February 2019
My Sims world (Sunset Valley - no mods or custom content) is constantly freezing. I've played it for over a year and it's never done this before. Now, whenever I play, they'll be really slow for about 4 seconds, then it'll stick for about 7, then slow again. It's constant and I don't know how to fix it. I've tried the resetsim cheat with no luck.
February 2019 - last edited February 2019
@escapedpolarbear The resetsim cheat is great for getting sims unstuck, and will relieve the stress on the game engine from constantly trying to reroute them, but it doesn't clean up glitches or any kind of corruption.
Have you deleted your cache files lately? Now's a good time to do it again. Here's the list:
If that doesn't help, you might need to generate a clean game folder to play in. Drag your existing TS3 game folder out of Documents and onto your desktop, and a new one will spawn with no content the next time you launch the game. Load a new save in this folder just to make sure everything works, and then you can copy your existing Saves folder in to the new game folder. Don't worry if you get a notification about missing items; you don't need to save your progress. (This is just a test to see if your save runs any better.)
If the save works in the clean folder, you can start transferring your other content into the new folder from the old one. Here's a list of all the files inside, along with explanations of what they do and whether you'd want to keep them:
https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/01/faq-user-files.html
If the save still runs slowly in the clean game folder, there's one more trick I can suggest that doesn't involve mods. Let me know if you need it.
February 2019
February 2019
@escapedpolarbear It sounds like the extra data could have pushed your game over the edge. There are plenty of reasons that TS3 might crash, and many of them are random emough that you don't have to worry in general, once you've gotten past whatever event is causing trouble. But one potential cause that would need to be addressed is an out of resources condition, specifically a lack of RAM. This could happen because a well-progressed save hit the game's own memory limit (about 3.7 GB), or because your computer itself doesn't have enough RAM installed to handle both TS3 and whatever else you're running. If you keep seeing crashes, it's worth investigating, but it could also be a one-time thing.
Anyway, the clean game folder is a good idea in general, but probably not necessary unless you continue to experience problems. (It won't hurt, though, so you can try it if you want.) You could also experiment on a copy of your save game, moving out some of the sims and seeing whether it runs better with only three or four in the house. I'm not suggesting you cut down the number of sims in the household because of this, but the test would let you know whether the frozen sims are a performance issue or something to do with save corruption itself.
You could also run a dxdiag and attach the results to a post here, if you want me to take a look at your system overall. In that case, I'd also like to know which packs you have installed. But again, if your game runs fine going forward, it's not really necessary—the dxdiag is for when you keep having issues that you can't solve with game folder cleanup and the like.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
P.S. If you don't want a burglar to mess with your sims, just do a cheat console reset before the alarm goes off. If you enter resetsim Robbie Bland (or whoever), the criminal will disappear, and the cop won't show up.
February 2019
February 2019
@escapedpolarbear I'd still like to see a dxdiag, but in the meantime:
February 2019
February 2019
February 2019 - last edited February 2019
@escapedpolarbear I didn't know you were on a mac. Dxdiags are Windows only; the command doesn't exist in mac OS. Instead, you can just post your specs, as described here:
There are also other considerations when playing TS3 on a mac. But it's best to start with specs. You can list them or attach a screenshot; just make sure to leave out your serial number.
Edit: And also check the free storage. You can see it by clicking the Storage tab under About This Mac.
February 2019