SSD effect on Sims3 lag

[namaradus]

15 hours ago, mctosh said:

another problem is it only uses 2 cores. so having a processor with powerful single threading helps more than anything else. i recently upgraded from an ancient fx 8350 to a ryzen 9 and the difference is night & day. lag no more! coupled with an SSD for faster texture loading and its never run so good.

 

If the Sims 3 detects a quad-core or higher it will use 3 cores, mainly 2 but will use a 3rd if it needs too, it was part of patch 1.31 and it was never mentioned in the patch notes for some reason. On older AMD's tapping into the 3rd core didn't work well because of the threading unless you set Affinity to 3 cores but you had to do this every time you ran the game. With the Ryzen 1000 series AMD had a program that let you set Affinity permanently as of the 2000 series and higher this was no longer needed due to the better threading. Intel never had this problem as they were always real good with hyperthreading.

 

Improved texture loading comes from your graphics cards not the SSD. I have an old FX 9590 coupled with a RX 580 it has a 5-10 sec delay in loading textures. My current computer is an I9 10900K coupled with a RX 5700. I took out the RX 5700 out of my current computer and put in the RX 580 and still had a 5-10 sec delay even with the SSD. I took my Nvidia 1660 Super that I keep for a back up in case my 5700 goes out put it in with the FX 9590 which has the Sims 3 installed on an HDD textures loaded instantly with no delay.

 

As I already said before the Sims 3 with the exception of faster loading times doesn't benefit from an SSD as it can't use the technology. I'm one of the Sims 3 developers and don't even get me started on what kind of shithole EA is to work for. Besides I mainly worked with CAW and world design anyway, glad I never made Isla Paradiso what shitty world routing wise that one turned out to be Graham made that one and he's responsible for half of the worst bugs the game has.

And any questions as to why the Sims 3 is in such a bad, buggy and shitty state can be answered in one simple sentence. Because upper management wouldn't let us go back in and fix mistakes that needed to be fixed or give us the time needed to perfect things during development, just so they could meet a damn deadline. You won't find a former Sims 3 or Sims 4 developer that has any kind words for EA and why would we have any considering EA made us butcher something we cared about. Fuck EA I'll never work for them again and sorry about my little rant.

 

And despite my profile showing me as being a new member I've actually been here a very long time @landess and @LadySmoks can confirm that.

But around a year ago I left to take care of my 2 twin daughters who will be 2 next month. I deleted my original account as I never expected to come back here. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, namaradus said:

take care of my 2 twin daughters

Wondered why you left. I'm not one to ask too many personal questions, as I only share what I care to share, so figured you would share what you wanted, if and when... etc... ))) Anyway... good reason... not that you needed one. )

 

If you ever had time and motivation (probably the bigger factor) you might be the guy to fix some EA poop, or tell someone else how. Not me... programming is well above my pay rate as my husband would say!

 

Just another of those interesting things broken by an EA patch is Virtual Artisan's Tipplers Bottle. Well, half broken. It's a role creator bottle to set in a bar that spawns a "regular". That part still works. Not sure which patch broke it, but you can no longer click on it to use Nraas register, or even other bottle features like setting hours. Game will crash to desktop if you try... at least, that is what I get. I often preface things with "that's what I get" or something along that line as multiple threads, mostly Kinky World, show that mod interactions seem to change things in individual game set ups.

 

Arsil did some work to fix the dancer socket a few years ago, but I don't think he ever touched the other Virtual Artisan pieces... (preface) at least not that I have found in my searches. )))

[landess]

7 hours ago, namaradus said:

sorry about my little rant

 

No need. Nothing warms the heart like confirmation from a legitimate source of the same things we 'outsiders' have suspected and complained about ourselves for years.

 

[namaradus]

8 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

If you ever had time and motivation (probably the bigger factor) you might be the guy to fix some EA poop

The thing is I'm a Level Designer it's one thing to build a game world like Moonlight Falls for the Sims 3 or make game map like Far Harbor for Fallout 4. Coding is a whole different kettle of fish it'll take a coder/debugger to mess around with that stuff.

 

8 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

broken by an EA patch is Virtual Artisan's Tipplers Bottle. Well, half broken. It's a role creator bottle

I'm drawing a blank on that object but it might fall in the same category as the Bakery and the Savvy Seller stuff which are just generic roles that don't have any base code inside the game.

Other than Grahams Pet Shop which added a full role the Pet Shop Attendant there are no defined roles outside of the EP's. 

