Does it always take forever for 1.7 games to load?

[Buzzler]

A 32-bit program cannot use more than 2 GB.

Yes, it can. The large address awareness flag must be set and the program must be coded to support the whole 32 bit of virtual address space every program gets, i.e. the MSB must not be used for other purposes. Still this is kind of pointless when running on a 32-bit Windows, because 32-bit Windows only provides 2GB altogether for all user applications. There are ways around it, but they're unsupported for very good reasons.

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes, it can. The large address awareness flag must be set and the program must be coded to support the whole 32 bit of virtual address space every program gets, i.e. the MSB must not be used for other purposes. Still this is kind of pointless when running on a 32-bit Windows, because 32-bit Windows only provides 2GB altogether for all user applications. There are ways around it, but they're unsupported for very good reasons.

Isn't that what I just said?

[Buzzler]

Isn't that what I just said?

A 32-bit program can use 4GB of RAM on a 64-bit Windows no problem. On a 32-bit Windows it can't because there's only 2GB address space which all user applications have to share (independent from the individual address space of each application). The latter is not a physical limitation but an historical convention which cannot be changed due to compability issues. Other 32-bit operating systems provide 3GB address space for user applications.

[jolrei]

Well, I'm personally glad we cleared that up.  I was really wondering when Pescado would learn that stuff about 32 bit and 64 bit Windoze, 'cos, y'know, the rest of us just didn't really like to say anything. 

Sometimes a full an blatant blathering of the totally bleeding obvious is the best course of action, eh?

[J. M. Pescado]

A 32-bit program can use 4GB of RAM on a 64-bit Windows no problem.

Depends on how it's written. If it treats addresses using the same signed convention that limits it to 2 GB, the limit imposed by signed int32, then your program will misbehave if addresses like that are used. If it never actually performs such a memory test, then it might not notice. You're risking death by doing it, though.

On a 32-bit Windows it can't because there's only 2GB address space which all user applications have to share (independent from the individual address space of each application). The latter is not a physical limitation but an historical convention which cannot be changed due to compability issues.

Yes/no. The size of a signed 32bit integer is a physical limitation imposed by the number of bits. Whether or not the values are treated as signed or unsigned, also cannot be changed after the program is made. Since a program compiled and intended to run on Win32 must adhere to the minimum compatible behavior, this limitation is thus applied to all Win32 programs: Given that a fiery explosion will result on a Win32 system, the one the program is meant to RUN on, should this limit be ignored, the program is thus so limited and cannot use more than 2 GBs of RAMs: If it tried, the game would run seemingly okay on some systems and explode horribly on others. So it can't do that anywhere.

[Anonym]

Update:  With everything finally seeming to work, I sat down for a nice, long night of simming tonight.

The lag was awful.  The lag is made far worse by the fact that the game clock moves as if there were no lag, so you basically can't accomplish anything, as a simple social like "flatter" can take a sim-hour.  "Chat" could take four sim-hours or something.

If it were my computer's specs, it would have been that way before 1.7.9, and it wasn't.  Or, as is possible, the needed specs to run it decently went up quite a bit with the new patch.

Arrrgh!

[uknortherner]

I've noticed my game getting increasingly laggy over the last few days. I thought it may be a rogue mod but now I have the feeling it's crappy EA code. My PC is hardly high-specced, but it ran the game fine before the latest patch.

I wanted to try and decompress all my mods to see if that made an improvement as I have a feeling that the new EA fucktardery code isn't playing nice with compressed files, but there's no way of doing it as a batch process (and I'm sure as hell not manually typing out those stupid "548975378yd79f8gyw98gfys89hyg78s9.package" filenames over 200 times in DOS). Crappy store crap.

[Ioria]

I have a feeling that the new EA fucktardery code isn't playing nice with compressed files

I have that feeling too.
As I said in my previous post, I never had trouble with compressed files before the patch.
Now that I have them decompressed (a good 252 MB of joy), my game loads very fast and runs smoothly without (!!) all the bugs I was so angry at.

[Buzzler]

Whether or not the values are treated as signed or unsigned, also cannot be changed after the program is made. Since a program compiled and intended to run on Win32 must adhere to the minimum compatible behavior, this limitation is thus applied to all Win32 programs: Given that a fiery explosion will result on a Win32 system, the one the program is meant to RUN on, should this limit be ignored, the program is thus so limited and cannot use more than 2 GBs of RAMs: If it tried, the game would run seemingly okay on some systems and explode horribly on others. So it can't do that anywhere.

Well, that's what the LAA-flag is for. Windows is able to provide 4GB of virtual address space to an application, but the application must explicitly declare that it's able to handle it.

Devs probably leave the low-level memory management to the compiler in most cases, so it's simply a question whether the compiler supports LAA. Lots of games at least won't explode if the LAA-flag is set, although admittedly there's usually no benefit from doing so either.

[Anonym]

I have a feeling that the new EA fucktardery code isn't playing nice with compressed files

I have that feeling too.
As I said in my previous post, I never had trouble with compressed files before the patch.
Now that I have them decompressed (a good 252 MB of joy), my game loads very fast and runs smoothly without (!!) all the bugs I was so angry at.

I pray to Pescado to make a batch uncompressor.

I didn't compressorize my CC, but I'm sure much of it came compressed.

[uknortherner]

Although s3rc does allow you to decompress files, it's a daunting task trying to type in those gibberish package names one at a time (especially in my case where there's 200 of the things). It would be nice to tall s3rc to look at a folder (or directory in DOS-speak) and decompress the contents in one go.

