Re: The Sims 3 lag after multiple tries of fixing

I uninstalled the software and it doesn't really make a difference. At C:\Windows\Minidump I only found one file, hope that is useful. I installed the game from discs and here are the lines from deviceconfig: 

GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 2 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2304 Threading: 3

Adjusted CPU: 2672 RAM: 8081 Adjusted RAM: 7569 Cores: 4

google drive dump file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r6b-2HhjQENzhapKAkdnOOM00gd6hiDM/view?usp=sharing

@PepsyQ  This particular crash dump lists pool corruption as the error, which likely means an issue with one or more of your kernel-mode drivers.  So the place to start is by updating all the drivers you can.  Hit Windows key-X, select the Device Manager, and start updating: expand a tab, click on a device, and click the black and green Update tab.  Many won't have updates, which is fine; the point is to force Windows to search.

There are plenty of driver updater utilities out there, but they generally don't work well, cost money, or both, so it's best to handle the process manually.

Restart your computer when you're done, then try to play Sims 3.  Please test a new save in Sunset Valley to set a baseline for performance, and change the water and high-detail lots graphics settings as well.  (Do so at the Main Menu, then quit to desktop before loading the save.)  If you still see lag, let me know.

I tried to update every single one of them, but none had any updates. I changed the reflection to off and high-detail lots to 1 and created a save. Sunset Valley moved a bit fluid, but when I got into CAS... things drastically changed (attached) (I also apologize for the bad quality photo)

@PepsyQ  That at least isn't a BlueScreen.  I could look at the crash dump for the game—Windows writes those as well by default—but I'm guessing it would just list an access violation like the other Sims 3 crashes in your dxdiag, and access violations aren't usually specific enough to be helpful.

However, what might help is running the Super Patch, which you can find here, under "Cumulative Base Game 1.67 Super Patcher":

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/175477/official-ea-download-link-for-the-sims-3-cumulative-manual-update

In addition to patching, it repairs game files where necessary, and it will also undo your .sgr file edits, so make copies of those files first if you don't want to redo your work.  But don't put back your edited files at first; just test the game totally vanilla.  Move the Sims 3 user folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts as well, just to be thorough.

If you get another crash, trash the new Sims 3 folder so the game generates a new one, and this time, play in a clean boot.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-boot-windows-10

When you reboot, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down anything that doesn't absolutely need to be running.  If you accidentally kill the wrong service and it doesn't restart automatically, just reboot your computer.

If the game crashes in a clean boot, try again, but this time while your computer is offline, as in, disable wifi and/or disconnect the ethernet cable.

Quick update: I managed to update to version 1.67.2. I loaded up my save and I think it was a bit better, but still laggy. The map isn't laggy at all but when I zoom in on a lot, and play, all goes wrong. It hasn't crashed but it lagged a lot on lots (especially when I changed speeds). It even froze a few times, but got back to normal pretty quick. I will try tomorrow to play in a clean boot and let you know how it went. Thanks for the help so far!

Back with the clean boot info: it didn't crash but it still was a bit laggy. Think it was a bit better than before, but i'm not sure. I really don't understand what's causing this huge lag. I have absolutely no problem with Sims 2 and Sims 4.

edit: forgot to mention that I joined the game with all settings at minimum, only sim details was at medium

@PepsyQ  What kind of hardware temperatures are you seeing while playing?  You can check the GPU temps in the Performance tab of the Task Manager; you'd need an outside tool (CPU-Z is a good option, and it's free) to monitor CPU temps.  Please start by checking on the GPU temps, and while you're looking, make sure that the game is using your 1050 ti: you should be able to see its utilization.

I took some pictures of both task manager and CPU-Z. I also saw that I could get a report out of CPU-Z so I also did that, maybe it's helpful 🙂 

taskmanager pics: https://imgur.com/a/Q4nujco

@PepsyQ  Thanks for the info.  Your CPU temps look fine in the log, but it doesn't list GPU temps or utilization.  By the way, I'd remove the log: it contains information that might compromise the security of your system.

Is that Task Manager screenshot from when you had Sims 3 open and running (not minimized)?  It sure doesn't seem so.  Please grab one from when the game is running behind the Task Manager.

