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

[rosenshyne]

But no one new got a job in the 5 second interval. Is the game changing bosses/co-workers behind the scenes?

[Anach]

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.

So it can be expected that number will fluctuate. At least I got rid of the named homeless duplicates that I had. Oddly most of them seem to be copies of new Single Sims i had moved into town. Yet those particular sims are still in town, but their duplicates are no longer listed.

However, from the looks of it, I can pretty much eliminate this as the cause of my save issues.

[J. M. Pescado]

There's a command to wipe out clones of your sims, too, if they somehow snuck in from the library before you could install them.

[Anach]

There's a command to wipe out clones of your sims, too, if they somehow snuck in from the library before you could install them.

Oh that might be handy. What command would that be. I didn't see anything like that under help.

[Daimon]

Just a thank you to Anach for good ideas. I ended up just doing a fresh install and patch though, and for some reason this solved everything. Something, somewhere must have gone corrupted on me, but I have no idea what. :/

[J. M. Pescado]

Oh that might be handy. What command would that be. I didn't see anything like that under help.

Should be "nukeimpostors". Will wipe out any fambly containing an impostor of any sm in the current fambly.

[Anach]

Oh that might be handy. What command would that be. I didn't see anything like that under help.

Should be "nukeimpostors". Will wipe out any fambly containing an impostor of any sm in the current fambly.

Cool thanks. Ill try it out tonight after the movie.

[JBoat]

After a while I discovered that the save-error always seemed to happen when the memory used by the game increased to 2Gb + ! That in mind I had a look into the INI-files in the Game/Bin folder and - bingo - I found the following in a file called "Sims3.ini":
A few lines down from the top there is a paragraph called "[ResourceSystem]" where it says: "MemoryUsageLimit  20000000".
So I changed that into: " MemoryUsageLimit 40000000" ! (Since I have 8Gb of Ram in my Computer and the game runs on a 64 bit system where you should be able to use the whole 8Gb of memory even if a software is coded in 32-bit machine code.)
And voila! For the next 5 to 6 game saves everything was fine. But then the error occurred again (of course it had to).

It was a worthy idea, but unless the executable was compiled to run with 64-bit addressing, it won't take advantage of extra memory.  The exe will only address up to 2gb without that being done.  There are certain utilities on the web that reportedly allow "patching" of the exe so that it can address more, though I would be skeptical about their success with a game that was intended to be run on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.  Perhaps later I'll backup my exe and find out, though I'm crunched right now working on a new Sims 3 mod.

I'd be curious to know if you looked in the task manager while that ini tweak was active, and saw any increase in the memory use for TS3.exe, or if it was still around 2gb or less.

[Anach]

Hi,
I just have been reading this threat and first of all I want to say that I experienced just the same problems that have been mentioned here: endless saving, save crash to Desktop on every second or third save... and so on. Maybe it's useful for you to know that I am playing the Game on a Win 64 system (WIN XP 64 prof) and that I have seen these things now for quite a while. I can not remember whether it was right away from the day where I bought the game, but I am 100% sure that the first time I watched this happening ( or should I say: not happening) was BEFORE I had installed any MODs. So I come to the same conclusion as somebody before here in this thread, I guess it is a problem with the original EA software.
In order to find out a little bit more about what is going on, I have watched the Windows Task Manager (on a second monitor) while playing the game. After a while I discovered that the save-error always seemed to happen when the memory used by the game increased to 2Gb + ! That in mind I had a look into the INI-files in the Game/Bin folder and - bingo - I found the following in a file called "Sims3.ini":
A few lines down from the top there is a paragraph called "[ResourceSystem]" where it says: "MemoryUsageLimit  20000000".
So I changed that into: " MemoryUsageLimit 40000000" ! (Since I have 8Gb of Ram in my Computer and the game runs on a 64 bit system where you should be able to use the whole 8Gb of memory even if a software is coded in 32-bit machine code.)
And voila! For the next 5 to 6 game saves everything was fine. But then the error occurred again (of course it had to).
So now my conclusion was, that the problem had to be something memory-related and probably happens because the memory management of the program seem to be buggy or at least doesn't handle every situation as smoothly as it would be considered.
In another file called "default.ini" I found some entries that are restricting the harddisk-based cache files such as "SimCompositor-cache" etc. to a certain length or size. This is interesting 'cause I think I have seen, that the save-crashes only appear when the limit size of those files wasn't fully reached yet. However I m not quite sure about that. Anyway this would explain that it can "cure" your game temporarily when you erase the cache files (until the have grown to maximum size again)

Hope that was helpful for some of you.
Thanks for reading.

