Loading Game Stallout - help please

[aimlesscoyote]

Hi guys, I made the mistake of patching to 4.2.32.7001 and now I cannot open any saved-games (or create new ones) that have Awesomemod.  I do have the latest version of Awesomemod, released mid-July 2010.  Here is what's happening:

The game starts up just fine.  No problems on the splash screen or intro.  It gets to the "load a game" screen with the swampy Ambitions background.  I can select a saved game, or try to create a new game, click the check-mark to begin... and sit, and sit, and sit.

The green loading bar gets to the very end, where just a tiny-bit is empty... and stops.  No more RAM is allocated to the process (topping out around 720,000-880,000k) and CPU usage falls between 25-40%.  I let it struggle for up to 15 minutes before ctrl-alt-deleting it out of its misery.  I've attempted loading several different saved games and one new game so far.

So how do I fix it, please?  Is it a problem with the patch, or Awesomemod, or perhaps a different mod altogether?  In another post here, Pescado noted that a stalled load-bar which is moving is the sign of a failed patch.  So I downloaded the 4.2 patch and did a manual re-patch (ignoring the game's various protests).  Still no luck.

Can someone give some advice, please?

[Motoki]

Been talked about many times. It's not Awesomemod and patching is not a mistake. It's one of your other mods and/or pieces of custom content. Check your other mods first for updated versions. Many of Twallan's mods have been updated for the patch and in particular the old non-updated version of his computer causes this very issue so if you have it, go get the new version.

Somehow Awesomemod gets blamed every time there is a new patch and every other Tom, Dick and Harry's mods or content need to be updated. I don't understand this. I also don't understand why people don't go looking for updates to all their mods when they patch and why they don't use a process of elimination to actually, you know, check if Awesomemod is really causing a problem before posting on the Awesomemod forum. It's not like it's hard to yank everything else out and try testing the game with only Awesomemod.

I guess most people would rather post without searching and have someone else give them the answer. 

[aimlesscoyote]

You know, I had typed up this long post and then I realized... given the tone of your response, you wouldn't read it, or really give a damn.

So, thank you for the info.  I can do some troubleshooting with that.


As a side note, I feel sorry for you, because you can't answer a simple question without dissolving into whining and insults.  Contrary to what you insinuate, some people do come to this forum with legitimate questions.  More importantly, a huge number of people avoid contributing to this forum, because of responses just like yours.  After all, why speak up, when some smart-ass kid is just going to smack you down, so he can feel better about himself and high-five his buddies about how cool he is?


Well, hey.  Some people just can't help being what they are.  Sorry to say.  Maybe you'll grow out of it.



But thanks for the info, anyway.

[Anria]

Not that I agree with aimlesscoyote's attitude, but I feel I should point out that I've had this exact same issue and all the evidence points towards it being Awesomemod.  My game worked before I went on holiday last week, and when I came back from holiday all I did was download the new version of Awesomemod and suddenly it sits on the loading screen.

And before you ask, yes I do have the most recent versions of all other mods I use, and yes I have checked that those mods are compatible with the current EPs/SPs I have installed and with each other/Awesomemod.  I have only updated Awesomemod, and now my game sits on the loading screen.  Take Awesomemod out, and it doesn't do that.  Pretty sure that indicates that the loading screen thing - for me, at least - is a problem with Awesomemod.

[J. M. Pescado]

A loadscreen stalling possibly indicates an FSE occurring that you can't dismiss because you can't see it. To see if an FSE is occurring, look in your luserdirectory for a "ScriptError" XML, and if you find it, attach it here.

[Motoki]

So, thank you for the info.  I can do some troubleshooting with that.

That should have been what you did first prior to posting.

Nothing I mentioned was any big revelation. A patch may break stuff. Check for updates. Also if you are going to post on the Awesomemod forum suggesting that Awesomemod is a problem for you, have some empirical data to backup your claim. Are you getting a problem with only Awesomemod running and not other custom content that you don't get when you take Awesomemod out? Don't know? Try it.

Oh yes and let's not forget search is your friend and since your question may have (it was) asked before you can possibly alleviate the need to post by doing a search first.

re: Rant of righteous indignation to deflect blame for your own laziness and Speshul Snowflake behavior that somehow warranted a new thread.

