Awesomod discussion/questions/helpful tips thread

[iansplinter]

Thanks, but mine is about half year old, with an intel core 2Duo CPU, 3,67 GHZ, 3 GB RAM and a GForce GTS 250, I dont have any problems with my PC.

[J. M. Pescado]

Then something is severely wrong with how it is configured, because my computer is older than yours and has no such lag issues.

[iansplinter]

Maybe, I dont know it. But thanks for your answer!

Here are my configurations (what I changed):


- NoNudityCensorM+F ENABLED

- AllowOverstuffedHouses ENABLED
- CASSliderScaleIncreased   ENABLED
- CASSliderScaleMultiplier   3

No other changes. Maybe its because of the supreme commander Interactions? (the one with the smiley-simbol)

[iansplinter]

What do you mean with configured? Your mod or my PC?

[cwurts]

Let's say I had a computer with unlimited power, and I wanted to control a very large neighbourhood with 10000 sims, all being run smoothly by the AI (or supreme commander), which controls every move they make.  Does the game allow such a configuration.  I am asking because I'm using Sunset Valley with 90 sims on Supreme Commander, and it seems that although my game doesn't lag  per se, the individual sims do.  They will stop in mid-stride while running from one task to the next, and this is even when there's a clear path - I doubt it's a routing issue.  My guess is that Supreme Commander is only able to handle a limited number of sims at one time, and swaps them in and out as needed, stopping the sims in their tracks in order to get others moving.  Is this correct?  I am just curious.

[Claeric]

Actually, I notice a lot of "freezing" when I have lots of sacred sims. I'm not sure if that's the actual cause, but occasionally sims just stop moving. Effects keep going, plumbobs keep spinning, trees keep waving, but time and sims are frozen. After a bit they start back up, and I'm prettys ure it's not some sim trying to route to an unroutable area for no reason whatsoever.

[cwurts]

My sims will stop literally in mid-air as they are walking.  Other sims contiue moving as normal.  All over the map, I see one sim after another stopping for 10 seconds then continuing on their way.  This only seems to happen when a large number of sims are on SC.

[Silent Dreamer]

Actually, I notice a lot of "freezing" when I have lots of sacred sims. I'm not sure if that's the actual cause, but occasionally sims just stop moving. Effects keep going, plumbobs keep spinning, trees keep waving, but time and sims are frozen. After a bit they start back up, and I'm prettys ure it's not some sim trying to route to an unroutable area for no reason whatsoever.

I have this too. The rate at which it appears did seem to lessen with the newest version, but it is still there. It isn't TOO terrible, though. Unless it drives me batshit, I won't be bothering to go start a new (canned) world just to send a save in. It takes awhile to appear as it is. I can say it is AM for sure though, since when it first started it appeared in massive amounts so I did the standard troubleshooting on it.

[Roobs]

I get it even when there are no sacred sims, so I don't think it's necessarily tied to that.

[Silent Dreamer]

I get it even when there are no sacred sims, so I don't think it's necessarily tied to that.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention that. It isn't tied to sacreds at all. It was before I even turned on any supreme commander functions in that town.

[Anonym]

I get the freezing and rarely use Supreme Commander except for its radar tracking.  I have a number of sacred households (which likely isn't a factor) and a pretty full neighborhood (over 200 sims).

It hasn't been that awful since I've tested my CC with ProcMon (the process monitor is a free download for Windows) and gotten rid of the stuff that was getting loaded thousands of times, as well as combining CC into fewer, bigger packages, which is explained somewhere among the posts on "The Horror" board; but it still happens to some degree.

I don't know if the limits throughout XML files of 10 sims "pulsed" per tick have anything to do with it, but it's possible.  Those could just be "broadcasters" (things that cause reactions) but also could be how many can do something per tick (a tick is likely even shorter than a sim minute, but still it would then be a limit).

[shadow]

I had lagging so bad that I was ready to give up the game all together. I downloaded Delphy's Dashboard tool at MTS2 and it found several bad CC files, mostly paintings. Once those were eliminated I had no more lag.

Check it out here

[Silent Dreamer]

I had lagging so bad that I was ready to give up the game all together. I downloaded Delphy's Dashboard tool at MTS2 and it found several bad CC files, mostly paintings. Once those were eliminated I had no more lag.

Check it out here

Wrong kind of lag, hon. The issue we're talking about is extremely different.

[J. M. Pescado]

I am asking because I'm using Sunset Valley with 90 sims on Supreme Commander, and it seems that although my game doesn't lag  per se, the individual sims do.  They will stop in mid-stride while running from one task to the next, and this is even when there's a clear path - I doubt it's a routing issue.

It's a timeslice issue. The game tries to preserve the appearance of non-lag by simply giving up in mid-processing, so that game-time appears to continue instead of slowly to a crawl. This means that, unlike in TS2, where the game would simply lag, but the fidelity of the simulation was retained, when overloading occurs in TS3, the simulation will first degrade, before the lag gets really bad. If you were to force TS2 to run on a computer with a very slow CPU, it would run correctly, producing accurate simulated behavior (but the lag would be unplayably bad). If you were to force TS3 to run underspec, the simulated behavior would first fall apart before you lost the ability to effectively control the interface.

[Entgleichen]

In my game, a lag occurs every now and then. When that happens, I can almost be sure that Supreme Commander has taken control over a random sim and forces him to do something he can't - so it results in a loop. I never use SC for any of the macro actions by myself (because when I do, even only on one sim, the game slows down), so I'm pretty sure the program does something it shouldn't.  I then have to take control of the mistreated sim and stop the SC-control before I can go on playing.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, if people would tell me what twisted thing they've done to their neighborhood so I can figure out what is going into a loop and detect it...

