More Awesome Than You!

I am very new to AwesomeMod. I got it but never installed it, then finally got over it and love it! Only thing is... at 1am my cpu useage goes from 60% to 100% and for an hour sim time I can do nothing but watch it lag. It's not huge... my sims are usually sleeping then anyways, but it's still a bother. I searched and found this on the FAQ at MTS2:

Q: My game slows down or stops entirely at 1:00 AM or 5:00 AM. What's going on?
A: At 1:00 AM, EA's story progession makes its changes--people are given babies, people move, people are made fat or slim, people change jobs, as so forth. Installing a mod that forces those changes to make sense instead of being completely random can make this process take excessive amounts of time. At 5:00 AM, the game can also slow down on lots with gardens, as gardens do their growing and calculations about needing water or fertilizer at that time.

So my question is... is there a few configs I can change on the mod that will remove this issue or would I just have to remove the whole mod?

Non-EA story modes eliminate this procedure entirely in favor of a better-optimized one. Try the IndieStone Mod plugin (NOT CORE) or the (still in testing) AwesomeStory.

Can we sticky this thread?

Thanks. I guess I'll look into AwesomeStory.

I had a feeling that those hiccup hours were due to things like that.
If only they found a way to make it not hit so hard.

My computer is pretty decent. It's no quad Core and I don't have beyond the Memory I can hold with my OS.
but It still hits me hard and frustrates me.

Mine IS a quad core, and I have 4gb RAM, but it still hits me pretty hard (well, I haven't played Sims 3 in nearly a month, but I don't think it has changed)

As kuronue already explained (I've been writing that a lot lately), by using either the Awesome story driver, or the Indie Stone mod (not the core) in conjunction with AwesomeMod, this will eliminate the 1 AM lagging and freezing by spacing storymode events throughout the day, instead of all at once at 1 AM (which, incidentally is caused by the game's original story engine, not the AM or ISM). Try it; you'll like it.

Personally I always prefer to have bottlenecks over and done with in one huge freezedown rather than the game being jerky at intervals throughout the day.  I wish it was an option.

Since we're on the topic, what is the best method to have a family stay put rather than be moved around (and not make sacred)? Having the same amount of cash as the house is worth? More, less...?

If you using Awesomemod and not using Indie Stone then make the home an 'ancestral home' by putting the family name in the name of the house (ie Goth Manor)

If you are using Awesomemod with Indie Stone running as the story driver select the home of that family and go into via the cell phone into the Indie Stone option menu and turn moving off for that family.

Does this still work?  Most of mine seem to automatically have their names as the house name anyway and it doesn't stop story mode from moving them. ??? 

I have given up worrying now.  I just let them go and eventually they seem to end up back where they started. :D

Yes it still works with Awesomemod + EA story mode or Awesomemod + Awesome story mode. It just doesn't work with Awesomemod + Indie Stone story mode, but for that you can set it via Indie's settings if you play the house.

If you are using Awesomemod but not Indie Stone and you are getting sims moving out of homes that are ancestral then let Pescado know because it's not supposed to be happening.

How are managing to have the house name automatically become the same as the household name?  Do you have a mod that renames the house to match the name of the household?

I know ISM had an annoying feature where it would rename the household to match the surname of the family, but that's not the same thing as matching the house name to the household name (which is what AM requires to keep the family from moving out).

Really? My game rarely lags or freezes anymore, and only gets laggy when I've been playing for hours on end without saving frequently. I lurves the new setup. Eh, to each her own.

It's not automatic; you have to rename the house yourself.

I know that.  Figwit was saying that in their game it is automatic, and I was curious about how that was happening.

I was also wondering if perhaps they were confusing house name with household name, which may explain why AM's "ancestral home" feature doesn't seem to work for them.

Sorry. I think I was confusing Household name with Lotname.  I have just checked a brand new game and I see that the household name is named for the people living there but the lot name is something different.  For instance (just to be sure I am talking about the right thing) for the Goths their household name is Goth and their lot name is Goth Manor 3b/3ba whereas Bachelor has a household name of Bachelor but their lot name is Greener & Greener blah blah.

However, I did have a case a few nights ago where I renamed the lot name to the name of the residents and they did get moved.  Eventually they ended up being moved back to their house but that was why I thought the 'ancestral' thing wasn't working.  Perhaps it wasn't in that iteration of the AM.

It hasn't happened again.  In fact no-one has moved now for a while so I guess my neighbourhood is stable.

