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Jessmaadge's avatar
5 years ago

Constant freezing Sims 3

Hi all. I think this question has been asked on here before but the answers haven’t fixed my problem! 

My sims game constantly freezes.. Certain parts in the game carry on moving, like waterfalls etc but all the sims freeze and my mouse can’t click on anything and the screen won’t move. I’ve recently downloaded Showtime and I’ve got a Windows laptop about 2 years old. I think I’ve got about 7 packs downloaded. 

I’m not very tech-savvy (I wish I was!) but I have tried to delete all caches, screenshots, videos, and backups. I’ve also reset all the sims in my town, Restarted my laptop, deleted from DCCcaches, updated laptop and have now ran out of ideas. I’ve also checked the FPS? I saw that this could also be a problem, but I’m not sure how to do this or how I would know what game drive I have. All I could do was get the number up in the corner, which was 120, and I assume it’s only supposed to be 60. 

Would anyone know what else to do? Thanks in advance! 

9 Replies

  • @Jessmaadge  What world(s) are you playing in, and which packs do you have installed?  Please test the game in a clean folder: move your entire Sims 3 user data folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, and the game will spawn a new one the next time you launch it.  Don't add anything to this folder yet; just start a new save in Sunset Valley or Twinbrook, and let me know how it runs.

    Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

    https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

    As for fps, 120 may be too high, or it may be fine, depending on your hardware and the refresh rate of your monitor.  The dxdiag should make that clear.  But it would be good to know whether fps is locked at or near 120 or fluctuates wildly.

  • Jessmaadge's avatar
    Jessmaadge
    5 years ago
    @puzzlezaddict I’m playing in Isla Paradiso, which I think it’s a difficult game to run anyway? It’s been fine for ages! Thank you I will try that 🙂
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @Jessmaadge  The EA version of Isla Paradiso is so broken it can cause exactly the lag and freezing you've described even on the strongest hardware.  If you want to play it in the future, you'll need to either edit the world yourself, or download a fixed version.  A player on the official forums addressed the various issues with IP and provided her fixed save for download, if you want to use it:

    https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/811253/removing-ip-lag

    Or you can copy her edits if you like handling things yourself or want to continue playing your existing save.

    Isla Paradiso is by far the most broken EA world, Bridgeport has problems with elevators, and most of the newer worlds have some sort of issue here or there.  That's why we suggest people test in Sunset Valley or Twinbrook (or Riverview, but it wouldn't be installed in a clean user data folder): it's a good way to get a baseline for performance with nothing else interfering.

  • Jessmaadge's avatar
    Jessmaadge
    5 years ago

    Hi so I've moved the Sims 3 folder and started fresh in Sunset Valley. It seems okay.. 

    I've also attached the text file for the dxdiag.

    I'm just really confused as I've never actually had a problem with lagging and yet as soon as I downloaded Showtime it started playing up! I also have World Adventures, High end loft stuff, ambitions, late night, outdoor living, town life stuff, pets, master suite, 70's 80's and 90's, island paradise and into the future. 

    I can try and fix the game whilst keeping my current save.. although I've lost everything before and I'm worried about doing that again! 

    Thank you 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @Jessmaadge  It's possible, though unlikely, that something in your old Sims 3 user data folder was corrupted when you installed Showtime.  It's also possible that the increased load was a bit too much for your computer to handle—your specs are somewhat low for the packs you have installed.  I'm not saying it's definitely a problem now, especially if you'd been playing fine before, but Pets and Seasons might be too much for your hardware.

    What I would guess though, not that it can be proven, is that when you installed Showtime, the game spawned a few street performers, as it always does if Showtime is enabled, and then those street performers, or the people watching them, became stuck.  Most of the issues with the world of Isla Paradiso have to do with bad routing: a sim gets stuck somewhere and can't move, and then the game spends all its resources trying to reroute the sim, which never works.  Meanwhile, everything else grinds to a halt.

    When this happens in general, you can temporarily fix the issue by bringing up the cheats console (ctrl-shift-C) and entering "resetsim *" without quotes.  The asterisk will instruct the game to reset all sims.  That's pretty disruptive to your own sims' lives though, and in IP at least, the problem usually comes back soon enough.  That's why playing in a fixed world is so important.

    The other issue with Showtime is that it brings the career performance limo.  Unlike other vehicles, these can spawn by the hundreds or even thousands in a single day and drag down the game's overall performance by a considerable amount.  It's worse in Starlight Shores, with all the sims already high in their careers, but it can theoretically happen anywhere.

    If you use or are willing to use mods, the best solution to this issue is to install NRaas Traffic.  It shuts down the spawning of the limos by default, as opposed to NRaas Overwatch, which cleans them up once a night.  (I've heard of Overwatch removing as many as 50,000 vehicles during its nightly cleanup.)  Other than that, you might need to not play in Starlight Shores, or else change sims' careers around, although not everyone has a problem with the career limos.

    As for your current save, I hope fixing the world yourself will help enough.  Again, if you're interested in mods, NRaas ErrorTrap, Overwatch, and MasterController would be very helpful in keeping the world running as smoothly as possible, although you'd still need to fix IP.  But the mods will help clean up errors and reset stuck sims, plus MC gives you the option to reset anything from a broken object to the whole town at once if you want.

    P.S.  Your dxdiag lists a few errors with Windows Defender and McAfee.  They might be conflicting; it's best to shut down Defender if you're using something else instead.

  • Jessmaadge's avatar
    Jessmaadge
    5 years ago
    @puzzlezaddict Okay so I have reset all sims.. and it seems to be fine now! After all that!! I’m so relieved. I might still download NRaas Traffic and others though for it to run smoother, May sound silly but where do you download this from? I don’t know an awful lot about Mods.

    Thank you so much for your help!
  • igazor's avatar
    igazor
    5 years ago

    (coughs) Did someone mention NRaas mods?

    I don't think we are allowed to provide direct links here, but a simple web search on our name should reveal our home's location pretty quickly. And note that we do provide support for the mods on our site, as needed.  🙂

  • DonroaAkashu's avatar
    DonroaAkashu
    Seasoned Ace
    5 years ago

    A humble tip for the ones that do come looking for vanilla advise on EA Answers HQ, is that the limo issue supposedly do not occur if the sims that take them to work are not that many in the played world.