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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 12:01 AM
Default Please help! My game's visuals are broken.
I am on a PC that wells exceeds the necessary specs for The Sims 3.
Screenshots for game.

PC Specs



I've tried deleting all my CC, cleared my Cache files, everything I'm aware of to fix it. I thought it was a ram issue so I ended a whole bunch of processed on Task Manager but that didn't help either. I don't know what else to do, I've never had this issue before on previous PC's. In addition, before installing World Adventures and Island Paradise I'm pretty sure this wasn't happening, but I'm not sure. I didn't play a whole lot without those two.
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 12:15 AM
Your visuals aren't broken, per se, because this is a known issue. Why the Sims aren't loading in, I don't know, but it's fairly common for Sims to need a number of seconds to fully load in. If your caches are empty, that shouldn't be the issue. It's just not loading in the Sim models.

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( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
#4 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 12:20 AM
That was my theory as well but on a system like that Sims should not take more than 1 or 2 seconds to load in, paused or not. They never take more than 3 seconds on mine and I use all sorts of HD mods and whatnot. Then again, my cache size limit is also 10x larger than the default.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 12:37 AM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
That was my theory as well but on a system like that Sims should not take more than 1 or 2 seconds to load in, paused or not. They never take more than 3 seconds on mine and I use all sorts of HD mods and whatnot. Then again, my cache size limit is also 10x larger than the default.

The sims take several minutes to load in, and as soon as they get off screen they unload.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 12:41 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
post your deviceconfig log file.

Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 1:16 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
Please follow this thread: http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...d=1#post4782510

To fix your GPU recognization and VRAM issue.

I'm still concerned about the RAM usage, it seems you are using a lot of RAM prior to TS3. But GPU first.

I followed the included link and it does seem to have helped a lot, but my sims still take upwards of 10 seconds to load in.
A single sim takes about 15 seconds to load in, 2 sims take 30 seconds, 3 sims take 40. Before this fix, I didn't actually time it with a stopwatch but I would guess it took almost double that so the fix definitely did something but I'm not sure why it's not working fully.

My new DeviceConfig Log
Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 1:22 AM
Quote: Originally posted by acrazyguy3/2
I followed the included link and it does seem to have helped a lot, but my sims still take upwards of 10 seconds to load in.
A single sim takes about 15 seconds to load in, 2 sims take 30 seconds, 3 sims take 40. Before this fix, I didn't actually time it with a stopwatch but I would guess it took almost double that so the fix definitely did something but I'm not sure why it's not working fully.

My new DeviceConfig Log


Oh hold on, I looked in the performance area of task manager and somehow (even though I turn it off every night wtf) my computer has been on for a week. I have reset it and will test now.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#11 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 1:27 AM
Oh dammit, the restart did nothing.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#13 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 1:58 AM
I followed your link, and then rebooted. My testing is showing that it takes 40 - 50 seconds for every sim on this lot to load in (7 sims.) I thought it had to do with who was on screen but every time I reset the scene (exit the lot with 'M' and then go back in) the sims load in randomly, regardless of who is being shown on screen. The only processes running are all the bloat (or maybe it's just invisible on earlier versions) windows 10 comes with that you can't kill (Cortana), TS3W, Explorer, and Task Manager. During my tests, I killed all the processes I could. I don't know why this is still happening, task manager claims only 48% usage right now (with Chrome open to type this.)
Testing the Park Control program now and it seems to help slightly, but still only around a 2/3 second decrease.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#14 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 2:13 AM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
That was my theory as well but on a system like that Sims should not take more than 1 or 2 seconds to load in, paused or not. They never take more than 3 seconds on mine and I use all sorts of HD mods and whatnot. Then again, my cache size limit is also 10x larger than the default.

Your cache size limit? How did you increase that? What even is that?
Field Researcher
#15 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 2:32 AM
Are you perhaps using the HQ mod? >.>
Test Subject
Original Poster
#17 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 2:47 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
How big is this lot? 64x64? There are a lot of information I think I assumed without really seeing the data. Have you tried this in a "clean" game? No cc, no mods? Just to be sure? (rename or move your TS3 user folder, let the game create a new one) In fact, test it in a new game.

When you are on a lot, especially a large lot, when you zoom out to map view and back in, it will reload the sims in low res shell then update to high res. This is perfectly normal. The larger the lot, the more stuff on the lot, the longer this transition will take. This is how sims 3 always has been. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds though, unless there are some broken cc/mods, etc...

You mentioned it didn't happen on your older system. What was the specs of that system and what graphics setting did you set it? Was it lower than your current system?



