the game has been running fine for two years straight on the HDD without any problems before, so why has it started now? My HDD has 1.58 terabytes of space left out of 1.81, so It can’t be that it’s too full!
Here are the things I’ve done to try to fix this mess (get ready):
- Downloaded the mods Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Traffic, Traveler, MasterController, Porter, and Register. All from Nraas, together with a smoothing patch by LazyDuchess. People always say that the game is unplayable without at least Overwatch and ErrorTrap. The game recognizes them when starting up, and in between the freezes, the game definitely runs MUCH smoother, but alas, the freezes still happen just as much as before. And ErrorTrap does not recognize it.
- Downloaded the updated game files pinned on the r/Sims3 subreddit (still runs smooth but doesn’t stop the freezes).
- I have used the “repair” option in Origin on the game and ALL of the DLC, still nothing got better. Same with the “update” option.
- I have tried the “resetsim *” command. I have also reset EVERYTHING in the entire world with the help of MasterController.
- Downloaded the TS3_GPU_Addon so that the game will recognize my graphics card.
- I have set the game’s CPU priority on “very high”.
- Changed the memory usage limit to 80000000.
- Changed all the CPU levels in the GraphicsRules file to 4.
- I have deactivated the Island Paradise expansion since that one has caused the most trouble for several people.
- I later deactivated all of my expansion packs *and* all my store content.
- I have cleared the cache every time before starting up the game!
- Painfully slowly tried moving my sims to Sunset Valley since, apparently, that world lags the least, but it did not make anything better.
- I have set all the graphics settings on the lowest, and I never have memories turned on anyways. I have also deactivated the point-collecting loading screen.
- I am playing without logging in with my Sims 3 account in the game.
- I started a completely new family consisting of only one sim and moved to Sunset Valley. Nothing was running better at all.
- I have reinstalled the game about three times now.
Despite doing all of this, playing the base game with or without the mods that are supposed to make it run better still manages to freeze when I try to do anything! Is there any way I can fix this? Any patch mods of any kind I can download? Or any files I have to edit? I’ll take anything at this point…
@Coolestdragonever - I'm sorry to say this, but the game will never run very well from an external hard drive. TS3 does run a lot of itself from RAM once things start up but it's also very Hard Disk read/write intensive and external connections of any type (especially USB though) will always be much slower than that which an internal drive can provide. Even though you did have some success with running it that way prior, the path to fixing your current issues really involves adding a new internal hard drive, upgrading the existing one to one that is larger, or playing on a different system if any of those options are within reach.
@igazor Thank you for your answer. It sucks that it started acting up now when it went so well before without problems. But I guess good things don't last forever. I'll see what I can do with adding a new internal hard drive, I'll make sure it has enough space this time around as well. ^^;
I have a question concerning redundancy when it comes to making the Sims 3 run better and take advantage of your GPU. It seems the Smoothing Patch works well, but I've also seen recommendations for that 4gb Patcher which supposedly let's Sims 3 use 4gb of ram. I've also seen in guides that you should manually change the seti memoryTexture to whatever vRAM your GPU has. I am down for doing all of this, but are some of these techniques outdated or redundant? I have a 1080 Ti GPU and know how to get the game to recognize, so no issue there.
@YamiJustin2 - There is no point in using the 4 GB patch, that is very outdated information. TS3 became Large Address Aware (LAA) with Patch 1.17 that was released alongside of Late Night and will use up to just short of 4 GB of RAM when it needs to, provided the RAM is physically available to it. If your game is consistently using less than 2 GB (on Windows) that doesn't mean it's being throttled, that means the world you are playing has not yet evolved to the point where more is required to make things run.
The texture memory adjustment is only required if you are getting the 32 MB override, as can be seen within the game's DeviceConfig.log (a file that refreshes itself every time the game starts, in your TS3 user game folder in Documents). It shows up towards the end of the top sections, just before the very long lists of game option settings. There is no point in setting it higher than 1024 MB though, because the game is only programmed to use around 800 MB of VRAM and the rest would not really be utilized. Some players insist they see a difference by using 2048 MB there, but I've never seen it.
@igazor Thank you for that! So it seems that all I really need is the smoothing patch and putting 2048 MB in that text. My GPU has 11gb but obviously it won't use anything close to that. And beyond capping it to 60fps using Nvidia Control Center (I heard the Sims 3 doesn't really display more than 60fps) I believe I have done all I can to make the game run great. I have G-Sync too.