Please also let me know whether you've taken any steps to limit your in-game framerates.  If not, let me know what kind of numbers you're getting: open the cheats console, enter "fps on" without quotes, and a number will appear in the upper-right corner of the screen.

Oops, sorry, I had Sims 3 minimized. I attached screenshots of task manager while Sims was windowed. I also made a 1 minute video of the gameplay and fps, max was 62fps (I set it from NVIDIA control panel), min was somewhere at 12fps. (don't mind the fire that started while I was recording lol)

video: https://imgur.com/a/speZdiy

@PepsyQ  Wow, Sims 3 should definitely not be using so much of your CPU.  The SSD is maxed out too; did you take the screenshots while the game was loading?  If not, is this still while your computer is offline?  If you were playing with an internet connection, please test and let me know if the game's CPU use drops without one.  A maxed-out processor could absolutely explain the lag all by itself, and I supposed a maxed-out SSD could too, but that shouldn't happen outside of loading screens.

The other oddity is how neither the graphics card nor the integrated chip is being utilized at all, at least in this screenshot.  That could be the result of the excessive CPU use, but in case it helps, try telling Windows to run Sims 3 in high-performance mode.  Hit Windows key-i, select System > Display > Graphics settings, click Browse, choose Sims 3 (TS3W.exe, with the W), click on it and choose Options, select the high-performance option, and save.  Then restart your computer.

By the way, if you've reapplied any fixes, performance improvements, the Smooth Patch, anything at all, please undo the change(s) and run the Super Patch again.  Since this is such odd behavior from the game, we really need to work with a completely vanilla setup before adding anything extra.

The game wasn't loading when I took the screenshots and the computer was online, but I finally got some better news. I made it run with the high-performance option, made sure I got all cc and other fixes out and opened it, in airplane mode. It took 5 minutes to load the save (it took 15mins in the past) and it was running pretty smoothly. As I said before, max fps 62, min 30-ish. The only problem were the lag spikes. Also, some transparent lines would appear going up the screen when I zoomed in or moved quickly. Task manager looks better than before too. (I ran the sims with minimal settings)

@PepsyQ  The game is still using more CPU than I'd expect, and the workload of the Nvidia card is low, but it sounds like the game is at least playable.  I think you should be able to raise the graphics settings as well, although it's best to leave water and high-detail lots on the low end.  Your GPU clearly has plenty of headroom to accommodate a higher workload.

The game itself willl have some fps drops, although I'm surprised you're seeing framerates in the 30s.  Does it improve if you play in fullscreen mode?

For the lines, you can try enabling antialiasing in the Nvidia Control Panel.  These are the settings I usually suggest:

Antialiasing - FXAA: On
Antialiasing - Gamma correction: On
Antialiasing - Mode: Override any Application Setting
Antialiasing - Setting: 2x [or higher]

But there's no harm in experimenting to figure out what works best for you.

I raised some graphics settings (except water and high-detail lots) and the fps were kind of the same. Huge lag spikes though, where the fps would drop to 0-3 and then work their way up to 62. The weird lines dissapeared and nothing improves if I play in fullscreen, it's the same as windowed. The lag spikes really annoy me, they occur even when I change the Sims speed from normal to higher. Is there any way to fix them? (attached another task manager photo. I had wifi on this time.)

@PepsyQ  From your screenshots, it seems highly that the lag spikes happen when CPU use reaches 100% in-game.  This can be addressed in part by not running any other tasks that use significant CPU; you can see which ones those are at any given moment in the Task Manager as well.  But Sims 3 shouldn't be using nearly this much either, and the question is why.

So, my questions:

• Are you still playing in Sunset Valley, and if not, where?
• Which expansions do you currently have installed?
• Have you installed any store content?
• Have you added back in any third-party content?
• How many sims are in your active household, and how many pets?
• Have you edited the world at all since the save was started?

There are plenty of causes of lag, too many to list really, so it's necessary to narrow things down a bit.  If you happen to use NRaas mods in general, now would be a good time to add them, except leave out StoryProgression (or remove it) for now—it's the one NRaas mod that adds significant overhead to the game.

I am still playing in Sunset Valley.

I have all expansions installed.

I believe I have some store content.

I did not add any cc.

5 sims and 1 cat.