 

It's possible that Chain_Reaction at Nraas blocked Register from interacting with it as there was time that if you had Savvy Seller Registers in your world that Nraas Register would spawn a sim to man those but since the assignment would only last one day it would spawn a new sim the next day and another new sim the day after that etc....and before you know it you'd end up with a whole lot of homeless sims running around your world. A hundred homeless sims isn't a problem but when you start to get around 200-300 or more then you will have problem.

[namaradus]

6 hours ago, landess said:

 

No need. Nothing warms the heart like confirmation from a legitimate source of the same things we 'outsiders' have suspected and complained about ourselves for years.

 

If you only knew half of what goes on in the game industry behind closed doors you'd be left jaw dropped and speechless, I know I was when I learned about it all. 

 

You know that rumor about Ubisoft that the reason they are able to pump out a new Assassin's Creed game almost every year is because they copy/paste the code from the very first Assassin's Creed game and just reskin it? That's actually true.

[jdw6]

On 3/1/2021 at 9:21 PM, mctosh said:

more than 3.2gb

Oddly, I've seen the "3.7gb" number you listed before (nraas forums, or one of their people elsewhere) but have never seen task manager show it get to that much. For me, your 3.2gb is a guarantee of Err12 or crashes.

 

Having 64GB system memory doesn't help with the game, but it does help cut down on paging, and gives the ability to do many other things while playing.  (Photoshop, on the other hand, has actually crashed from out of memory... it tried using all 64gigs once. lol)

 

Oh, and as for SSDs, after moving the game directory back to my SSD ("game dir" defined as the "my documents" folder, not where the game is installed) I've not noticed any difference in stability when the game is running, but it does seem to load slightly faster.  (I expected "much faster".)  Tech specs:  previous drive was an ST750LX, current SSD is a WDS1000-M2.  Where the drive does come into play more, is when you back-up the entire game directory.  Copying a few GB can be done in just a few seconds, vs a few minutes on the old drive.  (11.0GB is current KW gamedir, took 11secs to make a copy of it.)

 

Other tech specs: GTX1060 w/ 6GB (this seems to make the biggest payoff for TS3... fast graphics, as long as you do the research to update the graphics card file for newer ones.  i7-8700K OC'd from 3.7GHz to 4.6GHz.  I've seen TS3W use only a max of about 25% CPU, but upwards of 90% GPU.

 

tl;dr:  yes, get an SSD... get a fast one!  the WD Black series are nice!  (Damn! Dropped $60 since I got my last one. ? sigh)

[Guest]

5 hours ago, namaradus said:

It's possible that Chain_Reaction at Nraas blocked Register from interacting with it

No, it's been this way for a while. Don't see anyone at Nraas setting booby traps to crash games if you try to use their mod on another mod piece. There are 3 items in that set, dancer socket (Arsil updated and generates a dancer), Courtesan Perfume Bottle (generates NPC prostitute) and Tipplers Bottle (generates bar regular). All three generate NPC's, but as I said, Tipplers Bottle will crash my game to desktop if I try changing settings. There's also an Ivy plant that generates NPC for random places. https://virtualartisanx.blogspot.com/?zx=1a0333f8d2b750ea

[namaradus]

3 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

No, it's been this way for a while. Don't see anyone at Nraas setting booby traps to crash games if you try to use their mod on another mod piece. There are 3 items in that set, dancer socket (Arsil updated and generates a dancer), Courtesan Perfume Bottle (generates NPC prostitute) and Tipplers Bottle (generates bar regular). All three generate NPC's, but as I said, Tipplers Bottle will crash my game to desktop if I try changing settings. There's also an Ivy plant that generates NPC for random places. https://virtualartisanx.blogspot.com/?zx=1a0333f8d2b750ea

There was a lot of extra bar code added with Island Paradise but University also added some bar code. I doubt it was University though.

The most likely culprit is Island Paradise and patch 1.55 that one added an extra extension to the bars. Game saves that had been around before IP had to replace the bars to get them to function again. And the pre-existing bars in Bridgeport also needed to be replaced but I think that was fixed by a later patch or should have been. I know Nraas OverWatch fixes the pre-existing bars in Bridgeport so they don't need to be replaced.

You use Origin right and do you have IP installed? Out of curiosity if you were to start a Test Game with IP disabled would the Tipplers Bottle function like it's supposed too?

 

Otherwise if you use discs use this to disable IP https://modthesims.info/d/499140/sim-game-selector-3-0-support-for-quot-into-the-future-quot-and-quot-movie-stuff-quot.html

 

But at any rate the bar code has been a clusterfuck since IP not many willing to touch that and the Tipplers Bottle is running right off the bar code it seems.

