Something keeps causing my settings to be reset. It only seems to occur if I've been away from the game for a few days.
I have Win 10. I use Steam and have a bypass link on my desktop. I played a little every day for several days and all worked fine. Last time I played was Wednesday. I went to open the game today and the music was playing (first sign something is wrong because I keep it muted) So I looked and everything was reset, from lifespans to graphics to loading screens and memories being turned on! Any idea what can be causing this?
It never happened on my old PC and I'm just wondering if it can be something in Windows 10 or perhaps I've done something incorrectly? As I stated, it worked fine earlier in the week, but this is the second time things were reset when I went a day or two without playing. The first time I thought it was just a fluke or I'd deleted a file I shouldn't have when deleting cache files, but I looked it in my trash bin since I hadn't emptied it recently and it was only cache files I'd deleted.

The settings you are describing are all contained within the Game Options. Therefore, one of either two things has happened. You deleted the Options.ini file, the file in the TS3 user game folder in Documents where these settings are stored (not very likely of you to do, I am sure) or much more likely your graphics card driver has been updated. The latter will cause a total reset of all game settings every time on any operating system or platform and is to be expected I'm afraid.

igazor post_id=63580 time=1550335435 user_id=6716 wrote: or much more likely your graphics card driver has been updated.

Bingo! Just had an update a day or so ago. Thanks.

For the record: I have accidently deleted the Options file before, as well as the log file, but that was a long time ago and on another PC, lesson learned and I'm generally very cautious of that.

I wish our sims could play Bingo. That would be awesome, especially if we could see them filling out their cards as the numbers are called and excitement builds if they are close to winning, then they could come home with some small cash prize or a small kitchen appliance that neither they nor anyone else needs.

Oh...uhm, guess I got a bit carried away there.

LOL That would be cool though! Have a bingo hall and someone to call out numbers, could be a service sim or maybe have various sims around town volunteer to do work.

BTW: would that update have also cleared my custom colors out as well? I just noticed that I no longer have any of my custom colors or patterns! I'm just glad my created homes and sims are still in the bin!!! I'd be furious otherwise. The colors I can do again fairly easily. As long as the things I used them on are still using said pattern or color. Crap I never thought of that! I'm playing my new game right now so I haven't used any of them, but my other games have a used quite a bit! Ugh! I hope the stuff I used them on are still using them!:-o

Just in case: copy your Options, Library, userPresets and other important files and place them in a different, more secure location. One day I started the game and found that there is nothing there, because the folder with the documents was empty. But even this sneaky trick of my Windows isn't enough to destroy everything I've built for so long.

igazor wrote: ↑

February 16th, 2019, 1:28 pm

I wish our sims could play Bingo. That would be awesome, especially if we could see them filling out their cards as the numbers are called and excitement builds if they are close to winning, then they could come home with some small cash prize or a small kitchen appliance that neither they nor anyone else needs.

Oh...uhm, guess I got a bit carried away there.

But players can play a very interesting bingo. Instead of numbers in the table will be used hated us bugs and errors. In the case where it will be possible to cross out the line, exclaim the standard "bingo" and fall into despair. Oh, I'd not like to be a winner in such a game

JohnL83 post_id=63585 time=1550348140 user_id=18010 wrote: BTW: would that update have also cleared my custom colors out as well? I just noticed that I no longer have any of my custom colors or patterns!

I would say no. In all the times I've had my Options.ini settings reset due to graphics card updates, I've never had my userPresets.package file (where CASt patterns, etc. are saved) deleted. Are you sure you didn't delete that yourself, perhaps when clearing caches?

