Sims doing everything slowly

[pallyndrome]

Just today I've been noticing that my sims are doing everything much more slowly than usual. What should only take 20 sim minutes actually takes over 2 sim hours. They often stand in one spot for ages before going to the next task. All sims (and animals!) in the house are doing it. Even sims in a different household do it! It's very frustrating because there just isn't enough hours in the day to keep the sims needs happy - all they have time to do is eat, pee their pants, sleep, and if they're lucky shower. They have no time to do anything else, because it all takes forever! It's torturous for me! I can't work out how to fix it. I cleared my dcbackup folder, I reset *, I removed mods and CC, but nothing helps.

EDIT: So for example, I just had a sim take over an hour to eat most of his cereal. And another sim took over 1.5 hours (from when I told her to) to go upstairs one level to tend to her (frantically crying) baby. It's impossible to play like this!
I had a search on google but it seems like most similar problems were thought to be just expecting too much from your sims (or the game screen itself going slow - not the sims) but I can assure you that is not the case here! The only solution I found was to get rid of too many sims in the neighbourhood, which is possible since I have a TON of sims but I really hope this isn't the case because then I'd have to go to the (huge) effort of splitting the town, then testing again. The last time I tried that I went to much effort only to find it was something else wrong entirely.

[Jamie]

I've been having this problem recently too. I have tried everything you mentioned but I don't think it's caused by having too many sims in the neighborhood. It is happening from the very beginning of a new save file. 

[Blackrosea]

Just today I've been noticing that my sims are doing everything much more slowly than usual. What should only take 20 sim minutes actually takes over 2 sim hours. They often stand in one spot for ages before going to the next task. All sims (and animals!) in the house are doing it. Even sims in a different household do it! It's very frustrating because there just isn't enough hours in the day to keep the sims needs happy - all they have time to do is eat, pee their pants, sleep, and if they're lucky shower. They have no time to do anything else, because it all takes forever! It's torturous for me! I can't work out how to fix it. I cleared my dcbackup folder, I reset *, I removed mods and CC, but nothing helps.

EDIT: So for example, I just had a sim take over an hour to eat most of his cereal. And another sim took over 1.5 hours (from when I told her to) to go upstairs one level to tend to her (frantically crying) baby. It's impossible to play like this!
I had a search on google but it seems like most similar problems were thought to be just expecting too much from your sims (or the game screen itself going slow - not the sims) but I can assure you that is not the case here! The only solution I found was to get rid of too many sims in the neighbourhood, which is possible since I have a TON of sims but I really hope this isn't the case because then I'd have to go to the (huge) effort of splitting the town, then testing again. The last time I tried that I went to much effort only to find it was something else wrong entirely.

What web browser do you have? I found if I leave my web browser open as I play (I have foxfire), it uses a lot of my memory. Not sure if you have yours open as you play or not. I have to exit out of my browser all together when I play. What world are you playing in?

[Niana]

Have you cleared caches?? And does the same problem exist if you start a brand new world file?

[jesirose]

What web browser do you have? I found if I leave my web browser open as I play (I have foxfire), it uses a lot of my memory. Not sure if you have yours open as you play or not. I have to exit out of my browser all together when I play. What world are you playing in?

Switch to Chrome. Firefox has had memory leak issues it's entire life, despite how many times they claim to have fixed it. I finally switched to Chrome a few months ago and it's amazing.

[ewilson1114]

There's a long thread about this over on the official forum. Basically, some premium content is causing the slowdown. The fix is to either uninstall the premium content or to install the latest versions of Error Trap and Overwatch as Twallan updated them specifically to fix this bug. It has been established that the Tree of Prosperity causes this error even if not placed in the world and it is suspected that other premium content may be causing the issue as well.

Here's the thread if you'd like to read through it: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/723221.page

[pallyndrome]

I have the latest overwatch and error trap but still have the problem. I'll try closing down Firefox, though I'm not sure why it would be a problem now and not before. If that doesn't work I'll uninstall the tree of prosperity. Thanks everyone for your help.

[ewilson1114]

Just to be sure, you have version 110 of Overwatch and 94 of Error Trap?