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, namaradus said:

patch 1.55

Could be, as the VA page says it was good through 1.31. I think Arsil's updated dancer socket was for 1.67, which generally works with 1.69 also. It IS an older set of mods, but IS nice to have... at least for how I like to play. Don't have IP, so if anything, it's in the patch level. ( I guess, like many things, I know I can place the bottles, they generate an NPC that I believe automatically arrives and leaves around the bar open and close times... just can't click on it to use register. Not major drama! ))) No clicky clicky... no crashy crashy, and all is right with the world.

 

Looking at that link, I wonder if it works the same way as the EP selector that is in the launcher? I think that was added to the launcher with 1.69??????

[namaradus]

51 minutes ago, LadySmoks said:

I think Arsil's updated dancer socket was for 1.67, which generally works with 1.69 also. It IS an older set of mods, but IS nice to have... at least for how I like to play. Don't have IP, so if anything, it's in the patch level.

With the exception of core mods any mod works for 1.67 will work with 1.69. I was afraid that it was coming from IP it looks like the code added by IP is running but it shouldn't be doing that without IP installed but for some reason it is.

That's not something that can easily be fixed.

There was a similar problem with Late Night and Ambitions in which the Mixology code was running without Late Night and the Stylist code was running without Ambitions and it would wreak havoc with Nraas Register it took Chain_Reaction over a year to fix that.

The Vampire code from Late Night also runs without the EP you can get sims that immigrate into town with the Vampire hidden trait. They'll still stay human until you install Supernatural or Late Night. Although I think the Vampire code running might actually be intentional. The code to make the EP's and SP's work comes from the patches. Which is why your sims can swim in the ocean without Seasons and why ghosts can have Death Types that come from EP's that you don't have installed but those two things are intentional.

 

51 minutes ago, LadySmoks said:

Looking at that link, I wonder if it works the same way as the EP selector that is in the launcher? I think that was added to the launcher with 1.69

The Pack selector that was added to the Launcher with 1.69 is a crappy version of that program I linked too.

That program works perfectly and never forgets the packs you pick unlike the game launcher.

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, namaradus said:

code was running

My first experience with this sort of thing was when my Bridgeport sims suddenly had an option to ask if another sim wanted to be a roommate and I didn't have University.

50 minutes ago, namaradus said:

never forgets the packs you pick unlike the game launcher.

Yes. I need to check that my EP's are still checked off every time I restart my game. Similar to knowing the issue with Tippler causing a crash if I click it, as I know about it and it only takes a second to check. First time it happened, I forget how long it took me to realize what was wrong! 

[namaradus]

41 minutes ago, LadySmoks said:

Yes. I need to check that my EP's are still checked off every time I restart my game.

While these instructions are for the Featured Items folder it will work for what I'm about to tell you https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/12/tutorial-turning-off-ingame-store-and-preventing-loading-of-pictures.html

 

In your Documents>Electronic Arts>The Sims 3 folder look for an INI file called LoadOption and use the instructions for the Featured Items folder. Setting the LoadOption INI to read only will prevent the Launcher from overwriting it and unselecting the packs you've chosen and make sure to double check if you install simpacks and just to make sure it stays read only in general as Windows likes to revert the file to Read/Write. And it would be a good idea to stay offline when starting the game as Origin might try to revert it if you are online. As long as Origin doesn't detect an update to the Origin Client you should have no problem logging in with Offline Mode. Now if Origin does an infinite loading or doesn't load up your game Library you'll need to update the Origin Client first then go offline.

If you want to add a pack or remove a pack just reverse the steps.

[mctosh]

13 hours ago, jdw6 said:

Oddly, I've seen the "3.7gb" number you listed before (nraas forums, or one of their people elsewhere) but have never seen task manager show it get to that much. For me, your 3.2gb is a guarantee of Err12 or crashes.

yep. the 3.7 number comes from the fact that's the maximum amount of ram a 32bit application can reserve for its self, but you're right in real world terms it'll become unstable way before then as it also needs to reserve some for hardware. so it'll become unstable at around 2.9 - 3.2gb

 

i'm not sure how people do it though. i play with all EPs and have hundreds of mods, i'm 3 generations in and i'm only using 1gb at the moment, but pop is only around 80. i like to grow slow. but i've never seen it get as high as 3gb usage. but a lot apparently do and error12. they must use ultra massive worlds with super duper extreme mega high definition 100K textures or something

 

 

[mctosh]

On 3/2/2021 at 5:56 PM, namaradus said:

If the Sims 3 detects a quad-core or higher it will use 3 cores, mainly 2 but will use a 3rd if it needs too, it was part of patch 1.31 and it was never mentioned in the patch notes for some reason. On older AMD's tapping into the 3rd core didn't work well because of the threading unless you set Affinity to 3 cores but you had to do this every time you ran the game. With the Ryzen 1000 series AMD had a program that let you set Affinity permanently as of the 2000 series and higher this was no longer needed due to the better threading. Intel never had this problem as they were always real good with hyperthreading.

