How to make the Isla Paradiso world playable?

@Mrsimalot  With your hardware and how the game runs in general, you don't actually need to turn down any graphics settings other than water and high-detail lots.  I usually leave those on "mirrors only" and 2, respectively, but you could probably bump the water up a notch.  The other settings aren't particularly demanding of the game engine, and your graphics card can handle ultra settings.

Speaking of the GPU, have you manually limited your in-game framerates?  It's not specifically related to the Isla Paradiso issues, but your card is fast enough to overwork itself generating unnecessarily high fps.  Let me know if you'd like help with this process.

For IP itself, the mod that prevents sims from moving houseboats would be one of my first suggestions.  If it's not working, try removing it and adding it back, with a save in between. And make sure you delete scriptCache.package after adding it.

There are a few other fixes that help as well, for example editing a couple of houses (and demolishing one) so sims don't get stuck in them.  The first post in this thread lists the edits you'd need to make:

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

I don't think you need to remove the fog around the hidden islands, but you can try that if nothing else is helping.  The fog definitely drags performance down, but your graphics card is still fast enough that the practical impact shouldn't be too severe.

The guide does go somewhat overboard, so I'd suggest making a few changes at a time and seeing how the world runs.

Other than that, I'd suggest installing the Smooth Patch from Lazy Duchess.  Stick with whatever version 1.x you can find; the newer versions include changes to CAS that aren't yet totally compatible with MasterController.

It's also a good idea to disable Overwatch's Stuck Check Auto-Reset, while leaving Stuck Check itself enabled.  Any time OW notifies you of a stuck sim, click on the portrait to jump to where that sim is, and if you find a particular location is a repeat offender, edit it to remove whatever objects seem to be causing trouble.  With the auto-reset enabled, the sims would simply be teleported back home, so you wouldn't know where they'd been stuck.

And definitely add ErrorTrap as well.  It cleans up stray data and other junk that can lead to corruption and that the game doesn't remove on its own.  Make sure to get the 1.67/disc version: as a core mod, ET has a different version for each build, and downloading the wrong one can give you a (harmless) error on loading.

Thank you for your input on this issue.

I did not have the Error Trap so I installed it and only after a few minutes of gameplay I did get the message: Error Trap recorded 50 so I did something. A few in-game days later I also did get a script error on a NPC called Craig Nieman. But the game did run well for  a in-game week. But then the sound went missing. And the game crashed. That's why I do add some error logs to this message. Some of the text might not make sense to you as the text are in Swedish but maybe you can tell me what is wrong. I could not add the logs when they were saved as *.txt so I did copy everything into one file. Hope it's readable...

@Mrsimalot  The first and third errors are correction logs, nothing to worry about and just ErrorTrap doing its job.  I always get at least one of these when I first load a save unless I happened to run an MC reset right before saving and quitting the last play session.

The second error says that Craig Nieman had a route fail while trying to access a wedding arch and then there was some issue removing the interaction.  But here again, ET did its job, and I wouldn't worry about it unless the same sim or the same error keeps happening.  My guess would be that this particular wedding arch is on a resort lot and attracting inactive sims, so you could remove the arch if you wanted.

As for the crash, did you get a scripterror from around that time?  Check the scripterrors' timestamps if you're not sure.  And while Sims 3 never crashes "just because," it's sometimes difficult enough to figure out the exact cause that it's easier to only pay attention to repeat crashes.  It would be of particular interest if you had multiple crashes at the same sim-time of day or when your sims performed a certain action (entering a rabbithole, changing an outfit, etc.), which would narrow things down significantly.

Oh OK. No I did not get an error message. (Also, sorry that we go a little off topic here but I have to troubleshot this now). My sims just woke up in the morning and I did send one out to fight the paparazzi who was standing outside (I use to have her do that). But suddenly the sound was gone. The only thing I heard was the "crickets" (you know, the typical night sound). I went out to the main menu - no sound. Closing down the game took a lot of time and I did hear some sounds: Screams, very sudden and crickets. After a relaunch I had sounds in the main menu but not in game. And now the game crashed. But it was the slowest crash I have experienced. With the same sounds as before. New launch but same situation. (And as I saved the first time I could let my sim do the same things as before). But I had sound in Windows and in the menus as well as while loading. I did check the settings in game, nothing was turned down or off.  🤔

@Mrsimalot  So at present, the sound isn't working properly in-game even right after you load the save?  If that's the case, try removing options.ini, in the Sims 3 user folder.  This will reset all your in-game options, so if it doesn't help, you can put the original back instead of redoing all your settings from scratch.

If that doesn't make a difference, try reverting to a backup copy of the save.  Even if you've never made one, the game keeps the files from the second-to-last time you saved.  Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Saves, and you'll see a folder with the save name and another with the same name plus a .backup extension (for example IslaParadiso.sims3.backup).  Rename the save and delete the .backup extension (e.g. IslaParadiso1.sims3), and it'll be available to load at the Main Menu.

And if that doesn't help either, please start a new save and see whether the sound works there, just for comparison's sake.

Hello again.

Sorry for the late reply but I simply forgot...

When the sound went missing and the game crashed I did not bother to troubleshoot but the day after I did try the game again. And yes, I did have sound. I do not know if the problem did fix itself or if it's still there but now when the computer had been turned off for some hours it worked. I did play one sim day in the Isla Paradiso world and everything worked fine. Then I did change into the Sunset Valley world and did play for another day (I did not want to use all of the day on this test, that's way I did not play more). Now this world was not in any way "optimized" or anything and the family I have there is quite large, (2 adults, 1 young adult and 3 pets, one of them a horse).  The world is full of wild animal, sims and traffic so the game had something to do. Everything did run quite smooth though.

@Mrsimalot  I'm glad to hear the game is working again, and I hope it's fixed for good.  If you need more help, you know where to find me.