New Patch 1.17/2.12/3.8/4.5/5.2

[immortelleMuse]

Game is now crashing to desktop in live mode without a message or anything after a few seconds now. Any possible cause? Nothing except been in life mode seems to trigger it. CAS? Fine. Buy/Build? Fine. Townview? Fine. Live Mode? Crash. WTF?

It may be you need to make an exception for The Sims Late Night on the Data Execution Prevention list (DEP) if you haven't already.
This was actually discussed in an Ambitions thread somewhere, though I understand there are lots of CTD threads, so I thought mentioning it once more wouldn't hurt.

For Vista, this is how you add an exception:
http://club.myce.com/f116/adding-dvdfab-dep-exception-list-vista-220277/

This helped with my live-mode problems for the past two EP's. You'll have to make an exception for every SimsEP## application that you install in order to prevent the CTD in live mode (from my experience.) If that does not help, I'm not sure what else will.

Perhaps someone should add this in a "What you'll probably need to do when you install new EP's and SP's" thread or something.

[brownlustgirl]

I read elsewhere that a buggy fire station lot was causing Bridgeport to crash for some people.  I went into Edit Town, combed through the entire map and couldn't find an actual fire station lot, but I did find an odd, flat, gray lot set to "No Visitors Allowed."  I deleted it, replaced it with a fire station, and suddenly Bridgeport was working for me.

I read at MTS that the error is caused when EA method of placing the Ambitions lots in Bridgeport, but it was not successful because the game tried placing those Ambitions lots on spaces that is too small for them. So for you, jeromycraig, it's the fire station that was not successful, and for me it was the salon and junkyard. Others had problems with any one or combination of Ambitions lots. EA should have allowed the player to place their own Ambitions lots.

[jemonkey]

Patch 2.12 killed CAW for me. Whenever I try to open it, it displays the "game data was not found" window.

Anyone else have this problem?

[ElectricSimmer]

Download new CAW.

[boy_ptk]

Can someone upload "S3Launcher.exe" file (only a couple KB in RAR) from the latest HELS patch 3.8.6 please? I would want to try this first with the HELS incremental patch, before I download the HELS fulll patch. Thank you.

[Bottle-O-Cunt]

Do you NEED to have LN for the muscle and breast sliders to show up? I reinstalled and patched my games (Base and AMB), and the fucking brest and muscle sliders still don't show up. What could be the issue? The test version of AM?

[Annan]

I hear rumors about a fullpatch for AMB. Is there such a thing? I am trying to patch my half-patched AMB on a mac, but the only patches around are 4.0->4.5, and my game is 4.2. Suck, EA.

[wizard_merlin]

Do you NEED to have LN for the muscle and breast sliders to show up? I reinstalled and patched my games (Base and AMB), and the fucking brest and muscle sliders still don't show up. What could be the issue? The test version of AM?

I would guess that it is LN specific then, unless you have another fucking conflict.  I patched and loaded LN and the sliders are there, so by reasoning, they are either LN specific or you have a conflict causing the fucking problem.

[boy_ptk]

Do you NEED to have LN for the muscle and breast sliders to show up? I reinstalled and patched my games (Base and AMB), and the fucking brest and muscle sliders still don't show up. What could be the issue? The test version of AM?

I would guess that it is LN specific then, unless you have another fucking conflict.  I patched and loaded LN and the sliders are there, so by reasoning, they are either LN specific or you have a conflict causing the fucking problem.

The muscle and breast sliders are not LN exclusive. I have basegame and WA/HELS/AMB/FLS, and updated to the latest patches (except HELS, I haven't downloaded the full patch yet) and when I loaded the game, both sliders are there.

[uknortherner]

Ah, but I'll bet Bottle-o-cunt's using some sort of UI mod for non-default skins.

[Zazazu]

This is near-necromancy, but I didn't think it really warranted a thread of its own.

I've suddenly found that my game is restricting me to four high-detail lots. Not twelve, as pre-1.7x. Not eight, as 1.17x was supposed to set. FOUR. Now, I do love the number four and it is most pleasing to the Oversoul that it wasn't set to something especially evil like three. However, my newly-made CAW 'hood with over 100 lots that I spent weeks finishing looks like crap on a cracker.

