Using Aging Off/Story Mode Off - game takes 18 minutes to save

[edalbformat]

I'm finished now to assemble my special start hood. I got Aging Off so no one ages unless I use a birthday cake or the cheat "Trigger Birthday" No Story Mode so that no damn townie move into my empty houses. Problem is that the game is taking 18 minutes to save and this is 100% unacceptable once the game takes less than one minute to load in my computer.
Everytime I have to save the game I have time enough to go to the bathroom, prepare me a sandwich, eat it, burp 10 times and when I go back, the game is still on ....saving...
Anyone knows what can be the cause?
I have the awesome mod and about 10 small tuning mods that I checked also 10 times to be sure that they are not conflicting.

Another to point is that I had used the cheat "Max motives" and wanted to use the game cheat "Static Motives" so that I damn had time to adjust my Sims without having the crap moodlets interfering all the time. It showed that using the game cheat affect the awesome Max motives and make it further not useable (the game stops to recognize it).
For safety I renamed the awesome mod "zzzawesome" and it seemed to work.
The other way to make it work again is to quit the game, shut down the computer and start everything all over again. BUT to quit the game I have to SAVE it first - and this causes me to suckle my toes and stare at a screen for 18 hell boring minutes.

[J. M. Pescado]

I think that's just how EA's crapulent code works, it's not mod-related AFAIK and there's nothing we can do about it.

[Eliste]

I play with story mode off and Aging on, but TS2Aging enabled and I have the same problem. My condolences to you. Thankfully my game does not crash so I save only when I am done for today. Killing all NPCs did improve saving times somewhat (to about 12 mins from 20) and keeping sims' inventories (fridges, bookcases etc.) at minimum helps a bit too.

The moment I switch story mode on saving improves dramatically. One assumes that with story mode on only sacred households are actually saved and the rest are simply reset when with the story mode off everything is saved in detail. Am I right Mr.Pescado?

[Anach]

I've been living with save issues for a while now. Usually I get around 2 good saves before I start having issues with saving, and it's always one of three issues.

1. Endless save. Possibly the same as your 18 minute save, except I haven't waited around to see. I usually end-task, as it's quicker to redo the last day than wait for it.

2. Error Code 12/13. I haven't had 13 for a while, but 12 happens quite often, and at this point in time I have not found a working fix.

3. Save Crash. Simple CTD when saving.

What I have noticed in all these three scenarios is that the bad save files are usually much bigger than the usual saves. Also that they usually don't start showing up until later in the game, as the save sizes increase.

I've had these save issues before installing mods. Some have suggested it's 64bit Windows, but there is no evidence of that and my GF's PC is 32bit XP, yet she still gets them, just not as often (without awesomemod). I've reinstalled the game as recommended by EA, and it didn't fix it.

Originally I went through all kinds of system tests to make sure my RAM, CPU and HDD was in good health. So with all this, I can assume it's EA's fault and not anthing to do with AM or my own system.

[J. M. Pescado]

The moment I switch story mode on saving improves dramatically. One assumes that with story mode on only sacred households are actually saved and the rest are simply reset when with the story mode off everything is saved in detail. Am I right Mr.Pescado?

No, that's just utter hogwash. And I've never seen this issue, either. How big are these unusual saves?

[Anach]

Doing a little more investigation on the saving issue. Seems that after a certain time my game starts experiencing little bugs, which are hard to notice unless looking in the right place at the right time. One of those is textures go missing or turn black on certain objects, the other is that animations start doing odd things (arms on backwards.) Most of which to me sounds like a nasty memory leak, which would also explain the corrupt saves after a certain point. However, I can't really say what could be causing it.

I can say that my GF was getting some graphical corruption when having too many patterns installed. The more she installed, the less time she could play before having issues (she doesnt use mods, only official addons and player made patterns.) This could mean that the base game has a issue that is made more obvious by installing more packages and mods. Or that the packages themselves are causing an issue. I'm going to try removing some .package patterns and see If i get more playtime from doing so. It has to be something pretty common, as a lot of people report these save issues, and my guess would be crappy coding from EA rather than an issue with the package files or patterns themselves.

