Unistalling store world, do I get to keep some of the stuff?

[Janna]

I have Aurora Skies installed but it is my least favorite store world.  The Roaring Heights looks like it could be fun to have.

What I am wondering is, if I uninstall Aurora Skies, I have the gold version, would I also lose the Education Center, the playpen and walker?  They came separate, yet also with the world. 
I know I will lose all of the windows, trees, flowers, clothes and such, but the items bought separate, some freebies that have been offered, do I lose those?  Houses that I downloaded from the game and made changes, will I lose those also?

I am figuring I will lose it all, but really want to keep the playpen and walker most of all.


I had to uninstall SEA when I bought IP, as my computer couldn't play with both of them.  I am also wondering if uninstalling AS would let me be able to reinstall Seasons?  I would give up RH to have SEA back. 
I might even be willing to give up RV, maybe, possible, not sure      

Input will be greatly appreciated.

[LivvieLove]

My thinking is, if you bought them as a set (together and downloaded them together) I would uninstall both, and then go to the Sims 3 website and re-install the lot, as it is sold separately. Then you could keep the walker and the playpen and not have Aurora Skies still installed.

As for the expansions that's more of a technical question. What happens when they are both installed on your computer? It might be a tech question to pose on the Technical Help board on our site. In order for me to help with the Seasons and IP expansions clashing I'd have to know a little more about what happens when both are installed because the only reason they shouldn't play well together would have to be something on your computer's hardware/software causing problems.

[jillz]

You should be able to go to the Sims 3 store and download the baby walker and play pen without downloading the entire world.

[Janna]

As to what happened, the game would stop playing, telling me that Sims 3 was unable to continue, don't remember the exact wording.
My son, who has some fairly good knowledge of computer said my computer was too old and not strong enough to handle all of the games, that as I played them more and more, files grew it was too much for my computer.
As soon as I uninstalled Seasons, the problems stopped.  It had started when I bought and installed IP. 


I had gone through and cleaned out everything, the cache, followed all the of the suggestions from the forums on what to do and nothing helped, except the uninstalling of Seasons.  My computer just can't handle it all. 

 
I guess it would have been better to ask in Tech help.  Wasn't thinking of as technical, which is a bit silly not to, when I do think of it.   


Thanks LivvieLove and jillz for the help

[LivvieLove]

Of course! I'm glad to help, but on the subject of the tech help, if you were to go post your computer specs on the technical help forum we might be able to get your game running. However, based on what you're saying with an older computer, the only option might have to be buying a new computer or lowering certain settings... however I've run into quite a few game-helpers that helped me run the Sims on my old Vista computer that didn't even have a graphics card! I can't make promises, but we can certainly give it a good look!

[Janna]

so, feedback in this will be greatly appreciated.  I am guessing that when I uninstall AS I can re-download the playpen and walker, maybe the Educational Center.

My son says that the store world are way to small for it make much of a difference in the area of uninstalling AS and RV and letting me reinstalling Seasons. 

So, what I am thinking of doing, if possible, is uninstalling AS, keeping the Educational Center, playpen and walker and buying RH after Christmas
Won't be able to re-install Seasons until I can bet a better computer.

[Seabody]

Rather than delete this thread, as others have already provided some good information in it, I'm going to merge it with your thread in Technical Help. In the future, you can ask a moderator to move a thread rather than repost.

[Janna]

Thanks, wasn't totally sure what to do, send a PM to one of the moderators asking for help in this.
Glad to get a quick response in what to do. 

[MrsFlynn]

Hi Janna,

Okay, so in all this talk, you've got me curious as to what your computer's specs are. Do you mind sharing them.  Maybe we can do a search on your computer and maybe help some?

MrsFlynn

[Janna]

I know zilch about computers, so this what I found in an area called System Information.  It is 3 or 4 years old

HP -HPE 400y
x 64-PC
AMD Phenom (tm)  (roman numeral 2) x4945
Processor 30000mh
SMBIO  Version 2.6
Install physical  8.00 GB
Total physical memo  8.00 GB
Available  6.15
Total memory  16.00
Available virtual memory 13.8
Page File Span 8 GB

I think I got that all right

I bought it for college work, not for playing games.  I have installed Oblivion (but never played it, son wants me to try it out)

Most of my other games are such as Jewel Quest, Mahjongs, Luxor, brain quiz's (which I need to do more often)
Do have Sims Medieval installed, didn't like it.

Sims games is base; WA, SN and IP, store worlds are RV, AS, MV, DV  I think that is it.
The only thing I like and hope to keep from AS is some of the houses I remodeled, (no bright colored type), the Educational Center, playpen and walker. 

 

Hope that helps.

When I had Seasons installed and added IP, it would constantly stop playing and tell me Sims 3 is not responding type box and then just leave the game.  A LOT of freezing, lagging, had problems with WA, which I never had before. Other weird things such as sims would go into the ground, head showing and not able to get back with resetsim. 

After uninstalling Seasons, all of the problems stopped, no trouble now other than basic; move to another town and some items didn't make it, a floating baby type things.  Some that needed the Resetsim type. Nothing major, just cause a grin type stuff.     

