Yup, you got it!  And i'm glad your game is playing the way you payed to play it, for the most part *cough, bugs*.  My concern is for your system speed, game speed and hard drive degradation once you reach this ceiling and fall over to too much mock memory.  I have a theory that if you lower your ceiling a bit, which is very high at the moment, you will not notice much of a gain, but you will gain much in the long run as in:  Less hard drive thrashing (swapping of info from ram to pagefile) which in turn will give you longer hard drive life.  My 2x150GB raided raptors have been going strong without a single hiccup, in my main machine, for over 4 years, which has been on damn near 24/7 or as close to it as mechanically possible, and I think this is possible partly because I keep large amounts of System Memory 8GB ddr2 upgraded to 8GB ddr3 (mobo upgrade 6 months ago) and small swap files 2GB located on a 2.01GB partition at the front of another hard drive.  

Damn, honestly, I'm a performance junkie, and a tweak slut...  Your Situation is good and if you've found settings that work for you, even better.  I went way to deep into this, when in all actuality, your situation works for you.  I hope you atleast have a better understanding of memory and your system after this though, if so, then it was worth it!

Seeing as you are running a 32 bit OS, I don't believe you are capable of addressing more than 4gb (4096 MB) per hard drive, unless you had some sort of /pae extensions set in bcdedit.  So it is likely you have a swapfile in each hard drive in your system.  And you say your computer now handles the game easily?  Oh man, well, no need for me to go any more in-depth.  Your situation is still scary, to me.  The last thing you want is your main system processes to be running in <shivvers> pagefile memory.


Tizerist, I can't leave your system hanging like that, the tech in me won't allow it...

Do this for me please, pretty please? 
Goto  Start > Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings > Advanced (tab) > Settings > Advanced Tab > Virtual Memory (change), if it is automatically being managed, uncheck it, Highlight C:, tick the custom size radio button, and then in initial size put 4096 and in Max size put 4096, click set, click OK.  Make sure that all other drives Paging file size says None and then reboot. Check the system memory report that you did earlier and post the findings for me if you can.  In all reality, a swapfile should be located on the fastest hard drive in your system, and preferably not on the system hard drive, unless it just so happens to be the fastest hard drive you have or only hard drive you have.

The more Ram you have, the less you need a swapfile, plain and simple.  Larger swap sizes were necessary when Ram amounts were low.  Unless you need large swap sizes for apps like Photoshop, you are just wasting space.  And even then, if your computer is capping out on your swap file, then that means you have way to little ram.  System Ram can access data in 0.000,000,01 of a second theoretically, while a Swapfile (fake ram) residing on your hard drive is bound by the limits of mechanical plater rotation and head motion, can only access data in 0.013 seconds, theoretically of course.  Don't believe the swap file hype.

BTW, are you using 1 large contiguous 8.88 GB swapfile or is it between multiple hard drives?

I'm researching the /set IncreaseUserVA 4096 in detail so I will get back to you on that in a bit.

Ok, I would think that setting the switch to 4096 would not improve your situation, and possibly make things worse, because you only have 4GB of memory, your system can only see 3.25 (limitation set by x86 system), and your system, barely running, is using 1GB of system memory already.  If the Sims was to actually utilize 3GB of system memory, what would be left for the actual system to run, 0.25gb?

Np, Ciane, we were both right, but, maybe I should have just left the question to the person it was addressed to, to spare confusion.  And yes when editing the boot.ini file one errant letter can cause a system not to boot correctly.  So it should definitely be saved prior to editing.  Although, you can add a failsafe to the boot.ini file just by copying the line and changing the name to "Windows "Whatever" 3GB"  and then adding the switches to the newly copied line.

Well, tizerist, you are opening up "a whole nother" can of worms there!  Oh boy, where to start...

I'm guessing that you are using Vista, possibly x64 flavor, because you have an over 4GB swap file, but then, I could be wrong if you allocated 3 or more hard drives for swap file space, which would be insane, to say the least.  

Then again, since you have installed 4GB of ram, but the system is only allocating 3.25 means that you don't have an x64 system... WTF is going on!  <screams>

Ok, now that I have calmed down, somewhat, What is your OS?  What bit is it, x64 or x86(32)?  How much ram did you install in it?  And something is seriously funky with the way you set your pagefiles up.