I've just loaded the latest version (about and hour ago), and I'm having an issue I never had before.  The dreaded FREEZE!  It happens to me around 0015.  Poopy.  I have to go to task manager and end the game.  I get about 2 or 3 nights out of each run.

I'm sad.  Is there anything I can do?  What do you need to know to help me?

I love awesomemod, and I don't want to remove it!

Leave it be, go make yourself a sandwich. It'll unstick. If you turn on story notifications you'll get them popping up to tell you it's not actually dead for sure. Or use a different story driver - Awesome or Indy

Is that the freeze where everything absolutely stops, except for the scenery and the plumbob? I have this problem, and it never seems to unfreeze.

The freeze at 1am is different and is caused by the game moving sims about or some such thing.  I believe just giving it time to do its thing is all that's required.  I never had the freeze at 1am but my game used to slow down around then.  This was pre Awesome Story Mode days of course.

The other freeze is a different issue and I believe Pes is tackling it in the latest version of the AM.  It is totally annoying and I don't think your game will ever come back so the task manager is your best bet.

I don't know if this problem came with indiestone mod or awesomemod but I have the same problem. In my neighborhood the "Roomies" became the "Mcgraw" and the "Single moms" became the "Mcirish". I suppose it is changing the lhousehold name to the last name of the oldest member in the home can someone clarify?

One of ISM's features was that it would change the household name in the manner you describe.  This is not the same as the lot name, neither AM nor ISM changes the lot name.

You are confusing lot name with household name.

my game doesn't just freeze at 1 am. it freezes every 2-3 mins (game time) i have to go to main menu and go back and then its fixed.
any idea anyone?. (i still prefer getting a big freeze at 1am than constant slowing through out the game)

I used to hate the 1am freeze but now i almost wish i had it instead of what's going on in my game now. I'm at a loss as to why my game is lagging so bad. I've gotten some tips in the bug thread like "towderelicts" and even creating a new hood at the possibility that my hood was corrupt but nothing seems to be working. I don't even bother playing the sims 3 right now. It's at like 3ps, lol. I don't want to play The Sims 3 without Awesomemod... It just improves on so much.

Yeah, I'm playing at a low resolution and I've always kept the detailed lots at one. My computer can definitely run the sims pretty well as this problem only happens with awesomemod installed. When i take it out, things run fine. It's weird, awesomemod had been good to me until i updated it.

my game actually doesn't "lag", it just freezes (but the ZzzZZ coming from my sim sleeping is still going if u know wat i mean) like how it feezes at 1 after 3-4 in game minutes. i always have to save quit or main menu and save but sometimes when i go back in a few seconds later i get crash out onto desktop

Yep. I'm having the same problem. Except going to main menu doesn't seem to fix anything and I don't experience any crashes.

hmm going to the main menu then going back fixes for me (main menu here i'm referring to the menu where u choose ur game save lot not the town menu)

I am having that same problem as well (minus the crashes).

I just upgraded Awesomemod after not playing the game for a month or so. I never had this problem prior to this last Awesomemod update.

I do not use Awesome story, but I do use ISM.

I cannot reproduce any freezing or lag. If you have an afflicted save game, send it and I will take a look.

the freeze only start after the 1am freeze and as he said, i didn't have this problem b4, now i updated the mod coz i stopped playing for like 2 months and its happening. how do i get the gamesave?

As this thread has shifted from the 1 am lag to freezes, I can contribute something:

I hadn't plaved TS3 for about a month. After updating AM a few days ago, I found out that my custom, destroyallhuman'ed neighborhood that I had always used to start new games didn't work anymore, it would freeze within seconds. Later I realized that destroyallhumans or destroyallnpcs always leads to an infinite freeze now. Eventually "exterminate 100" gave me a working neighborhood without too many fuglies. I guess there's a problem with creating some particular NPC causing this. It doesn't matter which story mode driver I use btw, I tried Indie, AM's and EA's.

I still have freezes once in a while now. In most cases, I can just terminate the process and restart. Once I had to take out AM and run a sim day without it though in order to get the game working again. (I have a save right before that reproducable freeze if it's of any interest.)

Another reproducable freeze I had whenever I switched to "suck up to boss" at the restaurant career. There was no boss on my Sim's relationship tab, maybe that's why.

Hurray!!!

Sorry, but you have the exact same problem as I and I have posted it in The New Bug Thread but Pescado can't reproduce it.
So it was working in an earlier release then? Was it before you patched the game to 1.4?

