TOOL: 3Booter, the Incooperative Game Kicker

[Neowulf]

Have you made TS3W Large Address Aware? It modifies the .exe to allow it to use more than 2gb. You might need to restore it when you want to update, but it should help. Otherwise, I think I've seen Pescado mention making a virtual RAM disk and installing onto that, but I don't think you have enough RAM to do that comfortably.

[J. M. Pescado]

None of those will really help. Ramdisking only improves your computer's speed when it tries to use the swap file. LAA is already default and only increases your RAM crash point to the maximum of 32-bit unsigned instead of 32-bit signed, but may cause other issues if the game performs signed math on memory addresses. None of these are magic bullets.

[Jeebus]

Are you sure the crashing isn't caused by some issue other than RAM?

[jezzer]

Seriously, I never had a RAM crash on TS3, even when I only had 3 GB.

[Capitaine Marie]

Are you sure the crashing isn't caused by some issue other than RAM?

I'm working on figuring that out.  I have an Intel Core2 Quad 2.4 GHz processor, as well as an ATI Radeon HD 3870x2, 1 GB video card; I'm pretty sure it's not those.  I've also just turned down some video settings in the game; and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm in the process of checking for bad CC.

[thesaint]

I am rather new to sims 3 and have been on the hunt for a few answers when I came upon this thread of a similar issue...

My game and system:

Game: Sims 3 base, WA, HLS, AM, LN, OL, GEN
System: Custom x58 gaming build, Core i7 950 quad, 12Gb DDR3 SDRAM, 2Gb Radeon HD 6950, Catalyst 12.1, Win 7-64

I do have many mods and packages installed mostly clothes, furn, and decorations.  Cleaned out bad and blacklisted cc to the best of my ability.

The issue I am experiencing is a number of FPS and GPU usage spikes.  Frequently, while playing, the GPU usage drops to 0% when technically should be working, then it starts and moves to around 50% to 60%, then suddenly back to 0%. Temps however never exceed 55C despite FPS spiking at around 600, probably due to factory custom  GPU cooling (MSI Twin Frozr III).

The game does tend to lag a bit and these spikes occur even while running with no cc at all.  

The game remains playable, albeit barely, but the spikes are irritating and I cannot figure out why the GPU usage hits 0%.  FPS limiter seems to have no effect.

I am an avid gamer on this PC (Elderscrolls games, SWToR, COH, WoT, AION, MSFlightSim, etc) and the Sims 3 is the only game I play that has this issue.

I wonder if any of you have this issue as well, or if this issue is related to the issues being discussed on this thread.

Danke!


(Postscript--discovered another EA gamer at evga.com forums that is experiencing a similar issue with battlefield 3 which leads me to believe this may be an EA coding issue and if so, not much can be done unfortunately.  Nevertheless, the issue continues.....)

[SocialSim]

Hello , I have a question about this tool .

So I been ussing it for a while before Show time was out , made a big diffrance in my game !

My question is now with the last patch 1.33 + showtime is it safe to use?

do I need to wait for a new version that is good to go with show time?

Just been getting tons of bugs with showtime which are probably not related but still woul'd love to know answer about it.

[kissing_toast]

Hello , I have a question about this tool .

So I been ussing it for a while before Show time was out , made a big diffrance in my game !

My question is now with the last patch 1.33 + showtime is it safe to use?

do I need to wait for a new version that is good to go with show time?

Just been getting tons of bugs with showtime which are probably not related but still woul'd love to know answer about it.

Did you ever need to update it before? If you're still getting the 30 FPS then it's working as intended.

[HomeschooledByTards]

Hello , I have a question about this tool .

So I been ussing it for a while before Show time was out , made a big diffrance in my game !

My question is now with the last patch 1.33 + showtime is it safe to use?

do I need to wait for a new version that is good to go with show time?

Just been getting tons of bugs with showtime which are probably not related but still woul'd love to know answer about it.

Did you write this badly on purpose? *shudder*

[geminia]

currently getting up to 80 fps with ATI's vsync on. No idea what's happpening. it was working up to patch 1.32

[PA]

FPS Limiter is still working for me on 1.33, haven't changed a thing since the Generations patch.

