Long pauses

[Lonesome Dove]

So, is this being looked into for the next release of Awesomemod? I would hate to have to uninstall this hack but this pausing/freezing issue is unendurable. It's either it goes or the game goes. I can't play with this major bug. 

[J. M. Pescado]

I cannot reproduce this behavior. If you have a saved game where this always occurs, I can take a look, but I see nothing like this in my game.

[Larku]

I think there is different versions of the pause, one that last forever and one that is just temporary. I have yet to see it repeat it's self with a save though in the same spot.

[myskaal]

As a note, I was having the random hangs in a Sunset Valley hood. I roundaboutly discovered my Riverview was corrupt, pitched and reinstalled it, then did a full reinstall of all my "store" items and am no longer having any hang issues in Sunset Valley.

Perhaps corrupted files or are causing these pause issues?

My game is running smooth as butter (beyond the normal freeze to load objects in a new area) with the most recent build (no library - recipe options enabled).

[Lonesome Dove]

I will try this, as taking out Awesomemod hasn't fixed the issue anyway.

[Chocolate Milk]

I have this issue on my current computer (particularly when working out, they freeze with sweat dripping off them and it's freaking weird), but not on my boyfriend's computer. Both have same versions of AM. Is it possible it could be related to hardware, since he has an amazing computer and I am using my flatmate's spare which just about meets the minimum requirements while mine gets fixed? Or could be a coincidence, I suppose.

[tjstreak]

I have the same problem.  I take Awesome Mod out and it goes away.

I like many of AM's features, but this bug makes it unusable.

Fortunately, the NRass supercomputer has many of the same features without the lag problem.

[SassyFrass]

                                  I also have this problem, my game is pretty much unplayable. My Sim kids don't get home from school until 5 p.m.
My Sims also do the "freeze walk" as well and they crowd stair cases and doorways for hours on end. Also doing something as simple as preparing a meal or feeding a baby takes forever. They just stand there for what seems an eternity before they do anything in their commands.    If I take AM out it doesn't do this, I kinda think it has something to do with the latest patch because I had no problems until I updated.

[Tangie]

To be clearer, I believe there are two types of freezes that people are talking about. One freeze is a complete freeze of the game, where the plumbob spins but the controls are no longer responsive. The other kind of freeze is more like a stop-motion freeze where movements jerkily stop and go (except their heads still move) and actions take FOREVER to complete. I've had just one hard game freeze that I recall, but have had 3 saved games which all became unplayable due to the extreme lag and stop motion movements, as well as autonomy and motive failures. They were large families in large neighborhoods (around 100 residents). I just started a very small hood -completely empty with just a handful of couples, and do not (yet) have the problem, allthough sometimes their movements don't seem very smooth to me. A little on the  jerky side, but no major lag or motion freezes at all. Yet.

You're not the first I've heard blame it on the latest patch, and you might be right, who knows. Maybe someday someone will figure out a way to improve the situation; in the meantime I'm saving up cash to replace my sub-par computer, which if not the cause, is sure not helping the situation. Although some people with very adequate hardware have also complained about the problem. Oh, and when I took out AwesomeMod, it made no difference, I still had the problem. <shrugs>

[kimmyfrmtx]

I can confirm that it appears to be an EA issue.  As the hood population got larger the problem got worse and worse until I just deleted the hood and started over.  
I have a computer way over recommended specs.    The hood population was nearing 100, not counting NPCs.  Killing the townies would help for a few sim days till they re-spawned.

Starting a new empty hood with 1 sim family, all same mods and CC the game is again playable.

[tjstreak]

So, the solution appears to be to delete all those nifty homes we have been adding to the neighborhood?

I have not tried that yet.  I did remove a lot of the custom hairs and a number of items I never really used.

But, with more homes, that means more sims to gum up the works.

A number of programs, including awesome mod and the NRass supercomputer allow us to nuke the homeless.  So the problem is that we are putting too many homes in our neighborhoods?  Time to call out the bulldozers!

[Tangie]

Well, it's not just the number of homes that factors into the population growth. If you are using AM Story Mode, then sims get created through jobs. I started a new 'hood with 4 couples and left all the houses in place, and have been playing it for several sim weeks. None of my 4 couples have jobs, and no sims have been created in my nieghborhood (but I am up to 40 NPC's, for some inexplicable reason).

[SMFlynn]

FWIW, I was having these problems, and then my husband upgraded my video card.  I had an NVidia GeForce 7950 GT and now have a 9800 GTX.  I thought I had a decent card before, but the difference is amazing.  The game is running very smoothly now, and it had become almost unplayable before.

[Tangie]

Interesting. I'm definitely saving up for a kickass gaming computer.

[Chocolate Milk]

FWIW, I was having these problems, and then my husband upgraded my video card.  I had an NVidia GeForce 7950 GT and now have a 9800 GTX.  I thought I had a decent card before, but the difference is amazing.  The game is running very smoothly now, and it had become almost unplayable before.

Were you having individual Sims freezing or the whole game freezing or both?