Well, we actually don't need to go that deep unless you want to explain why your pagefile is the way that it is.  Total physical memory + Pagefile Space = Total virtual memory available to the system.  Since your available physical memory is 2.26, that means that your system alone uses about 1GB to run normal processes, that's assuming you got that info after a reboot with no non boot programs running.

Call me crazy, but why would it refer to bcdedit.exe when that program isn't being patched or edited in any way, shape or form, which wouldn't require it to be backed up?  Bcdedit.exe is a cmdline program that modifies the boot information, %systemdrive%\boot\bcd file for Vista and Win 7 systems, it doesn't get modified.  The only file being modified by CFF Explorer is the Game Executable, which would need to be modified in order to allow it to process more than 2GB.  Also, the switches /Maxmem 3072 and /3GB, in XP, are added to the boot.ini file.

I believe it was more in response to this:

But, then again, I could be wrong.

WTF, an agility check?!  What did u download, a Sims DnD mod?  Oy Vey, is nothing Sacred?

That's why you should use the Test version of Awesome Mod,  that version works with the new 1.9/2.4 update.  The side effect is that your game will become Awesome again.

I am positive he is talking about the original game executable, either ts3.exe (Base Game), Ts3ep01.exe (WA) or TS3SP01.exe (HELS).  Depending on what executable you are trying to modify, you need to back it up prior to editing it, because when the time comes to update, you may (will?) not be able to update because the file is not the original file, that the patcher looks for, to continue the update.

Sarafina, the only thing I can suggest to you, if your "up to the challenge", is to put the original .package files back into your mods folder and then delete the "packaged" files.  Now, use sims3dashboard to locate any possible mods conflicts or errors and run the Process Manager to locate any troubling .packages during a game "test run".  Do a search in MATY to find the specific whereabouts for the programs and the how to's, to set them up.  They have both been detailed extensively in other threads.

Ok, I have just tested a couple of 5 scenarios.  

I currently have Base Game, WA and HELS installed and working perfectly.  All of my mods, including Awesome Mod, and package files are located in the Base Game Mods folder.  I have the entire framework installed in BG, WA and HELS.  Also, all EA downloads were previously installed prior to 1.8 patch and the .dbc files have been moved to the BG mods folder with the resource.cfg file updated to reflect that change.

Scenario 1:  I deleted the d3dx9_31.dll file from HELS.  Game freezes upon load, stuck at loading screen.

Scenario 2:  I put the d3dx90_31.dll back into HELS and deleted d3dx90_31.dll from BG and WA.  Game runs fine, during test, for 5 mins.  All content .dbc and .package files are running without error.

Scenario 3:  I deleted the mods folder from both HELS and WA and the game runs fine as in Scenario 2.

Scenario 4:  Continuing from Scenario 3, I moved the Mods folder and the resource.cfg from BG folder into WA folder and the game runs fine.

Scenario 5:  Continuing from Scenario 4, I moved the Mods folder and the resource.cfg from WA folder into HELS folder and the game runs fine.

Conclusion:  The game will run fine fine so long as d3dx90_31.dll is located in the most recent SP or EP.  Your mods folder can be in either SP, EP or BG so long as your resource.cfg reflects the location of your mods.

Suggestion:  Seeing as the game runs fine for me with Scenario 3 I would suggest, to keep things organized, to keep all mods and such in Base Game.  Also, Sims3Dashboard, as of yet, doesn't detect mods located in an Ep or SP above WA.  Just make sure that the most recent SP or Ep contains the d3dx90_31.dll.

And yes, Coconner's instructions were on point when it comes to minimizing issues for ID-10-Ts.

*Edited to include Scenario 4 and 5, to make things more complete.*

Seeing as we have no clue, exactly, what you have packaged together, my first suggestion would be to make quadruple sure that you have the framework present in the base game and also in the WA folder.  I believe that (that?) has been the issue for most as to why their cc was not showing up in game, post WA.  Also, make sure that you installed the complete framework, both Game and Mods folders, because in the game\bin folder resides the little file that makes the magic happen, d3dx9_31.dll.  And finally, if you replace the framework, make sure to edit the resource.cfg file to reflect any changes.  How I do it is, I extract the framework.zip file into my game folder, which overwrites the resource.cfg with the framework's default cfg file.

