More Awesome Than You!

Alright. There's a bit of a back story to this problem, so bear with me. Last year I downloaded a rather large house, mainly because I liked the look of it. Two large floors + basement, large garden, well-furnished, etc, etc. Took me a few months for my sims to save up enough money to buy it (don't really like cheating about things like that), but I eventually did, and moved my family in.

Almost as soon as I did, I noticed a problem. Every two or three seconds it would lock up for a second or two, then unfreeze, then lock up again, and so on and so on. It didn't ever seem to stop. Sounds and music continued to play normally, but the graphics hung. I couldn't find what the problem was, and I was so annoyed that I stopped playing entirely. I came back to the game every few months or so, but still couldn't fix the problem and so quit again.

A couple of months ago I bought University, hoping something in there would fix it, but nada. I kept at it, though, and finally found out what the problem was. Every time someone wasn't able to get somewhere they wanted to go, the game would lock up. The reason it was happening so often was that the house's garden wasn't very well designed, and the point I had happened to save at was a time when the gardener was there. She was trying to clip a hedge she couldn't get to over and over, and so froze my game over and over. I fixed up the garden so every bush/hedge/flower/whatever was reachable, and this finally made the game playable.

Unfortunately, it didn't solve the cause of the problem. It still locked up for a couple of seconds when someone couldn't get where they wanted to go, and lately the problem has been getting worse. It seems to lock up now for 15-20 seconds each time, mainly when a ghost can't get somewhere they want to.

I've tried using boolprop, but no errors pop up. I've tried watching the console, but no errors come up there either (or at least, nothing comes up because of the freezing. I get dozens upon dozens of other errors and warnings, from duplicate materials and missing textures to "Error whilst parsing material" and "No such effect"). Tried re-installing a half dozen times over the year or so since I downloaded the house, tried taking out the Downloads folder and so on, but nothing. Had this problem with every patch, and with every expansion (from just the original, to Uni, then to Nightlife). Doesn't seem to happen on any other lot (but no other lot I have is near the size of this one).

I'm out of ideas of things to try. Anyone have any suggestions?

Have you tried removing the flowers, etc? Could be, and I'm guessing, that the game is lagging because of the combination of a large lot, lots of flowers, etc, and ghosts all using up a lot of the resources. I'm playing a big lot, too-the house of fallen trees, and everytime the ghosts would come out the game would slow to a crawl, freeze for a second or two (or lag, rather), and it was extremely frustrating. I have the ghosts en route to the cemetary, and had to take out a lot of the foliage, but the game is running pretty smoothly for me, now.

Yes, it happened to me - freeze for a second or two, then continue the play.
I called the technician, who tried first to update my drivers - didn't help. Only when I got the latest graphic card, and increased the Processor to 800MHz, and increased RAM to 2 Giga - it stopped. It costed me quite a lot...:).

The second time it happened, he only updated the drivers, and it stopped.

Isn't it fun spending all this money to upgrade our computers to play this game? I actually bought a new laptop just for this purpose.

Yeah, I think back before I knew what the problem was I tried getting rid of most of the objects and whatnot on the lot, but the freezing still happened. Since I found out what was actually causing the problem, I've tested it fairly extensively, and it *only* freezes when someone's path is blocked (someone's in the shower when someone else wants to use the toilet, for example). I don't know if the increase in duration of the freezing is specifically because of the ghosts or whether it's just a co-incidence.

And I've tried updating my drivers, but nothing. Because it's a specific thing that makes my game freeze rather than it just happening randomly, I think it's not a graphics card or driver problem.

You are right, Brynne!!! it's outrageous! I already spent more than 1000$ to be able to play it smoothly. I am finished with EA - not Black, not White, nor a new EP...:).

I have more than 300 games, and this is the first time I am "raped" to add components to my computer. All the other games run smoothly.

Did EA made a contract with the various companies, and receive percents for it?

Who knows? But it is pretty ridiculous how picky the graphics are. I'm guessing the average player probably has to deal with the game at much lower settings than maxis intended. My laptop is pretty good and has a great graphics card, but I have to run it with reflections off, and textures and lighting set to medium. This game is definitely much more than the 40 bucks initially spent. Well into the hundreds, I'd say, or nearly $2000, in my case. The sims (or the computer to play it on) is my Christmas present for the next 5 years, as well as anniversaries, birthdays...

