Larger Save File Help and Tips Wanted

[LivvieLove]

I have gone through and sifted (thread by thread) to try to find some different solutions to try out for large save files but to be honest, I'm just frustrated and confused.
I have a very good computer (that's kind of an understatement). I have plenty of ram and I always use a safe, game performance improvement program to launch the game.
I always clear my caches that I can get rid of and clean up my DCBackup folder on almost a daily basis (asides from my CCmerged file) and I run game improving mods (Debugenabler, Errortrap, Overwatch from NRaas Industries) only. I do use a fair amount of CC and that's negotiable but I don't feel I can totally take my game improving mods by NRaas out of the picture.
I clean my computer regularly of extra files and cookies and I defrag once a week to keep things running smooth.

Yet with all of this going on... my game cannot - CANNOT - run larger files. Once I get a family that's running into it's 3rd generation it absolutely cannot work any further. I finally have a family I love (I usually don't get attached because after so many weeks in game my file gets lost to severe bugs and freezing issues that always end in exiting without saving being the only option) that's not even at it's full grown second generation. Last night as I was playing after about 20 minutes or so my game would freeze and just stay frozen. My mouse would move and the Sim's plumbobs would spin and Zzz's would be made... but time wouldn't pass and my Sims were frozen. Often times that would be a symbol of my game just catching up and it would eventually start up again. It never does anymore. I figured I would have to start saving and save often since my game was now experiencing a few issues. Now, after five minutes in the file it freezes like that.

The freezing problem is what I'm experiencing currently, however I often run into major glitches involving University not working... careers bugging out, needs becoming impossible to fulfill. There's a lot of reasons but right now the freezing is making the game impossible to play. It's not manageable. It's not "I'll grit my teeth and suffer through this." It's more like "I've played the same five in-game minutes 7 times in a row trying to get something to work."

I'm not very liberal with my Sims anymore. My Sims haven't visited other Sim-Countries since before Showtime came out. I'm *terrified* of traveling and ambitions careers as my game always gets clogged when those get involved. I've avoided them for almost all save files.

I guess my question is: what am I doing wrong? I've never played large families because my computer would never support them... and back when I had my old Vista computer that didn't even have a graphics card or designated ram (or even knew what that was) I accepted that. Now I sit back and watch people play Dynasties and Legacies and I know their games don't run perfectly and they do glitch... but how is it that my files just can't function anymore after only 1 and 1/2 generations in one town?

 Should I play in a smaller town? I've tried this in Sunset Valley, Isla Paradiso, Riverview, Lunar Lakes, Appoloosa Plains (forgive any spelling errors in towns). I'm really up to try anything. I feel like I take very good care of my computer for the most part and I just want to understand what some people do to manage their larger files and help them become playable. I don't need an ultimate fix for this file per-say... but maybe for future tries? What can I do to make my game actually playable for multiple generations?

Please feel free to ask any questions about my system/game. I'm pretty fluent when it comes to computer knowledge which is why I'm stumped as to why I can't get my game to handle a larger file.

[Trip]

This is going to sound incredibly counter-intuitive, but try running your large files without Overwatch and Errortrap. Ever since the Seasons patch, I've been unable to use most of Twallan's mods without fresh files freezing for five real-life minutes at a time, quite a few times before one game-day is over, and sometimes enough to warrant me force-quitting. Yet my seven-generation life states dynasty ran like a charm without any mods, and in a very laggy town to boot. Again, it's a very odd thing to advise someone to do, and possibly not even applicable since you say that your computer is excellent while I'm stuck with a semi-ancient laptop that is far below minimum requirements.

Barring that, you could try lowering one or two of your graphics settings. I had a different dynasty file that had the worst stuttering by generation three's childhood, until I turned edge-smoothing off.

[Wai]

I have to agree with trip, try lowering your settings.

If you haven't already done this, do a factory reset.  It's surprising how this can improve game speed.

The other thing I have noticed is that a large number of plants and trees, especially with the ground cover flower patches really slow my game down and saving can take forever, or completely fail.  I now restrict my garden beautification to a maximum of 30 plants, though I usually use less.   I never use the ground cover flowers.

One other thing, when you save, if you are not already doing this, always save using "save as".  It is, for no apparent reason, a lot less likely to crash.  I haven't had a crash in at least two years though I had them regularly when using the save option.

I hope this helps.

[Chuckles_82]

Wai, how did you come up with number to limit your garden objects? I'm interested to know because I am building a world specifically for low spec computers (mine is very good though). Limiting garden objects is a good idea, because they have a high poly count and slow down performance because of the load on your graphics card. Fences are also high polycount and you should limit those too. If you limit complicated looking decor that may help a bit also. Simple shapes are best.

