Long pauses
lordrichter:
Quote from: MrsSoares on 2009 October 02, 13:04:46
I am also having the same issue with the slow downs.
I would also suggest uninstalling the game, cleaning up all traces left behind, and reinstalling the game. I don't think that just starting a new game necessarily resets the playing field.
ElviraGoth:
As I was watching sims leave for work/school at that dreaded 8-9 am timeframe, I thought it looked like they were taking turns moving. One sim would move, stop in midair while another one on screen moved, etc.
I started pausing when I knew a sim was just waiting for their clothes to load, and that helped some.
Then I tried switching to map view during the "get out the door, now!" hustle, and they all seem to move faster. All the kids get on their bikes (except the current household's kids, who ride the bus), and all the workers get out to their carpools much faster than when I stay at the lot view.
I may be wrong, but I think it's the way the game handles all the movements onscreen. It doesn't have to work as hard at refreshing the graphics in map view.
Tangie:
I have a game from August, a family of 9, which became unplayable due to the severe lagging, jams at the school, and stinky, hungry sims flopping over sleeping everywhere (they eventually even lose all free will and will just stand around until given orders, then take 2-4 sim hours performing whatever tasks you give them). I have since been playing much smaller neighborhoods of no more than 30-some sims (at least that's what they're up to so far) and have not had these issues.
I just went back to play this saved game the other evening, and nothing had improved. Log jams at the school, no free will, stop and go movement, and sims moving so slowly that it takes hours to accomplish anything. So after seeing MrsSoares post yesterday, I decided to try it without AM. Took AM out, cleared caches, and played the game again last evening. I was surprised that it DOES play much better, and sims have free will again, and there were no issues with sims getting in or out of the school. Lots of green stinky clouds coming from sim bodies still, but that could be due to not enough time passing since I took AM out. Not perfectly smooth and seamless game play by any means, but a definite improvement over how poorly it functions with AM installed.
So, I have to conclude that unless you have a super powerful PC that can handle the additional processing demands, AM can make game play every bit as bad as the vanilla game is all by itself. Sad, but true. Which is why I am currently saving up to purchase a gaming PC.
In the meantime, I am sticking with playing my smaller 'hoods and working to keep my population down so I can avoid the meltdown as long as possible, and will just keep starting over if it happens again. Which is why I have been working on my ideal neighborhood - once I get it the way I want it, I can use it as a template to start over without having to recreate the 'hood. Unless or until I get tired of this, in which case I guess I'll go back to playing Sims 2 for awhile.
wizard_merlin:
Quote from: Tangie on 2009 October 03, 19:09:37
So, I have to conclude that unless you have a super powerful PC that can handle the additional processing demands, AM can make game play every bit as bad as the vanilla game is all by itself. Sad, but true. Which is why I am currently saving up to purchase a gaming PC.
In the meantime, I am sticking with playing my smaller 'hoods and working to keep my population down so I can avoid the meltdown as long as possible, and will just keep starting over if it happens again. Which is why I have been working on my ideal neighborhood - once I get it the way I want it, I can use it as a template to start over without having to recreate the 'hood. Unless or until I get tired of this, in which case I guess I'll go back to playing Sims 2 for awhile.
When you upgrade to a new PC, if you can, try to avoid the off the shelf variety as they usually fall down in one area or other for high end gaming. If you can (sometimes costs more) have someone custom build a system for you, and make sure your CPU, RAM and Graphics card is as far over the stated minimum specs as you can afford.
I have a system resource monitor running on my second monitor which I can keep an eye on when TS3 is running, and the game really does grab alot more resources than the minimum system spec's say is required.
Quote from: ElviraGoth on 2009 October 03, 14:08:20
Then I tried switching to map view during the "get out the door, now!" hustle, and they all seem to move faster. All the kids get on their bikes (except the current household's kids, who ride the bus), and all the workers get out to their carpools much faster than when I stay at the lot view.
I may be wrong, but I think it's the way the game handles all the movements onscreen. It doesn't have to work as hard at refreshing the graphics in map view.
That sounds reasonable, and I have held a similar view for a long time about this game. Once I saw How much of the resources the game was grabbing within my system, it seems reasonable that a borderline system will be adversely affected. I guess the big question is, is it the Graphics card, CPU, RAM, or a combination that's the problem?
I know the TS3 supported Graphics Card list actually shows some older, lower end cards, which may be the biggest issue. One of the "Supposedly" supported lower end cards (that was listed, haven't checked to see if it still is) gave me problems with TS2, yet EAxis says it supports TS3. If it was problematic with TS2, I really don't believe it would handle TS3 any better, probably worse.
ElviraGoth:
I upgraded my graphics card and RAM last spring, long before TS3 came out. And my system is 4 years old, but it was designed for gaming at the time, and I have no problems running other games that are graphics intensive.
I still run XP, though. Maybe it's the OS that's slowing things down. I'm sure switching from a 32-bit system to a 64-bit system would have a significant effect, especially for things that the GPU doesn't handle.
I need to get a look at Windows 7. Didn't like the look of Vista and it had too many problems. I had Windows ME at one time, so I didn't want to have to use another glitchy system.
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