It may also be possible that a package file that was previously working in Base, in which you have "packaged" together with others, may be causing havoc in WA.  What exactly did you package together?

:Edited for uncertainty.  Lol  The second that not being there bugs me for some reason.  Damn MATY, and it's unforgiving ways.

Sick isn't the word for it!  Why would you want to eat your own babies?  It would be a better mod if it would allow other people to "EAT" your babies.    

Om Nom Nom Nom!
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,18005.0.html

I did a search and the cmdportalclient.dll file was not located in my winxp setup but it was located in my win7 setup.  This leads me to believe it is more of a vista/win7 issue than anything. 

When you uninstall the game do you run a program that can clean up rouge registry settings, such as ccleaner?

And no, once you install a patch I do not believe it is reversible.

One thing I have noticed, in vista, is even though UAC is disabled, sometimes right clicking the file and running it as an administrator has helped me with problem installers.

Quick question just to make sure I fully understand your problem, you have no problem with the game or the install up until you try to install the 1.8 patch for the base game correct?  Can you quickly outline every step you take starting at the uninstall?  Maybe you can take notes as you do this over.  I would like to know your every move and possibly the patch file numbers that you use.  I would like to make sure we are not missing something simple.

Have you tried re-downloading the patch?  It is possible that the patch was corrupted during the initial download.  Also, try getting your patch from an alternate source and see how that goes.  I also noticed, in another thread, that someone had issues with EADM until they disabled their virus scanner and firewall.

Have you tried removing your mods and/or custom content and doing a test world and save?  You need to narrow down all possible reasons why you can't save.

Have you tried running the sims 3 executable, bypassing EADM, straight into the game?
Also, I wonder if your issue may be tied to vista's crappy Administrative Security Settings.

Whenever I ran into the "Invalid File Found" issue, it was always because I forgot to replace the hacked ts3 or Ep .exe with the original one.
Another issue I had with patching was I tried to use the wrong region patch on my install but I can't remember exactly the error I had received.  The region patch I had used was for 001 when the region of the game that I was using was 002.

I believe so long as you disable autoupdate you won't be forced to update.  But you may eventually have to update to install the latest Ep's, Stuff and possibly Store downloads.

The fact that you have Windows Vista doesn't help matters either.  Just thought I should point that out.  <<ducks>>
And be careful with double posting, I have seen people literally get eaten alive because of it.

I'm no expert but I will help you as best as I can.  I could be wrong but I think each update fixes specific issues, meaning you have to update in succession.  I don't think a recent patch will install without the prior patch.  To reinstall or not to reinstall, that is the question, best answered by your skills and time.  If you want to just get back to playing the game as it was prior to the update, then back up your savegames and mods and then reinstall.  Patch up to 1.8.25.003002 or the WA equivalent.  Test the game out a bit first and then put back the mods and savegames, making sure to also put back the framework for the mods.  This will save you some time and possibly prevent a headache or two.  Your problem could simply be the new update choked on a mod or two, but, weeding out which mod it was is the problem.  I have no clue what mods you use and if you use a ton, it would make troubleshooting much harder.  I believe Awesome mod has an update for the new patch, just to rule that out as the possible culprit try it out and see if things clear up, b4 you attempt other things.  That's if you use Awesome mod of course.

cherylflamm, I have read quite a few posts that state whenever you are installing a patch, your best bet is to backup and remove anything of importance: Mods folder, Save games and the like.  At this point, no one knows if a patch will fugg something up or change the way the game deals with certain files.  Some may say they know a patch "WILL" cause those problems.  LOL

Try moving your mods to a safe directory to see if they are breaking the way the game plays.  If your game plays fine or better without the mods, it probably means EA changed something and now the Mod maker has to compensate for the changes in order for it to run properly.

Thanks to this board, I now have a habit of testing the game bare, or at least with minimal mods, after a patch or EP installs.

To think, we are anxiously waiting to get a release, armed with the knowledge that it may FUBAR our installs...

We must be gluttons for EA Punishment 

An image file, regardless of whether it is a DVD or CD, would be relative in size to the actual data.  A 10 MB file burned to a DVD would not create a 4.7 GB iso, nor an other form of an image.  Something else is contained within that ViTALiTY release image, possibly previous patches, although they do not equate to the large size.