Long pauses
scandalicious:
Quote from: Tangie on 2009 October 03, 19:09:37
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.
Not to state the obvious, but I see at least two variables there. More depending on what the timeline actually was, and what preparations were made. When testing, you want to minimize those as much as you can. I'm not suggesting you set up a sterile lab environment, but there were some steps you could have taken that would have helped immensely. Now, I don't know if you did take extra measures, and neglected to mention them. Judging only on what I see, however, even if your conclusion is correct, I would call the data you used unreliable.
Question: Did you have a look at what your system thought it was doing around the times that your sims went stupid on you? If so, was there anything of note?
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.
Hrm... I'm not sure I can agree. I bought my current computer sometime late last year. It was cheap and initially couldn't even load Northrend. More memory fixed that, but I still get happyfuntiemlag in Dalaran during WG. ("Blah blah WoWcrack. Blah blah system on knees. Blah, mostly fix't!" to the unaddicted.) This isn't a lean mean gaming machine.
That said, I haven't seen any performance issues from AM that weren't already there in the vanilla (unpatched) game. In fact, I haven't run into the previous performance issues yet, but won't assume they're gone until I get much more playtime under my belt. Not that I haven't run into problems, but the issues I've pinned down so far have been unrelated.
If it is a system spec issue, I'd suspect it's more complex than AM requiring a "super powerful PC". Wizard_merlin gets into this here:
Quote from: wizard_merlin on 2009 October 02, 14:12:02
Just because your computer is brand new doesn't always mean it is spec'ed to handle what you want it to. If I had a dollar for every time someone has said their computer was brand new and not the problem, only to discover that CPU speed was too slow, RAM size too small, or Graphics card under spec'ed, etc, I wouldn't have to worry about working ever again.
To expand on that a bit, computers are not monolithic slabs of hardware, but interconnected modular bits of hardware. Now I admit, I haven't recently been windowshopping, but my cynical experience is that on a typical premade computer, these bits are not of equal quality, and the salespeople are only too happy to wave the shiny bits in front of you while kicking the subpar components into the back room where THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FRATERNIZE WITH THE CUSTOMERS OR ELSE THEY WILL GET THE HOSE AGAIN. Assuming they even know which is which, natch. I doubt this has changed.
Guh, I'm oversimplifying things a lot, and think I'm running the risk of either talking in circles or rambling uselessly. I'll just end here.
Tangie:
I agree with you; at one time, either this game or another, I took AM out and still had an unplayable game. I admit that I did not test extensively in either case. ETA: the saved game I played last Sunday is also a bit older but I am not experiencing any of the issues mentioned above, except for the fact that the babysitters and maid would do nothing but stand on the porch the entire time they were there. Grrrr.
It's also true that my computer is an off-the-shelf piece of crap, and my graphics card is not even supported by EA. Worse yet, I cannot upgrade my memory at all, although I don't know that it matters since it's my understanding that there's only so much memory Vista can utilize anyway. And I purchased this craptastic machine less than a year ago. The price was right at the time, though.
When I get the cash, hopefully in the next 3-6 months, I intend to upgrade. I am not awesome enough to build my own machine, and neither is anyone I know IRL, so I'll have to find someone at some computer shop who'll build it for me. Or else buy an overpriced Alienware monster, which is tempting me due to all the bling. :)
wizard_merlin:
Quote from: Tangie on 2009 October 06, 23:06:28
It's also true that my computer is an off-the-shelf piece of crap, and my graphics card is not even supported by EA. Worse yet, I cannot upgrade my memory at all, although I don't know that it matters since it's my understanding that there's only so much memory Vista can utilize anyway. And I purchased this craptastic machine less than a year ago. The price was right at the time, though.
That applies to 32-bit systems. 64-bit systems can support much higher levels of RAM, but also require a supported CPU.
Quote
When I get the cash, hopefully in the next 3-6 months, I intend to upgrade. I am not awesome enough to build my own machine, and neither is anyone I know IRL, so I'll have to find someone at some computer shop who'll build it for me. Or else buy an overpriced Alienware monster, which is tempting me due to all the bling. :)
Don't let the bling fool you. The extra you pay for the overpriced Alienware bling may enable someone else to get you more RAM, a slightly better CPU or even a better graphics card for the same money. If you did know someone who could build a system for you, you would have done better as you probably wouldn't be paying for labour charges to assemble the machine and install the OS, etc to get it up and running for you. But on the flip side, a good computer shop will charge reasonable prices, and if they use OEM products, they are cheaper than full retail, it may offset some of the labour charges.
When your ready to upgrade, make sure you do some good research first to make sure your going to get the best bang for your buck.
BattyCoda:
Quote from: wizard_merlin on 2009 October 07, 00:41:14
Quote
When I get the cash, hopefully in the next 3-6 months, I intend to upgrade. I am not awesome enough to build my own machine, and neither is anyone I know IRL, so I'll have to find someone at some computer shop who'll build it for me. Or else buy an overpriced Alienware monster, which is tempting me due to all the bling. :)
Don't let the bling fool you. The extra you pay for the overpriced Alienware bling may enable someone else to get you more RAM, a slightly better CPU or even a better graphics card for the same money. If you did know someone who could build a system for you, you would have done better as you probably wouldn't be paying for labour charges to assemble the machine and install the OS, etc to get it up and running for you. But on the flip side, a good computer shop will charge reasonable prices, and if they use OEM products, they are cheaper than full retail, it may offset some of the labour charges.
When your ready to upgrade, make sure you do some good research first to make sure your going to get the best bang for your buck.
Also, sadly, Alienware is now part of the evil Dell empire now :( ; independent no longer.
muse:
I was messing around with the game on my MacBook, and was able to alleviate this problem somewhat by lowering the resolution of the game. Response lags that had previously been twenty or thirty gametime minutes went down to three or four, making the game moderately playable. Perhaps give that a shot?
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