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Thread for new members to post their Sims 3 game issues (2020-22 version!)

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  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    Googy wrote: »
    How do I move an NPC to another world without them sustaining damage?
    I feel like we had this conversation already recently, but maybe I didn't provide a complete enough answer at the time. Are we still talking about getting a sim from Uni (or some other world) to move into the homeworld being played? If so, here are three relatively safe ways.

    1 - Go to the foreign sim's world and add them to your actively being played household one way or another, meaning through social interactions (Ask to Move In) or by using NRaas MasterController's Add Sim. The sim should come home with yours and be part of your household when the trip is over.

    2 - With active gameplay in the homeworld, use NRaas MasterController's Add Sim > Homeworld > (filter to the foreign world) to force them into your own household, another one that already exists, or one of their own, depending on where/which lot you click to invoke the command.

    3 - Invite them over for a visit and ask them to move in or force them in with MC. This is not safe unless you also have four NRaas mods that include code to help protect the visiting mini-Sim from corruption when they become a full-fledged resident. Those mods are ErrorTrap, Overwatch, Traveler, and RelationshipPanel.

    Or have I got the question mixed up with your prior one and you are now trying to do something different?
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  • ZeiZei Posts: 254 Member
    igazor wrote: »
    Googy wrote: »
    How do I move an NPC to another world without them sustaining damage?
    I feel like we had this conversation already recently, but maybe I didn't provide a complete enough answer at the time. Are we still talking about getting a sim from Uni (or some other world) to move into the homeworld being played? If so, here are three relatively safe ways.

    1 - Go to the foreign sim's world and add them to your actively being played household one way or another, meaning through social interactions (Ask to Move In) or by using NRaas MasterController's Add Sim. The sim should come home with yours and be part of your household when the trip is over.

    2 - With active gameplay in the homeworld, use NRaas MasterController's Add Sim > Homeworld > (filter to the foreign world) to force them into your own household, another one that already exists, or one of their own, depending on where/which lot you click to invoke the command.

    3 - Invite them over for a visit and ask them to move in or force them in with MC. This is not safe unless you also have four NRaas mods that include code to help protect the visiting mini-Sim from corruption when they become a full-fledged resident. Those mods are ErrorTrap, Overwatch, Traveler, and RelationshipPanel.

    Or have I got the question mixed up with your prior one and you are now trying to do something different?

    Igazor, what does the Relationship Panel mod do exactly?

  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited June 2020
    Zei wrote: »

    Igazor, what does the Relationship Panel mod do exactly?
    The mod reprograms the relationship panel for stability, helps to avoid the red box error when things otherwise malfunction, and adds features to the panel like helpful commands on sims who appear on it.
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  • rapidnitro57rapidnitro57 Posts: 2 New Member
    Is there any way that I could add my imaginary friend to my family?
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @rapidnitro57 - Yes, but I believe they must first go through the Make Them Real procedure.
    https://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/generations/imaginaryfriend.php
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  • rapidnitro57rapidnitro57 Posts: 2 New Member
    i did, i mean like if i could add them to my family tree.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @rapidnitro57 - Oh, I see. That would require mod usage, NRaas MasterController in particular. But in what capacity would you be adding them, though? A family tree connection means there must be a blood, step, or marriage relationship. If you make them a sibling, for example, to an existing sim then that would make them children of their parents. The game's way of handling step siblings is not very sophisticated, to put it mildly.
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  • Leviosa1443Leviosa1443 Posts: 13 New Member
    Hi i have a issue with staircases (https://ibb.co/HxrPxBB)

    Basically i rebuilded one of the island paradise houseboats becuase original one boat was too small and so i did however issue is sim cant use the stairs because their entrance (picture) show as blocked (there are no objects blocking it)
    In the original house (which is called aquaholic) sim can use the stairs no problem but its not working on my replica is there any way to fix this?
  • youspacewalnutyouspacewalnut Posts: 2 New Member
    Hi :D

    My sim went to university, got a boyfriend, and I moved him into my household using testingcheatsenabled true and shift clicking on him. Once he was in my household, I noticed that he wasn't actually enrolled in university (a new term had just started, and my sim had just came back.) I couldn't find any way to enroll him for the current term, so I made him drop out of university, thinking that I would go 'home' with him (thinking back now, i don't think he had a home world? he was originally an npc) I didn't go home with him. I resetsim'ed him and now I can't interact with him on the relationship bar at all. How do i get him back?? I went to my .sims3.backup file but he had left in that save. Thanks for any help :D
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @youspacewalnut - This can be tricky. The way it's supposed to work if you drop one sim out is that they return home and should be waiting for you there when the other sim finishes the term and goes home themselves. But being that this sim had never even seen their new homeworld, it may not work as expected. I might have tried dropping both sims out. From where you are now on either save, can you drop you own sim out as well to see what happens, if that isn't what you had already done?