[Wai]

Chuckles,

I'm sorry, it wasn't very scientific, and it's so long ago that I don't even recall if I had fenced the garden or not.  However, I think I had.  I was using a large lot, but not the largest and had built a substantial house which I had fully furnished.  I saved without a problem then laid out a really plant heavy garden.  I tried to save and watched the computer for what seemed like ages whilst it slowly churned through the save.  When I tried to reload, I had to sit and watch each plant as it slowly materialised.  Have you heard the expression "slower than molasses in January"?  So, I removed about half of what I had placed and tried again.  I just kept removing plants until I had a game which loaded quickly.   While doing this, I realised that the ground cover was the worst offender, probably because it is possible to place this then place another plant in the same grid square.  My computer is of fairly average spec.   Thirty is just the number which allows me to have an attractive garden on the largest lot without my computer slowing down.  If it helps, I occasionally use the flower textures under my plants as this can be quite effective and does not affect save/load speeds.  I now, usually just place a few plants either side of the front door and use one or two heathers for ground cover.  I then place a single tree (usually a large willow) by the pond with a small group of flowers and a couple more heathers.  Finally, if I have a large plot, I place a single large tree or a small group of shrubs somewhere else on the lot.  It looks very attractive with this simple layout and it is efficient.  I hope this helps.

My guess is that small gardens could probably sustain more than my limit, I haven't tried this though, and now I know about the heavy poly count on fences (which had not occurred to me) my count limit could well be adjusted upwards if fences are not used.

[Angélique]

How large is the file that you're having trouble with? My largest save file was almost 800 MB, it was Twinbrook, and it was acting exactly like you've described, super long freezes that made it totally impossible to play. What I did to make it better, was that I first deleted the TravelDB.package file, which was 414 MB in size. After that I started the game and went to Edit town immediately, before it had time to freeze, and then I changed all the community lots to No Visitors Allowed, NVA. A certain number of them were already set to NVA by default, so that made it a little easier. When I had finished that, I went back to the game, did resetsim * a couple of times in a row, and after that all the freezing problems were completely gone.

I played for several real life hours, and no more freezing occurred. I then decided to change the community lots back to their default setting, one or two at a time, in an attempt to determine which one it was that caused all the freezes. I was able to narrow it down to the one and only lot that was faulty in one way or another. I bulldozed it and replaced it with the same lot from the community lot bin, and after that I haven't had any more freezes in that town, and I have been playing it for several months, IRL, by now.

When I bought Sunlit Tides, the same thing happened again, it would freeze for a long time and then run a minute or two, at the most, and then freeze again. So, I did the same procedure with that town as I had done with Twinbrook, and the result was equally successful.

I don't know if this little story is of any help to you, but if you don't mind spending a bit of time and effort on correcting your game, you could always try it and see what happens. If you decide to try it, it would be very interesting to know what happened, so please make another post here and tell us about it. Good luck with fixing your Freezing town!

[Chuckles_82]

Sometimes the lagging is caused by pathing issues. One of the solutions for this is to place an empty lot - or as you have done re-place an existing lot. Aparently it makes the game rebuild the routing data. Other times you need to do some editing. If you have Twallan's Overwatch mod, and set the find stuck sims to true, but reset stuck sims to 'false', you can go straight to where a sim is stuck to find out where they are having pathing issues. The biggest culprit in my own town were the small spruce trees. They have a 3x3 floor tile space, but don't actually stick out that far. If that floor space overlaps a path, the sims have a route fail tantrum.

[LivvieLove]

Thank you all for quick responses! I don't know what's wrong... looking at the save file it's only 90.4 MB. Though you're probably right Chuckles, it's probably the pathing issues involved in Isla Paradiso (which has quite a few of them).

I'm going to try to boot up my old save file and see what I can do, however is it safe to remove the travelDB.package file? If so I'm not sure if it will do much as it's only 3.14 mb.

My personal computer fixer (aka, my boyfriend) mentioned that Alt-Tabbing to the desktop may cause permanent issues to save files in games... so if my file really isn't that big and it's not the fact that it's large that's causing there to be issues it might just be alt-tabbing. Either way I swore off alt-tabbing after he mentioned that and started a new save file that I plan to be large (a Townie DecaDynasty in Moonlight Falls... as I've ALWAYS wanted to finish one of the multi-generational challenges) that I'm using all of your tips for! Please keep adding tips, I know I can't be the only person who struggles with large, multi-generational families.

Edit to add that I'm not the outdoors-woman Wai... haha, I usually don't even touch plants for houses, but I'm so glad you mentioned that because I was trying to get better at making my houses look as good on the outside as they do on the inside.

[Shirin]

Isla Paradiso is terrible for pathing. I'm doing a 2nd Life States Dynasty there, and I already had to restart due to the routing and pathing.

Definitely try what was suggested - resetting all the sims and turning off the mods that Trip suggested.

Also, I alt-tab in game (regardless of file), and no problems.

[Chuckles_82]

If you have problems with alt+tabbing while playing, you can play in windowed mode. In options, uncheck fullscreen mode, then next to it, choose your resolution.

[Angélique]

According to your heading you had issues with large save files, but 90 MB is not large, not at all. I think that's small. In my opinion it would have to be more than 500 MB in size to be called large.

