@puzzlezaddict The current world I am playing in and plan on playing is this world called Sunshine City (here is the link to it: https://sims3customworlds.tumblr.com/post/86441645112/sunshine-city-original-post-here-download) I would reckon it's a medium sized world but I am not for sure.
In terms of how long I have been playing my save, I want to say about a week, though it's hard to pinpoint since I only use this save to test my CC and mods I download just to make sure it runs smoothly in my game. Once I have finished downloading the CC I want I will probably start playing with an actual family then but until then I currently use a "tester" family.
I guess overall I am just really worried about my computer. If the computer overheats from the game what kind of damage will it do to my computer? Also thanks again for all this I feel like such. burden lol.
@michelleealexis You're not a burden at all; the people who respond here do so because we enjoy it. And, of course, we're free to ignore posts we don't want to answer, which is not the case here.
I would definitely recommend testing in Appaloosa Plains, and Sunset Vally if you can get the stray pet population under control, just for comparison's sake. I don't know anything about this custom world, or the creator, but some player-made worlds run better than others. Size is one factor, but routing can also be an issue. One common cause of lag is a stuck sim, somewhere in the world, that the game engine is tripping all over itself to try to reroute.
I totally understand why you'd be worried about your computer; I'm quite overprotective of mine as well. Excessively high temperatures can damage the hardware, and in a laptop, most hardware can't be replaced. But this only happens with extreme heat, not when the computer's just running a bit hot. Modern hardware tends to list operating temperatures up to 70º (hard drives) to 90º (processor) Celsius. It is of course better not to get too close to the limit, but that still gives your system a lot of breathing room.
This is where hwinfo can be so helpful. If you run it while playing, what kinds of temperatures are you seeing for your hardware? Do the numbers stabilize or keep rising? (You can put your game in windowed mode to check.) This is the best way to get an idea of what your laptop is capable of, and how long you can play without worrying.
@puzzlezaddict Do you know which mods get the stray population under control? I've also noticed when I play in my custom world if I go around my town sims are not able to walk in some parts because it is "blocked" so I am wondering how I can fix that as well.
Will the app that shows my stats show while I play the sims 3 or do I have to play my game in a windowed mode in order to see it? Thanks again!
@michelleealexis The best mod to control strays, and perhaps the only one, is NRaas Register. There are a number of NRaas mods that help with performance in various ways; if you're interested, I can give you a list and a short explanation of each. Or you could ask at NRaas directly. The people there are friendly and helpful and would be happy to discuss which mods will provide the features you want in your game.
Still though, it would be better to start with no mods, and no cc (yet), and test in Appaloosa Plains. Then you can add mods if you want and see whether it helps. It sounds like your custom world may well have routing issues, which would explain at least some of the lag. The point of testing in AP or Sunset Valley is to know how your game runs at its best, so you'll be able to tell if a new world, or an older save, is falling off in performance, and do something about it sooner rather than later.
When hwinfo is running, it keeps track of the current, minimum, maximum, and average values for all the fields it tracks, including temperature, for the duration of the time it's been running. So even after you quit TS3 and the heat starts to dissipate, you'll still be able to see what the max temp was for various components.
There are a few different approaches you can take, but the way I'd go is to play in fullscreen if that's what you normally do, and then pause the game every ten minutes, switch to windowed mode in graphics options (you can do this on the fly, it's fine), and check the temperature readings. Then back to fullscreen for another ten minutes. This may be tedious, but it's only to establish a baseline, to see how your computer performs. If everything looks fine, you can set alarms in hwinfo, open it before you start playing, and then completely ignore it. (I mean, be sure to check it after you quit, just so you have an idea of what's going on, but no need to monitor while you play.) The point of setting an alarm is that you don't need to monitor yourself, you'll get the alert if your temps rise too high.
@puzzlezaddict Okay epic! Will the alarm go off when I Olay in fullscreen mode? Also if you want to, I would LOVE a list of helpful mods and a quick explanation.
