Sims 3 pets I don't have strays animals !

[_Sophouille_]

Hello there... I hope there are still people alive around here

Since i bought the game several months ago i got a little "problem", 60 hours later i never met any strays animals althrough i bought gnomes, put bowl of food in front of my house... but i guess the game doesn't make them spawn or even generate them and i dunno why...

I don't have mods or custom contents, i created 3 games in appalosa and everytime the same problem... Someone got this issue ? And how could I fix it ? :/

[puzzlezaddict]

@_Sophouille_ There are still people around and answering questions, even if not as many as before.

Pets is the most demanding expansion pack in TS3, and stray animals are a big contributor.  If your computer's hardware is borderline, the game itself may dial back the options to try to keep things running smoothly.  It would be helpful if you could run a dxdiag and attach the results to a post here.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

Another possibility is that you have a mod that's controlling, and in your particular case basically eliminating, the stray population.  NRaas Register is a popular option, although certainly not the only one.  So let me know if you have any mods installed that might govern strays.

[_Sophouille_]

wow i didn't expect a so quick answer !!

As said, i don't have any mods  (i don't know how to use them xd) and i'm playing on the Steam version with other expansion packs (generation, university, ambitions, season...)

Here the results, I hope it's able to help you to find where's the problem xd

[puzzlezaddict]

@_Sophouille_  Okay, there are a couple potential issues I see, although your hardware is fine; in fact it's great for TS3.  (Sorry about the mods comment; I might have a few threads open at the same time right now, and it's really too early for that kind of thing.)

The first thing to address, if you haven't already, is your in-game frame rates.  TS3's fps limiter doesn't work, and your card is powerful enough to eventually damage itself from overwork if you don't cap fps.  You can see your frame rates by bringing up the cheats console (crtl-shift-c) and entering "fps on" without quotes.  A number will appear in the upper right corner of your screen, and it should never go above 120, the refresh rate of your monitor.  ("fps off" makes the number go away.)

For an Nvidia card, the first tool to try is the built-in Control Panel.  But it doesn't always work, and it never works in windowed mode, so Nvidia Inspector (free download) is next on the list.  For each one, you'll want to set up a profile for TS3 using TS3w.exe, with the "w," as you're on a Steam install.  Here are screenshots of the setups for both apps, under the spoilers:

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/16540301/#Comment_16540301

It's possible, though unlikely, that excessively high frame rates are causing the lack of stray animals.  More probable is that TS3 doesn't recognize your hardware properly.  This can be an issue with newer graphics cards in particular.  But it's certainly fixable.  If you could copy the first 40 or so lines from your deviceconfig into a post here (stop when you get to the list of game options), it will show what the game makes of your system.  The deviceconfig is in Documents\EA\TS3.  You can delete your machine name and username, but none of the other info is specific to you or your computer.

[_Sophouille_]

np about the mods ahah ! But Question : How do you know all these things ? xD

Well, my computer makes sims 3 go largely above 120fps... it's around 250 O.o absolutely insane i didn't know it was possible

i don't dare to edit this file, idc if you see my name lmao it is not shameful

DeviceConfig.log

[puzzlezaddict]

@_Sophouille_  The deviceconfig is just a log file, output from the game.  It gets updated each time you play, and if you delete it, a new one will spawn.  The relevant info is here, in bold:

=== Graphics device info ===
Number: 0
Name (driver): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
Name (database): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 [Found: 0, Matched: 0]
Vendor: NVIDIA
Chipset: Vendor: 10de, Device: 1c20, Board: 10111043, Chipset: 00a1
Driver: nvldumd.dll, Version: 24.21.13.9924, GUID: D7B71E3E-5F60-11CF-3755-1C301BC2D535
Driver version: 9924
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY1
Texture memory: 32MB <<OVERRIDE>>

TS3 doesn't recognize your card, which is easy to fix, and it may improve your graphics a bit.  More important is the texture memory override.  This means that the game doesn't see or use your card's VRAM, so it sets the value at the minimum 32 MB.  This is even easier to fix.  It might also be the cause of your lack of strays—the GPU memory rating of 1 (at the top of the deviceconfig) may cause the game to dial back the spawning of strays, as well as any other functions it thinks your card can't handle.

If you want your card recognized, let me know, and I'll show you which files to edit.  (Again, I promise it's easy.)  For the texture memory, you need to edit your graphicsrules.sgr file.  For a Steam install, you'll find it here:

Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

First, copy graphicsrules and paste it somewhere safe, so you have a backup.  Then open it and find this, 8-10 lines down:

if ($textureMemory == 0)
seti textureMemory 32
setb textureMemorySizeOK false

Change it to:

if ($textureMemory == 0)
seti textureMemory 1024
# setb textureMemorySizeOK false

So you're adding the # and a space, and changing the number to 1024.  Your card has far more VRAM than that, but TS3 can only use 800 MB anyway.  When the edit is done properly, the device config's texture memory figure will be 1024 instead of 32.

Still, the in-game fps does need to be addressed, whether it's causing the lack of stray pets or not.  Your graphics card doesn't need to be working nearly that hard.

P.S.  I know a lot about TS3 because I've played on and off for over eight years now.  But these things specifically I learned from reading the posts of other helpful people, and asking questions when I didn't understand.  I'm very lucky to have found several players who've been quite generous with their time and happy to explain anything I wanted to know.

[_Sophouille_]

I edited what you told me to do... I hope i didn't make something wrong, I put the # and the 1024, Could my game crash if i put more than one space ?? ^^'

And yes i would like to make my video card as known by the game, can you explain me how to do it ? I would like to fix everything, and i still have to fix the problem with the "too high" FPS...

[puzzlezaddict]

@_Sophouille_  I've never tried it with more than one space, but you can delete and re-add the spaces if you're worried.  Or you can delete the copy you were working on and replace it with the backup.  However you go about it, you'll know that you've done the edit correctly when the deviceconfig lists your texture memory as 1024.

I'll send the instructions about getting the card recognized by PM, since it will be specific to your card.  Otherwise, someone else might try to use the text on a different card, and that could be a problem.

And yes, the fps does need to be fixed.  If Control Panel and Inspector don't take care of it, there are other tools to try, but this isn't something that can be ignored.

[_Sophouille_]

thanks for the PM, i'm going to do everything you said but i cannot send you what you asked (Unsupported extension type), sorry

[puzzlezaddict]

@_Sophouille_  If you mean the deviceconfig, you can open the file and copy the section about your graphics card, then paste it into a response.  But you don't need to send it to me; just let me know what it says.