Keep in mind that I run a legitimate copy of the game, without any NO-CD cracks or such. I have all the EA addons installed, Awesomemod, some xml tweaks and a lot of patterns. While I can play longer than she can, it could be due to having twice the hardware she has.

[Zazazu]

How often are you saving and how long are you running your game for? What is your RAMmage? I have story-mode and aging on typically, save every sim morning, and run my game for about 12 hours a day (eh, I'm unemployed at the moment and will tab in and out to the 'net to forum and job search for my three-application-a-day quota, plus play other dumb casual games). A save takes around a minute. I've had story mode off and aging off a few times while I was dicking around, and didn't notice any increase in save time.

[edalbformat]

When I played with Aging on and Story Mode on, the game was also saving in 1 or 2 minutes. The problem started when  I got both off. It seems that for every new household included in the game it represents an increase of about 3 minutes in game saving.
All in one, it seems that the game included two possibilities that are not possible at all.
The hood must have about some 100 empty lots, what means we are only allowed to build houses for some crap townies.
You know, on the end this is a Barbie game.
I cannot play the retards created. I cannot recognize them not to mention that no matter how my couples look like, their children are simply water drops.
Besides, the game is simply tiring. I got headache and I cannot remember last time I got headache, I was almost believing that I had no longer one.
I'm back playing TS2.

[J. M. Pescado]

Are you people tabbing out when you save? Apparently, the save process is entirely suspended when you tab out and therefore doesn't finish.

[moondance]

No tabbing out, in my case.

My AwesomeMod neighborhood takes forever to save--or almost five minutes, anyway--and causes my computer to sound like it should be cleared for takeoff, what with all the fans kicking up to high speed.  The amount of time between saves seems to make no difference at all.  It takes forever to save even if I've JUST saved and haven't even done anything else.

My Indie Stone Mod neighborhood saves quickly, and the computer stays quiet about it.

Differences in the the two neighborhoods besides the mods:

The AwesomeMod neighborhood is older by about one generation of Sims.
In the AwesomeMod neighborhood I'm essentially playing the entire town, while with the Indie Mod Neighborhood only one household has been played thus far.
The AwesomeMod neighorhood has six or seven lots I've created in it (actually only four, but one--"cheap housing"--is plopped several times.)

I'll plop some of my custom lots into my Indie Mod neighborhood and see if that causes that one to take forever to save.

ETA: I plopped all my custom lots, and moved to another household, following the oldest child of the original household.  The game still saves quickly and without computer fuss.
 

[Anach]

No tabbing out, in my case.

My AwesomeMod neighborhood takes forever to save--or almost five minutes, anyway--and causes my computer to sound like it should be cleared for takeoff, what with all the fans kicking up to high speed.  The amount of time between saves seems to make no difference at all.  It takes forever to save even if I've JUST saved and haven't even done anything else.

My Indie Stone Mod neighborhood saves quickly, and the computer stays quiet about it.

Differences in the the two neighborhoods besides the mods:

The AwesomeMod neighborhood is older by about one generation of Sims.
In the AwesomeMod neighborhood I'm essentially playing the entire town, while with the Indie Mod Neighborhood only one household has been played thus far.
The AwesomeMod neighorhood has six or seven lots I've created in it (actually only four, but one--"cheap housing"--is plopped several times.)

I'll plop some of my custom lots into my Indie Mod neighborhood and see if that causes that one to take forever to save.

ETA: I plopped all my custom lots, and moved to another household, following the oldest child of the original household.  The game still saves quickly and without computer fuss.
 

I've had the save issues regardless of Awesomemod. They seem more related to the amount of data being saved. The further I progress in the game, the more likely I am to experience save issue. Early on in the game my saves were fine. Starting a new game and my saves are fine (with AM.) The problems show up once my main house gets to larger sizes, and I start manipulating more NPCs or adding other houses, and thus the save gets bigger. We arent alone in these save issues. If you do some googling like I have, you will find there are plenty of people with the issues I listed above. Everyone has a different "idea" as to why it happens. I've heard everything from cheats, cracks, 64bit, patching, piracy and mods to cause it, but I can dismiss most of those as I have several installed versions of the game running here, one has no Awesomemod, no cheating, no cracks, is 32bit and is legitimate, yet still gets the issue.

