CardinalSims wrote: ↑

January 20th, 2024, 8:26 pm

A fair bit yes, but all thoroughly vetted by myself. There is quite a range of what CC is actually appropriate to be using in the game- and that goes beyond what is actually broken or corrupt. The game just isn't designed to handle a lot of high-poly content and HD textures, so I'm selective with what I will use. All of my CAS CC is well within the EA performance range. Having 200 hairs from TSR creators who are 3D artists first and creators second is a pretty fast way to tank the game into the ground, for example.

I know that, I am completely aware of all these questions, could you answer my question? How many CCs do you use? Since you said that it has been a long time since you have faced an error. What are the types of CCs? Do you use the Merged technique? Do you use CCMagic? I assume that since you said that you like to organize and categorize your CCs, that you have a large number of files.

Thequesh wrote: ↑

January 20th, 2024, 9:04 pm

I think you misunderstood me. I'm not a new player, or new mod user. And could you answer what levels of RAM usage you usually use to save the game? This would help a lot based on the observations and tests I've already done.

I did not mean to imply either, as I only have the context of this one post. It was more of a 'we've all been there' statement- it takes time to pick up on safe modding practices, that's all

The others noted a few examples of their personal RAM limits as well as the hard limit the game will always have.
For me personally, my game sits comfortably around 2GB for general play. I would only expect to see it crawling to and beyond 3GB after travelling worlds or too much CAS / build mode. I've never had Error 12 on this PC so far, but I know I'll probably see it from time to time as my save gets more complicated.
I would open the game and give a more exact benchmark, but my mods folder is gutted right now because I'm working on a large CC project so I can't load my gameplay saves for the time being.

Thequesh wrote: ↑

January 20th, 2024, 9:09 pm

I know that, I am completely aware of all these questions, could you answer my question?

If I ever give more information than is useful, feel free to ignore it. I'd rather be too thorough than too vague, and not only do I not know your background but this thread will also be here for anyone else curious and perhaps less informed.
I did answer though- the very first thing I said was yes. It's a bit subjective what a lot looks like, but I have about 6GB of mods and CC in play so far. With much more waiting on the side, as needed for my playthrough.
If I count everything that isn't in use right now / being run through my project folder for retexturing.... 30GB+ Not that I would want to play with that much at once, but if the validity of my file count is in question there it is.

Most of that is CAS content, but all within EA limits as I noted. A lot of it is Store content converted to package, then cleaned/retextured by me. The only non-EA hair I use are of my own creation, but it wasn't always that way- and I only committed to that because I got too much render lag if sims had high poly hair. Somehow my specialty became hair creation all because of that frustration.

From my most recent Correction Log I can see I have about 57 script assemblies loaded. About 30 of those are NRaas. For reference, your log has 271.

Lastly, I have been on a quest to manually edit and merge all of my content (as I said, that's half the fun for me) but I did use CCMagic before that. I don't think that would make a huge difference on RAM usage though, as it's more the contents of the files that are relevant there.

Did I pass this interview?

I try to summarize it now:
You have 271 script mods (simple tuning mods are f.i. not counted here), which is far too much and can cause incompatibilty or simply bad programming (or some creators may also have missed to make compatibility checks with established mods known since 2009)
and then can cause issues and also crashes too.

and play especially in Bridgeport as noted is:
Bridgeport unfortunately adds its own brand of instability to the game because of its map flaws, issues with elevators and there being far too many highrise apartment buildings for one world, and the issue with private room markers for the NPCs to hibernate into being on the ground floor in so many places as we've discussed elsewhere. It's not the best world to be using when trying to stabilize an otherwise misbehaving game.

In reference CardinalSims has 57 script mods - 6GB of mods and CC in play,
I have 103 script mods and a lot of other tunings (total 245 MB) and 3 GB CC installed via CCMagic in my Mods folder.

