I'm getting crashes with a divide by zero error. Three out of four of them occurred on a dorm lot as sims were returning to the lot in the evening. The other one occurred on a vacation lot the sim students were visiting, also when sims were returning to the lot in the evening.

The only mention of divide by zero errors I can find is in the dormbill fix thread, where it says that the fix is for a divide by zero error that occurs when there is no Myne door on the lot. But there are Myne doors on this lot, and one of the errors occurred off the lot anyway.

Any other thoughts about this kind of error?

Are you asking a Sims 3 question?  Because this is the Sims 2 forum and there are not many Sims 3 answers here.

It never ceases to amaze me when somebody reads a post in a Sims 2 forum and then castigates the poster for not playing Sims 3.  If it offends you so much that people are making things for Sims 2, why are you reading posts in the Sims 2 area?  Unless. . . you're looking for a reason to act superior.  Oh, never.

To the OP: in a day or two or three, when MTS is back up, go to the "Create" forums and first browse all the threads having to do with animation and so on, to see if someone else's issue addresses yours, and then, if you still have questions, post there.  Another place where people actually talk about the nuts and bolts of making Sims 2 objects is Sims2artists.  Also Black Pearl.  There are other places but I'm not thinking of them at the moment.

I would save the "Oops!" forum for gameplay issues, rather than creation issues.

You should probably take this question over to the PMBD forums.  They're still playing TS2 and pretending TS3 never came out.  Ask for Paden.

But this subforum is TS2:Burnination which would indicate that people who are reading it would have some interest in The Sims 2.  So why would it be an inappropriate place to ask about Sims 2?

The easiest way to do this is to download a terrain replacement that someone else has made and put the desired textures in place of the ones that the other person used.  Since they are default replacements anyway, there is no problem with conflicting GUIDs.

I made a terrain like this, and it works okay.  Most people seem to take the easy way out and throw the same texture in for every image in the package.  I went looking around in the game files -- in the program files, EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Sims3D\Textures -- and found that each neighborhood type has a lot of textures, mostly unique in subtle ways.  So now I'm working up a replacement that goes all the way back to these game files and has the same level of detail and variation.  But it's not entirely necessary. I'm doing it because I can, mainly.

If that's true then there must be some other factor as well (since neither of them decreased by the proportion of number or volume of the custom content I removed).  I wonder what?

I did some cleanup of my downloads folder, which seems to have fixed a problem I was having with directx.  I noticed another change though, which does not worry me, but it does pique my curiosity.  In the process of cleaning the game I took the whole Sims 2 folder out for a while and put it back in.  Since putting it back in, I notice that the accessories.cache file is much larger than it used to be (about 20% larger) and the groups.cache file is about half the size that it used to be.  These are new files each time I play, as I delete them after each session.

In the past, the files regenerated at the same size each time (accessories was about 6.5K and groups was about 1.7K).  And now, the game is making the same size cache files every time too -- but in these new sizes.

Clearly, this isn't an earth-shattering question, but it's bothering me anyway.  What does the relative size of these files indicate?

I was having this issue and I reinstalled drivers and DirectX and also cleaned up my computer.  I had not realized that my lazy and indiscriminate use of Timesnapper had left me with about 1.5 of an original 150Gb on the relevant hard drive. Also I had an awful lot of extra crud in the downloads folder (graphics files of things I'm recoloring because I'm too lazy to go back and forth between different directories while in SimPe, text files I forgot to throw out when I installed stuff, and so on).


You probably keep your computer better groomed than I do, but it may be worthwhile to check that out.

Doesn't this error message just mean "Error message not available?"  That's what I thought it meant.  Though at first I thought it meant that the 3D rendering wasn't available.

I have stayed with 2 for a bunch of reasons mostly boiling down to: I've invested all the money I can afford to and all the time I care to in the game I have: I like what I have: I'm still exploring what I have: and what I hear of the gameplay in 3 just doesn't sound like what I want to do.

But honestly -- I don't mind the Sims in Sims 3.  I wish they didn't all look so similar -- and do they have to?  It seems to me that a lot of people make the same Sims 2 Sims over and over also, but not as much -- but the way they look seems sort of attractive enough to me.  I'd like to have all those sliders.  I'd see what kind of Sims I could make. I'd like to give them some angles and a bonier look, but I like that the Sims 3 Sims have wider faces.  I might actually be able to make a Sim 3 Sim that looks anything like me.

