Oh lordy, Vole.

Displaying textures in higher resolution is taxing on a system. That's part of why they are limited. I believe, but do not know, that only lots shown in high detail maintain a significant amount of activity for inactive sims.

As for your never seeing neighbors doing anything on their lot, I don't know what to tell you. My inactive sims eat meals, have conversations, care for their spawn. Try building a neighborhood with 1-tile separation between small lots. You'll hear and observe plenty of action.

Thanks, Simsample.

One change. Do not delete DeviceConfig. If you do, the game crashes before even getting the opening animation. With 3booter, this caused and endless loop. Instead, delete your caches and rename the Documens\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 folder to something else temporarily. Start the game. Quit when you get to the menu. Copy the DeviceConfig (I also copied Options for good measure) from the newly generated folder to your renamed folder. Delete the newly generated folder and rename your original to "The Sims 3". Everything should run well from there.

'Hood is looking a hell of a lot better, as now my entire block is being fully rendered. The block has seven lots so was a blurry mess before. Some of the walls are still not showing, but such is life. They probably would be at 12 lots. Have you ever tried setting it back to 12 and seeing how it does? My system is middling, but had absolutely no problems prepatch running all options to max with a fairly large amount of cc all in merged packages.

This is near-necromancy, but I didn't think it really warranted a thread of its own.

I've suddenly found that my game is restricting me to four high-detail lots. Not twelve, as pre-1.7x. Not eight, as 1.17x was supposed to set. FOUR. Now, I do love the number four and it is most pleasing to the Oversoul that it wasn't set to something especially evil like three. However, my newly-made CAW 'hood with over 100 lots that I spent weeks finishing looks like crap on a cracker.

This, for example:
   
It's cutting out the view of one of the river walls, making my perfectly encircled city center open to the masses. Next thing you know, the casteless and mixed caste sims restricted to the city center will think they are allowed to mingle with the four castes. This cannot be allowed. Plus, I can see all the messy uneven earth the walls were serving to hide.

Now, I've tried checking DeviceConfig. Initially, it said:
I tried changing NumMaxActiveLotOptions to twelve, but of course the game ignored it while in play and reset it upon reinitialization. I then tried changing the file to read-only in a last ditch effort. My changes are completely ignored. The game will still only present the option to show up to four lots.

Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how did you fix it?

I have a Dell. While it needs a complete upgrade starting with the motherboard by my standards (I've had two years of being mostly unemployed and struggling, so getting a new computer came a distant 20th or so behind making rent and getting enough groceries to avoid starvation), it's not that hard to upgrade a Dell. Three years ago, I doubled the RAM, tripled the PSU, got a great graphics card (which is middling now) and a super-fast rewritable CD/DvD drive for about $350. It wasn't hard at all to find fitting parts and my case still has plenty of room in it. That's even if I hadn't broken the front face of it going all hulk-angry when the damned thing wouldn't snap off properly.

My personal preference is to get a unit on clearance or refurbed that has at least half the specs I'm looking for. For example, one with great hard drives and processor, but crap PSU and graphics card since it's doubtful I'd not want to upgrade those anyway. That way I don't have to deal with building from scratch and I have a shiny new case, but it does what I want it to do for cheaper than I could have bought it completely premade at.

The fact is that Anaelir's problems are caused by stretching a unit beyond its means. If she doesn't want to upgrade or replace her unit, that's her prerogative (hello, $$$). However, saying that it worked before LN so now that it has LN and doesn't work that means that something must be wrong with the game code...now that's just stupid. The more shit you put on your unit, the more graphics and files it has to pull from to run a particular program, the more it is going to be taxed. This is basic and has remained constant through the Sims genre. And, hell, every other game series that features expansions.

Hell, on XP you should have more.

No, I haven't tried editing a world with SimPE. The TS3 version is still a little too abstract for me, so I only use it for known and tested actions. I did, however, make changes to a world of mine I'd previously installed in CAW, uninstalled the world and reinstalled the fixed one, replacing my save file...to find my changes didn't show. They only did on a new world. So, thought it was a good bet.