My whole game's started freezing now, almost every time I play for longer than fifteen minutes or so. It's pretty irritating, I really hope my computer gets fixed soon.

[socklady]

hullo,

i have been having this long pause in my game too. it appears to be random, and i cannot pinpoint it to any activity. i have one family in each neighborhood, and it's happening in both.  all of a sudden the screen freezes, and i just wait, and wait, and then... all's well again.


 

[Inge]

I think it's a graphics card problem.  I can't remember what I have but it was good 5 years ago.  I had this pausing, jerking, and finally progressing to sudden CTDs.  I took out AM and it made no difference.   So I rebooted my computer and it was completely ok again.   Added back AM and still ok.

[edalbformat]

The graphic card is really an important item, but to upgrade to the latest available doesn't make much of a difference in terms of processing a lot of sims in a hood. In fact I noticed that Service NPCs don't weight much on the balance. To kill them all is waste time once they are respawned soon after to about 40 units. It seems that the game makes a spare for burglars, social workers, firefighters etc, even if you never use them. I also didn't understand the reason for this spare, once as soon as a service NPC is required, a new one is created and it is not among the spares that apparently clog the hood (they don't because very seldom one or another pop up in the park, but disappear before you can contact them). It is one more of the inutilities from EA.
The saving problem is dramatic. As soon as the hood reaches around 100 inhabitants, saving time can go up to 5 minutes. This is unsuportable because when you are sitting in front of a screen, one second is eternity. I have a pretty good computer, almost no ccs, except for some replacement skins, I made my own xml mods and check one by one against AM and one another and my hoods are unplayable as soon as they pass 32MB (equivalent to have about 120 sims in a hood). I don't have any complicated houses because I myself live on a place where almost everybody have exact the same kind of house and looks paradise. So, I recreated sort of the place I live. I'm not a bird, so I never play bird view. Instead I place the cursor in the middle of a sim street and "walk" on the hood, observing the houses and buildings around. Besides, I found out that rabbit holes work better when combined (spa with Gym), working places with restaurants, so I created a very lively downtown where sims after go skilling, make a stop at the restaurant, or after watching a football game, go to spa, or fitness. I got the idea when I visited Simlogical and Inge had placed a combination Kitchen and Pub. I could not download so I got the idea and started to combine rabbit holes. Full success.
I sincerely don't know if buying a super-duper computer will change that much once I believe that is pure EA's incompetence. TS2 Base Game was also kind of unplayable. I damn know that the first EPs will be also a bag of poo. The game is destined to be just good right before TS4. As always TS is not any investment. As soon as finished, is not more worth a dime.

[J. M. Pescado]

I have this wild theory that save times may drastically improve if you were to, say, allocate about 100 MBs for a RAMdisk and use a RAMdisk to save to, since then it will not be thrashing to disk.

[Kitbug]

I have the rabid slowing down problem as well. It happens most severely when my sims are off to work/school, and when they're returning home. Happens at a greater rate in higher population houses. Didn't used to happen. I don't think it's an overheating problem, as the time is consistent (however, a lot of other times my game slows down, it might be an overheating problem. My computer has known heating issues, having gone so far as needing a fan replacement). I'm wondering if it's like the others have said, it has something to do with the whole town moving off? (Game also slows down if I try to visit the park and there are a lot of sims, or I send a lot of them.) I'm consequently wondering if there's no hope for it, and it's just my lack of power (or rather, Vista cruelly sapping the not-actually-that-shabby power I do have).

[coconnor]

I have this wild theory that save times may drastically improve if you were to, say, allocate about 100 MBs for a RAMdisk and use a RAMdisk to save to, since then it will not be thrashing to disk.

Since you are way "More Awesome Than All  of Us", could you please tell us how to accomplish this? 100 MB is nothing and it would sure improve things!

[J. M. Pescado]

It's a wild theory. I haven't pursued any practical implementations or how one would go about arranging such a thing.

[rhodaloo]

I've been having the occasional random freezes.  They tend to show up when I play for 2-3 hours without saving. I also tend to use streaming audio so I can listen to my talk radio station while I play.  I don't know if it's related but yesterday when my internet became unavailable for a few seconds, my game slowed way down to almost a dead stop, then went back to normal when the internet reconnected.  I shall talk to my Personal Computer Geek about the issue. 

Since the Geek and I have been debating the merits of a new video card for my computer (the Geek--it's fine; Me--need a new one), I shall show him this thread.

[Kitbug]

This might be pure coincidence... But usually my game just stops (things move, but time is stopped, the sims don't move, plumbob spins, etc.) fairly often. Like say once every few hours (or more). I've been playing for hours today, and I've only had it happen once, early this morning. At the time I'd been playing the household for like a sim week. Since then (pure coincidentally), I've only been playing households for like three or four days, tops. I'm wondering if maybe switching houses more helps with this problem...

[Inge]

Last time I was getting frequent freeze-ups I decided to try rebooting my computer and it really helped.   Don't know why but it's worth trying maybe.