I am running x64 Windows 7, with 8gig RAM. I have heard rumour of this problem being more prevalent on X64 versions of windows, but not limited to x64. If it's caused by memory leaks, then there is probably nothing we can do about it. Increasing the memory may extend the play time, but not much else. I've yet to see Sims3 use more than about 1.6gig of RAM.

I did notice that the time I can play and successfully save for is reduced if using the plan outfit or change appearance options. It seems loading those interfaces can not only be prone to crashes themselves, but often when returning to game I will experience missing textures and other anomalies, whcih again seems to look like a ferocious memory leak problem.


Im interested in whether your game has a large number of controlled sims? Most the issues with saving seem to be from people who have progressed in the game quite some way. Myself I have about 7 sims in my household. Surprisingly my GF hasnt had a save issue for some time now, and she has edited a lot more objects than me. Her house is bigger, her town has more custom buildings, but she only has 3 sims compared to my 7. However, she is also using 32bit XP with 4gig RAM.

[edalbformat]

We here are comparing two different computers running XP 32bits. I am in an Intel 2.4 Ghz processor with 2GB RAM, File Page Code 4096MB, NVidia 8600GT with 512MB RAM.
My friend has an AMD 3.8 with 4GB RAM, File Page Code 4096MB, NVidia 7800GT with 256MB RAM.
I get better game performance than her, besides that I managed to make my graphic card to accept Very High Sim Detail, hers doesn't even start if done so.
I'm noticing that at every save the time increases of some seconds. I count how many times the saving wheel spins at every save. It increases of 3 spins at every save. So, it is really a problem that is only temporary solved and will sure repeat again.

[JBoat]

Sorry - I didn't verify that yet. Maybe it was only my imagination but I really had the impression that the game didn't (save-) crash as much as before. Anyway it does make sense to increase that 2Gb to 4Gb if you have enough memory on your system (like in my case 8Gbs) since even Win 32 is capable to address 3.4 Gb of memory.
Apart from that I wonder whether you are right.

While XP itself can address up to 3gb with the proper configuration, 32-bit applications cannot without being edited first, and/or recompiled.  Even after being enabled for it, they have to physically *want* to address larger space (like with the ini setting).  So unless all three are happening, it's just a placebo / voodoo effect.    I have had it make a difference in other games in the past on XP, but have moved past that to the wonderful world which is 64-bit now.

Perhaps after SLAM is complete, I'll visit it and see if it makes any performance difference on Vista 64, since applications here have a native shell within which to acquire more memory after being edited.  I don't personally have any performance issues though - even my saves only take 10 seconds or so.  RAID too is a wonderful thing.

Keep toying with the idea however - there is a slim chance it could pay off and work.

[Anach]

Ive been doing some testing this past couple days, and this is what i've found so far.

1. If I save twice per sim day, I can usually only make 2 saves before it fails with either error or CTD at the end of saving (bad save.)
2. If I wait longer before saving (2 days) I have higher chance of getting error code 12 the first time I try to save.
3. After the second successful save, I often end up with graphical glitches, such as missing textures (black bodies, or black UI objects.)
4. If I reload a game after getting the missing textures from saving, I still have black objects. I need to clear the cache files to fix the missing texture issues.
5. Error code 12 can usually be bypassed by removing all saves from my save directory and attempting to save again.

It seems to me that the saving issues arent a game problem, but more of the save manager itself. It does seem that saving the game somehow causes cache corruption and often has an issue with the overwriting of existing saves. It is also possible that saving expedites the issue of the memory leak. So most likely there is nothing we can do to fix it and have to wait for another patch.