What happens if the sim speaks to itself?

I wasn't trying to throw parties, but I did get a phone jump a long time ago: it turned out that it happened because I had put certain items in inventory that shouldn't be there (a bed, I recall, and something else: I had thought this would be a streamlined way of not having to buy all new stuff when moving).  So, my first suggestion is to look and see if you have anything in the sims' inventory besides the usual ones.

Jacqiue, this thread has become rather cumbersome.  When I was tryin to remove Securom I couldn't find it anywhere.  I was getting really frustrated, until I found out this information, which I've posted earlier but don't seem to be able to make a working link to, so I'm quoting it:

Xp users, if you follow the directions and yet don't see any securom files, check to see whether you see any hidden files. Apparently this is something that happens to Xp users from time to time, and it may be malware activity. First, in any explorer folder view, click "tools,"  "folder options,"  "view."  Make sure that "display the contents of system files" is checked and "show hidden files and folders" is checked and "hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked.  If you have to change these, reboot afterwards.

You can check to see if you're seeing hidden files by snooping in the Windows directory.  If you don't see any faded looking icons, you're probably not seeing hidden files.  If you look into a few folders and find more than one or two empty ones, or find something empty that you know has to have something in it, you're not seeing hidden files.

Make sure your antivirus program is up-to-date. Now, reboot in safe mode.  You can do that by hitting the F8 key while the computer is booting.  You'll get dialogs that coax you through the rest.  Once you're in safe mode, run your anti-virus program to scan the swhole system.  It takes a bit longer in safe mode.  You probably won't see anything in the scan report that looks promising.  But, when you reboot and look again, you'll find hidden files. And you will find the Securom keys in the registry.

These are the directions that were posted at N99 and then deleted:

1.Open the object's file with SimPe

2. In the Resource Tree, Click on Object Data (OBJD)

3. In the Resource List, Click on the Name of the object.

4. In the Plugin View, click on the Raw Data tab

5. Under Catalog Sorting, enter the following values:

room sort flags = 0000000000000000
function sort flags = 0000000000000000
build mode type = 1
build mode subsort = 4096
Function subsort = 0
Downtown sort = 0
Vacation sort = 0
Community sort = 0

do not change any other values.

Commit and Save.

Just think of it like this: the hobby hood is Elfland.  The seasons are different because you go to a different world.

I think it's perfectly normal that the tree won't turn on again after it's been on fire.  The thing that surprises me is that it doesn't look burnt afterwards.

thanks for the sellable books, rufio, and fixing the links -- I couldn't figure out how to download it earlier and lacked the ambition to ask how, so my laziness has been rewarded . . .

Thanks from me too.  I've been so annoyed that a whole raft of my slutty romance sims went permaplat in college just by sleeping around and now I can't even get them to be mildly uncomfortable.  WHat's the fun in that?

Actually I think differently about this.  I edited a couple of objects to make them more autonomous and they didn't go to the OCD level.  In SimPe, I

opened the TTABs.  For different functions of the object, there's a different set of TTABs.  I edited all the functions for autonomy (the hiigher the number, the less autonomy -- I think the highest number is 64). 

Then I also edited the motives for each function.  These are not the actual motives satisfied by the object, they are the motives that the sims think wilkl be satisfied by the object function.  So if the sim is low in energy, and the motives TTAB is set to tell it that it will get energy from this particular function of the object, the sim is more likely to do that function.  The "Min." column tells the sim what to expect as the minimum positive end level and the "delta" column tells how much the sim is told to expect it to change by.  The "type" column is where you can specify which kind of sim characteristic is going to think that the greater change will take place. I have the code for the types on my computer somewhere (I can't recall whether I finally found it at SImPe or at MTS).

Since these are far from the only things governing how a sim will autonomously use an object, it takes some trial and error to get this to work the way you want it to.  But I did it, and I'm really in deep water when it comes to this stuff: I only know the most superficial things. 

I think I'm never going to complain about load time again.  That's a lot to read if you keep throwing things at the game like I do.