I have tested with the corresponding commands in Super Computer by Twallan and I get the same results. I can use his Force kill->NPC's though. I have also traced the freeze to somewere in EAxis code (I think).
I have also this spontanous freezes that you have. I can play for hours but suddenly it freezes. I use the Framelimiter to avoid overheating of my computer but the temperature is in control.
What about your hardware:

Processor?
Processor clock frequence?
RAM memory?
Graphic board?
 

I am also having this freeze problem. But for me, it is most times close to midnight. 0:07 or 0:08 is the favorite time for my crash. For me, it never happens when just one person of the household is still awake. Just when all sims are sleeping, then it might freeze. Freeze means that the zzzzz-icon is still moving, the same with the radio. Music is on. But even if i wait 20 minutes, nothing more happens. The clock is not running. So i have to close the game with task manager.
My QuadCore is just on 60-63 percent. So i dont think its something with the hardware.
So i save a lot before i send my sims to bed. When i reload the savegame, there is no problem for the next night, but there might be a freeze again the next night. And its always just a few minutes after midnight.

I played with EA-story mode, then i changed to Awesomemod Story Driver, but it is still the same.

Same thing here
It isn't Awesome, its EA I believe
Haven't you ever noticed the phone ringing around 00:06-00:008?

You get the messages that 'put a name here' is getting old and maybe you need pay to visit
and when you answer/click ignore the phone, same message with another name appears
That what happens if the game keeps working

otherwise on the first ring from the phone the game freezes
Phone sound is still playing, radio is playing ect ect
Turning the phone off, removing it from the house had the same effect

I have the latest patch en AM, removed cache files ect
Aging on, AM story on, EA story on. indo enabled but not installed (in showconfig its shows as false however, prob. because not installed)
Freq saving and praying, cause when I save at 23:59 and de game freezes and thus I kill it...
when I load the 23:59 save, there is aprox 60% change it won't happen again for that night
turning the phone off doesn't do the trick, same story
Only thing different from you Aqua is that it doesn't matter if anyone is still up
Also tested with Sims week period in a 1 person small house and with a 8 person household: same thing, when phone rings game freezes frequently

Since i play in window mode instead of fullscreen, i didnt get this freeze after midnight.

Well I noticed this thread has strayed randomly to freezing and crashing, but just for anyone with the 1am freeze problem (just the problem where after 1am the game slows to a crawl then goes back to normal, no crashing or anything) I use awesomestory now and I don't have that issue. In my case at 1am my cpu useage was going to 100% at that time, but now it runs smooth all the time.

My update on freezing:

Took out AM two weeks ago, cause the random freezes every couple sim days had become unbearable. Hadn't had a single freeze ever since.

Today I decided to give it another try.
Completely reinstalled TS3 (razor) and the framework. Patched it up to 1.4.6 in one go without errors.
Put in latest AM and Indie, no other mods.
Started a new neighborhood, destroyallhumaned it and threw one of the EA fuglies into it.
Freeze after 14 sim minutes, no way out other than killing it from task manager.

*Sigh*

PC is an Intel Quad, XP, 3 Gigs usable RAM, Nvidia GTX 275. Definitely no overheating or any other hardware related issues.

Did you try a game without the mods?  I would try removing the mods, clearing the caches, and play a fresh game.  If it still freezes, it's either an installation problem, or a system problem.

If that works, try with AM only, clearing the caches again, leave out IS, don't do anything like destroyallhumans, and see if it works right.

If it works right, then add the IS in if you want.  You are just using the XML (or whatever) part of IS? using the core mod will conflict with AM, because the highlander rule kicks in.

For whatever reason these freezes appear to be limited to a few players, and doesn't apply to everyone, suggesting it is more likely a local problem, with either installation, mod conflicts, or system issues, rather than an AM bug.

FYI:
I have made some more testing and found a solution.

Mods involved:

NRaas Super Computer v22
Awesomemod 2009-09-26
also
NRaas NoCD
nomosaic

SC command "Fire all Service Sims" freezes the game if awesomemod is installed.
SC command "Fire all Service Sims" works if awesomemod is NOT installed.

Bye awesomemod?

This is probably a dumb question but I have looked everywhere.. Is Awesome story mode available somewhere? and where?


You see.. I like others I have the O so wonderful 1 am freeze.. and I was hoping I could download that (like suggested) to fix the painful slowness.
I did even try googling it but all I found was people talking about how wonderful it is but no links. ugh.

Ooooooor is it as I fear and it's limited to being only available to those testing it?

Awesome Story progression is part of the Awesomemod, which is available here. You have to download the configuration tool (on the same page as awesomemod) and click awesome story progression. Put both of those files in your game.