[Claeric]

Well, I used to think it was just a routing issue. It doesnt happen often in Sunset Valley but I would get it in france(where there is an island you cannot walk to, and trying to walk to it freezes things for a few seconds) and in egypt(same deal). I also get it in a custom neighborhood, sometimes quite often(I suspect it happens around the same time each day, I'll test.)

So it could just be sims, for whatever idiotic AI reason, trying to route to areas htey can not in any way reach.

Some mini-freezes like that are caused by CC, but usually not. I am pretty sure it's got to be a routing issue. Though why these idiots are trying to get to pointless island in the middle of dumbass river I have no idea.

[Silent Dreamer]

Well, I used to think it was just a routing issue. It doesnt happen often in Sunset Valley but I would get it in france(where there is an island you cannot walk to, and trying to walk to it freezes things for a few seconds) and in egypt(same deal). I also get it in a custom neighborhood, sometimes quite often(I suspect it happens around the same time each day, I'll test.)

So it could just be sims, for whatever idiotic AI reason, trying to route to areas htey can not in any way reach.

Some mini-freezes like that are caused by CC, but usually not. I am pretty sure it's got to be a routing issue. Though why these idiots are trying to get to pointless island in the middle of dumbass river I have no idea.

Claeric, if you're getting it in Sunset Valley, you should try to get a save where, upon loading, it does it reliably and send it in. I was able to on my custom neighborhood when I was doing standard troubleshooting to verify it was, indeed, AM a week ago, but since it is custom and I don't have a non-custom save right now I can't be very helpful.

What I can say however, was for me it was coinciding with story-related things occurring, but not every story-related thing. Job promotions was a big one. I'm not sure if this is related or coincidence, however.

[Claeric]

I said I didn't get it in sunset valley. Any time I got something like that in Sunset Valley it was a total freeze from unknown circumstances.

I am about to test if it happens around a certain time of day in the custom hood, but I doubt pescado would want to download a custom hood full of custom sims and pop in on my freaky fetish family to see what causes freezing. Or maybe he would, who knows? At least my CC wouldnt transfer and make the experience terrifying.

[J. M. Pescado]

The .world files aren't that big, so if you're experiencing this problem with a custom world, send it in. I'm guessing, however, that if these problems are mainly custom-world, you're running into a resource shortage. Many the earlier algorithms of Supreme Commander assume that certain resources will be present in the town, as everyone then had the same towns, and to save on computation, did not verify that those things still existed. Now that people are making their own crazy-quilt worlds where basic town structures cannot be relied upon to exist, not everything works.

[Silent Dreamer]

The .world files aren't that big, so if you're experiencing this problem with a custom world, send it in. I'm guessing, however, that if these problems are mainly custom-world, you're running into a resource shortage. Many the earlier algorithms of Supreme Commander assume that certain resources will be present in the town, as everyone then had the same towns, and to save on computation, did not verify that those things still existed. Now that people are making their own crazy-quilt worlds where basic town structures cannot be relied upon to exist, not everything works.

I guess it wouldn't hurt. Especially if it is happening on more than just my world (since mine is built by me and not shared anywhere). I uploaded my most recent save, since it happens at least once (usually two to three times) a sim day, so you'll see it if it is going to happen for you.

Sims3Pack and Save Folder: http://www.4shared.com/file/210911829/d1931c8b/CustomWorldPlusSave.html

Separate World File (if you want it): http://www.4shared.com/file/210916087/5f00b007/Simland_Islandsworld.html

[Claeric]

Yeah, I cant get it consistent. Plus while waiiting for it to happen my sims auto-woohooed and now I've got a male pregnancy walking around and sharing such things is probably not a good idea for the integrity of others' games.

Is it safe to assume Supreme Commander also has those issues with the WA worlds, then? I remember getting them in china now, too. All three worlds. I am pretty sure I've never experienced it within sunset valley or what little I've played of riverview, only outside worlds.

[pbox]

Many the earlier algorithms of Supreme Commander assume that certain resources will be present in the town, as everyone then had the same towns, and to save on computation, did not verify that those things still existed. Now that people are making their own crazy-quilt worlds where basic town structures cannot be relied upon to exist, not everything works.

Oh. Would this also affect the one-shot commander that AwesomeStory is sometimes using? Asking because my test nhood is lagging like hell, and I do use "job performance for inactives" and all that, and I don't have all of the EA rabbitholes in there (nor do I have a library, for example). The lagging is the "walk three steps - pause - walk three steps - pause - turn around - pause" etc one, not lagging at a particular time of the day. I have circa 60 playables and 40-50 NPCs in there. I also noticed that sims sometimes stay on "Skill: X" forever, with a message that no skilling items or lessons are available and many of their needs bottomed out (but that was a few Awesome builds ago, dunno wether that still is an issue. The lagging definitely is, though).

I'm on OS X though, and the OS X game is laggy and terrible in general, but I've never played it on Windows so I can't compare.

[Silent Dreamer]

I'm on OS X though, and the OS X game is laggy and terrible in general, but I've never played it on Windows so I can't compare.

This is false. Also, they are the same game. The game is laggy and terrible in general, but not on everyone's machine. It doesn't matter if the machine is running OSX or Windows.

[pbox]

I'm on OS X though, and the OS X game is laggy and terrible in general, but I've never played it on Windows so I can't compare.

This is false. Also, they are the same game.

Duh, yes. They are. That's what the problem is ... it's not a native OS X app, it's running inside a wrapper, which does not exactly help performance.

Try comparing running the game on the same machine once under OS X, once under Windows (BootCamp) and you'll see.