[moondance]

Strangely, my Indie Mod neighborhood still saves quickly.  Maybe when they killed EA's version of story progression they also inadvertently killed whatever caused saves to take forever on older neighborhoods.

[JBoat]

Sorry - I didn't verify that yet. Maybe it was only my imagination but I really had the impression that the game didn't (save-) crash as much as before. Anyway it does make sense to increase that 2Gb to 4Gb if you have enough memory on your system (like in my case 8Gbs) since even Win 32 is capable to address 3.4 Gb of memory.
Apart from that I wonder whether you are right.

While XP itself can address up to 3gb with the proper configuration, 32-bit applications cannot without being edited first, and/or recompiled.  Even after being enabled for it, they have to physically *want* to address larger space (like with the ini setting).  So unless all three are happening, it's just a placebo / voodoo effect.    I have had it make a difference in other games in the past on XP, but have moved past that to the wonderful world which is 64-bit now.

Perhaps after SLAM is complete, I'll visit it and see if it makes any performance difference on Vista 64, since applications here have a native shell within which to acquire more memory after being edited.  I don't personally have any performance issues though - even my saves only take 10 seconds or so.  RAID too is a wonderful thing.

Keep toying with the idea however - there is a slim chance it could pay off and work.

Just an update on this idea for game speed, lag, and save times...

I went and backed up my TS3.exe, patched it with the generally accepted 4gb patcher on the web, went and edited all relevant ini settings to be a full factor larger (not just 2x, but 10x), and haven't seen it use any more memory than usual in the task manager (1.4-1.6gb).  Going to keep toying with the idea, though I don't think it'll pay off without future 64-bit support from EA.

[Lissa]

Moondance, my game with Awesome mod installed, takes 25 minutes to save.  So I would like to try Indie mod--do you uninstall Awesome when you want to play the Indie neighborhood?  If so, can I do that when I have Supreme Commander enabled?  I've checked out the Indie mod, and though it looks good, would rather use Awesome, but if Indie will reduce my save times I may soon have no choice.

[JBoat]

Moondance, my game with Awesome mod installed, takes 25 minutes to save.  So I would like to try Indie mod--do you uninstall Awesome when you want to play the Indie neighborhood?  If so, can I do that when I have Supreme Commander enabled?  I've checked out the Indie mod, and though it looks good, would rather use Awesome, but if Indie will reduce my save times I may soon have no choice.

Mine takes ten seconds (timed it once).  Perhaps there's something amiss with your computer to have it run this slow.  Defragged and cleaned-out hard disks?  Sufficient and static Windows paging file set correctly?  Enough RAM?  Not running anti-virus while you play?  Not running a hundred other programs while you play?

[Lissa]

Thanks, I'll check out these things--should have enough RAM though--both my husband and a computer expert friend say that I have humongous amounts of RAM.

edit:  I can figure out how to check everything but the "sufficient and static windows paging file set correctly"  How do I do this and what should the correct values be?

[JBoat]

Depends on what OS you are running, but it is basically in the same area.  Here's a quick and dirty page that gives you an idea where to look.  I normally set it to 2x RAM, but never more than 6gb.

What I think is happening to you Lissa, is that your hard disk subsystem is slower than the rest of the computer (CPU/GPU/Memory).  This is a common problem in off-the-shelf style computers like you'd buy from Dell, in that most people don't pay attention to the speed of their hard disk, just it's capacity.  One thing I found very important with Sims 3 - it stores savegames and cache files in your My Documents folder, which means if you haven't defragged that it will chug and chew on the disk like a rabid dog.

My particular setup is going to be faster than most, due to having 3 fast drives in a RAID stripe array, and a Quad core CPU.  But you should never have to wait more than 1-2 minutes for a save regardless, if your system is tuned well.

[Lissa]

Thank you, JBoat, I'll defrag tomorrow morning and quiz my husband and friend about the hard disk subsystem.

[Entgleichen]

I stumbled into this problem lately, when I got my first Error 12 messages. Along with that, saving, be it successful or not, was taking more and more time. Searching for what's causing this I did a few tests:

Two Neighborhoods, number one: week 1, day 4.
Number Two: week 31, day 7.

