I've searched for months periodically about this and I have come across a few different things and have tried a few different things. What I was wondering was why is it when I start a new world the game runs so smoothly and great with out even pausing or lagging I guess is what some call it. Then as a I play for a bit and the town increases with sims - usually several sim wks - I start to notice it is starting to pause. I played one time for the longest I think I had ever in one town before and it got so bad that it was pointless to play. Didn't hardly go more than 5 sim minutes before pausing and a lot of times it would pause for over a minute in real time. So I thought, ok, I do have a few mods so I am going to do some checking. I thought maybe what was happening was too many sims so I found how to limit my town size. In the world I am now, the pausing wasn't horrible but it was very annoying. I lowered my town size to 90! that doesn't seem like very many and it didn't do anything. The town was at 170 before that. That's a big difference but the pausing wasn't any better. So I did some more searching and downloaded a game booster, an advance system care, and MSI Afterburner which was supposed to put a limit on FPS but I am not sure it does. Looks like there was a small improvement but still pauses sometimes in about 10 sim minutes and still once in a while pauses for a decent amount of real life time. I do plan on upgrading my computer to all Intel but I am not sure if that is going to help and was wondering if any one knows what actually causes this or maybe some other suggestions I could try. Also if it is because I am running an AMD system-which I absolutely hate- then could someone maybe give me suggestions on what set up I should have? I know how to build the computer and the one I have was home built I just don't know what motherboards or processors are better than others. Thank you for your time and giving some suggestions

Yes, that is still my system. Sorry I hadn't posted that sooner, in fact it hasn't closed out in over a month and I had completely forgot with every thing here at home going on since 2 kids are now in ball lol. I just happen to remember that was a question I had posted so I quickly got my configuration posted on the other before I got distracted again Yes I have NRAAS overwatch so I am aware of its clean up at 3a.m. The world I usually play in is a custom world found at simsupply.com and it is a small island. I like it because its load up time is so much quicker than the worlds that come with the game. Plus the last time I tried installing one of those "fixed" worlds on here, and I don't think I did it right because it didn't seem to work so I haven't tried since. A lot of the options in mastercontroller I've never tried because I wasn't sure what everything did and didn't want to mess something up. So the resetting town option only fixes the routing? That very well could be the problem, I will give it a try and find out what happens. I never gave it a thought on the memories of all the townies, I will turn that off and see what happens, is there a way to delete all their memories except my families all at once or do I have to go to each of them and delete them? What option in Mastercontroller cleans up the town's global inventory? I clean the cache & featured items folder each time I load the game. Should I still move those thumbnails and cache? I didn't think my system was to small to run the game, I knew it wasn't a "gaming" computer but it is pretty good, once I fixed AMD's notorious over heating problem lol So I wasn't sure what all could cause the problem since it runs perfect for the first several sim wks, like it goes perfectly smooth running for like around 30-50 sim days then it starts to show lag. I will give those few things a try and let you know. I wasn't to thrilled about adding these extra programs. I am probably going to unistall those that I just added earlier today because it really didn't do much difference.

I just read about that Kuree's cleaner, what is SNAP?

ok, so far I have used the Kuree's cleaner and ran it one time. I have also disabled the memories and cleaned out the entire town's memories. I found in Master Controller where it set reset town. I wasn't sure what it was going to do but tried it anyway, it reset all the objects which was around 22,100 ish. The reset town didn't say anything about fixing any routing just that it was going to reset objects. The game seems to be running smoother. Played it for about 15min mostly because its late lol, and it only paused maybe 5-10 times and only for maybe 5 sec or less which is an improvement from before. Also it didn't do any really long pauses like it was doing before which were lasting almost a minute long. I was not able to find where to delete the town's global inventory. I am not sure when the next I will be able to play for a bit due to daycare, kids ball practices and other things but when I do I will post an update then as well. Also, I checked out the post about running TS3 > 4g Ram, honestly, I didn't really understand it. I am good with computers but I really don't use the computer lingo much so when it gets abbreviated it doesn't make much sense to me and the steps don't either unless I am doing the steps along with reading it.

