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Forum Resident
Original Poster
#1 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 2:03 AM
Default World Size
Riverview is 95,033kb, but since Sunset Valley and the EP worlds aren't in .world format (that I could see) would you say they are bigger than Riverview or smaller? I've gotten the impression that Riverview is smaller than Sunset, but what do you guys think? I'm not talking about save files - they are data external to the .world file so I suspect it wouldn't be a good judge of size.

I'm trying to get a baseline of how large a .world file should be. Basically, I play Sunset Valley exclusively and I've gotten a feel for how loaded it can be before it starts having performance problems. I would like to use that as an upper end for how detailed my world is. I'm currently around 44,000kb (more or less).

Pretty pictures:








My cat taught me how to fetch. I throw the toy, she shows me where it landed, and I fetch it.
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Test Subject
#2 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 6:48 AM
If you open up the lite versions in CAW, SV is the largest map and Riverview is the next down IIRC.
Scholar
#3 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 8:01 AM
The world I've built is quite large and I am not seeing any performance issues as of yet. I believe it has around 70+ lots total (several of which are large and up to 64 x 64 in dimension).

Good start on your world, btw
Top Secret Researcher
#4 Old 4th Jan 2010 at 10:06 PM
What a lovely street, NekoCat! I can't wait to see more.
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#5 Old 6th Jan 2010 at 7:03 PM
Well, it looks like file size isn't as big a factor as I thought. I'm up to 55k now and I completely ignored the recomendations to limit the number of lots to under 100 and upped it to 116. I then decided to do a test to see what would happen if I stuck houses on all the lots. The memory usage peaked at 1.6 gig and gameplay became laggy with 2-4 second delays common. I removed several houses with no change in memory usage. I placed too many lots to give a lot of options because you can't create lots like in TS2 with the intention that they shouldn't be completely filled, but 1.6gig is unacceptable.

Now to figure out what I have to do to get it playable (I'm sure if I had added my regular custom content directory it would have crashed). I'm going to start by deleting and shrinking some of the islands (which will reduce the number of lots), then if that doesn't work, cut back on even more lots. I'm using the largest map size, so I'm wondering if I'll have to just scrap it and rebuild on the medium size map instead. I wish I had done that in the first place. Either way, I'm liking my Venice downtown too much to completely give it up. :lovestruc And I designed 12 amazing houses to go with it, too.

The only custom content I had were Melissamel's rabbithole objects and Twallan's supercomputer (so I could check demographics to verify the number of houses and population levels). So I'm positive that wasn't a factor.

I was hoping to have it up for feedback this week. But that's delayed... Oh well... It's definately a learning process.

My cat taught me how to fetch. I throw the toy, she shows me where it landed, and I fetch it.
Scholar
#6 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 12:01 AM
Quote: Originally posted by NekoCat
Well, it looks like file size isn't as big a factor as I thought. I'm up to 55k now and I completely ignored the recomendations to limit the number of lots to under 100 and upped it to 116. I then decided to do a test to see what would happen if I stuck houses on all the lots. The memory usage peaked at 1.6 gig and gameplay became laggy with 2-4 second delays common. I removed several houses with no change in memory usage. I placed too many lots to give a lot of options because you can't create lots like in TS2 with the intention that they shouldn't be completely filled, but 1.6gig is unacceptable.


Is this while you were still in CAW? I noticed that if I add houses to lots while in CAW's Edid Town, it becomes progressively laggy and susceptible to save errors. However, I have all 70 or so lots filled in-game without any issue. Try exporting your world to the game and see if performance improves.
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#7 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 2:54 AM
I was in the game when this happened. In fact, it's gotten worse. I made a copy of the world file so I wouldn't overwrite the original, deleted a couple large islands and shrank the number of lots to 86. I then imported into the game and everything seemed fine at first, but after I added thirty houses I started to get lags up up to 2 minutes. The processor would max out at 100% even though the memory being used was only about 1 gig. Seriously, my computer (high end game system) rarely maxes the proc out so something was very wrong.

I'm pretty sure I must have messed something up along the way, I mean Jasumi is right, I should have been able to run it. I actually haven't had any problems with lag in CAW or Edit in Game so I was pretty surprised to see this happen. Of course, its possible the whole thing is a bug in the software and had nothing to do with me... But perhaps the more you edit a world the more unstable it gets... or something...

Anyway, I'm going to export my terrain map and start over. I will create Venice, one way or another.

The good news is, I learned a lot from the first one, so the second one should be better, and I should be able to create it faster too. :D

My cat taught me how to fetch. I throw the toy, she shows me where it landed, and I fetch it.
Test Subject
#8 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 4:03 AM
For my first test world (or at least the first that made it into my game) I had 120 residential lots, all with houses, and around 50 community lots. In game, it didn't show any signs of lag until I hit around 200 sims, then it slowed down slightly.

I played the map for hours, and no lag. That map was ridiculously overstuffed, so I don't think number of lots alone is going to have a huge effect on game performance.

Are you sure that all your land is accessible? If you have even a little bit of land that sims can't get to, but that you don't have marked as unroutable, it can tie up the processor while the game tries over and over again to figure out how to get a sim there.