 

Improved texture loading comes from your graphics cards not the SSD. I have an old FX 9590 coupled with a RX 580 it has a 5-10 sec delay in loading textures. My current computer is an I9 10900K coupled with a RX 5700. I took out the RX 5700 out of my current computer and put in the RX 580 and still had a 5-10 sec delay even with the SSD. I took my Nvidia 1660 Super that I keep for a back up in case my 5700 goes out put it in with the FX 9590 which has the Sims 3 installed on an HDD textures loaded instantly with no delay.

 

As I already said before the Sims 3 with the exception of faster loading times doesn't benefit from an SSD as it can't use the technology. I'm one of the Sims 3 developers and don't even get me started on what kind of shithole EA is to work for. Besides I mainly worked with CAW and world design anyway, glad I never made Isla Paradiso what shitty world routing wise that one turned out to be Graham made that one and he's responsible for half of the worst bugs the game has.

And any questions as to why the Sims 3 is in such a bad, buggy and shitty state can be answered in one simple sentence. Because upper management wouldn't let us go back in and fix mistakes that needed to be fixed or give us the time needed to perfect things during development, just so they could meet a damn deadline. You won't find a former Sims 3 or Sims 4 developer that has any kind words for EA and why would we have any considering EA made us butcher something we cared about. Fuck EA I'll never work for them again and sorry about my little rant.

 

And despite my profile showing me as being a new member I've actually been here a very long time @landess and @LadySmoks can confirm that.

But around a year ago I left to take care of my 2 twin daughters who will be 2 next month. I deleted my original account as I never expected to come back here. 

hey that's cool,  thanks so much for such an awesome game. yeah sure it's a buggy mess but look at how massive and ambitious of a game it is. you should be proud still! and with nraas mods and various other mods (ellacharmed's fixed worlds, twomama's routing fixes etc) most of the bugs are not a problem anymore anyway.

 

i've been playing it since the very first day it came out, i've bought 3 legit copies (originally on disc, then steam version, then again on origin.. only later to find out if i registered my steam version on origin i'd have got it free -_- but owell, to me it was worth it). 

 

only reason i stopped playing it is becaues after 5-6 generations i'd just lag out and it'd be quite upsetting. but as mentioned since upgrading to a ryzen runs smooth as butter  haven't seen one stutter yet, so surprising. good to know about the 3 core thing! never saw that in any of the update notes no.

 

i wish they'd release a 64bit version with better cpu handling.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, namaradus said:

Featured Items folder

Hmmm... just one more of those read it, did it, sooooooooooo long ago things, but my Featured Items folder is in My Documents, outside of the Electronic Arts folder, with a single red 32x32 image in it. No folder is ever regenerated inside of the Sims 3 folder and no store item images ever are added to that folder.

[jdw6]

3 hours ago, mctosh said:

yep. the 3.7 number comes from the fact that's the maximum amount of ram a 32bit application can reserve for its self, but you're right in real world terms it'll become unstable way before then as it also needs to reserve some for hardware. so it'll become unstable at around 2.9 - 3.2gb

 

i'm not sure how people do it though. i play with all EPs and have hundreds of mods, i'm 3 generations in and i'm only using 1gb at the moment, but pop is only around 80. i like to grow slow. but i've never seen it get as high as 3gb usage. but a lot apparently do and error12. they must use ultra massive worlds with super duper extreme mega high definition 100K textures or something

Ah, yes. The ole theory vs real-world thing. Figures.

 

? Only 80 sims?!? For the entire world!?! And 3 generations in?!?  Um... lemme guess, you didn't adjust lifespan or use NRaas Relativity to adjust the game clock slower.  That many generations would be something on the order of a year of real world time, with it running as much as I normally do (14-20 hours a day, 7 days a week).

 

Edit to ask:  Which world are you running that is using that little?  And, would you be so kind as to send over a screenshot of your game display options?  This tab... included my task manager to, well, dunno, I discussed some of that below, but only wanted 1 screencap. lol

 

Spoiler

 

Gory boring testing stuff about memory...

 

Spoiler

 

Greymont Bay:  Starting is about 2.1 GB.  Found my notes, make that 1.8GB.  That's an unpopulated world.

Jericho:  Starting was about 1.6GB.  That's another unpopulated world.