 

My game worked before I went on holiday last week, and when I came back from holiday all I did was download the new version of Awesomemod and suddenly it sits on the loading screen.

And before you ask, yes I do have the most recent versions of all other mods I use, and yes I have checked that those mods are compatible with the current EPs/SPs I have installed and with each other/Awesomemod.  I have only updated Awesomemod, and now my game sits on the loading screen.  Take Awesomemod out, and it doesn't do that.  Pretty sure that indicates that the loading screen thing - for me, at least - is a problem with Awesomemod.

Did you patch to 1.14/2.9/3.5/4.2? This was the patch released on July 7th.

[maeday]

Not that I agree with aimlesscoyote's attitude, but I feel I should point out that I've had this exact same issue and all the evidence points towards it being Awesomemod.  My game worked before I went on holiday last week, and when I came back from holiday all I did was download the new version of Awesomemod and suddenly it sits on the loading screen.

And before you ask, yes I do have the most recent versions of all other mods I use, and yes I have checked that those mods are compatible with the current EPs/SPs I have installed and with each other/Awesomemod.  I have only updated Awesomemod, and now my game sits on the loading screen.  Take Awesomemod out, and it doesn't do that.  Pretty sure that indicates that the loading screen thing - for me, at least - is a problem with Awesomemod.

I'm having the same problem with the loading screen. I haven't played in awhile, installed the newest Awesomemod version yesterday and all of a sudden it's stuck. I've checked and quadruple checked everything to make sure it isn't a mod conflict or a framework fail, and I'm up to date on patches. I don't have any ScriptError file either. I've run the game without any other mods or custom content installed and it still sits forever on the loading screen. Uninstall Awesomemod and it's fine again.

[J. M. Pescado]

I can't reproduce this. What you can try: Remove, save, reinsert, reload.

[Anach]

My game takes about 10 minutes before the bar starts to move when loading my sunset valley save game. It has been that way since AMB. My wife's game is similar, but not quite as long. She also remembers it started as soon as she installed AM for AMB. New games load nice and quick. Nothing I have been able to do will reduce the loading times with current games. Even removing AM does nothing to help it. Considering new games are fine, and removing AM does nothing to help, I'd assume it's not AM causing it.  I usually just minimize the game and go browse the web for a while. Also since AMB the game takes forever to exit, so again I just minimize it.

I have noticed that loading the same town from right before AMB will load just fine, but as soon as it's saved with AMB changes it grinds to crawl at loading. My save games are about 145Mb now, that size jumped up as soon as I started making edits to the world in edit town, adding new lots etc. 

I've tried removing all CC, and the game still takes forever, so whatever it is, it seems I'm stuck with it. Once the town population decreases, I may have to consider using Porter and exporting all my sims to a new town, minus the hundred or so tomb stones stored in the mausoleum.

If it helps, I can upload my save game, but I have no idea what could be causing it.

[J. M. Pescado]

What's causing it is that there's simply too much stuff that has to be thrashed to and from disk, decompressed, recompressed, etc. One way to GREATLY improve the speed of the game is to decompress all the game's main packages....and store them all in a RAMdisk. Modifying the main packages like this will most likely make it impossible to patch the game later unless you reinstall...but you were installing to RAMdisk. You're going to get to reinstall anyway. By predecompressing the packages, and installing entirely to RAM, load times can be cut to about 5 seconds.

[Anach]

What's causing it is that there's simply too much stuff that has to be thrashed to and from disk, decompressed, recompressed, etc. One way to GREATLY improve the speed of the game is to decompress all the game's main packages....and store them all in a RAMdisk. Modifying the main packages like this will most likely make it impossible to patch the game later unless you reinstall...but you were installing to RAMdisk. You're going to get to reinstall anyway. By predecompressing the packages, and installing entirely to RAM, load times can be cut to about 5 seconds.

Any excuse to brag about the size of your RAM.

I honestly couldn't be arsed to recreate the RAM disk each time I rebooted. Maybe an SSD and uncompressing the .packages?

[J. M. Pescado]

Any excuse to brag about the size of your RAM.

I honestly couldn't be arsed to recreate the RAM disk each time I rebooted.

There are apps for that.