Okay! So, I fixed a new internal hard drive, an SSD with 110GB of space, and connected via SATA 6,0 cables. I successfully mounted it inside my computer and reinstalled Sims 3 on it, nothing else. I boot the game up and it still freezes! Tried with ErrorTrap and Overwatch, still the same thing. Now I am really confused about what is going on with the game...
@YamiJustin2 - If you have a monitor that runs at refresh rates higher than 60 Hz (e.g., 75, 144, something else) then it's fine to cap to that. As with all things there is a point of diminishing returns in there someplace, but many people (not everyone) can "see"/"feel" the difference in a difficult to describe way that the higher running monitors can provide if the fps is allowed to increase to the higher limits.
I would be in danger of losing my job or getting demoted (okay, not really) if I failed to include this link whenever someone says they have done all they can to improve the performance of the game.
@Coolestdragonever - Are you using, or could you use, a cleanly generated TS3 game folder with no CC or mods/added content and a known to be gentle to play world (Sunset Valley, Twinbrook, Riverview) for testing further? NRaas mods like Overwatch and ErrorTrap, MasterController, etc. of course should be fine, I mean without those that add more elements of gameplay to be managed and any from other sources.
If you still can't get decent gameplay out of that system as you have described it, then I would have to ask what kind of game install this is. Origin, Steam, retail discs, from some other source? And if that doesn't kick up more clues, then we would need to see a full dxdiag report on this system to help rule out hardware issues.
> @igazor said: > @YamiJustin2 - If you have a monitor that runs at refresh rates higher than 60 Hz (e.g., 75, 144, something else) then it's fine to cap to that. As with all things there is a point of diminishing returns in there someplace, but many people (not everyone) can "see"/"feel" the difference in a difficult to describe way that the higher running monitors can provide if the fps is allowed to increase to the higher limits. > > I would be in danger of losing my job or getting demoted (okay, not really) if I failed to include this link whenever someone says they have done all they can to improve the performance of the game. :)
Thank you. I might as well see if there is a noticeable hit in performance or any micro stuttering between 60fps and my monitors maximum of 100fps. That is one hell of a TIPS page, I'll look into that once I get my save file going. I like how it goes to crazy lengths like "disable the internet!" but in hindsight it makes sense!
Do you have a page or suggestion as to where I might find essential or recommended bug fixes? I know where to find some bug fixes, but would prefer to see what the required ones are as of 2021.
Do you have a page or suggestion as to where I might find essential or recommended bug fixes? I know where to find some bug fixes, but would prefer to see what the required ones are as of 2021.
No, the game has so many quirks and bugs to it (and some downright questionable design decisions) that such a list would be highly subjective. What I might think is an essential fix might correct what someone else thinks is not even a minor annoyance or something that was done on purpose and they liked the way it was better.
NRaas mods fix a lot of stuff, and provide a huge toolkit by way of Retuner for the players to change a lot of the game's tuning mechanisms on their own. But we also offer this list of our members' favorite mods from other sources. The list is a bit dated now, meaning the newest mods out in 2019-21 might not be fully represented there, but we'll get that page updated if players start making suggestions for it again.
Hello again, and thank you for trying to help me with this mess. :smile: Unfortunately, the game still ends up freezing even when playing a new game in Sunset Valley without mods, CC, store content, and expansion packs. I then tried a new game in Sunset Valley under the same conditions except with ErrorTrap and Overwatch activated, but it still didn't help. The game is installed through Origin, but I do have all the discs (except for Island Paradise and Into the Future) just in case I lose my Origin account somehow. I did a full DxDiag report but I am not sure what all of it means, although I saved the text document so I do have it fully written out.
@igazor thanks for the performance tips list. I had no idea of some of those...
I found this passage interesting: "....cap the in-game frame rate to the refresh rate of your monitor. Most monitors are 60 Hz so that would be 60 fps, some can run higher.". So does that means that i should cap mine to more than 60fps, considering my monitor is 144hz? Or it isn't needed cause the game itself won't use it?
@Coolestdragonever - If you could, please send the contents of the dxdiag report up to Pastebin.com (the free version is fine) and provide a link so we can read it and see what you are working with.
Since you have New Member status, you will need to break the link up like this
https : // pastebin(dot)com/ some stuff
with spaces and separators so you can post it, but as long as we can figure out how to put it back together it should be fine to do that.