 

For comparison, dropping down to 1920x1440, Isla Paradiso was 1413MB after the intro video finished.  Bridgeport was 1545MB.  GB was 1791MB.  Twinbrook was 1493.  Starlight Shores, 1458.  I didn't see much difference at all between the smaller resolution and either of my normal 2560x1440 or 3440x1440 sizes.  I did see a bit of improvement reducing the quality from max levels, but the best I found was, for Greymont, going from 1817MB (3440x1440@max quality) to 1530MB (640x480@lowest quality).  I expected much more improvement than 300-ish MB.  All those tests were in a non-KW world, with a fairly minimal mod folder (it's increased some since then, and it's at 2.0GB now, so I think it was 1.8 or 1.6 when I did those tests).

 

They both have a metric ton of registers, so the NPC population is something like 60-90.  GB, however, the artist that did it (basically a creator on acid) put in way too much detail.  I spent about 2-3 hours deleting trees from the non-routable distance in one small area, because there were so many.  Some were full trees that initially only looked like bushes b/c they were on a lower layer or something.

 

BTW, current ver of Jericho I just fired up:  112 service, 45 homeless, 124 residents.  It's been going about 24 sim hours.  and it's right at 2GB resident.  Paused and it's still using 18% CPU.    3rd 2nd monitor does let me keep task manager running all the time while having ts3 run.  I have to.  When I see it hit 2.9 I know I better start saving.  The save process, BTW, does make it spike another several hundred MB.  Yet, I have also had it correctly save at 3.1GB... soooo... like a college prof blamed for computer errors:  "sunspots!"

 

 

1st I've seen mention of 3-cores, but not too surprising, CPUs with 4 cores have been out for a while.  Heck, Windows was even 64-bit when they released the 1st version of TS3 (IIRC) so there's not really any reason they didn't other than laziness.  The recent Mac-only "64-bit" sounds more like they did a 64-bit wrapper around the existing code, so the game is still 32-bit, it's just got a 64-bit veneer to make it play-nice with the latest bitten-fruit OS.

[jdw6]

7 hours ago, namaradus said:

Vampire hidden trait.

I have a faded memory from a couple weeks ago when I was looking into the tuning for vampires that is trying to tell me that I'd found comments in the GameplayData "stuff" that indicated EA put the concept of a vampire in from the beginning, but then later flushed it out with LN.  (But, as they teach ya in school: never really trust comments in code.)  (I had to undo some tunings I did a year or more earlier b/c I wanted to use a different mod that seemed to take vampires in a different direction and just didn't feel like messing w/ the conflicts.)

[landess]

18 hours ago, namaradus said:

It's possible that Chain_Reaction at Nraas blocked Register from interacting with it as there was time that if you had Savvy Seller Registers in your world that Nraas Register would spawn a sim to man those but since the assignment would only last one day it would spawn a new sim the next day and another new sim the day after that etc....and before you know it you'd end up with a whole lot of homeless sims running around your world. A hundred homeless sims isn't a problem but when you start to get around 200-300 or more then you will have problem.

 

Interesting stuff as always. I wanted to mention as I was reading this, the first thing that came to mind was the issue KW had with creating an 'endless' stream of duplicate service sims - adding another each time the game was booted up. Apparently OnikiKay was able to isolate this problem themselves concerning the unwanted side effect on the KW mod. I know it was fixed by build 375 and perhaps earlier.

 

 

17 hours ago, namaradus said:

If you only knew half of what goes on in the game industry behind closed doors you'd be left jaw dropped and speechless, I know I was when I learned about it all. 

 

You know that rumor about Ubisoft that the reason they are able to pump out a new Assassin's Creed game almost every year is because they copy/paste the code from the very first Assassin's Creed game and just reskin it? That's actually true.

 

Like my suspicions about politicians, and most everything else - I use the Occam's Razor test when people are involved. I think parents could benefit from using this when dealing with children as well. While it may not 'identify' the facts, it certainly helps remove the BS.

 

As for the UbiSoft information - while copy/paste seems kinda limiting - if we're talking the purest form of 'nuts and bolts' code being used by the X86 (which in itself has been 'copy/pasted' by Microsoft since the earliest versions of Windows) format makes sense - limiting the amount of coordination with Microsoft needed to debug the code itself to work with Windows. As for everything else - If it ain't broke, don't fix it - can go a long way to creating a stable program. I'm a huge Assassin's Creed fan, and can appreciate knowing that I will basically get the same game each time - with different maps, characters, story quests/cut scenes - like some evolving DLC over the years. Sure, they add a few things like RPG stuff (meh....) or game mechanics involving parkour and other pedestrian based gimmicks, and I find this okay.

 

When Origins introduced an actual 'Eagle' to supplant the 'eagle-vision', as a veteran of FarCry Primal, it was an 'Ahhhh' moment.