From all I've experienced with bugs around the time it starts having save issues, it seems to be more to do with a memory leak issue than anything else, and that problem seems to get worse as you progress through the game and obtain more items and more sims.  Take a look at your save game sizes. The bigger they are, the more data is being saved and the longer it will take to save. Mine are currently around 40Mb, and the GFs are around 35Mb, though they have been known to jump up to around 60Mb from time to time for both of us (remember she doesnt use any mods, just patterns.)

As for the act of saving. I never alt-tab when saving. The first couple saves usually work fine, and take about 20 seconds. After I've played a couple hours, I start getting issues with saving, such as crashing or error codes during trying to save.

I've recently tested my theory of mods possibly causing memory leaks and it doesnt seem to be related as nothing changed in terms of my save ability. I would guess that it's and EA problem and only crops up for players after they have progressed in the game and accumulated a lot of stuff. That seems to be when I start having issues and when the GF starts having issues. Which seems to be the case in your example above too. In one game you have no issues, but it's a fairly early game, where as the AM version has been played a lot longer.

[Eliste]

No tabbing out.

The size of the save file is about 63 Mb. I tried to load "no story mode" save and switch the story mode back on, aging on. I played for two sim days on fast forward without switching households and saved under different name. The save took the same 15 minutes as before.

It seems that once you play for a while with story mode off your game is irreversibly borked.

My legacy game, with story mode on, is in 5th generation now, save file 35 Mb, saving time 4 mins.

A new game with all humans but my chosen 12 dead, six new houses built (all the rest are still present as on startup, except empty now) but never unpaused saved in 2 seconds.

Edit:
It seems to me not the stuff so much as sims with all their traits and relationships that cause the game to bloat. Especially homeless and NPCs. I'll try to play a post apocalypse scenario (in empty hood and story mode off, no jobs, no maids) and report later.

[edalbformat]

One thing I started to suspect that can be the main cause for such delay, is a personal habit I got in TS3. When I am decorating or painting houses I use to save a special color combination that I need to use many times to get a special effect, like for example the darned Wall Painting. For example I wanted to paint a swimming pool to be completely merged to a lake for a special childish house that my partner is building. We both include special effects and we both save special pattern combinations to be retouched once the combinations available are either too dark, too yellow, too green, well, too much of something. You never find the combination you really want. Same for some clothing once I found out that the ugliest dress available in game can look fantastic with some right combinations. I can stop doing this but then I can blame EA for one more impossible possibility.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'd guess the problem is simply the amount of data bloat involved. Try typing "therapture" into the console and seeing if the problem persists.

[Daimon]

Pescado, that was ebil! 
I just managed to kill my entire neighborhood, trying that! I do have story mode on, unlike the OP, but I have the 20 minutes save problem too after installing some custom content -- which also fails to show in the game anyway. Meh.

[awrevell]

I'd guess the problem is simply the amount of data bloat involved. Try typing "therapture" into the console and seeing if the problem persists.

Pescado, that was ebil! 
I just managed to kill my entire neighborhood, trying that! I do have story mode on, unlike the OP, but I have the 20 minutes save problem too after installing some custom content -- which also fails to show in the game anyway. Meh.

My father was a Pentecostal preacher, so I grew up in church listening to sermons about the end of the world.  I was reading this thread and read Pescado's post and started picturing a ragged street preacher shouting "The end is here!" when I reached the command "therapture".   Then I proceeded to the next post and realized that was exactly what happened when you use that command, minus the street preacher of course.

Thank you for the much needed laughter!

[Anach]

Pescado, that was ebil! 
I just managed to kill my entire neighborhood, trying that! I do have story mode on, unlike the OP, but I have the 20 minutes save problem too after installing some custom content -- which also fails to show in the game anyway. Meh.

I have story mode on. What sort of custom content are you installing?

My GF was having issues after installing lots of .package patterns. It would reach a point where she couldnt save and was getting graphical corruption after installing a certain amount of patterns.

[edalbformat]

Forget  about it. I found out the reason for the saving delay and it has nothing to do with the suppositions.
The bug is that I downloaded an empty neighborhood somewhere (maybe at MTS2) that was supposed to have only empty lots, no families, anything. I was very happy to start my own hood from zero - Mistake!
I used the awesome "ListAllHomeless" and got a huge list of all the start personage from Sunset Valley - all of them - as homeless, just occupying space, whole families without a visible home.