Aside from nitromon's very helpful post, lagging can also be caused by bad custom content. See this guide for more information on how to check your files and see if they're OK.
I'm recommending it because, while I did use the Dashboard in the past, I like this option better. I've never been in danger of accidentally downloading Sims 2 content and I manage my mods well enough to know they're not conflicting - in addition to this, ProcMon tells you exactly which file is causing issues, so find it better for what I need, personally.

The guide recommends going only into Live Mode, but I've found from personal experience that going through Build Mode can also be beneficial. For example, I once caught a pattern that was acting up (literally 1 million access times) only after entering Build Mode in the testing process, because I hadn't used it anywhere in the world yet i.e. Live Mode.

Lately I´ve heard of the Relativity mod from nraas. You could try to set the speed to 50%, so there´s more time between actions. The animations look the same, so it´s just like your sim day is longer and you don´t need one hour to brush your teeth
Someone at their wiki said it might help with tiny lags.

And in the Story Progression options you could change the time between actions in your neighborhood. I tried to change all of them to a higher number, but slightly different (1203, 1212 ...) on another computer, but I´m not really sure if it´s helpful.

I have Relativity and the number it is set on is 13. I'm not sure what percentage that is for the game but it does slow the time down to where it seems more realistic.

I read the #2 post I went to the global option and found a bill that said it had 114 count. I went to delete it and it deleted all of them. Is that what I'm supposed to do is delete all the extras? I thought was supposed to leave 1 count of ea.

[QUOTE=sweetdevil]Aside from nitromon's very helpful post, lagging can also be caused by bad custom content. See this guide for more information on how to check your files and see if they're OK.
I'm recommending it because, while I did use the Dashboard in the past, I like this option better. I've never been in danger of accidentally downloading Sims 2 content and I manage my mods well enough to know they're not conflicting - in addition to this, ProcMon tells you exactly which file is causing issues, so find it better for what I need, personally.

The guide recommends going only into Live Mode, but I've found from personal experience that going through Build Mode can also be beneficial. For example, I once caught a pattern that was acting up (literally 1 million access times) only after entering Build Mode in the testing process, because I hadn't used it anywhere in the world yet i.e. Live Mode.[/QUOT

None of my mods or CC's have been changed or any added new in over 4 months. I would think if they were conflicting, which I've checked back when I installed them and recently went back and checked them again, that they would of caused a problem even with a new game not just showing up several sim weeks later. Thanks for your suggestion though

Thank you for replying. Yes, I clicked on your link about the hot to make TS4 use > 4 GB or RAM. It said for people with 8GB of RAM to go to the 2nd post. So I scrolled down to that one and began reading it. It did some abbreviations and since I've never done it before it was rather foreign to me and I have no idea what a RAMdisk is. Also, I just remembered, I had read somewhere that some computer systems can't handle large towns with lots of sims. That's why I was trying to lower my population this last time. When you read my specs on my computer is my computer able to have a large town? I don't really want 300 or more or anything like that but it was nice when my town was 150-170ish sims. Just wanted to clarify if that had anything to do with some of the glitches.

Thank you for taking the time to explain. That really does help. I'm the type that the more it makes sense the easier it is I'm not sure I guess how many sims I actually would have. I used Mastercontroller, demographics and then population and it said one time around 100 residents 0 homeless & 0 was on the other one-can't remember what it was. I have the pet population turned off including strays. I always thought they were part of the problem with lag so I used on of NRAAS mods-can't remember which one has it- and turned them all off. I never noticed if my HDD blinks or not because I have one of those corner desks and it sits sort of under the desk below the raised monitor. I wonder if that's the problem. It does pause more when I use the 2nd speed and when it uses the high speed at night when my household is sleeping. I will go back to that link and see if I can figure it out. I have never come across that program or anything about the game read/write to the HDD so that's why I sort of questioned it on what it was and was uncertain. I like to check things out before doing anything. You never know anymore on what's all out there. If I have any questions on getting this RAMdisk going I will ask. Once I get it going I will let you know how it is working in the game. Those other ideas you game me I think did help. The global inventory wasn't that full, only maybe 3 items had more than 100 but less than that one that had 600ish. Hopefully I get this figured out. Glad I have enough Cores for the game although I am unfamiliar with what those are I still would like to upgrade my computer some day because I really hate AMD lol And apparently 500G HHD isn't as big as it used to be lol

