Island Paradise Freezing Issue

[blc1977]

Hi, I am new to the site, so I am not sure if this is the best thread to post this in but since the new patch (1.64, I believe it is) I have been having a freezing issue in Island Paradise. My Sim will freeze for about 5-10 seconds, sometimes longer, while the plumbob, water, sounds, are all still going but my Sim does not move, nor do any other Sims. I delete my cache files, featured items, and DCBackup Files quite (minus the ccmerge file) often but it still doesn't seem to resolve the issue.

I have spoken to EA-CS in the past for other issues and they have confirmed that my laptop is more than capable of running the game. I am trying to avoid going through them again, if other simmers have other suggestions that can help resolve my issue. I have Googled this issue and found many suggestions, most of which I have tried, but am hoping that someone out there knows something that I have not yet tried.

I only have 2 saved games in my Sims folder - 1 is Island Paradise, and the other is Hidden Springs. I don't use mods, but do have some CC downloaded from the Exchange only. I use no other site to download Sims 3 lots, etc. I don't want to have to uninstall/re-install or start as if I was starting from scratch as I have been a simmer since 2009 and have a lot of downloadable items in my purchase history that would take hours to install in my game. However, if this is something I must do then I will but as a last resort.

Please help!  Thank you.

[bubbles]

Welcome to the forum. I have that issue quite a lot, especially in my Dynasty file. I haven't found a fix yet and I think it's just one of those things you have to live with. However, I'm not sure if this is just me but it happens less when I use Save As on a regular basis.

[blc1977]

Welcome to the forum. I have that issue quite a lot, especially in my Dynasty file. I haven't found a fix yet and I think it's just one of those things you have to live with. However, I'm not sure if this is just me but it happens less when I use Save As on a regular basis.

Thanks for the welcome! I have heard good things about the forum from fellow simmers on the Sims 3 Community Site. In response to your statement, it probably is something I will have to live with but am hoping that I don't LOL. I know EA probably won't fix the issue and there will be no more patches coming out with Sims 4 launching this year, but I do know that I don't use the Save As option at all, to be honest. I only ever Save. And I don't generally have the freezing issue during the save process, just in the gameplay. So I am completely at a loss. If you find a resolution before I do - hook me up! 

[bubbles]

My game rarely freezes when saving either. Save As helps to minimise file ruining errors and is highly recommended in dynasties. I'm not sure what magic powers it has but it might help. Also, Isla Paradiso and Hidden Springs are very laggy worlds so maybe you should see if you have the problem in other worlds, such as Sunset Valley.

[blc1977]

Oh, well that would make sense. It sucks, but it makes sense. I don't have any other games created/saved other than in Hidden Springs and IP, and unless I want to start a new one, which I could, however, I have all these worlds downloaded and can't seem to find one that works well enough so that I can play through a whole generation! HAHA! 

[grumpykitteh]

There are routing issues with IP that EA has not addressed in patches. Ellacharmed at MTS has some "fixed" worlds which address and fixes these routing issues that are causing lag. Apparently one of the issues has to do with the Scott family trying to go to a community lot that EA deleted before the EP (or so I've read) was released or something like that, along with misplaced plants, etc causing stuck NPC & Townies which cause lag in the game. Some people have actually evicted the Scott family to correct this.  Also you may experience some lag if you are using Twallan's Story Progession Mod there are options in the Mod that you can control that will reduce the lag (more info at Twallan's website). I used Ellacharmed's "fixed" IP world and the lag although not completely resolved was greatly improved and at least made the world playable again. Hope you get some resolution, it's so frustrating to have such an amazing world like IP become unplayable with freezing and lags. 

[_Annika_]

Before I play in IP, I go around and do the following:

Evict Akoni Kahale and put him in a house on land;

Evict Rubisel Ichtaca and put him on land;

and bulldoze those two ports and houseboats you just freed up, plus one other port that has a pile of rocks near the stairs. I bulldoze that too.

Then there are a couple of spots where there are trees too close to the sidewalk, you can delete those.

The Ichtaca castle needs the front door area fixed, and remove some of the trees around the outside of the lot;

The Medina household needs an extra piece of wall next to the front door to stop Palmira being put down where she can't be reached. Also, at the start of the game their garage door needs opening.

Finally, the one sim that I can't find what his problem is that still gets stuck is Devin Han.

If you need to persist without moving sims out, Akoni Kahale and Rubisel Ichtaca are the two main culprits, and when the stuttering starts, you can almost guaranteed find one of them stuck just outside their lot, on the edge of the water.

[mystercee]

I had all sorts of problems when first playing IP. I found the information in this thread very helpful. Note Reply 64 contains a link to a blog with tutorial on installing mods and which mods work best to overcome freezing/lagging issues: http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,16695.0.html

Everywhere I looked I found that the "Scott" family was a common cause of issues, so they had to go.