    Since you used testingcheats to bring the BF into your household rather than a mod command, I take it that NRaas mods are not in play? It might have been safer to do this with a mod command and there are tools the mods provide to help find sims who have gone missing in between worlds if something like this should still happen.
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  • youspacewalnutyouspacewalnut Posts: 2 New Member
    @igazor Everytime I try to drop my sim out, loading screen stops at ~95% :/ That being said: I noticed that I can interact with the mascot from my home town in the relationship panel (chat long distance, texting.., and write love letter) but I have no interactions with her BF. I think I lost him D:

    I don't have any mods installed (except CC hairs.) I see there's a list on the NRaas website of the mods, which of those would find a sim lost between worlds, if possible?
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited June 2020
    @youspacewalnut - Having to assume here that you have no viable save from before this trip to Uni to revert to in order to replay everything leading up to the issue including building up the BF relationship? This is a problem with only having one save plus the automatically made one backup save that TS3 provides. It's really much better to always (or frequently) use Save As and change the name of each save a bit each time such as by adding a number or date to the end. That way we always have 4, 6, or however many saves in the past that we want in case something like this should go wrong. Eventually we will have more than we want and the older saves can be overwritten, deleted, or once in a while we might shift one to a storage location outside of the user game folder for archiving purposes.

    I have easily over 150 saves of my nine year old ongoing game stored in various places. That's admittedly a bit extreme, but there is no way that something horrible can happen to my present day game session that could ruin everything I've done with it since 2011 and it's fun to be able to look something up about my sims as they existed generations ago when the mood strikes. Plus I get to see how horrible a designer I was when I was new to the game myself, which can also be fun but in a different way. :)

    On the mods question, the NRaas mods in particular would be Overwatch, ErrorTrap, and Traveler, then also MasterController to give us user-initiated commands to help find missing sims if they don't show up on their own. The first three are designed to be in place before world travel begins though in order to provide the protections that they do, not added mid-stream, but you have nothing to lose by adding them in now from whatever your earliest reachable point is in gameplay. And should the unthinkable happen and you don't like the mods, they are all easily removable.
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  • quil12quil12 Posts: 3 New Member
    Hi, so I just redownloaded the Sims 3 last night and I've been having some issues. Basically, I can get into the launcher and can press play. The game will launch, but it will just be a black screen with a white box outline on the outside. It also always plays the little windows notification jingle, but I'm unable to use task manager to exit out to see what the notification is and it always disappears as soon as I exit. If I click anywhere on the screen, it will make it so I can't do anything and I have to manually restart my laptop with the button, otherwise if I press escape it exits the black screen and completely exits origin as well as the launcher.

    I've tried restarting my laptop, running it in compatibility mode, completely uninstalling and reinstalling origin, emptying out old save games, running it with just the base game, toggling the windows game mode, and repairing the game via origin. I'm really not sure what the issue is here as I've compared the specs on my laptop with what I need to have to run the game and it should definitely be able to run, but it's just not. This is the first time I've tried running the Sims 3 on this laptop, so that might have something to do with it, but I'm really not sure. Any help or advice with what to do would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited June 2020
    @quil12 - Please if you could share some specs on this laptop -- processor, RAM, graphics card, hard drive (size and space free). If you prefer, you could run a full dxdiag report on this computer, send the results up to Pastebin (the free version is fine), and provide a link here breaking it up with some spaces or something like pastebin(dot)com/codes so we can read it. We may well end up needing to see this report anyway to see what's going wrong.
    https://help.ea.com/en/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information

    If you still have compatibility settings in place, please remove them. Those are not necessary and often do more harm than good.
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  • quil12quil12 Posts: 3 New Member
    This is the full dxdiag report!

    https:// pastebin (.) com/ Fc7 r7c U0

    Thank you so much for taking the time to look into this. I really appreciate it! And yeah, I disabled the compatibility mode right after I tried it because it didn't work so everything should be about normal.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited June 2020
    @quil12 - Yes, thanks and I see what the problems are there. Or some of them, anyway. Let's start with the hard drive on this laptop. It is too small for most players to be able to manage this or many other games effectively. At 128 GB, there's plenty of room for Windows and of course Origin and the TS3 programs (base game and expansions) fit on it, but you don't have enough usable space left to service the game and the rest of the system. A good goal to reach for is 35 GB of free space for Win 10, you have less than 11 GB left. This is probably a major factor as to why the game is refusing to launch, and running that tight will also cause other programs and Windows itself to fail in many ways.