 

 

12 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

There are 3 items in that set, dancer socket (Arsil updated and generates a dancer), Courtesan Perfume Bottle (generates NPC prostitute) and Tipplers Bottle (generates bar regular)

 

While I have this in my archives, I have only ever used the Dancer Stage Socket. It really is a useful mod for immersion, and fits well with a more adult themed game IMO. The other 2 features I find better 'realized' by either KW (Prostitutes) or MSCmod (Bar Patrons).

 

The NPC generated by the Perfume Bottle doesn't seem it would be recognized by KW, and would either engage in generic EA woohoo or at best, NRaas Animated Woohoo. Just a guess based on logical deduction....

 

The NPC generated by Tipplers Bottle sounds like it could've been named the 'Norm' mod (if one is familiar with the TV show Cheers). While it has the advantages of being generated (like bartenders) as part of the lot not requiring the active Sim to be there before EA begins a 'Push' event like used for MSCmod - it also adds another mouth to feed for the games memory.

 

9 hours ago, namaradus said:

I know Nraas OverWatch fixes the pre-existing bars in Bridgeport so they don't need to be replaced.

 

It's interesting to realize just HOW MANY landmines I've avoided by using the mods created by so many talented creators. And is just ONE MORE reason it amazes me some people using KW seem to feel it's not good to run OVERWATCH at the same time. Ummm yeah, and I go Ice Skating without skates....  It's the equivalent of trying to play a Bethesda game without the 'unofficial patch'.

 

 

7 hours ago, namaradus said:

The code to make the EP's and SP's work comes from the patches. Which is why your sims can swim in the ocean without Seasons and why ghosts can have Death Types that come from EP's that you don't have installed but those two things are intentional.

 

I've always understood games being patched after an EP/SP/DLC being released for base game compatibility would require certain features to be available even if said extra content wasn't installed, as this extra content is based upon default game mechanics with new 'objects/etc.' being added by the actual DLC. I never thought twice about it and think it's an obvious boon for those 'not' purchasing the new content - they still get small benefits from continued support to the game title.

 

 

6 hours ago, namaradus said:

Windows likes to revert the file to Read/Write.

 

I've often suspected 'large' game publishers have an 'understanding' with Microsoft allowing them knowledge/access to certain Windows features hidden from the public's eye. Yes, it's 'Conspiracy Theory Man' back in the saddle - but it serves me well. I do believe a certain amount of Data Mining happens every time a game is booted up and would confirm why SO MANY games are willing to be played for free..... (Online connection required <cough cough>) Any in game purchases are icing on the cake and a diversion to the reality of the situation IMO.

 

 

3 hours ago, mctosh said:

i play with all EPs and have hundreds of mods, i'm 3 generations in and i'm only using 1gb at the moment, but pop is only around 80. i like to grow slow. but i've never seen it get as high as 3gb usage. but a lot apparently do and error12. they must use ultra massive worlds with super duper extreme mega high definition 100K textures or something

 

Same here - all EP's, and a shitload of mods. Your mention of high definition textures makes a lot of sense - I myself having quite a few, with custom Hairs jumping to mind immediately. Ultra massive worlds - more please!   But then I have a decent enough potato to run all of it, and have learned over the years many 'tricks' to help manage the monster I've created. I push the envelope, and know when things go sideways - it's my own fault and make some choices to get things back between the ditches.

 

 

3 hours ago, mctosh said:

only reason i stopped playing it is becaues after 5-6 generations i'd just lag out and it'd be quite upsetting

Aye. It's one reason I've quit playing with aging on. The other being a CAS(T) whore, means not having to take more and more Sims in for customizing. Learning how to make that efficient as well is a discipline I learned over time (Like making 'back-ups' of career uniforms) Since I use Save Cleaner religiously (And DON'T understand why some have issues using it?) I can easily see how much memory a save gathers after a session where I do take Sims into CAS. The more Sims I customize and the more I use Build/Buy - I can always see a boost in the amount of memory that save incurs. Save Cleaner drops it again leaving only a minuscule amount of growth.

 

 

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>>>While I can't solve every problem other users have with the Sims 3, I can by my own experience know, that due to things like Hardware, Mods, game settings, and maintenance habits - much can be avoided or overcome through choice. IF there was ONE thing I do wish others could/would do, it's to CLEAN their saves. I can't stress enough how much this extends the 'life' of a save series and keeps those errors/crashes in check.

 

While some are competent enough to manually clean saves with S3PE - the ability for ALL to use the Save Cleaner program would be a huge boost for players in general.

[landess]

1 hour ago, jdw6 said:

stuff about memory.