Have you tried making a new instance of Bridgeport/BB, or are you just loading an existing game? I'd suspect it's not referencing the file in an existing game.

Oh look. It is trying to be funny.

Coding perspective. I'm talking about a basic gameplay perspective. Looks were much different, sims aged, we could create our own neighborhoods. There were aspirations.

I could prevent the filling of a bar in TS2. If I didn't want a sim to get another promotion, I simply had to keep them one skill point shy. In TS3, even with a sim who has no relationship above acquaintance with their boss and coworkers and is well below the happy-face level for skills, eventually they will get a promotion if they keep showing up for work. No TS3 sim ever gets stuck at the lowest levels. Someone has to be a grunt.

I ran a lot of stores, ticket businesses, and restaurants. I also designed logos and kitch specifically for them, adding to the uniqueness of my neighborhoods. It was a huge part of my revised BACC play and my own personal caste system, where only Business/Blue caste sims could own businesses, but since they were barred from any crafting activities that Creative/Orange caste sims could do, there was necessary mingling and cooperation between the castes.

I think we're slowly getting closer to some of the shinies we had with OFB, and though it will be a challenge to arrange in TS3's open neighborhood and true time, I think an OFB-like EP will eventually be released for TS3.

Avast/Comodo combo, with MalwareBytes used only for periodic full scans I do once a month during system cleaning.

I play as many as 16 families simultaneously, using awesomemod's sacred feature to keep them from misbehaving too badly and a very simple rotation with aging turned on for only one family per rotation. It's not that difficult. In some ways, it's actually easier than TS2 because I can have freer interaction between the families and if I get sick of a particular household, I can just stop playing them and they'll maintain continuity.

A plan and a couple toggles every rotation is probably too much unfun work for Cwurts. Perhaps it is simply too confusing for his wittle bwain.

Cwurts is calling TS3 "TS4-beta", Jebbuschrist. It's passive-aggressive shit. There is no TS4 Beta available.

TS2 was a sea change from TS1. I'm sure there were some people who saw TS2 as a bad change when it first came out, and even some to this day who prefer TS1. The same thing is true with TS3. For me, yeah, there are a lot of things I miss from TS2, especially the tighter control I had over promotions and OFB features. When TS3 first came out, I played for a few weeks and decided that while it was prettier and I liked the new CASt abilities, my fully-EP'ed, hacked, and cc'ed TS2 was vastly superior. It wasn't until right when WA came out that I tried TS3 again. And now, with a couple EPs in and a powerful awesomemod and plenty of crunchy Build mode cc, those things about TS2 that I missed...I still miss them, but not enough to outweigh those things I like in TS3.

TS2 and TS3 are different games. If, for you, the scale tips on the TS2 side, play TS2. Nothing wrong about that. Nothing wrong with missing features of TS2 (or TS1). But expecting TS3 to give you everything you had in TS2 with a prettier bow around it, that's a bit unreasonable. And seriously, that and your judgmental criticism of people who play differently from you make me think you're just a Negative Nellie.

I had this exact problem just a couple of weeks ago. CCleaner is no longer my friend. It didn't fix the problems I had (several old games that had been uninstalled ages ago yet still showed in Add/Remove Programs), and gave me a lovely BSoD that locked me out of my PC for more than a day and resulted in my missing a limited-time-offer interview for a job.*
*I now have a full-time temp job and may be getting a dream position starting next Monday elsewhere, so I forgive it the lost interview. I do not forgive it the lost time and frustration while I worried about how I was going to afford a new PC if things were irreparably borked whilst living on government cheese.