Ah ok. ... I already had Awesome mod but not the tool.  hopefully will be freeze free soon. Thank you!


edit: sorry for more potentially dumb questions but when you say configuration tool .. you don't mean Delphy's framework ? I only ask because one Awesome mods thread thats the only other thing I see there and I've had that installed a while now.  

if you do then I just need to make it so Awesome story is on..I assume?

edit #2: Never mind.. I'm an idiot. I see it now.

What?

How do you re-stat something?
VButton? DIE!

My game startet to frozen up now, after using derelict of a car on public road, ad 2 babymilkbottles on my ground. Now will nobody move, it seems like the start in TS2, restart again, god dammit ea-games, they will survive on TS3, why do they so again send out in worldtrade a product, with so many falure??
Regards from Denmark!  ;D

I frequently get freezes around midnight too, and it's been happening since before Awesomemod Story Driver even existed. I posted about it several times. Anyway, it stops whenever I turn off aging, so I'm pretty confident that's the cause. I still get other random freezes, but none at midnight (with aging off).

As an FYI, I tried uninstalling/reinstalling and using only Awesomemod. The freezes are still there. My computer is also a quad core, if that matters.

A mysterious, aging-related freeze, is believed to be the symptom of a corrupted neighborhood. AwesomeMod performs an extra preservatory step in aging to keep a sim's inventory from being lost, by creating a loop that waits until the sim respawns to return his items. In the event of a corrupted sim, the sim never respawns, and as a result, the clock will visibly freeze, while the game itself continues on. If this is happening to you, your neighborhood may have a corrupted sim on it. To verify this, shortly before the event may occur, do "setconfig debug on", and see if the last thing it says is "Waiting for X to respawn". That is your corrupted sim.

I'll try this.

The only issue I have with it is that this happens on every neighborhood I've ever made, no matter what I do (besides turning aging off). I suppose it's possible my Sims 3 installation itself is corrupted, but I'd like to believe it's something else.

I've just started getting the 2am game freeze myself.  Ever since I installed the Awesomemod, so I can only conclude that this is an Awesomemod associated prob.  Its been doing this with all my neighbourhoods, and it is really quite annoying.  But still I'd rather endure this than the alternative, which is sadly, no game at all.  Although if there is a fix for this . . . .

This is the effect of sanity checks being imposed on spammy EA story progression. The recommended solution is to switch to AwesomeStory.

If I disable the EA storyprogression in the game will your storyprogressoin still work?

It's one or the other.  You disable the EA Story Progression by enabling AwesomeMod's Story Progression.  All of this can be accomplished in the Aweconfig file (see the download thread).

If you turn off story progression in the game options, it also turns off AM story mode, or put another way, it will prevent AM story mode from running.

If you want to use AM story mode, turn it on in the config, and leave story mode on in the game options.  AM story mode overrules the EAxis story mode.

Has something been done in AwesomeMod which reintroduces the 1AM story mode slowdown? I've been using AwesomeMod and the Awesome Story driver for a while, but as of recent updates I've suddenly had the story events only occurring at 1AM - 2AM (just like in the EA story progression), and when these events occur, as denoted by the storymode popups, the game freezes for a few seconds for each popup. I also kept having the same families moving house every single night, so it seems to be that something is wrong and perhaps it's a corrupt neighborhood causing it(which sucks since this is the first neighborhood I've bothered to get past the 2nd generation). I created a new neighborhood to test if perhaps it was a corrupt neighborhood causing this behavior and even though there was no noticeable lag the storymode events only occured between 1AM and 2AM when in previous versions of AwesomeMod there would regularly be romantic interactions between townies and pollinations and the like at just about any time of the day.

If you're getting story events occurring only at 0100, then you're still using EA storymode for some reason. AwesomeStory runs at random points throughout the day and is actually least active at night because no one is awake to move.

cefwyn, check your config file. I noticed the last time I updated my Mom's config file that Awesome storymode had been turned off and Indie storymode had been turned on. I know I did not do it as I never installed IS and I know she didn't do it because she wouldn't even know where to look. I just figured it was some glitch in the save, reconfigured and all was well.

Ah yes that was the problem. Thanks Batty Coda. I've had to recheck the config tool every time I use it because the cookies don't seem to hold for long but seems I just missed that indie was set to enabled and AwesomeMod story mode wasn't. Interestingly enough when I used showconfig in the console I'm pretty certain that the correct storymode driver was enabled.