 

As a 'screenshot enthusiast' I notice the different amounts of memory used depending on the 'clutter' in a simple screen shot. While not exactly the same animal - I'm smart enough to realize that is a simplified version of what happens in game depending on the settings......

 

1 hour ago, jdw6 said:

Windows was even 64-bit when they released the 1st version of TS3

 

I'll say it again - The Sims 3 was designed to run on as many machines as possible, increasing the possibilities of units sold. Unlike many game developers whom like to 'push the envelope' (Crysis anyone?) EA's strategy appeared to be the opposite - catering to the lowest common denominator. This very design philosophy bought us back to the Sims 4 closed world and 'other' decisions made by management - instead allowing more modern systems to look 'prettier' while allowing older machines to run the game with less effort.

 

How I've learned to 'hate' the lowest common denominator as I've gone through life. It serves Corporate interest the most, allowing people to wallow in 'less'.  VHS vs BetaMax anyone? Corporations don't serve the public - they slop the pigs....

 

>>> Don't get me wrong - The concept behind the Model T Ford was genius, but not as profitable. This example alone shows how a corporation did the right thing for the 'wrong reasons' (making Ford a household name by sheer quantity) and if this was the best way to offer automobiles - why did they stop?

 

Know your history everyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T

[Guest]

1 hour ago, landess said:

Occam's Razor test

May need one of those camera door bells instead. "The dog ate my homework..." We saw America's Funny Videos, and watched a dog eat a girl's homework!!! For once the bull wasn't so much!

 

1 hour ago, landess said:

KW (Prostitutes) or MSCmod (Bar Patrons)

Perhaps, but yes the VA mod is like Norm from Cheers! The same NPC (a regular). The courtesan bottle is convenient for placement of the prostitutes, as I think KW just sends them to wherever? Unless they are your brothel whores and you assign them to a location. Although kind of silly, you can place the bottle on a downtown street corner, or a park. Also, can your active sim solicit a KW whore? Mine never can. I tried to have a teen son pick up a whore, but never get the interaction for it and those are enabled for teen in the KW menu.

 

It has a script. You can proposition him or her. He/ she may say "I have other things to do today, but can come to you tomorrow." So, next day he/ she comes to your house and you can hire the whore for the day for $500 (I forget how many hours) and woohoo several times, and it uses KW woohoo, or for 1 woohoo for $100. Also, woohoo with for extra interaction. I think similar to callgirl/ boy hired over the phone.

 

1 hour ago, landess said:

not good to run OVERWATCH

Probably because Oniki said not to use it, instead of specifying the conflicts and explaining them better.

 

[landess]

2 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

We saw America's Funny Videos, and watched a dog eat a girl's homework!

 

Possibly true - of course the cynic in me would need to see the video in it's entirety to make a determination if it was an honest situation or a set-up to get the video chosen. If honest, I'm sure it never happened again as steps would be taken to stop it and the video could be used in the students defense if the teacher wasn't understanding.....  'IF' it happened again - then the concept of Occam's Razor becomes quite apparent.

 

2 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

can your active sim solicit a KW whore?

 

Yes. When choosing the kinky option instead of getting the usual menu, my Sim is given a choice of paid options. Of course once engaged in paid woohoo, my sim can then choose to change location which affords a change in position (tease/oral/etc.) but I can't remember if my sim incurs additional charge - as I hardly use that anyways - don't believe in 'paying' for sex. Still, it's a role playing option and am 'glad' the game allows it through mod use. Never tried with a teen, but have seen inactive teens successfully solicit.

 

2 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

and it uses KW woohoo

 

Good to know! Interesting besides....

 

2 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

Probably because Oniki said not to use it, instead of specifying the conflicts and explaining them better.

 

<sigh> It's this type of thinking which causes more problems among users of mods.

 

Without a good knowledge base of games/programs - especially in the PC world where Console hand-holding is minimum....

 

Taking the word of a mod creator as gospel, not understanding what or how most mods work (within reason), and not testing for themselves or investigating things before/after use to compare experience.

 

Obviously there is a popular school of thought about many things - and if these come from enough varied sources, it's probably safe to say they're correct.

 

NRaas was and IS the number one reason I use the Sims 3 today, But that being said, KW is the number one reason I remain interested in doing so - along with all the amazing CC being offered still to this day!

[namaradus]

11 hours ago, mctosh said:

hey that's cool,  thanks so much for such an awesome game. yeah sure it's a buggy mess but look at how massive and ambitious of a game it is. you should be proud still! and with nraas mods and various other mods (ellacharmed's fixed worlds, twomama's routing fixes etc) most of the bugs are not a problem anymore anyway.

Considering the conditions we had to work under we did the best we could and we are proud of it we just wish we had more time to make it even better but what can you do when the bosses say times up.

