@candy8: In an old hood, as a result of story progression (any kind of story progression) things can get bogged down. Little bits of this and that accumulate, causing excess workload for your computer. Even something like memories can be too taxing, especially on older computers.
That is one reason I play with story progression off. It prolongs the lifespan of a world. I don't let sims age, either, until I purposely age them up. That also seems to help. I regularly cull memories, keeping only the things that have the greatest importance for a story. I delete all ghosts, and don't let sims die, so no additional ghost remnants are lying around attached to tombstones. I keep populations at a level that I can still enjoy town diversity, but only that large and no larger. For every sim of my own that I choose to keep, I delete a townie I don't care about, once I get to my optimum world size. I put vampires under house arrest, with all they need to live (and nothing that could accidentally kill them), but no doors. (I also cheat them to maximum simoleans, and make sure they have quit their jobs.) I do the same with celebrities that the game generates, at the start of a world. Because I play with aging off, the game sees them as still viable, so it makes no more. I cut down on vacation world populations, and make sure I like the looks of each vacation citizen, so it doesn't matter that I see the same ones over and over. (I also keep multiple backups of everything, whether world, lot, or sim.) All of those things prolong the lifespan of my world and keep the computational load at a minimum. My computer thanks me. ;)
On the other hand, maybe you want to play fast and furious until a world implodes. Then you can start all over in a totally different world, creating a totally new game experience. Either way is fun.
But you really can't expect a world to stay around for the long haul, if you play the game the way EA designed it. It may be open-ended play, but EA designed it to keep your attention for only long enough that you buy the next expansion. It's called built-in obsolescence, and it is by design. That is why almost all expansions contain a new world, and they sell new worlds in between expansions. Everything is designed for fast furious play, with the player assumed to be the type of person who has a short attention span.
If you play EA's way, your world imploding is no big deal, because the next shiny is just around the corner. New world, new sim, new shiny experience -- all leading to ennui and boredom -- and then the next new shiny appears at your doorstep, for only a few thousand simoleans. And you begin fresh, until it all happens, again.
The game was never built to last. If you want it to last, you have to get mods to help you delete all the accumulated garbage that story progression generates, babysit the game constantly, learn how to troubleshoot, and keep applying bandaids.
Or do it my way, and coddle the game into some appearance of longevity.
However, the lag I experienced was in a brand new world, new sim, no aging, no story progression, no mods, no cheats, etc. It was a lag caused by misplacement of a driveway, and nothing else. And why it happens simply does not make logical sense, to my ignorant brain.
@elanorbreton: Oh no. I was afraid of that. Well, back to the drawing board. I'll have to review all commercial lots, and make a way out for potentially trapped sims. Sigh. More prep work, before I can play my game. (grumble, grumble, murmur, moan)