[Anonym]

Although s3rc does allow you to decompress files, it's a daunting task trying to type in those gibberish package names one at a time (especially in my case where there's 200 of the things). It would be nice to tall s3rc to look at a folder (or directory in DOS-speak) and decompress the contents in one go.

Exactly.  I just decompressed a number of resources in s3pe, but no one could have the patience to do them all one by one (at least if, like me, they have tons of CC).

[J. M. Pescado]

Exists already, do bash, s3rc *.package

[uknortherner]

Won't let me do that in DOS. It keeps throwing up a "Could not stat *.package" message.

[J. M. Pescado]

Won't let me do that in DOS. It keeps throwing up a "Could not stat *.package" message.

Yes, basic DOS doesn't handle globbing, that's why you use bash.

[Noenmity]

There's a batch converter program called PowerRen 2000. I'm not sure if this program can convert the files in question but thought i'd mention it just in case it can. Google turns up a few links where you can download it free.

[SonnetCeles]

slightly off topic however lots with a lot of foliage will slow to a crawl on my machine.

That and ea download manager sucks badly, but people *should* know that by now I hope.

My sims 3 has never crashed nor slowed down significantly due to mass paranoia during installation.  Awesome Mod only made the game much more tolerable.

But foliage was one thing that made my machine load and slow to a molasses.

[uknortherner]

Won't let me do that in DOS. It keeps throwing up a "Could not stat *.package" message.

Yes, basic DOS doesn't handle globbing, that's why you use bash.

Ah, I never realised there was a bash client for Windows! Just downloaded one and have set it to decompress all my crappy store packages. Now to see if the uncompressed packages actually make a difference to the general sluggishness of the game...

Edit: And my findings are as follows:

The game now takes an extra minute to load - this is from double-clicking the icon through to the saved game loading and control being returned to the player.
Texture compositing now seems to be faster - almost at the same level pre-1.7, but not quite. Objects seem to load faster now.
There's still periods of lag. I'm putting this down to a rogue script mod though. I might just end up stripping out all the script mods and sticking with AM/NRaas mods as these are the only ones getting regular updates.

Also:

There's a batch converter program called PowerRen 2000. I'm not sure if this program can convert the files in question but thought i'd mention it just in case it can. Google turns up a few links where you can download it free.

No, this would corrupt the files as it would use a completely different algorithm to s3rc.

slightly off topic however lots with a lot of foliage will slow to a crawl on my machine.
That and ea download manager sucks badly, but people *should* know that by now I hope.
My sims 3 has never crashed nor slowed down significantly due to mass paranoia during installation.  Awesome Mod only made the game much more tolerable.
But foliage was one thing that made my machine load and slow to a molasses.

I remember in the not-too-distant-past a patch put out by EA that basically halved the FPS on my PC. It seemed at the time this was happening due to the graphics engine drawing lots and lots of trees and making half of them invisible. Also, the tree slider didn't work at all. A follow-up patch fixed this problem, but I can't help but wonder if the current patch has introduced yet more invisible objects that are constantly being generated.

[Anonym]

Well, I found something on MTS that helped to reduce the lag for me and, from what people on MTS post, will solve it for many with PC's.  Often a few bad pieces of CC are ruining it completely, as with the patch the game apparently keeps trying to open them.

1) Get "process monitor" for Windows here:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx.

2) Unless you know Process Monitor well enough to make your own filter to just catch .package files from TS3, get Delphy's filter linked in post 283 of this thread:  http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=379085.

3) Run Process Monitor with the filter while you play a bit of your game, then close the game.

4) Use the "Tools" (as described in the thread) to see if a few packages are getting a ridiculous amount of events.  Remove those packages and see if that speeds up your game.

[Dragon Slave]

Wow.  I'm not sure what to say except it all runs perfectly now.  The problem files?  A series of Fresh Prince cars starting with the name "F-P2009Nissan370Z01..." and two other files I can't recognize called 5faa5c3b_gai and 5fe5e9e3_gai.  They had event counts in the hundreds of thousands while everything else was below 100.  Now I'm wondering what the hell was wrong with them and whether or not the files can be fixed. 

[Buzzler]

I might just end up stripping out all the script mods and sticking with AM/NRaas mods as these are the only ones getting regular updates.

There a basically three reasons to update a scripting mod - 1. to implement new features, 2. to squish bugs and 3. to adapt the mod to a changed code base. If there are no feature or code base changes and nobody reported bugs to the modder and he didn't stumble on bugs himself, then there's no reason to update a mod, is there?

"Regular updates" isn't necessarily a good indicator for the quality of a mod or the effort of the creator.

[uknortherner]

I might just end up stripping out all the script mods and sticking with AM/NRaas mods as these are the only ones getting regular updates.

There a basically three reasons to update a scripting mod - 1. to implement new features, 2. to squish bugs and 3. to adapt the mod to a changed code base. If there are no feature or code base changes and nobody reported bugs to the modder and he didn't stumble on bugs himself, then there's no reason to update a mod, is there?

"Regular updates" isn't necessarily a good indicator for the quality of a mod or the effort of the creator.

Or... As in the case of two mods I got shot of, the creator last updated them in August and hasn't been heard from since. The mods were broken by the latest update - either completely, or damaged enough to cause lag, which means that there's no point keeping them in my game.

[Buzzler]

Or... As in the case of two mods I got shot of, the creator last updated them in August and hasn't been heard from since. The mods were broken by the latest update - either completely, or damaged enough to cause lag, which means that there's no point keeping them in my game.

Well, in that case these mods are more like abandoned than lacking regular updates, right? And if "getting regulars updates" means the same to you as "supported", the part about being AM/NRaas being the only mods of that kind might be considered as kind of insulting.