[LivvieLove]

I must admit this isn't how I'm used to seeing the specs of a computer written out, it took me a while to decode some of it to even research it.
AMD, as a brand, make both processors and graphics cards (comparable to Intel - which should be a familiar name with computers). Their brand specifies in efficiency and low power usages, while Intel focuses more on power and high performance.
In layman's terms, AMD is really good for general use, think school stuff, and Intel is really good for things that require high performance and detail... like gaming.

Something about your Virtual Memory has me stuck. I am above average in the computer technology bit, but I have never heard of that before. My dad and my brothers used to dissect a computer every year for christmas (ah, I miss those memories) since I was a baby, but I've always had a graphics card of some kind - whether it be integrated or not. Based off of what I'm reading it looks like your graphics card is coming from your ram. As in, your computer doesn't have a graphics card so it's compensating by separating your ram and designating it to focus on your graphics capabilities. Ram is a type of memory storage your computer has.
I was always taught and explained it as "your hard-drive is the long term memory storage, and your ram is your short-term." With that in mind, I can't imagine that this setup is very put together for gaming, as gaming itself seems to require it's own graphics ram already to be separated out in the form of a graphics card.

I guess my suggestion would be to turn your graphics settings all the way down on low while you play if you don't already, and when it comes to playing the game itself, make sure you don't keep a lot of background stuff going on or your game will definitely have issues (like your browsers/other things in the background). I'm not sure if you've tried that already, but there's also a free service I recommend called GameBooster, which is entirely safe to be downloaded. If you download it, it will simply become a menu for your games that you can launch and the gamebooster will shut down any unnecessary background things for you (asides the big ones like having a browser open, other windows open) so your game can run at full capacity. I can't promise that will be enough to let you run all of your expansions, but I can say that if you're not up for buying a new computer soon then it can help make the Sims run a little better for you.

Like I said I can't promise anything as I'm not overly versed in this type of technology (at least the wording of it), but I'm curious to see what Mr.Flynn were to say if he stopped by here, as he's always been very good with helping in the technology help part of our forum.   

[Janna]

I know that when I went to get my computer I was looking for strictly college work; the only games I had planned at that time were the small ones, Jewel Quest, Luxor type for a quick break.

My son told me I was making a mistake, I needed to look at one that could do both; that I may someday want games that require some umph to handle them.

He gets to say "I told you so" to me again      

I do know that I have the graphics setting in the game on high, for great background looks, everything that would make it sharp and clear, so that could, I guess, have an effect on it.

My son says he wishes now that he had went into computers, he has the knowledge and abilities, just didn't have the interest in it. 
I will brag on him and say that he is gifted, IQ of 147, was going to college to be a doctor when Wal-Mart gave him the wrong med.  Now he suffers neurological damage and can no longer attend college.  They won't do anything for him.  Back on topic.

He says there is no way my computer can handle over what I have on it.  That even if I removed the store worlds, that would not allow it to have the ability to play the expansion packs. 

Asked him this morning and he says I can have both AS and RH, but no other expansion packs until I can buy a new computer. And that will be at the least a year away. 

I still don't like AS and wouldn't mind removing it, but if I can have RH and not have to go through the hassle of uninstalling AS and what it would take to keep the Educational Center, playpen and walker, it would be worth it.   

[LivvieLove]

I'm sorry to hear about that with your son! He sounds like a very gifted man! I would recommend just removing the world then, as the playpen, walker, and Educational Center are separate and won't be affected by you removing Aurora Skies.
As for your computer, it probably won't handle the expansion packs well, but the worlds should be fine.

[MrsFlynn]

Hi Janna,

What we've been able to search is it seems by the notes, your computer's make is:

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-400y Desktop
AMD Phenom II X4 945

We've searched on it and found a specs page, but was wondering if that's the correct make?  And do you know anything about your graphics card? Hubby asks:

Part of it is we'd need to know what graphics card she has and how much physical memory it has.

If you're not sure how to find that out, let me know. I've got a how-2 on finding specs.

Edit --

Topic: How to: Find System Specs/Information (Window 7)
http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,18710.0.html

MrsFlynn

[MrsFlynn]

Hi Janna,

Here's what I got back from Hubby.

Hubby says, since it sounds like you have a lower end graphics card, the system has to try to compensate for missing things. Which is probably why it started crashing after Seasons, as it and IP are pretty graphics intensive.

As for saving the houses, Look at them before uninstalling AS to make sure there's nothing that needs to be replaced. There should be a list of items included on the AS page in the store.

Home > Worlds > Aurora Skies
http://store.thesims3.com/auroraskies.html?categoryId=12642

You can download the learning center, walker and playpen from their page. You'll need to download those, uninstall AS then install the downloaded packages. It won't restore all of the unique items from AS, but it should include some of them, maybe.

Home > Venues > Tiny Prodigies Early Learning Center
http://store.thesims3.com/setsProductDetails.html?productId=OFB-SIM3:61770

Hope this helps

Flynn and MrsFlynn