You know one thing about reading TS2 boards is that it is very reassuring to find out I am not the only one who shelled out a fair amount of money for a new computer just so I could play a computer game. I bought a new computer back in February and I'm already thinking I may need to upgrade the RAM and processor; very discouraging considering that I'm still making payments on the bloody thing. The sad part is that if my son or daughter had ever approached me about buying a new computer so that they could play a game, I would have thought they were insane (and extremely spoiled).

I have always had to upgrade my computer to play games.
TS2 is not at all the only game to crave good specs.

I have been doing my upgrades in this manner since I was 14, which is more than half a lifetime ago for me.  ;D
Back then we also had the opportunity of making specific bootdisks to cater to the demands of specific games.

Ahh...those were the days...

What's the specs of your PC Velax (CPU, graphics card, RAM mainly)? Maybe the lot size itself is a problem, combined with PC configuration. How big is it anyway? 5x5?

Huh? What? Oh, someone actually talking about my initial question. How refreshing.

Athlon 2.7ghz
Radeon 9800 Pro
1.5gig RAM.

I'm not sure of the lot size (how do I find out?), but it's big. If not 5x5, then close. I still don't think it's a computer specs problem, given it only happens with one, very specific action.

Specs seem ok. Here's a quickie to find out your lot size. When in the neighborhood screen, try to put a 5x5 empty lot on top of the existing one. Of course it will red out, but from the outline you'll be able to see your lot size. Repeat with various lot sizes until you find the one that "matches".
One crazy idea I had pertaining your problem was that lot size may affect the pathfinding routine (the bigger the lot, the more time it takes to do the pathfinding). Dunno. Check the lot size, build a house on a similar-sized lot yourself (about the same size as the problematic one), and move in some sims to see if you still get hiccups. Time-consuming, but may rule out specs problem (or confirm them).

I agree that the computer specs seem fine. The way to know for sure whether the lot is broken or your computer just can't handle it would be for you to knock all the graphics settings in the Game Options down to "low". If the lot still freezes, then it's the problem.

Have you tried using JMP's LotDebugger? You might have stuck kicky bags or other annoying invisible objects blocking the routing. Also, it could be infested with invisible "offworld loiterers", and that's causing the slowdown.

Do you remember where this house came from? If you can, I'd be willing to download it and see whether it runs slow in my game.

Failing that, I'm tempted to suggest rebuilding - complete rebuilding, from scratch, starting with a completely fresh lot (otherwise you could carry the corruption over). I've had to do that a few times - it's not too bad if you make a plan of the original house on squared paper. If you take lots of pictures of it I could probably do that for you.

I've played the game on far worse systems than that one and it ran pretty much okay. I don't think it's the computer.

Do you buy chance have any custom objects either on that lot or just in general in your downloads folders? Some of them have been known to cause issues and I've experienced such a problem with one particular sofa once myself. You could try temporarily moving your downloads folder or disabling custom content in the game and see if it helps at all. If it does help, it's something in the downloads and if it doesn't help at least you've ruled one more thing out.

Yeah, I've tried moving out my Downloads folder. No luck.

I had a repetitive lag problem with a dorm in uni. This lot was also huge, probably 5x5. I never did work out what was the problem, tried ffs lot debugger and all, finally gave up and bulldozed it. :( None of my other lots lagged.

I had one lot that did a lot of freezing like this, too. I was in a neighbourhood that eventually had to be deleted because of the being a flaming ball of badness. It was a 5x5, but certainly not the only 5x5 I played. I used the lot debugger there, and it did help, but issues kept recurrring, like the lot had some deep inner issue.  :)

I had one like this, too.  It was a 5x5 lot, huge 2 story house, lots of flowers and those box hedges.  The family ended up having 12 kids, so they also had lots of memories.  Removing the box hedges and most of the flowers helped quite a bit.  Deleting the A+ memories  the parents had before I got the hack helped too.  I did eventually send most of the kids to college and move them to another lot.  It plays slow, too, so I think that the memories have a lot to do with it in the case of this family.  Guess aging off has some bad points, too.