Exported all my created families with houses and started a new hood, this time with all the original personage. Placed back one by one all the 20 families that I created in the supposed "Empty" hood. Entered the lots and everything was alright, all the characters in the correct family links, all the rewards, skill points, everything in order. Houses reset, pristina clean, the only thing, everybody had no wishes (I give a damn to wishes).

Saved every lot, saved the whole hood, saved more than excessive and every save took 30 seconds.

Problem solved.

[Anach]

Actually ive just done something similar. Using the listallhomeless command I found I had 59 unnamed NPC and about 6 named. I went and made each household sacred and then did the command JM suggested "therapture", which then purged everything but about 10 nameless NPC (unsure why they remain.) If that doesnt work right, then I'll try the export method.

[Daimon]

Pescado, that was ebil!  
I just managed to kill my entire neighborhood, trying that! I do have story mode on, unlike the OP, but I have the 20 minutes save problem too after installing some custom content -- which also fails to show in the game anyway. Meh.

I have story mode on. What sort of custom content are you installing?

My GF was having issues after installing lots of .package patterns. It would reach a point where she couldnt save and was getting graphical corruption after installing a certain amount of patterns.

I have about ten custom patterns, most of which don't show in the game. The REAL issues didn't begin until this morning when I attempted to add sims3pack files using Delphy's installer (not the monkey, the other one that -is- for sim3packs). Now my game takes 18-30 minutes to save, and graphical updates are chugging like my videocard was about to asplode. It takes the naked meshes almost two minutes to load into colour when I open a lot or visit a rabbithole. The packs I tried to add (did I mention most of them don't show in game either?) were EA shop stuff and some innocent looking clothes from Parsimonious and MTS. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me next that the EA stuff had an extra security check somewhere that is killing me, but I doubt that the two other sources would have that sort of thing.

Damn you, EA. I can afford to buy the game. I just don't -want- to. Damn you and your Securom.


ETA:

^O^     <--- screaming street preacher.

[rosenshyne]

I went ahead and made everyone in my neighborhood sacred, then raptured the rest. The game removed 149 sims, but saves still take about 6 minutes for me. Not as bad as 20, of course, but still annoying. So the homeless might not be the cause.

[Anach]

Dont know what could be causing your issues, but just in case, here's a few tips.

Even with a non-legit game, you can still use the ea launcher to install stuff. The recommendation is usually to disable the network connection first, though not sure if it really matters. Then to save diskspace, just delete the files from the downloads folder after. That's if you think you are having issues with Delphy's installer. I usually always clear cache files when installing new stuff, i just find it's more reliable.

As for extra protection. I doubt they are protected, as every person who downloads from the EA store gets the exact same links to files. Though always run those official sim3packs through the compressorizer, as most the time they wont work otherwise.

[Anach]

I went ahead and made everyone in my neighborhood sacred, then raptured the rest. The game removed 149 sims, but saves still take about 6 minutes for me. Not as bad as 20, of course, but still annoying. So the homeless might not be the cause.

I tried the therapture command without sacred and it removed 189 npcs. Then reloaded and used it after setting households to sacred in edit town mode. Again it said 189, but I doubt that it actually removed that many, that is probably just listing what it expected to remove if it wasnt for the sacred option. However, It did remove about 55 from the listhomeless. The problem is, i still had 10 NPC homeless afterwards, and then after returning to the game that number went up to 33 NPC.

Where do all these homeless "NPC" come from I wonder, and how can I be rid of them; do i need to be rid of them?

[rosenshyne]

Ah. Well, I know I had 70-ish NPCs and two homeless families. After The Rapture there were no homeless families, still 7 NPCs. I switched to different houses twice, pressed play for 5 seconds, then paused again, and had 9 NPCs and a homeless family. This was 4 am game time, so the family wasn't triggered by Story Progression. Where are these sims coming from?

[J. M. Pescado]

They're coming from your sims' careers. Since there is a minimum coworker/boss requirement, every time the game wishes to generate some coworkers or bosses, it will spawn a fambly and select someone from it.