Hope this helps you or anyone else experiencing problems with IP.

[Janna]

I've had nothing but problems with lagging to where I can't play the game.  Tried all of the suggestions and I thought it was going to work.
Started with my project family.  In it I had two sets of heirs and so I thought it might be too much doing two families, even though they are on different saves, they do interconnect.
Moved them out, then decided to return one of my families.  Did fine for a while, then it starts to lag HORRIBLY and the icing on the cake just happened.  My sim is swimming to build his athletic skills, wife is heading home from work, he starts making weird sounds and I see the sign that he is drowning. 
He is beside the ladder for heavens sake, what is wrong?  Naturally, it continues the lagging and with his wife coming home and the popup telling of how great a job she did and has gotten a raise, I can't seem to move from her icon to his to get him to climb the ladder.
Even if I could, one second play, next second freeze for five or more real time seconds, one second play, freeze for more real time seconds, one more second play, more time freezing. 
By the time it decides to stop the stupid lagging, he has died and there goes my plans for the ending of this story line. 

I know I am venting, but still, this is just total stupidity of the constant lagging. 

I am going to have to redo my ending, move my widow and her twins out of IP and uninstall it.  I'm going to reinstall SEA that I had no problems with, but had to remove so I could play IP.  But, still can't play IP. 

There is no lagging in my other towns, MV, DV, MF, AS, RV, SV, none of them lag, just IP.  I do have problems with WA now, none before IP.  Bet they will stop when I uninstall IP. 

[beardeux]

Hi everyone,  I'm relieved I'm not the only one exasperated with IP and the lagging problem.  I found this thread very useful.  I'm going to use the information to edit the town.  I found the Scott family to be very troublesome, but I make it a habit when I start a game in IP to visit this house and get rid of the obstacles in their home and also move the mailbox, all which prevent routing.  I like to have Chandell Scott as a girlfriend for one of my characters.  With the decorations removed they are no longer a problem and I don't delete them from the town.
  Thanks Annika for the other suggestions.  I'll do some editing and hope to see a difference.
  What is the difference between 'save' and 'save as' to the game and also to my game files in the Saves folder?  I have never used the 'save as'.  Do I constantly have the change the name of the new file?

[Janna]

The save and saves as is what I would think of as similar to saving word documents. Each document is given a different name to separate it from another one.

In a game right now, with IP I have the family saves as IP Lombardi.  The first time I played the game, that file, I saved as IP Lombardi 1.  When I returned to play it later, when I click on save as it shows IP Lombardi 1  I just add .1, which is then IP Lombardi 1.1.  Each time I do the save as I give it a different number 1.2; 1.3, - 1.9; 2; 2.1 and on.
This lets me go to previous saves to check something out; and if my game for some reason get a glitch and I can't continue that game, I can go back to an earlier save and start over without losing all that I have played earlier. 

As for Rubisel Ichtaca, I  had him as the mate for my sim and he died, the drowning as I stated earlier.  I went back to play, to get to a certain point, and almost all of my lagging, freezing stopped.  With him dead, I don't have as many problems.   I had moved him off the boat when he married Skylar, so it wasn't the boat that was the problem, as it sat empty.  When I moved them to another houseboat, it was one that Twinsmum created, and I have played on it before and no problems. 

Do all the suggestions that you can find, remove the Hideaway (not sure of name) resort, that is supposed to be a problem, make all of the islands discovered; if you are planning to do the search for hidden island you can't but otherwise I would just have them all show up. 
I honestly don't know if it was showing all of the hidden islands or the fact that Rubisel Ichtaca died is the factor in how severe my lagging was, I am just glad that I can now play it better.  Still have problems, but from a scale of 10 before it now at a 3.  Big difference.   

[beardeux]

Thanks for that info on the saves Janna.  I usually make saves at certain points also.  I keep backup file folders on another drive and I keep one called 'today' for intermittent saves during the day for important accomplishments, and also folders for certain towns, so that I can go back to certain points of the game in case of problems.  Also at the end of each day I back up everything.  So I suppose it would the equivalent of your 1.1, 1.2 etc.  I would never trust this game with just one save.
  I also made edits to IP town from Annika's suggestions and my game is playing much better so far (only a few hours later and I hope it will continue to).  I don't know if I have any issues with Rubisel.  Not so I've noticed anyway.  I also take the time when I start a new game to move each of the underwater caves to eliminate the resetting of sims problem.  It's worth the effort.
  I had given up on IP for some time.  It's on of my favourites but I couldn't deal with the lagging.  I just decided a couple days ago to give it another try but the lagging persists.  So until I found this thread I nearly gave up again.  It's just a war.  I'm currently playing a brand new game in IP so all the islands are presently unknown.  I'll look for the resort if problems pop up.  As long as the game plays well, I'll leave them for discovery.
  Thanks everyone and I hope everyone can find a way to make this island playable.