Near enough unplayable! Massive lag, freeze etc.

[Deathstar]

I've had The Sims 3 for a very long time. Never before have I had problems this severe, though, and I did have some quite advanced games with loads of clutter already.

Basically, whenever I try loading back into any of my saves, the game just decides to freeze after loading the plot. It's that weird half-freeze typical for The Sims, where you can't do buggerall (like move the camera or interact with things), but the static animations are still on (snow falling, fires burning, trees swaying in the wind). Before you ask: resetsim * doesn't do the trick anymore. I had issues with that before, where the AI would get stuck off-screen and the clutter just kept on building up, but resetsim always fixed it for me. Not so this time.

I made a copy of one of my households and went for a new game, new neighbourhood and everything. Moved into a random house there and had the same issue, so I'm guessing this is not caused by the stuff that resetsim would fix. I even installed Overwatch but it didn't help. I deleted the cache, put all the graphics to lowest possible, no use. Lastly, I tried a completely new household on a completely new map and it worked for maybe five minutes before freezing just like my old households would.

I can't play my sims anymore, when trying to start playing, the game puts me in an endless limbo. I appreciate all comments.

I only just bought both Island Paradise and University Life. Maybe that has something to do with it. Additionally, I upgraded from a GTX580 to a GTX770 since the last time I played The Sims 3. Could this be a problem?

[Blackrosea]

I've had The Sims 3 for a very long time. Never before have I had problems this severe, though, and I did have some quite advanced games with loads of clutter already.

Basically, whenever I try loading back into any of my saves, the game just decides to freeze after loading the plot. It's that weird half-freeze typical for The Sims, where you can't do buggerall (like move the camera or interact with things), but the static animations are still on (snow falling, fires burning, trees swaying in the wind). Before you ask: resetsim * doesn't do the trick anymore. I had issues with that before, where the AI would get stuck off-screen and the clutter just kept on building up, but resetsim always fixed it for me. Not so this time.

I made a copy of one of my households and went for a new game, new neighbourhood and everything. Moved into a random house there and had the same issue, so I'm guessing this is not caused by the stuff that resetsim would fix. I even installed Overwatch but it didn't help. I deleted the cache, put all the graphics to lowest possible, no use. Lastly, I tried a completely new household on a completely new map and it worked for maybe five minutes before freezing just like my old households would.

I can't play my sims anymore, when trying to start playing, the game puts me in an endless limbo. I appreciate all comments.

I only just bought both Island Paradise and University Life. Maybe that has something to do with it. Additionally, I upgraded from a GTX580 to a GTX770 since the last time I played The Sims 3. Could this be a problem?

Welcome to the forum Deathstar.

The new expansions you are playing, have you updated them to the newest update when launching your game? Do you have any CC or Mods? Need to update any mods you might have in the game.

Have you tried a factory reset? Factory Reset: Fix Your Game with 1/4 the Time of a Reinstall

[Deathstar]

Hello, I am playing TS3 through Steam, so the version should automatically be the latest one.

I tried the Factory Reset and things seem to be working. It's a shame that all my saves are gone, the whole point was to be able to play one of my old households again. Is that possible? I still have the backup-folder.

[saltpastillen]

After you do a factory reset you should be able to add the old saves to the new simsfolder. But your old saves could still be old and heavy so I would recommend saving the families and adding them to a new game file.