[pallyndrome]

@ewilson - thank you for checking that with me - turned out I had 109 and 93. I was relying on twallan's "state of the mod" page for updates but looks like he didn't announce these latest updates there. I will have to check his updates page instead from now on. I have updated now and I will soon check the game to see if it has been fixed (I really hope so!). Thanks heaps

EDIT: It worked! Yay! Thanks!!!!

[berninicaco3]

oh man!  I'll have to try this too.
Did it only become a problem very recently?

My game was going fine until about 2 days ago... then became unplayably choppy, degrading quite rapidly, and carried over to all games-- even new ones.  I've tried everything.  Will update overwatch (i'd updated it 3 weeks ago-- but if the latest is needed that may do it!)

[berninicaco3]

quick question
I'd already tried deleting all cc and .package files to no avail.
I went and deleted all my saved games, and all my saved sims too now.

Wouldn't you know?  A new game -- which despite deleting all extra content, had ran as poorly as ever and as poorly any older save file-- now worked, now that I removed other saved games and saved sims.
As I try to piece this back together, reinstalling custom content that I enjoy and picking the saved games I really want to keep, do you have any ideas why deleting the saves and saved sims would finally work?  Would a save that relied on custom content somehow poison new worlds, or could a saved sim include custom content baggage even if it was uninstalled elsewhere?

[Blackrosea]

quick question
I'd already tried deleting all cc and .package files to no avail.
I went and deleted all my saved games, and all my saved sims too now.

Wouldn't you know?  A new game -- which despite deleting all extra content, had ran as poorly as ever and as poorly any older save file-- now worked, now that I removed other saved games and saved sims.
As I try to piece this back together, reinstalling custom content that I enjoy and picking the saved games I really want to keep, do you have any ideas why deleting the saves and saved sims would finally work?  Would a save that relied on custom content somehow poison new worlds, or could a saved sim include custom content baggage even if it was uninstalled elsewhere?

My game has been running really bad as well. I have all the EP and SP and a lot of store bought CC. After reading some posts on the forum, I have now deleted my Tree of Prosperity and Lunar Lakes world, and turned off my Seasons EP. My game seems to be running a little smoother. But I didn't have these problems before the lastest patch. I hope they come out with a new one soon.

[berninicaco3]

It's really weird.

My game is running very well again, fingers crossed!

Like I said-- I deleted, or thought I deleted, Everything
But it still didn't work.
Then I deleted all my saves and saved sims,
then it ran perfectly!

So last night I brought back the save file I cared about, and put back in pretty much all of the CC I had before, and it still runs perfectly.

That said, I also updated overwatch and errortrap.  I'd updated these immediately after sims into the future came out, but it looks like they have a newer version now.

It might be that the old save files or saved sims kept the CC from completely purging?  I wish someone would explain how this makes sense (and perhaps how I can avoid future slowdowns).

[Tandrael]

I really love the Sims but I learned of this game las year so I don't have all of the expansion packs and I'm going slowly getting them because I really want to know what there is in each, cause there is so much!

Last time I got an EP (six months ago, maybe) my game started to get annoyingly slow, I even stopped playing for a while, but all of a sudden on its own it got working well. Yesterday I got a new EP (YAY!!!), but now my game is slow again… in fact it word of freezes like way too often. I'll just wait and see if it starts working well on its own. LOL: my game has it's own personality! I think what really happens is a new patch solves everything, but if it doesn't I'll know what to do!

[ewilson1114]

I have heard of a couple of people experiencing this problem back when IP came out but there seem to be more now with patch 1.63 and ITF.
I do know that the problem can jump from save game to save game if you don't exit out of the game after closing an "infected" save. So if you have a save game that is running slowly and you save (or even if you don't save), go to the main menu, and open a different save or start a new game then that save file will also experience the problem. However if you had exited the game and restarted it before opening the different save or starting a new one then you will not experience the problem.

I think the best way to prevent the slowdowns in the future is to either download the very latest ErrorTrap and Overwatch or to uninstall the Tree of Prosperity from the launcher. Twallan does update his mods fairly frequently after a new patch or EP so its good to check his "Update History" page daily for at least a month after release.