[geminia]

me neither , but there might be a chance that something got corrupted somehow...I was playing till 4am last night with no issues, and I even had the heating on. I will redownload and check again, once my GC cools down a bit.

ETA: Found culprit. Somehow an old version of booter has sneaked in my recent backup folder. The question is, how the heck was it able to kick the game? I thought last time that Pescado updated booter ,  he did so because the old one did not work anymore since they changed the TS3.exe file to TS3W.exe... I'm completely confused.

[SocialSim]

my screen turned pink - and my Nvidia driver stopped responding -than I was reading the geo force 550 gtx ti with sims 3 can't work for long time without getting hit when all the game options settings are set to the highest . just need to remember to close the game after use and never leave it open for long time - anyhow I download the latest nvidia beta drivers and removed the old ones and all looks good for now .

[Simelorian]

I have some advice for people struggling with problems caused by Nvidia Optimus. I am not sure if all systems with Optimus have this capability, however, I felt that it caused me enough frustration that I should let others know. After much disappointment with my new laptop, with Optimus causing crash issues with most automated AwesomeMod tools like "3Booter" and "AwesomeMod Updater", I found that you can shut optimus off.

*Note: The process may be somewhat different on your system. As long as you know how to get into the Bios menu of your system you should be able to do it from there.
*For reference my laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad T520.

1. Enter your bios menu by pressing the correct function key when you boot your computer (usually "F1").
2. Use the arrow keys to highlight the "Config" tab at the top of the screen.
3. There should be several menu options listed below. Scroll down with the arrow key to "Display" and press "Enter."
4. On the new screen use the arrow keys to scroll down to "Graphics Device" and press "Enter."
5. A pop-up dialog should appear with the options "Integrated Graphics", "Discrete Graphics" and "Nvidia Optimus."
6. Use the arrow keys to highlight "Discrete Graphics" and press "Enter."
7. To the right of "Graphics Device" it should now say "[Discrete Graphics]," this indicates that the system will now use the dedicated graphics card only.
8. Press "F10" to save the new settings and exit the Bios.
9. Start your computer normally and test. 3Booter, AwesomeMod Updater, etc. should run properly and no longer cause the "The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000005). Click OK to end the application." error. Your game should also run better.

[Basilo]

STUPID QUESTION ALERT!!!!!!!

Will the high fps kill a 660m?

[akmpe]

Why the heck ask? Why don't you just USE IT ANYWAY. The worst it can do is nothing. The best, save your card.

[Naiad]

STUPID QUESTION ALERT!!!!!!!

Will the high fps kill a 660m?

Yes, why shouldn't too much heat melt it?

[FireFliesBurn]

I just installed 3booter. When I first fired up the game in the upper left corner of my game was a small, black box, with numbers. I'm assuming that's normal? Well, when I loaded up my game for the second time the box wasn't there. I hit F10 (not sure if that was right or not), and no black box showed. Does that mean it's no longer working?

[kissing_toast]

I just installed 3booter. When I first fired up the game in the upper left corner of my game was a small, black box, with numbers. I'm assuming that's normal? Well, when I loaded up my game for the second time the box wasn't there. I hit F10 (not sure if that was right or not), and no black box showed. Does that mean it's no longer working?

You should always get that "little black box."

[FireFliesBurn]

O.K. I just need to figure out what went wrong then. I have all the files placed in  Program Files>Electronic Arts>The Sims 3. Or should I move them to my Seasons folder?

[kissing_toast]

O.K. I just need to figure out what went wrong then. I have all the files placed in  Program Files>Electronic Arts>The Sims 3. Or should I move them to my Seasons folder?

No, everything is now ran from the base game folders. You are using 3booter.exe to run the game, right?

[FireFliesBurn]

Yes, I'm using 3booter.exe to run the game.

[witch]

I think the poster is talking about the fps numbers, not the command prompt window. I think it's something like F12 to turn it on and off and my numbers don't show at all. No, it's not F12, but I know there's a toggle.

[FireFliesBurn]

Okay! Thanks for the info. I have no idea why it worked the first time then decided to stop working. But on the bright side I can play my game longer before it crashes.

[witch]

Having the FPS numbers displayed has always been kind of random for me, they occasionally make an appearance, but not since Win7.