I only added a dance club from Nightlife.

I will add the NRaas mods and will let you know how it went 🙂

edit: Game still had lag spikes, worse ones while on 3x speed. The weird lines would sometimes reappear (I changed the Nvidia settings). While on normal speed, everything moves much better than before, but still not perfect. I will attach another task manager picture (the game was in 3x speed)

@PepsyQ  I'm still baffled as to why Sims 3 would use so much of your processor.  I mean, it shouldn't be able to at all considering it can only use two CPU cores or threads, and yours has four cores.  But regardless of how much of this is a Task Manager reporting error, the overall load is still excessive, and it still seems likely to me that the lag you're seeing is due to the overall processor load.

Have you installed NRaas Overwatch, and if so, how many vehicles does it clean up each night?  Have you installed MasterController, and if so, what are the town's demographics?  In particular, I'm wondering whether your save has thousands of unnecessary NPC sims.  MasterController can usually find them if you're persistent.  If the Demographics options don't turn anything up, try running a simple command from City Hall, for example NRaas > MC > Sim > Basic > Family Tree, then filter by Type of Service, Type of Role, or Type of Sim (Or) > Service.  Run a few different commands—the results aren't always exactly the same—and let me know if the number of sims in any list is higher than a few dozen.

You can also try the suggestions in this list:

https://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE

You don't need to do alll of them, but for now at least, it's a good idea to implement everything feasible and see how well the game runs under ideal conditions.  The one thing you definitely don't need to do is lower the graphcis settings: as said, your hardware should handle mostly ultra settings just fine, and if it's not doing so, that means something else isn't working properly.

I got some other mods from NRaas (traffic and something with the ''go here'' command), but no change. I believe that the lag spikes are more often and last a bit longer. Somewhere around 17 cars/hour are cleaned and I attached some pictures with the found sims (sorry for the bad quality, the prntsc button wouldn't work). I did up the settings a bit too.

@PepsyQ  I'm sorry for the late reply.  Your numbers looked odd to me in a few different ways, so I wanted to test myself, but that took more time than I intended for a couple different reasons.

Anyway, for comparison's sake, I started a new save in Sunset Valley and let the game clock run for just over a sim-day, then compared my list of sims to yours:

Then I let it run until the summer holiday:

As you can see, my save has nowhere near the number of sims yours does, but there isn't just one type of sim that's overrepresented in your game.  The single biggest impact is likely the fact that your save has more than double the residents mine does: resident sims will demand much more in the way of resources than NPCs or tourists.  But there are too many Local MiniSims, a category that can include both tourists (even if they're not listed as tourists in the filter) and homeless NPCs associated with the current world.

The current-world NPCs I generally don't worry about until their numbers get into the hundreds, but too many would-be tourists might be a problem if they're not actually instantiating as tourists and the game engine can't figure out what to do with them.  So the next step depends on what these sims are.  Run the Basic > Family Tree command again, choose Type of Sim (and) > Local MiniSim, and take a look at the list.  Let me know approximately how many stray animals, sims with "foreign" names (that sound like they're from one of the World Adventures worlds), and "regular" sims you see.  I'm not asking you to count them all out; just give me an idea of the composition of the list.  For example, mine has three stray dogs, half a dozen foreign names, and the rest are random sims.

The point here is to figure out where these sims are coming from and not only get rid of them, or at least limit their numbers, but prevent them from overspawning again.

On the subject of residents, did you do anything to add all these sims to your save?  Did you plop down a bunch of extra houses?  NRaas StoryProgression can do rapid immigration, but the game itself usually does not.  If you didn't do anything special, please check in Edit Town to see how many households showed up on their own, and how many existing households have grown in size, whether through adding sims or pets.

Yes, I did actually. I had the StoryProgression mod by NRaas, but I didn't know how big the impact was. I removed that mod a while ago. I will run that command again and will let you know what the results were.

edit found somewhere around 83 locals and 40 tourists (I think) and only 1 animal- horse. The thing was that it was very fluid, the lag spikes weren't happening that often. I got my cc back (uninstalled many of it), installed a patch (lazy duchess) and now it is play-able. I really want to thank you for helping me this far. If it wasn't for you, I would've stopped playing Sims 3. Thank you very much! 