I forgot to explain what the TravelDB file is in my previous post, so I'll do it now: It's where all the little images go when a sim gets a memory. Before the option to turn off memories came with Seasons expansion, this file often became horribly big, like mine did. After I bought Seasons I immediately switched off memories for good, and nowadays I only have small TravelDB files, and therefore no need to delete them anymore. If your TDB file is only 3.14 MB, you don't have to bother deleting it, because that won't make any difference in your game.

If you're worried about if it's safe to delete this or that file or this or that folder, do like I always do before I start experimenting: Make a backup of your entire The Sims 3 folder. After that it doesn't matter what happens or what you do, you could always go back to the original folder, and everything will instantly be back to normal again.

This thing that your BF said, about Alt+Tabbing to desktop worries me a bit, because I do just that occasionally, (or just press the Windows key, which has the same effect) when I want to check how much RAM the game is actually using at any given time. So far I haven't noticed any negative effects from doing this, but who knows, it might be true. In the readme file of The Sims 1 there was some mentioning of "not using Alt+Tab too often when playing", or something like that. I don't think I have seen it in any of the Sims 3 readme files, though.

[LivvieLove]

He's been working with computers for a fairly long time and is getting several certificates in the security of computers as well as understanding the different operating systems. He's also an avid gamer who has taken apart his computer several times to figure out what makes it tick. He plays Skyrim frequently and says it is about even with Sims in bugs and errors that can occur as they are both fairly open world games. He told me that through his investigations (and he's not here to re-explain it to me right now, but I'll edit my post when he does explain it) he found that alt-tabbing caused errors in save files in almost all games he played except for the ones that actually prepared for users to hit "Alt-Tab" as a means to exit to desktop for a short while. He found it among the coding but like I said, he's not here for me to quote him on that.

I posted his accomplishments because I'm proud of him and I'd also like to explain that he tends to know what he's talking about when he goes into his computer explanations. I know a lot more than most people about computers because of him... but I still have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. Unfortunately my old save file still isn't working, it still freezes and I've tried just about everything on the list besides a factory reset. Seeing as my other saves are working fine I'm just going to have to assume I corrupted my file somehow. I'm going to hang on to it though and keep trying new things.

On the topic of Large Files: I know I mentioned it as a large file because to me it SEEMED like it would be. Large files like multi-generational saves are what I want to do but I didn't understand why my game never made it past 1 1/2-2 generations of Sims before experiencing game-breaking glitches. That's where my trouble is. This file isn't that big yet (I'm surprised because it acted as though it were a big file - taking a while to save and load compared to my normal saves) and it probably never will be, but I guess I just wondered what I was doing that prevented my Sims from accomplishing a multi-generation game.

And I know it's not my constant feeling to start over, because I have quit many a legacy due to boredom, but even when I try very hard to push my Sims to go on... the furthest I've gotten was generation 3 before my game stopped functioning. Now that I'm trying again and again (with two saves before the one mentioned here) I keep finding my Sims saves really start messing up by generation 2 or maybe before generation 2 is fully grown sometimes.

Edit to add: "It's like turning off your computer by pulling the plug out of the wall." <-- his exact words. He explained that it messes with the data over time (doing it multiple times in one game) especially with games like Skyrim or Sims. It makes the game struggle to remember the data when saving. On older games that use item IDs (like the Sims) or anything based off the Half Life engine, it causes the game to load items with similar ID's in place of the item that was already there. It confuses the system. Back before games got very good with their fixes the item would literally be replaced with something else, like a chair would be replaced with a cup or whatever was near it on the Item ID list. In newer games the game is smart enough to know when to fix it but it will create invisible error logs that bloat the save file. In linear games it doesn't cause that much of a problem but it can cause serious problems in open-world games and simulation games.

He told me in a game he played: Vampire The Masquerade (a very old game) he Alt-Tabbed and when he tabbed back all of the door handles had turned into chairs.

[Angélique]

Livvie, what is the longest time you've been able to play a single save file, in Sim days/weeks? My longest, (which I'm playing right now, by the way) is 96 sim weeks and 5 days by now.

[LivvieLove]

Right now the game I just lost was at 6 weeks and 6 days. I can assure you I've never gotten further than that except maybe once when I hit 8 weeks with another set of sims.
Keep in mind I usually go 2 weeks to University as was the case for both files.

[Randox]

I could see alt-tab being a problem if the computer doesn't have enough RAM, since it might start freeing up the RAM that game was using to do other things, and that could lead to problems I suppose. Normally the problem is that not every game will actually run again once tabbed out. Skyrim is like that for me. If your computer isn't using the RAM though, I can't see the issue. I have the sims tabbed out right now, and because I hibernate instead of shut down, it's been running for a few days (in terms of up time, maybe 20 hours combined background and actually running) and it doesn't seem to care. At 650mb, I'd probably be seeing any ill effects right now.

I do have both error trap and overwatch running though. Around 520mb I started having pathing issues that were freezing me a bit, and those mods seem to have it handled now. I do save before tabbing out though, just in case something happens, like the computer restarts, or I try to resume with a second screen running and crash it.

Not sure how long my sims have been alive. I'm thinking the game is north of 120 weeks though.