@texxx78 - I feel like I answered that question just above.
If you have a 144 Hz monitor, then you could cap the fps rates at 144 without worrying about overworking your graphics card. You may get a higher quality experience than 60 fps provides and you may notice no difference. Not everyone can "sense" the difference between the game running at 60 fps and at 144 fps.
Or you could cap to 60. That wouldn't do any harm.
It's been said repeatedly on this thread that the game doesn't generate frame rates higher than 60. That is not correct, and it's your GPU that generates frame rates. Not the game. The problem with TS3 in particular is that it's a victim of its time. In 2008-09, very few players (as a percentage) had high enough ranking graphics cards to generate overly high frame rates, so the game as it's designed has no built-in fps limiter. The stronger mid to higher end cards will run wild on the game if not controlled, generating frame rates that your monitor cannot possibly interpret, and these become the equivalent of digital noise. But if you have a monitor with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, then 144 fps is not overworking the graphics card. 300 fps would be.
Hi there! I'm having an issue with my sims bodies disappear whenever they shower or bathe. They still have a head and feet. Although, sometimes they'll just shower with clothes on, so this glitch isn't even consistent, lol. I do use a default skin, but I'm not finding any (non-broken) links to waterproof default skins online. I also use nraas mods and other cc.
@Saturninex - The issue you describe wouldn't have anything to do with water. It means, most likely, that the default skin or some other form of CC that you are using is flawed or outdated and is not handling the naked body "outfit" correctly.
@Coolestdragonever - Well, your dxdiag crashed while it was running and didn't end up reporting most of what I wanted to see so that's not really going to get us anywhere. Although I do see that you have a GTX 970 for a graphics card. Have you taken the required steps to cap the frame rate of your card using the Nvidia Control Panel to a max of 60 fps? TS3 has no functional built-in fps limiter.
You can see the frame rates you are actually getting in-game with the fps on cheat code. As you play and move the game camera around, the displayed fps should never exceed the refresh rate of your monitor. Yours is 60 Hz, so the cap should be at 60 fps.
Beyond that though, I suggest you repost on EA's AHQ board for TS3 and link back to this discussion. If there is something very wrong with your system as it now is such that a dxdiag won't even run properly, the staff and helpers there can perhaps help you find out. Here is links you can use so you don't have to type everything all over again over there. https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/18011511/#Comment_18011511 (link to this discussion)
I am aware that this can be an issue due to numerous factors, but my only current issue is this: a micro-second, maybe half second of game freeze/lag when I click on the active Sim to pull up the pie menu. This is not an issue clicking on objects or other Sims. Current making a second install on the game and seeing if this happens even on a clean file. If it doesn't happen on the new install I can slowly add mods and tweaks to see which one causes it. My guess is Nraas Master Controller + Overwatch + Story Progression + Tempest + Traveler and Error Trap might be the reason. Game is still playable, but I'm so close to getting it stutter-free. I am at 100hz and really never drop at all.
@YamiJustin2 - The less than a second freeze happens because the game now has more things to display in the menu for the active sim than it did prior, namely the mod commands. You can also see something similar if you were to use certain food, ingredient, and recipe mods -- clicking on a fridge will cause a small delay each time as there is more for the game to figure out what to show as fridge options than there used to be.
I'm afraid there is no solution for that, other than not playing with mods or not clicking on your active sim so often. It's all a matter of benefit vs. pain trade-offs, really.
TS3 is never going to be a 100% stutter free experience once we start adding fun stuff to the game. StoryProgression in particular will cause occasional stutters and pauses on any system as it constantly recalculates things like job/school performance and what sims in the open world are going to be pushed to do next. Those of us who appreciate the mods for what they add to the game put up with the extra overhead, as again it's all a bunch of trade-offs.
@igazor Oh, sorry! I tried running DxDiag again and it gave me a warning that something went wrong last time it was used and if I wanted to run the diagnostics again. I tried, and it seems to have given me a more complete report this time around! Here's the new one if that is of any help: https : / / pastebin (dot) com / 6v NbR 8Kh
Comments
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
To start off, I have all the expansions and a few select worlds and items from the store. No CC, no mods or patches! I only have two saved games at this point, one takes place in Dragon Valley, and the other in Sunlit Tides.