That's the default setting for the config file.  I nearly always have to change it when I do a new config file, even though the file loads from a cookie(maybe an issue with my cookie settings), not all the settings appear to hold, so I always check the config settings before I make a new file, some hold like last time, some return to their default settings.

As I've just switched to the Awesome Driver, is there some more detail somewhere with comparative documentation on the Awesome story mode driver? I had a look in the RTFM and the Wiki, but there's not a lot of info on it's features.

So, I'm having a problem that relates very closely to this (hence, why I am reviving the thread).

I've always gotten a bit of slow down in the middle of the night. Not surprising. I play the game on a laptop, with a crappy Intel Graphics card. But it runs the game, and that's the important part. However, as of today, every time my game hits midnight it freezes completely. Can't do anything, and I have to go to Windows Task Manager to get it to shut down. I tried switching to a different house before it hit midnight to see if that would help. No luck. I'm running Awesome Mod with Awesome Story, and like I said, I haven't had problems this bad before. Does anyone have any suggestions other than just wiping the game entirely and reinstalling? I'd rather not have to do that. Thanks.

Being able to simply run the game doesn't necessarily mean your system won't choke under pressure in certain circumstances.

I would say try turning InformOnStoryAction on see if it pops up what it's doing when that freeze hits. Try letting it sit for a while if you can.

If you do that and nothing comes up then turn off Awesome Story and see if you are still getting it.

If it's not AwesomeStory than it's likely something EAXian in nature. If it is AwesomeStory, you could possibly try posting a save game shortly before midnight, but if you problem is system and/or resource (or lack thereof) specific it may be hard to diagnose.

Also, are you running the game versions based on the latest patch from EA and have you been updating awesomemod regularly?

Slowdown at NIGHT is definitely not the work of AwesomeStory: AwesomeStory is actually far LESS active at night, running with greatly reduced event frequency, because all the sims are asleep and do not do things in the dead of night.

Okay, well, thanks for the info guys. I tried removing Awesome Mod from my game and it got past midnight... so now I'm a little confused since Pescado said that it doesn't slow things down at night... Anywhoo, I'll put it back in and hope that it works from now on.

He said Awesomestory isn't causing slowdown at night. That doesn't necessarily rule out some other part of Awesomemod. Awesomestory is one part of Awesomemod, not the whole of it.

Something particular to your configuration is causing slowdown at night with Awesomemod installed but not without it. However since you haven't really given much more information it's hard to say what the cause is.

Post a save shortly before midnight and ask Pescado to look at it. Or don't. I don't really know what else to tell you.

Before you upload a save though, make sure you are using the latest version of Awesomemod and your game is patched up to date. Note that Awesomemod is updated frequently and EA just released a patch.

If you aren't sure, just redownload Awesomemod and check for available game updates in the launcher or use the Patch Downloader Utility here: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124490

Unless the game actually FREEZES and locks up completely, I'm not going to see anything, because my computer is crazy-awesome.

Someone should donate a non-awesome system to you for testing purposes, though I somehow doubt you would condescend yourself to use it.

What would it tell him?That less resource intensive is better? Pretty sure he knows that. The exact threshold is going to vary significantly by system. If he cared enough, he's probably very capable of artificially limiting his system to arbitrary settings and seeing how well it performs to offer a revised "minimum spec", but hell, we're capable of compiling that ourselves just by comparing performance.

The problem with this approach is that in order to get anything DONE in reasonable time, I need an extremely fast-loading system, because if it takes 30 minutes to restart the game after a 5-second test run, NOTHING WILL EVER GET DONE.

Hm. Thanks for the help guys. Motoki, yeah, I have the latest. I double-checked and redownloaded AM. I don't think it's worth it to upload the save, seeing as how I got this and I'm pretty sure it means my neighborhood is screwed.

(http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k9/wildmustangshadowfax/flaagranterror2.png)

I posted it in the FSE thread, but no response, and since it's related to my problem I thought I'd put it here. So, assuming this does mean my neighborhood is screwed, is it reasonable to guess that the game might work if I just start a new neighborhood and don't uninstall and reinstall the entire game?

The error is what it says on the tin: For some reason, an error that is supposed to be physically impossible occurred, so something is horribly wrong with the very foundations of your neighborhood.

@Kitbug: Sounds like your neighborhood is pretty much heading for:

(http://i26.tinypic.com/54gkme.jpg)

Starting a new save probably shouldn't have those issues and just as a general troubleshooting method it's a good idea when anyone is having issues that are easily reproducible to try starting a new neighborhood. If you don't have those same issues in the new neighborhood then your save is probably hosed.