    But let's say you can resolve that by shifting (something) off of this laptop to somewhere else or by obtaining a larger internal hard drive. Then we move on to the fact that it doesn't have a dedicated graphics card. On integrated (Intel) graphics, you should be able to run the base game and some of the EPs with some degree of success, more than you are having anyway, but the heavier hitting ones would probably be out of the question as would be more than low graphics settings on the Game Options. Those heavier EPs are Pets, Sesons, IP, and ITF. I believe that regardless you should be trying to update its graphics drivers from the manufacturer (HP) if possible as they look outdated to me, but that's not likely to have a remarkable influence on the game.

    Its processor is also not going to be able to handle the game with more than a couple of the earliest of the EPs. It's just not fast/strong enough, and a U-series processor is designed to conserve battery power/electricity, not be ramped up to its max running ability constantly like the game would demand. Laptops like this with limited hard drive space to work with and weaker processors are designed for web-related tasks like email, browsing, watching streamed videos, and light school/office tasks, but not playing graphics intensive games even when intensive is by 2009 standards.

    So some of this is fixable, up to a point, but you're never really going to have a great, more than base game plus some early EPs, more than low or medium graphics settings (Game Options) experience on this laptop. Is there no stronger computer available to you on which to play?
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  • quil12quil12 Posts: 3 New Member
    Huh, that's so weird because it's able to handle the Sims 4 with quite a few expansion/game packs installed at the highest settings without any trouble at all. Is the Sims 3 just a much more intensive game to run? And I do have an old laptop from about 2012, but it's to the point where it always is freezing and eventually became virtually unusable. I might try and shift my focus over to trying to get that to work again because I know for a fact that it ran the Sims 3 because that's where I logged most of my 2000 hours of playing it a few years ago.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @quil12 - The two games are programmed entirely differently from each other. When TS4 first came out, it was definitely lighter weight and more reliant on processor strength than graphics, TS3 was the other way around. Now with all the patches and EPs added in, TS3 remains more reliant on graphics ability but the gap has certainly lessened. Neither game would be expected to react well to a hard drive that is too full.

    Back on the processor issue, we have always said that 2.4 GHz is the minimum for the heaviest of the TS3 EPs. Yours runs in normal mode at 1.8 GHz and turbos to 2.0. It's an i7 so that's better than what we often see on these laptops, but it may not be able overcome the speed/strength requirement. I still think you can run some elements of TS3 on the newer one if you can free up some space for it to maneuver, but it may not be the experience you were looking for. The older laptop I can't really comment on without seeing its specs in turn, but older doesn't necessarily mean weaker if you can somehow get it running again.
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  • puzzlezaddictpuzzlezaddict Posts: 1,877 Member
    edited June 2020
    @quil12 Your laptop may be under the (unofficial, not the unhelpful EA version) recommendations for Sims 3, but the game shouldn't be crashing on launch. As igazor mentioned, the 10 GB free storage is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed, for the overall health of the computer as well as to give you a better chance of playing. You should try to free up at least another 10 GB before doing anything else.

    There are other issues too though. Origin's update service is crashing a lot, as is an element of HP's control software that looks for connection issues. Your computer's graphics driver crashed at least once too. And there are a couple of Windows errors that might be nothing or might need to be addressed. The dxdiag only lists the last 10 errors, or really the last 10 of a subset of reportable errors, so it's difficult to say for sure how common these crashes are, how long they've been going on for, or even when they last happened.

    Anyway. For the Origin errors, it's best to use these guides to clearing Origin's cache and uninstalling "the hard way" to remove all traces of Origin from your computer.

    https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/
    https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/origin/origin/manually-uninstalling-origin/

    Restart your computer, download the full Origin installer, and run it as an admin: right-click on the download and select "Run as adminstrator." This is a direct download link:

    http://download.dm.origin.com/origin/live/OriginSetup.exe

    For the Windows errors, run a couple of basic checks on your Windows system files. Here's how:
    • Hit Windows key-X
    • Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
    • Inside the window that appears, paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
    • The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
    • After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
    • Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator)”
    • Inside the window, paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
    • Post the message you receive
    For the GPU driver, yours is 16 months old, so there should be a new one available from HP. Since I can't be sure I'm looking at the correct driver download page from your dxdiag info (HP is super helpful like that), please go here:

    https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/laptops

    Enter your laptop's serial number, choose your OS (Windows 10 build 1903) if necessary, and you'll land on the driver download page for your model. If there's a newer graphics driver available, please download and install it. A driver for Windows 10 build 1909 should also work, since it was only marginally different than 1903. If you're not sure what you're looking at, feel free to link the driver page here. It doesn't have any info specific to your own computer, just your model.