My computer is extremely beefy, and can run Fallout 4, Minecraft, The Forest, and Slime Rancher all at the same time without any problems whatsoever! I do not know much about the graphics card I have, or even what is inside of it, my dad bought it from a friend who had built it himself a few years ago for me. I don’t understand much about the hardware side of computers, unfortunately…
But what I can tell you is that the game is installed on an external HDD USB device, and I know that if it’s installed on an SSD it will run better, but unfortunately, my SSD does not have enough space for the game and trust me, I have cleared out SO much from it, but it has a very small capacity. Even then, the game has been running fine for two years straight on the HDD without any problems before, so why has it started now? My HDD has 1.58 terabytes of space left out of 1.81, so It can’t be that it’s too full!
Here are the things I’ve done to try to fix this mess (get ready):
- Downloaded the mods Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Traffic, Traveler, MasterController, Porter, and Register. All from Nraas, together with a smoothing patch by LazyDuchess. People always say that the game is unplayable without at least Overwatch and ErrorTrap. The game recognizes them when starting up, and in between the freezes, the game definitely runs MUCH smoother, but alas, the freezes still happen just as much as before. And ErrorTrap does not recognize it.
- Downloaded the updated game files pinned on the r/Sims3 subreddit (still runs smooth but doesn’t stop the freezes).
- I have used the “repair” option in Origin on the game and ALL of the DLC, still nothing got better. Same with the “update” option.
- I have tried the “resetsim *” command. I have also reset EVERYTHING in the entire world with the help of MasterController.
- Downloaded the TS3_GPU_Addon so that the game will recognize my graphics card.
- I have set the game’s CPU priority on “very high”.
- Changed the memory usage limit to 80000000.
- Changed all the CPU levels in the GraphicsRules file to 4.
- I have deactivated the Island Paradise expansion since that one has caused the most trouble for several people.
- I later deactivated all of my expansion packs *and* all my store content.
- I have cleared the cache every time before starting up the game!
- Painfully slowly tried moving my sims to Sunset Valley since, apparently, that world lags the least, but it did not make anything better.
- I have set all the graphics settings on the lowest, and I never have memories turned on anyways. I have also deactivated the point-collecting loading screen.
- I am playing without logging in with my Sims 3 account in the game.
- I started a completely new family consisting of only one sim and moved to Sunset Valley. Nothing was running better at all.
- I have reinstalled the game about three times now.
Despite doing all of this, playing the base game with or without the mods that are supposed to make it run better still manages to freeze when I try to do anything! Is there any way I can fix this? Any patch mods of any kind I can download? Or any files I have to edit? I’ll take anything at this point…
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
The texture memory adjustment is only required if you are getting the 32 MB override, as can be seen within the game's DeviceConfig.log (a file that refreshes itself every time the game starts, in your TS3 user game folder in Documents). It shows up towards the end of the top sections, just before the very long lists of game option settings. There is no point in setting it higher than 1024 MB though, because the game is only programmed to use around 800 MB of VRAM and the rest would not really be utilized. Some players insist they see a difference by using 2048 MB there, but I've never seen it.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Okay! So, I fixed a new internal hard drive, an SSD with 110GB of space, and connected via SATA 6,0 cables. I successfully mounted it inside my computer and reinstalled Sims 3 on it, nothing else. I boot the game up and it still freezes! Tried with ErrorTrap and Overwatch, still the same thing. Now I am really confused about what is going on with the game...
I would be in danger of losing my job or getting demoted (okay, not really) if I failed to include this link whenever someone says they have done all they can to improve the performance of the game.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
If you still can't get decent gameplay out of that system as you have described it, then I would have to ask what kind of game install this is. Origin, Steam, retail discs, from some other source? And if that doesn't kick up more clues, then we would need to see a full dxdiag report on this system to help rule out hardware issues.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
> @YamiJustin2 - If you have a monitor that runs at refresh rates higher than 60 Hz (e.g., 75, 144, something else) then it's fine to cap to that. As with all things there is a point of diminishing returns in there someplace, but many people (not everyone) can "see"/"feel" the difference in a difficult to describe way that the higher running monitors can provide if the fps is allowed to increase to the higher limits.
>
> I would be in danger of losing my job or getting demoted (okay, not really) if I failed to include this link whenever someone says they have done all they can to improve the performance of the game. :)
Thank you. I might as well see if there is a noticeable hit in performance or any micro stuttering between 60fps and my monitors maximum of 100fps. That is one hell of a TIPS page, I'll look into that once I get my save file going. I like how it goes to crazy lengths like "disable the internet!" but in hindsight it makes sense!