You can try this yourself and experiment. I don't recommend touching the sims cache as it is set to 500meg. But I'm on a HDD, someone on a SSD may be able to raise it much higher. In my system it creates a pulse lag. However, you should most definitely increase the object cache to 500MB.

https://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=548125

It's close to the top of this 1st post tutorial.

-------

There is one other possibility, though it is very unlikely b/c it is rare. It is the infinite book/limo bug. It happened before in my game, but it can be temporarily fixed by saving the game and quitting.

- bug, the game continuously generates limo or book infinitely, slowing down the game.
- check task manager to see CPU usage on TS3W.EXE to see if it is high
- use NRAAS MC, go to --> town --> object stats --> global --> sort by number and see how large is the book or limo... by large I'm saying 10,000, 50,000 etc...


My older system was a PC from 2013. All the parts were running stock, and it had an FX-6300, GTX 660, and 16gbs of DDr3 I think around 1600 ish.

The lot is the library from Riverview which I think is 40*30. I'm not in game anymore, decided to play Spiderman PS4 instead for now but I will check later.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#19 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 2:54 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
The library lot in Riverview is ... 30x20 I believe. Very small lot. This should not be happening. hmm... puzzling. Were you running Win 7 in your older system? My system is from 2012, I'm running Win 7. I've heard issues with Win 10, but that's not something I'm familiar with.

I was running Windows 10 basic (or is it called Standard?) x64. My new pc is 10 x64 Education (which is basically Pro but with like one less feature I think, idk it was free because college.)
Field Researcher
#20 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 3:43 AM
Another problem I've encountered with nVidia cards is that even IF the card is a big one (like your 1080 and my 1060), you'll have to decrease your in-game graphics because while the card can handle it, the game cannot. I've got double the RAM (16 gig) and I would occasionally run into your issue if I had the graphics turned up to "extreme" (super water, high detail, etc.).

Try turning down your graphics in the game itself, quit, reboot the computer, run your cleaner program and restart the game. See if that works.

Also, are you running an FPS limiter? If not, I suggest doing so.

Oh, and I'm running windows 10 with no issue with the game other than me being waaaay too optimistic about the game's graphics.

Dead Ringers
Discord: RedBaroness13
Mad Poster
#22 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 2:52 PM
I don't know where this "decrease your graphics to increase your performance" misconception comes from, but it bears no truth. If you have a 1060, a 1070, a 1080, it's NOT going to bottleneck your performance. In fact, all recent GPU series have either been more than powerful enough or very close to it.
The clock speeds and memory caches on these cards are leagues beyond anything that was available when TS3 came out in 2009, and when configured correctly TS3 will not be able to exhaust them. Every issue you might have is entirely the game's doing and you will most likely find that the engine is not capable of handling the extra available processing power to any meaningful degree. The game loads its texture files and various other assets from the cache files on your Documents drive and as such you benefit from an increased cache file size limit, especially if your caches are on an SSD or a RAMdisk. You may experience issues with the loading of certain assets (high-res Sim models or object textures being two common types) but that simply means the game engine is struggling to retrieve the data and load it into the game's active memory space.

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( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Test Subject
Original Poster
#23 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 5:08 PM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
I don't know where this "decrease your graphics to increase your performance" misconception comes from, but it bears no truth. If you have a 1060, a 1070, a 1080, it's NOT going to bottleneck your performance. In fact, all recent GPU series have either been more than powerful enough or very close to it.
The clock speeds and memory caches on these cards are leagues beyond anything that was available when TS3 came out in 2009, and when configured correctly TS3 will not be able to exhaust them. Every issue you might have is entirely the game's doing and you will most likely find that the engine is not capable of handling the extra available processing power to any meaningful degree. The game loads its texture files and various other assets from the cache files on your Documents drive and as such you benefit from an increased cache file size limit, especially if your caches are on an SSD or a RAMdisk. You may experience issues with the loading of certain assets (high-res Sim models or object textures being two common types) but that simply means the game engine is struggling to retrieve the data and load it into the game's active memory space.

After setting my Sim detail down a level (I think from Very High to just high) the problem is gone, with no obvious difference to me visually. Now sims are taking a much more reasonable max ~5 seconds to load in.
Mad Poster
#24 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 5:20 PM
Yeah, but you're permanently losing a certain level of detail in your Sims.....their textures are probably at a much lower resolution now than they'd have been otherwise.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Test Subject
Original Poster
#25 Old 22nd Oct 2018 at 6:24 PM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
Yeah, but you're permanently losing a certain level of detail in your Sims.....their textures are probably at a much lower resolution now than they'd have been otherwise.

While this is true, I don't really seem to mind the lower texture resolution. It's certainly better than the alternative and I tend to play fairly zoomed out regardless so it doesn't bother me too much. It's much less noticeable than the low res/poly shells the game was loading in before.
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