Those little barrier island type deals, off the mainland in the first picture. Did you make them unroutable?
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#9 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 7:19 AM
Thanks for reminding me to mark areas unroutable. I was going to do it last, which means I would probably forget. Anyway, I went back into my first version and marked several places unroutable, and even found a bridge that had somehow been placed in the middle of the ocean. But unfortunately when I put the updated world in the game I saw no difference in the behavior. It's still using a lot of memory and there is a 2-3 second lag occurring.

The second version was the one that was maxing out the processor, and perhaps when I removed a couple of the islands they kept their routing info. I'll try looking at it tomorrow to see if that could have happened.

My cat taught me how to fetch. I throw the toy, she shows me where it landed, and I fetch it.
Instructor
#10 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 8:36 AM
I am not sure if this will help, but I read that you need to use layers and keep them clean. In other words be sure all trees are on one layer not scattered across several. If you scatter the same type of things across multiple layers it can cause lagging and decreased game performance. Grouping abjects together by type improves performance and load/lag time.
Scholar
#11 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 8:36 AM
Quick question: Is it just your neighborhood doing this? Are Sunset Valley and Riverview acting up too? Your neighborhood should be working perfectly fine, could be your CC....

Quote: Originally posted by Sookielee
I am not sure if this will help, but I read that you need to use layers and keep them clean. In other words be sure all trees are on one layer not scattered across several. If you scatter the same type of things across multiple layers it can cause lagging and decreased game performance. Grouping abjects together by type improves performance and load/lag time.


Beat me to it lol This is a great suggestion, the downloadable guides tell you how to manage layers. Although, my layers are a bit messy and the world runs fine, so it is probably something else contributing to your slow-downs as well....
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#12 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 6:01 PM
Sunset Valley is fine. I just let it run for 3 hours (more or less) and it has more houses and more sims and is using slightly less memory and proc useage is normal. I don't have Riverview installed, but I'm going to assume it would be the same.

I was trying to keep my layers ordered, but I'm sure some things were sneaking their way into other categories. One thing that I couldn't keep track of, however, is terrain paint. It does recommend max 8 paints per block. Its possible (even likely) I exceeded that in some blocks.

I've already imported the map into a new world and this time I'm going to watch what I'm doing. Obviously I messed up the first one somehow. I hope future releases of CAW include more statistics for checking up on what we are doing in our worlds when we build them.

My cat taught me how to fetch. I throw the toy, she shows me where it landed, and I fetch it.
Retired
retired moderator
#13 Old 7th Jan 2010 at 6:15 PM
NekoCat, I have no idea what causes this. I thought it could be terrain paint as well. However, I now have a lagless world, and to the best of my knowledge I did nothing different except starting all over. :/

We need more help with this one. Something may be going wrong during the exportation.

edit: Actually there is one thing I've done differently. I have only 70 lots, instead of closer to 100.
Top Secret Researcher
#14 Old 11th Jan 2010 at 9:57 PM
Neko, you can turn on the blocks so that you can see where the boundaries are when you paint or even to check to see if you used more than 8. Also, did you make your own textures? If so, make sure you used the correct size and resolution.

I hope you get it working! Hubby and I are going to Venice next fall so I would love to play in your world before then!
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#15 Old 12th Jan 2010 at 3:32 AM
Thanks for the hint, Rian90. The problem with the first version was that I couldn't decide what colors to use on the land and kept changing my mind so I'm pretty sure I went over 8 on a few of the blocks.

The second version is coming along much better (and faster). I'm hoping to have a test version up this week. I'm so jealous! I wish I could go to Venice. You'll have a great time!

My cat taught me how to fetch. I throw the toy, she shows me where it landed, and I fetch it.
Test Subject
#16 Old 21st Jan 2010 at 1:46 PM
Not sure if this is the correct thread, but is anyone else experiencing this issue with CAW?

I recently was in the process of testing my first created world and came across an issue when placing a copy of a lot. When I go to place a copy, the lot copies to the new lot, but it is missing all the objects (ie windows, doors, furniture, etc.) The structure is there, but everything displays in a muddy brown color over the texture.

I have the latest graphics driver I am currently running the latest patched version of The Sims 3 World Adventures. I hadn't seen anything posted in the forums yet, but just wanted to see if this was a known issue with the beta.
Top Secret Researcher
#17 Old 21st Jan 2010 at 7:44 PM
I have this problem only if using CC or store content since they do not show in Edit mode.
Test Subject
#18 Old 21st Jan 2010 at 9:44 PM
Quote: Originally posted by rian90
I have this problem only if using CC or store content since they do not show in Edit mode.


Thanks. I had my suspicions it was that, but I tried testing the world in my actual game with CC loaded to see and sometimes it works.

Does this mean any worlds created in the CAW Beta cannot use CC? If so, I hope they hurry with the actual release.
Eminence Grise
#19 Old 22nd Jan 2010 at 4:16 AM
You can use it, you just won't see it in the render window in CAW. It shows up in Edit In Game, and in the actual game.

Of course, just as with a lot, your players will have to download the CC you used to see it in your world, so you need to keep track of what you use.

I do not expect that any eventual release of this tool, IF it ever goes out of beta, will have significant new features or functionality, btw. I could be wrong about that, but seeing as it's a free release of an in-house tool, I don't see them putting a lot of resources into it.
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