Eh. Couple things from one who had a strict rotation pattern and micro-management (which I prefer to categorize as a punishment program):

1. TS3 vanilla is a micro-manager's nightmare. TS3 with Awesomemod is actually better in many ways because I can get the feel of a neighborhood growing together that I was going for with my TS2 rotations, use TS2 aging or age on/age off to keep equal play on my families, most of which I'd hate to miss actively watching grow, while having Awesomemod control them from making many of the decisions I'm to make for them. Uppity little things cannot start thinking they control their own lives. That's the sort of thing that allows a crazy people-drinking sim and a bunch of adulterous Romance sims to annoy the Oversoul to the point that it nukes a 'hood, leaving all the remaining residents as grilled-cheese-craving zombies.

2. You say "chore", I say "rich culture with clear distinctions from the ordinary". Sure, I could let all my sims just do what they want, which, due to EA's rather unimaginative programming will leave every sim growing up happy, reaching the top of their chosen career, having several spawn, and dying rolling in dough. Or, I could create a seemingly arbitrary matriarchal caste system mixed with aspects of polyamory and the dichotomy of clowncarism and strict population control, where sims may want what they want, but if it is not allowed by their birth situation or the few ways they can work with the system, they shall not have their pony.

There are still a few things I need to have my perfect game. The possibility of multiple spouses, which is entirely not an option with the game coded as it is and I suspect never will be, and some way to lock a sim from being able to get further promotions.

Honestly, I've always had the problem. I've taken to backing up my dccaches and world crap before I install a new world of mine, because I always forget something when I export. Then I restore the old files and can reinstall the edited version cleanly.

Well, if using them in CAW truly causes issues, of course they should block the ability. But they didn't. They also haven't explained any reason why they shouldn't be used in CAW that I've seen. Honestly, I can't find any claim by them that spawners have to be placed in game.



Back in July, so BBSers were whining about crashing their CAW when they placed spawners. That was in July. And it was BBSers.

Nope, I've done that. Lot places fine when in game. Spawner appears in the new lot and is moveable/deletable with moveobjects on. Lot functioned as needed. In my case, it was a 10x10 lot I placed just so I could plop down some scrap piles and a few broken boats, but sims visited and there was NPC activity. Spawner items were able to be collected.

I use seed spawners all the time. My current world that I'm working on the buildings for, which I've been playing for the past three weeks, has had absolutely no problems and the seeds seem to have spawned as they should have and are picked up/used properly. I have another world that is still in the CAW stage, spawners place and appear in EiG.

So...EA's a bunch of idiots?

Seeds and such look so much better when they are placed in semi-hidden areas or in remote places. Not on lots.

I think you are having a basic misunderstanding of what 4th speed is. 4th speed is the same speed as 3rd speed, except that it will continue on in 3rd speed until something "important" happens as defined by the game, then dropping down into 1st speed.

There were already cc halfwalls before the latest patch/ep. Those were in fences. It should be easy to use those as a start and just extend the mesh up, toggle the option, and there you go. It's not something I personally have any interest in having (I play with walls down and only have walls up if I'm taking photos), but there's no reason it shouldn't be possible.


Of course, the worry you always have with it is if they finally add weather, any custom full walls used as externals would probably not register as keeping the inside weatherproof.

That's all rumors, silly.

Sims is made in the US. They've shown in the past (hello, World Adventures) how very US-centric they are. Therefore, my comment was based on what they'd base it on.

Skadi, start earlier, go faster. Then get waffles.

Closing times are determined by an establishment's liquor license, which is restricted by city/county law and, in cities like Chicago, further by neighborhood aldermen. 2:00AM is a pretty common closing time around here. A few clubs I've been to around River North (Chicago neighborhood that blends with downtown) close at 3:00AM. 6:00AM...no. People generally would have an issue with loud drunk people carousing outside their door a couple hours before they are supposed to get up. Of course that's here. It's possible that other areas let bars stay open later. LA, maybe? Isn't Lindsey Lohan always leaving clubs and causing trouble at 6:00AM?

Personally, I find anyone who changes the subject line of their reply so that it appears as if it is a new thread in the subforum preview to be an asshole.

Awesomemod is not compatible with Late Night. The patch version is technically still in testing, too.

I repeat: