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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 7th Aug 2017 at 11:40 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, Late Night, Pets, Seasons
Default What More Can I Do to Prevent My Sims3 Game from Freezing?!
Oy vey. I posted a topic about a week ago about this problem, but I found out that my graphics card wasn't the problem.

I have a large-ish Sims 3 family called the Luthers. They are currently in the 5th generation (with one daughter moved away who has a kid) and I really liked seeing how far I could take this family. I added a different group of people with a giant mansion into my town and that's when all the trouble started. This family has since been moved apart and their house destroyed. My game would freeze after almost an hour of game play and I wouldn't be able to save, move my mouse, or click on anything. Z's still fluttered overhead, TV noise still played. I'd have to get lucky and save when the game caught up to itself. I'm playing the main game, Seasons, Late Night and Loft Stuff through Origins, and I have a physical disc for Pets. My laptop is pretty decent; ASUS with 8GB of RAM, i7 processor, and an NVIDIA 960M graphics card which is officially paired with the game. I also play with NRAAS mods; Overwatch, Portrait Panel, Mover, and Master Controller. Lately, I've always been Saving As and my NHD file is 251 MB, which isn't as big as others' are, I've read. I deleted my TravelDB file, along with any other cache files that are typically deleted. Should I delete all the files in my World Caches folder? I killed/deleted tons of people and their houses, I've destroyed useless public lots and buildings.

What else can I do to fix this problem? I've tried so much stuff. You name it, I've probably tried it. The only thing I'm a little tentative to do is run a .exe to clean stuff up because I have a hard time following many tutorials. Any and all help is appreciated

EDIT: I did start a new town in my game that seems to run fine, except it froze once in CAS. I've made a couple of Sims since then and CAS didn't freeze. However, it was pretty boring and I'd eventually try to make another large family again, and then I'd back here complaining of freezing anyway after a few months.
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Top Secret Researcher
#2 Old 7th Aug 2017 at 11:45 PM
Hello jennifersalome: There are lots of suggestions here in the Tips For Better Game Performance Documentation.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 7th Aug 2017 at 11:53 PM
Quote: Originally posted by barbarat
Hello jennifersalome: There are lots of suggestions here in the Tips For Better Game Performance Documentation.


Thank you so much. I'll definitely browse through that and make some changes. Even if these work, I still want to know if other people had this problem and what they've done specifically that they know has worked. But thank you very much!
Top Secret Researcher
#4 Old 8th Aug 2017 at 1:56 AM
You are very welcome. I think it's safe to say, with a few exceptions everyone has experienced lag, freezing and other issues at one time or another. Please keep in mind that results others have experienced will vary depending upon a players system specifications, game folder size content and style of play. What works for one might not for another. Also, often it is a combination of steps taken to realize better performance.

There really isn't a one size fits all solution but If you are on patch 1.67 or prior there is a tip on the page to delete the temporary (.tmp) files found in DCCache. Those load into RAM and will use resources. Deleting those files will help somewhat but you will probably need to take further actions to get your game healthy and playable.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 11th Aug 2017 at 10:33 AM
Hey, so I think I finally really fixed it this time, and it's a hilarious reason.

A looong time ago, I made really cheap, crappy houses that I could insert new Sims into when I wanted to add to the population of the town, and I placed a bunch of them around town. Cut to recently, when I had all these freezing issues. I was going nuts trying to figure it out. Like, really insane. It wasn't until I installed Overwatch that I noticed that there were unroutable sims. Then, after I cleaned up some other stuff, I noticed that every time the game froze, the unroutable notification came up. I realized that the same Sims kept getting unrouted all the time. They were both in those really shitty houses. I don't know why they would never go in them, but I didn't care. Once I killed those families (they were not cool families) and razed their houses, I was able to play for a long time without ANY freezes. So, the moral of the story, is if you're trying everything and nothing is working, try looking at horrible houses you built. God, I feel so dumb.
Top Secret Researcher
#6 Old 11th Aug 2017 at 3:25 PM
Happy to see you got it sorted out @jennifersalome . Overwatch is a must have mod. I just assumed you had it in and never thought about unroutable sims. I am going to add your discovery to our documentation. Thanks so much for coming back in and sharing your results.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 14th Aug 2017 at 11:32 AM
You're very welcome. Final update- Today, my (real life) boyfriend and I wanted to play computer games all day, and I decided to buy a new expansion pack (Ambitions) and play for a few hours. Well, I played my game for a really long time (probably an unhealthy amount of time) and had zero issues. I appreciate all the help everyone's given me lately, even though the problem was a really awful house build. I really can't believe it was because I made such a crappy neighborhood.
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