    There might also be other software updates that would be useful to run, for example if the HP connection software is crashing because it's out of date rather than there being an issue with your connection itself. I can look over the driver page and see what else you might want to install, if you'd like. Just link the driver download page for reference.

    Still, most of the other issues could theoretically be explained by the low drive space, and you might not be able to effectively address them until you have more free storage. So that's definitely the first step to take.
  • NitroglycolNitroglycol Posts: 121 Member
    edited June 2020
    Quite new to the game (a few months). A strange problem has arisen. I've heard of the launcher failing, and I've encountered saves failing to load, but this is neither of those. Background: running Windows 10 Home 64-bit, Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86GHz processor, 4 GB RAM, 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970. Have the base game (with Riverview) plus UL, no other EPs, no mods. The launcher seems to open normally, and the first "trailer" with nice domestic sim scenes works normally as well, but then the first UL load screen freezes with the progress bar at the very beginning, no music. Went so far as to uninstall and reinstall (via Steam) but it still doesn't work.

    Oh, and Firefox failed at the same time, though I successfully reinstalled that. My fear is that it's going to necessitate reinstalling Windows, but I'm hoping that there's a less disruptive solution.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited June 2020
    @Nitroglycol - I may have to defer to other hardware experts on this forum board, but it's worth noting a couple of things. Your processor is probably not strong/fast enough to carry a GTX 970 very well and is likely to be experiencing classic bottlenecking when it can't keep up with what the GPU needs it to do. It also may not be fast/strong enough to support the Uni EP. We know that Late Night will for many players just cause the game to fail at startup if the processor can't keep up, the EPs that were released after that (except maybe for Generations) would likely suffer a similar fate.

    At the very least this strikes me as an unusual combination. I take it this is a custom built/upgraded system?

    Also running Win 10 on 4 GB of RAM total is certainly possible, but there isn't going to be enough RAM left over to service the game properly and that can't be helping either.
    Post edited by igazor on
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  • AccurateDinoAccurateDino Posts: 9 New Member
    Any heavy techie Simmers able to tell me if these specs are good for all (or most) Sims 3 packs, but also for more intensive gaming? My fiance is going to have my PC built, but I need to know if the specs are able to handle Sims 3. Or if I have to change anything out? So if any can help, I'd appreciate it!!


    Operating System: Windows 10 Home (64-bit Edition)
    CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6GHz [4.2GHz Turbo] 6 Cores/ 12 Threads 35MB Cache 65W Processor
    CPU / Processor Cooling Fan: CyberPowerPC MasterLiquid Lite 120mm ARGB CPU Liquid Cooler with Dual Chamber Pump & Copper Cold Plate
    Motherboard: ASUS PRIME X570-P ATX w/ RGB, Realtek LAN, 2 PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x1, 6 SATA3, 2 M.2 SATA/PCIe
    RAM / System Memory: 16GB (8GBx2) DDR4/3000MHz Dual Channel Memory (ADATA XPG Z1)
    Video Card: EVGA GeForce® RTX 2070 SUPER KO GAMING 8GB GDDR6 (Turing) [VR Ready] (Single Card)
    Primary Hard Drive: 480GB WD Green SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD (Single Drive)
    Secondary Hard Drive: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 256MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Drive)

    If there's any other specs I've missed and need, just tell me and I can ask him, thank you~
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @AccurateDino - Eww. (ignore this, it's just me being jealous) :p

    Not sure I meet the "heavy" requirement, but I don't see a single thing there that could possibly get in the way of just about any reasonable gaming experience today or in the near future. You may, however, wish to wait for another opinion.

    Those specs are way over the top compared to what TS3 can actually use. The game should run as well as it's ever going to, subject to its own built-in limitations, on that hardware.
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  • BitterSweet-xoBitterSweet-xo Posts: 2 New Member
    Hi! I'm having an issue trying to download custom content from the exchange. Every time I try to download a game it asks if it can open World Adventures, I click on okay and then it says "The Sims 3 World Adventures quit unexpectedly". My game works fine and Im able to play it, I have more expansion packs this is just the first one I installed. Even if I go to applications and open up World Adventures I get the same message. Help please :)
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @BitterSweet-xo - It sounds like some sort of file type association has been made between sims3packs and the WA program file, which is totally unnecessary. We can try to fix that within Windows or the macOS (I'm assuming Windows here), but first it also sounds like your web browser is trying to "run" the file you want rather than just download it.

    It's usually more efficient to just download these things, then set the browser aside and move them into the TS3 user game folder's Documents folder for the Launcher to read on its next startup. If your browser doesn't seem to have an option to download a file and leave it alone, perhaps try a different browser?
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