Can you overload a world/game with buildings and sims?

[BonnieLM77]

Hi, I was playing a custom world I had downloaded, a large map, it came blank so I had to put in my own rabbit holes and houses-grabbed some from the EA created worlds, and added some pre-made sims I had made, plus spawners, after a while I noticed that the game seemed to be getting slower, I had downloaded some lots from TSR which I had added to the map and filled almost all of the lots, I do have several mods from NRAA installed, but the last time I tried playing this map with my family, the game crashed and when I ran the Crash Log Analyzer I found, it said that the game had crashed because of Max Memory used, I have 8gb of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, Windows 7 64 bit and after this happened, I lowered some of the game settings and increased my Virtual Memory, and then saved my family to the sim bin, but I was wondering if I had just too much stuff in the world I was playing, I've never had any problems from some of the already built worlds, I also heard if you play for long periods of time (I had played that day for 5 or 6 hours) it can clog up the game too. Any help?

[MrsFlynn]

Yes even a large map can be overloaded with Sims, lots, specially highly detailed lots and spawners added. The more you add of these things to the town/world you're playing the more load it takes on the game. You also need to consider the amount of custom content and mods you have added to your game as well.

It's definitely recommended not to play for more than a few hours at a time to help prevent crashing due to the game's memory leaks.

Nraas has an article that might help better balance out your game.

Tips for Better Game Performance
https://www.nraas.net/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE

A Tip from Trip, about population demographics in the post linked below:

Re: Recommended number of sims per world?
https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=32172.msg510927#msg510927

[BonnieLM77]

Thanks, I had also found when I copied some rabbit holes from other EA worlds (Sunset Valley, Hidden Springs, etc) to my library and also installed some lots from TSR, that it would no longer allow me to share any Sims or Lots from my library, so not sure if it was one of the rabbit holes that did it or one of the lots, am going through all my cc and uninstalling anything I don't need and double checking my mod files, Dashboard doesn't see any conflicts but it doesn't mean that a mod might not being working properly, especially after I compressed a group of them together to save space. I appreciate all the help!

*update* I read that article about recommended number of Sims and I'm pretty sure I had more than that as I loaded about 15 households into the game (besides my active family) and some of them had 3 or 4 members. Good information to have.

[MrsFlynn]

If I remember correctly there maybe a limit to how many files can be saved to the library and export folders. I am unsure of what the limit might be.

A work around to help with that is to move your library and exports folder to your desktop and try saving the lot or family again.

- \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Library
- \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Exports

Crinrict has an article that explains about the Sims 3 User Files. It explains about both the library and exports folder.

Sims 3 User Files Explained:
https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/01/faq-user-files.html

[BonnieLM77]

that's what I was thinking, I did copy a lot of rabbit holes so I was planning on removing them and if I ever do a blank world again, only copy them for as long as it takes me to place them in the world and then delete them.

I just found this as well: https://forums.thesims.com/en_Us/discussion/413704/households-wont-save-to-bin
and it mentions that one of NRAA's mods may limit the amount of files you can have in the library so I will check with them.

[MrsFlynn]

Sounds like a good plan. That's how I do it too. Add some lots and Sims and then remove them from my library after editing my save file.

[BonnieLM77]

removing the extra rabbit holes and some of the extra sim families worked, I had over 20 rabbit holes loaded into my library and I guess my game didn't like it, lol. It's now allowing me to export sim families and lots I created so I guess there is a limit to how many lots/rabbit holes you can have saved in the library. I also remove extra save files when I'm not using them to keep from cluttering up my game. Thanks for all the help!

I do use Master Controller, Overwatch and ErrorTrap by NRAA but wasn't sure if I was allowed to mention them by name.

[MrsFlynn]

You're welcome!! I'm happy I could help.