I use a lot of custom hairs and have no problem with them, I have nvidia GTX 1070 big tower (no laptop)
with nvidia settings set to fps limit 29 (and there are other settings in nvidia for Sims 3 too)
and in-game graphics settings like this
Enable Object Hiding: on
Enable Reflections: Only mirror
Edge Smoothing: medium
Visual Effects: Medium
Lighting and shadows: Low
Tree Detail: Medium
Enable Animation Smoothing: On
Enable Advanced Rendering: On
Draw Distance: High
High Detail Lots: 2
Texture Detail: High
Sim Detail: High

So for me and all my mods - which are clear compatible with each other AND updated - I can use RAM up to 3,4
and above save as under new name
I reccomend nraas saver which prompts you every 30 minutes real time to save (even in build mode) and adds a 1, , 4 etc. at the end automatically. regularly cleanout older saves which you don't need, but saving OFTEN is really a must for Sims 3.

Now you need to test your all your mods
To make it easier:

1. make a copy of your Mods folder on Desktop
2. in Documents Mods folder / overwrites and in the folder Packages DELETE everything except all nraas mods to start with
3. create 2 new folders in the mods packages one
   _test-mods
   _test_good
4. on your Desktop a folder MODS_BAD
5. Delete all CACHE files in your sims folder under Documents
6. Start Sims 3 -> create a new world in Bridgeport again (to get a equivalent comparison) and place all your 5 families you had in the problematic Bridgeport save
7. when done with placing "save as" Mods-Test-2024 (with this you can start all mod tests later, no need to save your test sessions)
8. Now play for about 10 minutes real time and see if you get a crash again
9. if NOT you know now that one or more of your other mods causes the crash
10. then QUIT the game without saving
11. move all nraas mods in folder _test_good
12. move f.i. half of your other mods from Desktop back
13. Delete all CACHE files in your sims folder under Documents
14. Start sims 3 again and choose Mods-Test-2024 save
15. again play for about 10 minutes real time and see if you get a crash
16. if not repeat step 11 and so on untill you encounter the crash again
17. then you need to test the mods you moved the last time single by single
    
    It's time consuming, but the only way to make sure.
    ​​​​​​

When you are done you can try Knight smoothpatch version post94525#p94525

And maybe play your real game not in Bridgeport because it has several other problems as mentioned.

Also remove that file which is meant to make Simlers and overwatch compatible, because you removed simlers mod.

I also recommend to install the nraas beta versions under
Update-History-Testing

they are working good since quite a while and are high improvements.

CardinalSims wrote: ↑

January 20th, 2024, 11:12 pm

For me personally, my game sits comfortably around 2GB for general play. I would only expect to see it crawling to and beyond 3GB after travelling worlds or too much CAS / build mode. I've never had Error 12 on this PC so far, but I know I'll probably see it from time to time as my save

Thank you, you can now get an idea when compared to the tests I've already done.

CardinalSims wrote: ↑

January 20th, 2024, 11:12 pm

Did I pass this interview?

I think that responding with more objective things is better than just being subjective, if you say certain things to me but don't give me data to compare with my own files, it doesn't help me much, as each package can act in a different way. depending on how it was built, the types of game objects, whether it is scripted or not, whether it is just a turning, all of this, in my opinion, has to be taken into consideration when we talk about numbers of CCs. If the largest percentage of your CCs are CAS elements, your game's behavior will actually be different.

CardinalSims wrote: ↑

January 20th, 2024, 11:12 pm

From my most recent Correction Log I can see I have about 57 script assemblies loaded. About 30 of those are NRaas. For reference, your log has 271.

Interesting, it's a good comparison for me to try to solve by approximating the quantities of my CCs, it's better than actually starting everything from 0.

CardinalSims wrote: ↑

January 20th, 2024, 11:12 pm

Lastly, I have been on a quest to manually edit and merge all of my content (as I said, that's half the fun for me) but I did use CCMagic before that. I don't think that would make a huge difference on RAM usage though, as it's more the contents of the files that are relevant there.

