deconstructing the 1am freeze

[J. M. Pescado]

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

[mimmi]

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

[coconnor]

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).

[wizard_merlin]

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

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.

[cefwyn]

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.

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

[BattyCoda]

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.

[cefwyn]

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.

[wizard_merlin]

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.

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.

[Anach]

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.

[Kitbug]

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.

[Motoki]

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?

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

[Kitbug]

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.

[Motoki]

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

[J. M. Pescado]

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

[Motoki]

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.

[kuronue]

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.

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

[Kitbug]

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.



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?

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

[Motoki]

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



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.