Yeah, won't be adding SP again, runs much better without it. Lag spikes aren't that often anymore and don't last too long. Screen tearing still happens (found out how it's called, also found out that my display is connected to the Intel UHD graphics card). Updated the graphic card driver multiple times, but screen tearing is still there. Do you have any idea how to fix this problem? Sorry for bothering again 🙂 

@PepsyQ  The usual fix for screen tearing is to enable vertical sync.  However, most gaming laptops run graphics output through the integrated chip, and one of the unfortunate side effects is that enabling vertical sync in the Nvidia Control Panel doesn't work properly.  So you'll need to use an outside tool.  This is the only one I know of that works with Sims 3:

https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/84-d3doverrider/?changelog=32

It's based on RivaTuner Statistics Server, a popular and lightweight app for capping fps, but you don't need to install RTSS for this to work.

In case you're not aware, vertical sync only works in fullscreen mode.  If you'd prefer to play in windowed mode, you can try setting your fps limit to 60 or 59 in the Control Panel, but that doesn't always help either.

@puzzlezaddict Hi there, I'm sorry to necropost but I was having this exact problem and thought I'd post another possible solution for the "I've tried everything" folks. For reference, I'm running on 1.69 with Smooth Patch installed. I've never run the Super Patch, but I did go through all of the recommended steps to get the game running smoothly, including removing SP for the time being. Those things helped, but the stuttering was still a major issue and the load times were a little ridiculous for the specs that I have. Reminded me of the days you would boot up the game in the morning so it'd be ready for you by the time you got home from school, lol. 

My CPU was out of control (>98%) when the game would run.  I decided to look more into your note about the game being optimized to only use two cores, and saw that multiple people corroborated that. Someone on another forum noted that "Sims 3 can't make a lot of use of multiple cores or anything like that so you get better results out of processors with fewer cores but higher base frequencies." 

I have a laptop with a quad-core Intel processor, and based on the numbers I was getting, I speculate that the game was trying to use all four cores (not sure why, just making semi-educated guesses at this point). So, I found this decade-old tutorial on the official Sims forum that demonstrates how to instruct the game to use three cores instead of all four: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/423705/sims-3-stutter-on-quad-core-fix-found

Following these instructions resulted in immediate improvement  for me - my game loads significantly faster, the stuttering has been greatly reduced to the point that I am now grateful for the game's "unavoidable" but most importantly OCCASSIONAL lag, and the load on my CPU has been reduced. It now hovers between 65% - 80% when the game is running and depending on what's going on. The lowest I've seen it get to in the game with this fix is 35%, but that's only when not much is happening (i.e. I'm messing around with menu settings, Nrass, etc).

There a few extra clicks you have to make in Windows 10 to complete this tutorial (go to "Details" in the task manager instead of "Processes" and follow the instructions from there). I didn't notice any significant difference in performance when running the game on two cores vs three in this instance, so I think I'll just leave it on three cores per the linked tutorial.

I really hope this is acceptable to share. I'm not sure if it's a band-aid solution, but it's the only solution that's worked for me thus far.

@INeedNAdult94  That's interesting.  (And it's not really a necro either, since this thread is only a few months old.)  It's true that Sims 3 can only use two CPU cores, but Windows or perhaps the processor itself can shift the load around to a considerable extent, and that shouldn't affect performance.  For example, I have an eight-core CPU and don't see this kind of stutter unless I run the game at triple speed with NRaas SP in the mix.

I have been wondering though if the Task Manager misreports CPU use in cases like this, where the total load in any given instant should be no more than two cores but the fact that the load shifts makes the TM think all the cores are constantly that busy.  Out of curiosity, what exact model processor do you have, and what TPS setting do you use with the Smooth Patch?  Have you ever used a more precise monitoring tool (hwinfo is my go-to, but there are others) to measure CPU load?  Is your processor running hotter than it should?

I'm also pretty surprised that load times would decrease, not that I'm doubting your observations, just that it seems like an odd result to me.  When you compared load times, was it with exactly the same user content (mods and cc, store stuff, plus the same save) in both cases?  How bad was it before you made the change?

It's definitely fine to post the suggestion here: you're not linking a random third-party download, and you're not suggesting anything that could damage a person's computer or can't easily be reversed.