The worlds I made were Barnacle Bay, Lucky Palms, Dragon Valley, Midnight Hollow, Roaring Heights and Moonlight Falls.

Moonlight Falls was the one I wish I had more time to work on. With that one it seemed like every routing problem I fixed caused another one to pop up elsewhere all I needed was just one more week but no they wouldn't give me anymore time.

Barnacle Bay considering I was still learning how to use CAW it didn't turn out too bad I know it has some problems. Or at least I hope it didn't turn out too bad.

Lucky Palms and Dragon Valley I never heard any complaints about the routing they probably do have a couple of bad spots that I missed.

Midnight Hollow the biggest problem with that one was poorly placed objects on some of the lots. Tried to be creative and it backfired. I never heard any complaints on the world routing.

Roaring Heights is the biggest mystery I never got a lot of feedback on it. I hope the routing was good but considering they only gave me 3 months to work on it I kinda doubt it.

11 hours ago, mctosh said:

i wish they'd release a 64bit version with better cpu handling

If I had my way the game would've had a 64bit wrapper back in 2011. Similar to how the Sims 4 in the beginning could run in both 32bit and 64bit modes.

 

7 hours ago, jdw6 said:

The recent Mac-only "64-bit" sounds more like they did a 64-bit wrapper around the existing code, so the game is still 32-bit, it's just got a 64-bit veneer to make it play-nice with the latest bitten-fruit OS.

From what I've heard it is true 64bit whether that's true or not no clue but considering the increase in the Minimum System Requirements to being identical to the requirements for the Sims 4 64bit version suggest that it could be.

[namaradus]

10 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

Hmmm... just one more of those read it, did it, sooooooooooo long ago things, but my Featured Items folder is in My Documents, outside of the Electronic Arts folder, with a single red 32x32 image in it. No folder is ever regenerated inside of the Sims 3 folder and no store item images ever are added to that folder.

Like I said use that same trick with the LoadOption INI and it should prevent the Launcher from unselecting the packs you've chosen.

[namaradus]

6 hours ago, landess said:

As for the UbiSoft information - while copy/paste seems kinda limiting - if we're talking the purest form of 'nuts and bolts' code being used by the X86 (which in itself has been 'copy/pasted' by Microsoft since the earliest versions of Windows) format makes sense - limiting the amount of coordination with Microsoft needed to debug the code itself to work with Windows. As for everything else - If it ain't broke, don't fix it - can go a long way to creating a stable program. I'm a huge Assassin's Creed fan, and can appreciate knowing that I will basically get the same game each time - with different maps, characters, story quests/cut scenes - like some evolving DLC over the years. Sure, they add a few things like RPG stuff (meh....) or game mechanics involving parkour and other pedestrian based gimmicks, and I find this okay.

The main core mechanics and code is what I was referring too, yes. Of course they still have to tweak some things to fit with what they need to revolve around the game concept. It drastically decreases the amount of development time and greatly increase the profit margin........but there's a drawback it also cuts their talent base and the skills of their developers sooner or later it'll bite them in butt. And I also love the Assassin Creed games.

 

Quote

 It's the equivalent of trying to play a Bethesda game without the 'unofficial patch'.

You got that right. The problem there is with that Frankenstein Gamebryo game engine they made and they have very talented people but they never got fully trained on how to use the Creation Engine properly. The Creation Engine is unlike any game engine ever made and it's not easy to code for. As I said before I did some Technical Level Design Advisory work with Fallout 4 on the concept and design of Far Harbor so I know the situation and how bad it is. But that could change with ZeniMax being bought by Microsoft and with the hands off approach that Satya Nadella has to the game studios that they acquired, they could finally get the training they need to use it properly.

Even though I'm a free lancer I still do Technical Level Design Advisory work with Bethesda as I have a contract and when MS bought ZeniMax they also bought my contract that I had with ZeniMax. MS does want to give me a more prominent role with Bethesda but I can't really talk about that and I'm not sure I want to go back to being an employee for a studio as I make more money as a free lancer. But I'll know more when I talk with Satya and Phil Spencer on what role they want to give me.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, landess said:

Yes. When choosing the kinky option instead of getting the usual menu

I'm wondering if it's because I generally own the brothel? Funny, as I may have a whore working at a bar, she can solicit my active household , but I have tried to have a teen son try to solicit a whore, and never get such interactions menus.

 

12 hours ago, landess said:

Taking the word of a mod creator as gospel

Honestly, what else would people do? IF... they bother to read before downloading anything??? Oniki writes there is a conflict, so the first thing is, "Nraas Overwatch or Kinky World?" and people remove Overwatch.