I've always had this doubt about whether it's better to merge with S3Pe or CC magic. At the moment I'm using CC magic, I believe it's helping, but there's a lot of contradiction in the forums I've read about what should be added or not.

I'm sorry if I had to be more direct, but unfortunately it's a pattern that I see in posts trying to solve this type of problem, the answers start to be very subjective and repetitive, even more so when it comes to an error and an old game like that.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 3:48 am

with nvidia settings set to fps limit 29 (and there are other settings in nvidia for Sims 3 too)
and in-game graphics settings like this

In tutorials they always advise putting 60, is limiting it to 29 even better? I will test.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 3:48 am

Enable Object Hiding: on
Enable Reflections: Only mirror
Edge Smoothing: medium
Visual Effects: Medium
Lighting and shadows: Low
Tree Detail: Medium
Enable Animation Smoothing: On
Enable Advanced Rendering: On
Draw Distance: High
High Detail Lots: 2
Texture Detail: High
Sim Detail: High

Your video card is more powerful than mine, but you still can't use the maximum settings? It's my suspicion that the game doesn't really use video memory well, but I had no way of proving that.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 3:48 am

So for me and all my mods - which are clear compatible with each other AND updated - I can use RAM up to 3,4

This helps a lot, it's a good comparison with everything that was said, but in this case the only option that can save is "Save as", if you use the "save" or "save and exit" option you get error 12 Is it basically guaranteed at these values?

C-Dark wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 3:48 am

Now you need to test your all your mods

Yes, yes, it's very similar to the way I do it. The only thing is that my game rarely crashes, instead it reaches a memory peak where it is no longer possible to save with error 12.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 3:48 am

When you are done you can try Knight smoothpatch version post94525#p94525

I saw that it is a conflict with the options that the mastercontroller has in the CAS, but I suspect it is much more than that, isn't it? Since this mod has a dll file that could interfere with the game's stability, I'm just wondering, but yesterday I did a quick test after removing smoothpatch, and I managed to save with the game hitting 3.0gb of RAM, I didn't do it more tests because there wasn't time yet, but I kind of started to suspect about it, you know?

C-Dark wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 4:08 am

I also recommend to install the nraas beta versions under
Update-History-Testing

Yes yes, I already came across this in my research and I have already downloaded all the mods I use from NRAAS with these versions.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 4:08 am

Also remove that file which is meant to make Simlers and overwatch compatible, because you removed simlers mod.

I didn't remove it? Wow, I thought I had removed everything, I'll look into that. Thanks.

I have a doubt about the text of the error log that I sent, you said that there are 271 CCs that are being logged. These 271 do not contain turnings, nor game or CAS objects, just scripted mods, is that it?

There are many that I don't even know what it is, as it only has numbers, is there any way I can find out? Are cool packages from the store also included in this count? Poses, animations, music replacements, radio stations included too?

In the error log are only script mods listed. I didn't prove the count, but I counted in mine not the store ones and not the Sims 3 system ones. All other tunings and your other CC like clothing, hair, furniture etc. is extra.
​​​​​​

You can use S3pe to open package files, if you look for icon or thumb you can find out what it is, I assume CC not mods, because these normally have a decent names.

Thequesh wrote: ↑

January 21st, 2024, 2:42 pm

I think that responding with more objective things is better than just being subjective, if you say certain things to me but don't give me data to compare with my own files, it doesn't help me much, as each package can act in a different way.

The supposed conversation this was supposed to spark generating a pretty uniform "That isn't how it works in our experience, here are the steps to troubleshoot." from a handful of experienced, trusted, and long-term players here doesn't seem very subjective to me.

You're free to go about things your own way and do your own tests, but ignoring the advice of everyone with a functioning game is about where I lose the stamina to continue participating. Best of luck with your game.