This, for example:
   
It's cutting out the view of one of the river walls, making my perfectly encircled city center open to the masses. Next thing you know, the casteless and mixed caste sims restricted to the city center will think they are allowed to mingle with the four castes. This cannot be allowed. Plus, I can see all the messy uneven earth the walls were serving to hide.

Now, I've tried checking DeviceConfig. Initially, it said:

MaxActiveLots 12
NumMaxActiveLotOptions 4

I tried changing NumMaxActiveLotOptions to twelve, but of course the game ignored it while in play and reset it upon reinitialization. I then tried changing the file to read-only in a last ditch effort. My changes are completely ignored. The game will still only present the option to show up to four lots.

Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how did you fix it?

[Simsample]

Now, I've tried checking DeviceConfig. Initially, it said:

MaxActiveLots 12
NumMaxActiveLotOptions 4

I tried changing NumMaxActiveLotOptions to twelve, but of course the game ignored it while in play and reset it upon reinitialization. I then tried changing the file to read-only in a last ditch effort. My changes are completely ignored. The game will still only present the option to show up to four lots.

Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how did you fix it?

First, delete your caches and also DeviceConfig.log from Documents\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3. In Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 [Latest EP/SP] \Game\Bin find graphicsrules.sgr and MAKE A BACKUP.

Open graphicsrules.sgr with notepad.

find:
option NumMaxActiveLotOptions
   setting 4
      prop $ConfigGroup NumMaxActiveLotOptions 4
      prop $ConfigGroup PlatformMaxActiveLots 4
   setting 6
      prop $ConfigGroup NumMaxActiveLotOptions 6
      prop $ConfigGroup PlatformMaxActiveLots 8
end
if ($os64Bit == 1)
   setOption NumMaxActiveLotOptions 6
else
   setOption NumMaxActiveLotOptions 4

Change it to:
option NumMaxActiveLotOptions
   setting 4
      prop $ConfigGroup NumMaxActiveLotOptions 8
      prop $ConfigGroup PlatformMaxActiveLots 8
   setting 6
      prop $ConfigGroup NumMaxActiveLotOptions 8
      prop $ConfigGroup PlatformMaxActiveLots 8
end
if ($os64Bit == 1)
   setOption NumMaxActiveLotOptions 6
else
   setOption NumMaxActiveLotOptions 6


This will force the game to allow the option of up to 8 lots visible whatever your specifications. What it defaults to will still depend upon your specs, and of course lower end systems may not actually render 8 lots simultaneously in high LOD.

You may have to replace this edited file with the original copy when patching, and if you add any more EPs/ SPs you will have to edit the graphicsrules for those instead.

[Zazazu]

Thanks, Simsample.

One change. Do not delete DeviceConfig. If you do, the game crashes before even getting the opening animation. With 3booter, this caused and endless loop. Instead, delete your caches and rename the Documens\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 folder to something else temporarily. Start the game. Quit when you get to the menu. Copy the DeviceConfig (I also copied Options for good measure) from the newly generated folder to your renamed folder. Delete the newly generated folder and rename your original to "The Sims 3". Everything should run well from there.

'Hood is looking a hell of a lot better, as now my entire block is being fully rendered. The block has seven lots so was a blurry mess before. Some of the walls are still not showing, but such is life. They probably would be at 12 lots. Have you ever tried setting it back to 12 and seeing how it does? My system is middling, but had absolutely no problems prepatch running all options to max with a fairly large amount of cc all in merged packages.

[Claeric]

Are high-detail lots high-detail just visually or both visually and functionally? Are the sims inside the high-detail lots active and moving around instead of standing there in low-detail mode? I've never, ever seen next-door neighbors doing anything on their lot, so I have to wonder.

If they're only visually high-detail, and not "active", then limiting them seems a bit dumb. Why wouldn't anyone want to have all the lots around the currently active lot looking great?

[Zazazu]

Oh lordy, Vole.

Displaying textures in higher resolution is taxing on a system. That's part of why they are limited. I believe, but do not know, that only lots shown in high detail maintain a significant amount of activity for inactive sims.

As for your never seeing neighbors doing anything on their lot, I don't know what to tell you. My inactive sims eat meals, have conversations, care for their spawn. Try building a neighborhood with 1-tile separation between small lots. You'll hear and observe plenty of action.

[Chain_Reaction]

How about changing the "nummaxactivelotoptions" in the options.ini file in your my documents folder vs fiddling with the graphicsrules.sgr? Works for me.