So during that load time, the game is opening every single file it owns, whether or not it knows it will need them? (like the obscure item that's only used on definably rare occasions?)

Just to clarify before I go talk to the other person: total number of files is an issue, if you exceed the number of files that can be open at once.  But you're not saying that files which have a mesh in them are a separate issue from total files, right?

I neglected to find out whether she thinks that it's the possession of geometric information that makes mesh files different for this purpose, or just the fact that they tend to be larger files.

This came up elsewhere.  Someone was claiming two things.  One was that, aside from the total size of the download folder, and aside from the total number of items in the download folder, the number of mesh files (as opposed to recolors, I think, and I do not think the person was considering hacks and fies and mods at all) could be problematic.  --That there was a limit, variable of course between games and computers, beyond which, one more mesh file would cause the game to crash.  Further, she said, the more expansions and stuff packs you had, the fewer mesh files your game could bear.

I think it sounds like superstition, myself.  The first statement sounds confused.  I don't think there's much that is magical about mesh files: I think they just tend to be larger than recolors (and are more likely to have GUID problems and so forth, but I think we're supposed to assume she's not running into those, because she said "no matter what the mesh filke is" that she adds past her magic number).  The second statement, which she claims is "logical," seems like empty speculation.  I'm thinking that the game reads game objects in one package no matter how many expansions you have.  I don't know about stuff packs though, sincwe the only one I have is M&G which behaves more like an expansion.

Summary questions:
1 -- do games crash from just the number of mesh files in the download folder, independent of folder size, file size, and problematic files?
2 -- do games tolerate fewer downloads, particularly mesh files, with more expansions or stiuff packs, independent of compatibility issues?

I'm willing to go be humble if the answer to either of these questions is yes.

So, if I wanted to study wfsanity and mess around a bit, would it be possible for me to extend it to other wants and fears -- or to other functions, like relationships or skills?

I know nothing about this, but I it says here that learning a new skillset every decade keeps senility at bay.

Thanks for the ideas.  I do appreciate them, even though I decided on a different approach.  And, Tsenatserix, thanks for the correction.  My reading comprehension must have been taking a snooze -- because I re-read that bit a couple of times, since I couldn't believe I had been given the advice I thought I saw Ias it turned out, my disbelief was correct).

I'm not going to belabor the reasons why I chose a different approach, since they're really not that interesting except to me.

And nbow I've seen, elsewhere, yet other approaches, all currently moot . . .

Right-clicking on a want makes it stay until it's fulfilled.  The problem with Thierry's wants is they don't roll at all the standard times like anybody else's does, and they don't fulfill because of the way they don't match with his condition.  (usually there's one or two mismatched wants, but all four are utterly mismatched in this case: or three out of the four, and the making-out one is just such a longrange one that it's of no use in offsetting the others.  The college one wouldn't be mismatched if his grades wouldn't keep dropping to nothing.  And usually the mismatched wants will ordinarily roll away if you ignore them for a while).  So right-clicking on the want won't fix that problem.

Am I clear that this sims's wants don't do the slot machine juggle at the various times of the day like other sims' do?  They've been the same for weeks?  They don't make the noise, they don't make the blur, they just sit there being stupid.

I thought that aging off might be contributing to the problem rather than solving it, but I'm not playing a gamer's game where it's just a lost round if the sim doesn't go to college: I'm playing a dollhouse game where the fate of the sims matters to me because they are my dollies.  (as I see it the game can be played in several different ways: the dollhouse game can go more than one way, and I'm sure the gamer's game can go in more than one way, and I know at least one person who plays the game more like a model railroad than anything else). So turning aging back on and letting him age out of the college-going window still getting Ds is not an actual solution to me.

So I cheated.  I went into SimPe and I found that his study skill was practically zero.  I don't know why.  He had been doing his homework forever in that Groundhog Day high school I had him stuck in with his brothers, he had asked for homework help, and I had given him all the advantages I could think of.  So I've set his study skill up, I've given him doable aspirations, and I artificially set his grade up because he's the secondary character and I'm tired of holding back my primaries waiting for him to improve.

Does aging off always give you a certain percentage chance of grades going stupid or is there a combination of events that makes it happen?