[Billmonaghan]

Hi guys, I made the mistake of patching to 4.2.32.7001 and now I cannot open any saved-games (or create new ones) that have Awesomemod.  I do have the latest version of Awesomemod, released mid-July 2010.  Here is what's happening:

So how do I fix it, please? 

I just patched with that new patch also and had a similar problem ( I didn't even get past the initial launch screen. I gave it 18 minutes but no progress).

Just yesterday, I had installed Ambitions, doublechecked my AM version, deleted the scriptcache and the game ran just fine. So I thought maybe AM was not yet compatible with this latest patch.

But after a little searching, I found the solution, on this thread:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,17454.msg541069.html#msg541069

If you got World Adventures running correctly, go into the ProgramFiles/ElectronicArts/TheSims3WorldAdventures/Game/Bin folder and copy the d3dx9_31.dll file therin. (It's starting to come back to you now, isn't it? You had to do this to get WA to work way back when.)

Then go to the matching folder in the Ambitions folder and paste a copy of the file there.

I  just did it and the game now loads fine.

What seems strange to me now is that Ambitions ran just fine (at least seemed to) before I installed the latest patch, so it was running initially w/o the d3dx9_31.dll file in the right place. Anybody have any possible explanations?

[Motoki]

And this, in a nutshell, it exactly why I recommend everyone, particularly the technically and memory challenged types, setup their mods the new way in My Documents without the need for the dll file at all.

I'm sure the memory challenged will still come back with every patch though and complain it isn't working when they in fact forgot to backup their files when they installed a NOCD crack. Some things never change.

[DMantle]

In reference to the original poster's issue: game loads fine, but loading a new or save game stalls with a sliver to go on the load bar; I'm having exactly the same issue.

Patched to the latest, with WA and Ambitions Installed.

Everything installed under the Documents\..\Mods\Packages method

Reran Delphy's framework, everything looks good.

Load the game without Awesome Mod - works fine, loads right in to save game.
Add awesome mod and the cfg to the Packages folder:
 - game loads, but completely stalls with a sliver to go on opening a save game or a new game

No copies of the modded .dll anywhere, but I highly doubt that is a factor, as the base game loads.
Windows Vista 64, 4 GB RAM
No sign of any ScriptError reports
Running the game in a window, so no sign of hidden crash errors or alert windows.

Let me know if there is anything else I can provide that might help.

[Motoki]

In reference to the original poster's issue: game loads fine, but loading a new or save game stalls with a sliver to go on the load bar; I'm having exactly the same issue.

Patched to the latest, with WA and Ambitions Installed.

Everything installed under the Documents\..\Mods\Packages method

Reran Delphy's framework, everything looks good.

Load the game without Awesome Mod - works fine, loads right in to save game.
Add awesome mod and the cfg to the Packages folder:
 - game loads, but completely stalls with a sliver to go on opening a save game or a new game

No copies of the modded .dll anywhere, but I highly doubt that is a factor, as the base game loads.
Windows Vista 64, 4 GB RAM
No sign of any ScriptError reports
Running the game in a window, so no sign of hidden crash errors or alert windows.

Let me know if there is anything else I can provide that might help.

You're doing it wrong. Go back and re-read the help section at Mod the Sims on Installing Sims 3 Package Files: Setup & Files (the new way).

[DMantle]

I shall clarify: I installed the awesome.cfg file in the packages directory along with awesome.package.

My resource.cfg (or whatever its called, I'm not at my home pc right now) is correctly in the Mods directory. I know that aspect of things works fine as all my other mods load fine in the game if awesome mod is not in the packages folder.

Yes, I am aware that thorough troubleshooting would require removing every mod I had and trying to run just awesome mod - I have not gotten around to doing that yet, I'll probably try it tonight just to rule everything else out.

The issue does not appear to be related to disk thrashing or file access, as I've tried running proc mon in the background while loading, and nothing unusual comes up.

[wizard_merlin]

I shall clarify: I installed the awesome.cfg file in the packages directory along with awesome.package.

My resource.cfg (or whatever its called, I'm not at my home pc right now) is correctly in the Mods directory. I know that aspect of things works fine as all my other mods load fine in the game if awesome mod is not in the packages folder.

Yes, I am aware that thorough troubleshooting would require removing every mod I had and trying to run just awesome mod - I have not gotten around to doing that yet, I'll probably try it tonight just to rule everything else out.

The issue does not appear to be related to disk thrashing or file access, as I've tried running proc mon in the background while loading, and nothing unusual comes up.

How do you know all the other mods are loading fine and not just being ignored?  It could be that AM is actually catching the problem and showing it to you.

I suspect there may be an error in the resource.cfg file, which again is a problem that has been discussed at length previously.

[DMantle]

While I appreciate the fact that covering the basics is part of troubleshooting 101, it seems to be a common thread here that  if anyone reports an issue, the assumption is that the reporter is an inept buffoon that has no clue as to what he is doing.

That being said, I will go over the details.

 - my resource.cfg is in the mods folder, and is exactly as described on MTS
 - I know my other mods work, as I can see them all directly in the game when I don't have awesomemod installed - therefore my basic setup appears correct
 - when I first reinstalled awesome mod, I forgot to remove a core slider hack from the folder
 - I ran the game, and awesome mod detected the conflicting core mod and gave me warning - thus showing that awesome mod was loading
 - I removed the conflicting mod and ran it again, and everything goes fine until the very end of the load bar, at which point it stalls.
 - I have left it sitting there for 20 minutes to see what happens, and it never progresses.
 - if I remove awesome mod, the game loads just fine


I will now move out all of my .package mods and try the game with nothing but awesome mod, not even awesome.cfg, just to see what happens...

[wizard_merlin]

While I appreciate the fact that covering the basics is part of troubleshooting 101, it seems to be a common thread here that  if anyone reports an issue, the assumption is that the reporter is an inept buffoon that has no clue as to what he is doing.

In probably 99.9% of cases that is a correct assumption.

Perhaps if you had been reading all the issues previously about shit not working when the problem was a basic error, such as a bad resource.cfg file, or placing said file in the wrong location, and insisting that they did it right, and they know what they are doing and that AM is the sole cause of all their problems, and the root cause of all the problems in the world today, you would understand why people here adopt the attitude and position they do.

[DMantle]

I do understand, and you are right - 99% of the time it is a dumb mistake. I actually expected to be treated much worse by you lot than I was.

And it turns out my mistake was fairly routine. I had missed updating one of Twallan's mods, and that was causing the issue.

Oddly though, the game would load fine with the outdated Twallan mod installed, as long as awesome mod wasn't there. Put them in together, and boom.


Updated to Twallan's latest version of MC and woohooer, and the game is loading fine.

[J. M. Pescado]

And whaddaya know. Another 99% case. See why we always figure that it's someone doing something STUPID?

[Motoki]

I do understand, and you are right - 99% of the time it is a dumb mistake. I actually expected to be treated much worse by you lot than I was.

And it turns out my mistake was fairly routine. I had missed updating one of Twallan's mods, and that was causing the issue.

Oddly though, the game would load fine with the outdated Twallan mod installed, as long as awesome mod wasn't there. Put them in together, and boom.


Updated to Twallan's latest version of MC and woohooer, and the game is loading fine.

Which is another very common, very dumb thing people who come here do. They come to complain it's Aweseomemod causing the issue and are certain all their other mods are up to date when in fact they are not.

Nearly all of the many, MANY Speshul Snowflake threads and posts about the same damned thing, their game stalling purportedly due to Awesomemod turn out to be either the wrong resource.cfg, having it placed in the wrong directory or running some other outdated mod (usually Twallan's). The remainder of issues not related to those two main causes are generally not patching and/or not getting the latest version of Awesomemod.

No matter how intelligent or different from the rest someone thinks they may be, it all boils down to the fact that if it's working for everyone else (among the non-tard population) and it's not working for you then YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. You either fucked something up or forgot something.

We all fuck stuff up from time to time. The difference is while some of us would do obvious things like troubleshooting 101 (if you are going to accuse a mod of causing your issue then you might want to test with ONLY that mod) and just keep working to figure it out on our own, a Speshul Snowflake starts a thread about it, asks us to tell them what is wrong and do their troubleshooting for them even though a whole mess of other Speshul Snowflakes already did that and the information is already there.