Took every mod out except Awesome, and then took even that out. I let those Neighborhoods run just a few seconds, then saved. This took normally about 40 seconds, except the constellation I'm usually playing with, the week 31, day 7 one, with Awesome in. This one took 13 minutes to save. And as the game progresses, this time will even grow further as it did until now. So I can choose between several unacceptable choices: not to save much often by risking an error 12 rendering hours of playing useless, or, saving often and not having any game flow at all, or, taking Awesome completely out and having an unacceptlable gameplay this way. None of these choices is appealing to me. Never heard of the Indie mod, though, maybe I should look into that.

[moondance]

Moondance, my game with Awesome mod installed, takes 25 minutes to save.  So I would like to try Indie mod--do you uninstall Awesome when you want to play the Indie neighborhood?  If so, can I do that when I have Supreme Commander enabled?  I've checked out the Indie mod, and though it looks good, would rather use Awesome, but if Indie will reduce my save times I may soon have no choice.

Well, you have to uninstall Awesomemod to use Indie, so yes, though to "uninstall" one mod to temporarily use the other, what I actually do is rename it by changing the filename extension.  I also do that with my neighborhoods, and the neighborhoods themselves are named after whichever mod they are associated with.  So when I load up Indie, the only neighborhood(s) that show up as available to play are Indie neighborhoods, and ditto for Awesome. 

It may not matter though. This hasn't happened to me yet, but I've seen a few reports now of people using Indie also complaining about their games taking a while to save, so mine will probably become slow soon too, since my Indie 'hood is beginning the 4th generation. 

What gets me about it though is that, at least in my game, the long save times occur suddenly, rather than getting progressively longer as the neighborhood gets older and larger. I played one neighborhood for at least two weeks--long enough for my original family to be on its 6th generation, all saves were quick, and then all of a sudden, it happened. I saved once and it was quick and painless, saved again maybe fifteen minutes later and it took around five minutes. And after that, that neighborhood always took a long time to save, so I gave up and deleted it.  I've started new neighborhoods that became slow to save on the 2nd save, and others that took two or three days to become slow savers. It's just weird.

[Lissa]

Voodoo, then.  Do you suppose long saves relates at all to how many families in the neighborhood you play?  I play every family in game, and add more of my own.  I had thought that once Pescado had story mode whipped I would switch to playing 5 or 6 families and turn off TS2 style aging, but saves are increasing so rapidly I fear for the state of the game itself, and think I might have to go back to TS2.  It took forever to load but that was after years of play, installing all but one of the expansion packs, and tons of custom content.

Oh well, off to defrag.

[J. M. Pescado]

I play like a dozen famblys, so that isn't it. I think it's purely dependent on whether or not you have a dangling pile of garbage somewhere. Error 12 seems to resolve itself if you just wait for it and keep playing a bit, and try to save later. If not, you can see how big your save files are getting. Try using "purgereactions" or somesuch.

[Lissa]

I'll do that.  At present I have completed disk cleanup and started defrag at 8 am--it is 10 am here now, and is 30% done.  I'm glad to hear it may be possible to play many families--I'm obsessive about my games.

[JBoat]

I play like a dozen famblys, so that isn't it. I think it's purely dependent on whether or not you have a dangling pile of garbage somewhere. Error 12 seems to resolve itself if you just wait for it and keep playing a bit, and try to save later. If not, you can see how big your save files are getting. Try using "purgereactions" or somesuch.

Just FYI - I use purgereactions every night in my game (sim nights), and almost every night it purges a few danglers.  Seems to keep some proverbial ghosts at bay, which is good, but I have no idea where they come from to begin with.

Additionally, I have noticed a lot of famblys moving around in my game, though people like the Landgraabs have yet to which is good.

Lastly - through my sim's entire Science 10 career, he didn't have even 1 boss.  And he only ever had 2 co-workers (long lifespan was enabled).  I thought the second was to be expected, but the first was highly irregular in Sims 3 for me.  I've played 4-5 other sims in the science track before using AwesomeMod, and they all had bosses at some point.  It might have been "broken" before, but it certainly was more immersive when it was.  Not having a boss, ever, was really an immersion breaker.