To reuse a saved Options.ini file:

1. Save a copy of the file outside the TS3 folder.
2. After installing the graphics card update, launch the game to the save game chooser, then quit. This will reset the Options.ini file in the TS3 folder (not your saved copy) and update the graphic card driver identifier line in that file (see next step).
3. Open up the reset Options.ini file in your TS3 folder and look for the "lastdevice =" line. If you use Notepad++, that's line # 150, otherwise open with any simple text editor (like the default Notepad in Windows). Copy the entire "lastdevice =" line. The code sequence after the equals mark is the identifier for your currently installed graphics driver.
4. Open the saved version of your old Options.ini file and paste over the "lastdevice =" line in that file. Save the file. Now you have your old Options.ini file updated with the new graphics card identifer.
5. Lastly, copy your updated Options.ini file to your TS3 folder and overwrite the reset file that's there (or delete the reset one first and copy the updated one over.

TreyNutz post_id=63588 time=1550370691 user_id=9877 wrote: To reuse a saved Options.ini file:

1. Save the file outside the TS3 folder.
2. After installing the graphics card update, launch the game to the save game chooser, then quit. This will reset the file and update the graphic card driver identifier.
3. Open up the reset Options.ini file and look for the "lastdevice =" line. If you use Notepad++, that's line # 150, otherwise open with any simple text editor (like the default Notepad in Windows). Copy the entire "lastdevice =" line. The code sequence after the equals mark is the identifier for your currently installed graphics driver.
4. Open your saved Options.ini file and paste over the "lastdevice =" line in that file. Save the file. Now you have your old Options.ini file updated with the new graphics card identifer.
5. Lastly, copy your update Options.ini file to your TS3 folder and overwrite the reset file (or delete the reset one first and copy the updated one over.

You also need to do that to that the Device Config otherwise the game will just discard the Options.ini
On the Driver line you need to copy the Version and GUID
And then just below it the Driver Version
Example of when I just updated my driver
Before update
Driver: aticfx32.dll, Version: 23.20.15002.11, GUID: D7B71EE2-249F-11CF-3975-1A8E7CC2DA35
Driver version: 11
After the Driver update those changed
Driver: aticfx32.dll, Version: 24.20.13019.1008, GUID: D7B71EE2-249F-11CF-C276-5B867CC2D535
Driver version: 1008

sittingbear post_id=63592 time=1550374456 user_id=16428 wrote:

TreyNutz post_id=63588 time=1550370691 user_id=9877 wrote: To reuse a saved Options.ini file:

1. Save the file outside the TS3 folder.
2. After installing the graphics card update, launch the game to the save game chooser, then quit. This will reset the file and update the graphic card driver identifier.
3. Open up the reset Options.ini file and look for the "lastdevice =" line. If you use Notepad++, that's line # 150, otherwise open with any simple text editor (like the default Notepad in Windows). Copy the entire "lastdevice =" line. The code sequence after the equals mark is the identifier for your currently installed graphics driver.
4. Open your saved Options.ini file and paste over the "lastdevice =" line in that file. Save the file. Now you have your old Options.ini file updated with the new graphics card identifer.
5. Lastly, copy your update Options.ini file to your TS3 folder and overwrite the reset file (or delete the reset one first and copy the updated one over.

You also need to do that to that the Device Config otherwise the game will just discard the Options.ini
On the Driver line you need to copy the Version
And then just below it the Driver Version
Example of when I just updated my driver
Before update
Driver: aticfx32.dll, Version: 23.20.15002.11, GUID: D7B71EE2-249F-11CF-3975-1A8E7CC2DA35
Driver version: 11
After the Driver update those changed
Driver: aticfx32.dll, Version: 24.20.13019.1008, GUID: D7B71EE2-249F-11CF-C276-5B867CC2D535
Driver version: 1008

I've never had to modify the Device Config when updating drivers and the Options.ini file. If you delete the Device Config log, won't the game just generate a new one? The strategy here is to launch the game so the Options.ini file (and apparently the DeviceConfig file) is updated with the new driver information. Then quit the game, and copy over the lastdevice line from the new Options.ini to the old one. Then copy the old file back to the TS3 folder. I don't understand why you'd need to mess with the DeviceConfig file; does it matter if the game resets that file? I'm not aware of that file holding any game options info (like graphics settings, age span settings, etc).

I think I'll update my post to be a bit more detailed.