Do you have a page or suggestion as to where I might find essential or recommended bug fixes? I know where to find some bug fixes, but would prefer to see what the required ones are as of 2021.
No, the game has so many quirks and bugs to it (and some downright questionable design decisions) that such a list would be highly subjective. What I might think is an essential fix might correct what someone else thinks is not even a minor annoyance or something that was done on purpose and they liked the way it was better.
NRaas mods fix a lot of stuff, and provide a huge toolkit by way of Retuner for the players to change a lot of the game's tuning mechanisms on their own. But we also offer this list of our members' favorite mods from other sources. The list is a bit dated now, meaning the newest mods out in 2019-21 might not be fully represented there, but we'll get that page updated if players start making suggestions for it again.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Hello again, and thank you for trying to help me with this mess. :smile: Unfortunately, the game still ends up freezing even when playing a new game in Sunset Valley without mods, CC, store content, and expansion packs. I then tried a new game in Sunset Valley under the same conditions except with ErrorTrap and Overwatch activated, but it still didn't help. The game is installed through Origin, but I do have all the discs (except for Island Paradise and Into the Future) just in case I lose my Origin account somehow. I did a full DxDiag report but I am not sure what all of it means, although I saved the text document so I do have it fully written out.
I found this passage interesting: "....cap the in-game frame rate to the refresh rate of your monitor. Most monitors are 60 Hz so that would be 60 fps, some can run higher.". So does that means that i should cap mine to more than 60fps, considering my monitor is 144hz? Or it isn't needed cause the game itself won't use it?
Since you have New Member status, you will need to break the link up like this
https : // pastebin(dot)com/ some stuff
with spaces and separators so you can post it, but as long as we can figure out how to put it back together it should be fine to do that.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
If you have a 144 Hz monitor, then you could cap the fps rates at 144 without worrying about overworking your graphics card. You may get a higher quality experience than 60 fps provides and you may notice no difference. Not everyone can "sense" the difference between the game running at 60 fps and at 144 fps.
Or you could cap to 60. That wouldn't do any harm.
It's been said repeatedly on this thread that the game doesn't generate frame rates higher than 60. That is not correct, and it's your GPU that generates frame rates. Not the game. The problem with TS3 in particular is that it's a victim of its time. In 2008-09, very few players (as a percentage) had high enough ranking graphics cards to generate overly high frame rates, so the game as it's designed has no built-in fps limiter. The stronger mid to higher end cards will run wild on the game if not controlled, generating frame rates that your monitor cannot possibly interpret, and these become the equivalent of digital noise. But if you have a monitor with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, then 144 fps is not overworking the graphics card. 300 fps would be.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
I'm having an issue with my sims bodies disappear whenever they shower or bathe. They still have a head and feet. Although, sometimes they'll just shower with clothes on, so this glitch isn't even consistent, lol. I do use a default skin, but I'm not finding any (non-broken) links to waterproof default skins online.
I also use nraas mods and other cc.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Done and done! Here's the link:
https : / / pastebin (dot) com / gybm 91 aJ
You can see the frame rates you are actually getting in-game with the fps on cheat code. As you play and move the game camera around, the displayed fps should never exceed the refresh rate of your monitor. Yours is 60 Hz, so the cap should be at 60 fps.
Beyond that though, I suggest you repost on EA's AHQ board for TS3 and link back to this discussion. If there is something very wrong with your system as it now is such that a dxdiag won't even run properly, the staff and helpers there can perhaps help you find out. Here is links you can use so you don't have to type everything all over again over there.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/18011511/#Comment_18011511 (link to this discussion)
Link to partial dxdiag: https://pastebin.com/gybm91aJ
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
I'm afraid there is no solution for that, other than not playing with mods or not clicking on your active sim so often. It's all a matter of benefit vs. pain trade-offs, really.
TS3 is never going to be a 100% stutter free experience once we start adding fun stuff to the game. StoryProgression in particular will cause occasional stutters and pauses on any system as it constantly recalculates things like job/school performance and what sims in the open world are going to be pushed to do next. Those of us who appreciate the mods for what they add to the game put up with the extra overhead, as again it's all a bunch of trade-offs.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
https : / / pastebin (dot) com / 6v NbR 8Kh