Also I have come across the errors 12 & 16 and have learned how to get past them with out losing my game

How? I'm curious because I've come across error 12 fairly frequently and I was MAYBE once able to save the game after it returned that error (freak occurrence).

I tend to minimize my game just because it takes so long to load the world. Well since error 12 comes up do to running out of memory in your RAM and saving the game uses the RAM and a little gets left behind each time. So mostly I just make sure I don't leave my game up for more than 2 days that way it is able to clear out the RAM. However, if it does happen, which still does from time to time, I minimize the game. I go to my Electronic arts > Sims 3 > Saves folder. I move all my saves to a different folder all together. Usually just move it to a different partition of my harddrive. Then I exit the game. I go through and clear my cache and featured items folder like I always do before loading the game. Then I move all my saves back to its Saves folder and reload the game. So far it has worked make sure you don't close the game before moving files because they will be lost.

I watched a few youtube vids, so I think I got a disk on there mounted. I am stuck at this part of the steps. makes absolutely no sense to me what so ever on what I am supposed to do:

"5) Optional: check "mount as removable" if you want to manually mount the RAMdisk after boot up.
* Checked: Frees the RAM until you want to play TS3. RAM disk is unmounted after shutdown.
* Unchecked: Automounts the RAMdisk even after shutdown, more convenient.


RAMdisk:
Like before, take your total RAM and subtract what you need (either 6 or 7GB), whatever is left can be made into your RAMdisk. I recommend at least 1-2GB.


Folders:
Delete the 2 folders
In a cmd prompt under admin priv, type this format:

mklink /j "source" "target"

* source = where your original folders are
* target = your ramdisk"

I did the unchecked part of step 5. wasn't sure which one would be better so I chose unchecked. I know what it means in the next part on figuring out how much ram you need. But I don't understand from then on. I know where the cache files are and thumbnail files but don't know if those are what it means to be deleted? or what this cmd prompt is.

I have a fairly high end gaming laptop, and nraas Story progression lags me like a sumbish! In Fact, Woohooer lags me and crashes my game on occasion.

Nraas Overwatch however, has done my game some wonder! I get the notice every 3am sim-time, telling me how many random cars were deleted from the neighborhood. Throughout the sim day, it says what unroutable sim was found (and reset-but it doesn't say that bit) and what sims were stuck in aging error (usually rabbithole bosses), etc.

When that happens, I lag for just a few seconds, but that's way better than the 4am 5-7 minute lag I was getting before... Apparently, the fruits and vegetables spawn at that time, and I had made a community harvestable garden, with a few dozen plants, that was kicking my game's butt. Also, I notice that when it's snowing, the game lagged quite frequently.. Plumbobs and Z's and sparkles would still be moving, but my sims would be still and the game time would be stuck.. I reduced the Winter season and I Don't have that problem nearly as much... With Seasons installed, it seems like all the weather wants to do is rain and snow, but the system doesn't like that very much.

Ok, thank you, I think I got it Took me back in time of MS Dos lol sure makes you feel old lol. I've loaded the game since I did this and then checked my new drive and those files are showing up The cache and thumbnails is the only thing to have go in there rt? I haven't played very long yet, just a few min so don't have much feedback on how it is doing thus far. Stuttering still but haven't played long enough to see if it does it longer than stuttering.

Played for about 30minutes. I see a difference on performance. It seems to be running smoother. Still pauses for maybe 10-20 sec but not nearly as often. Can probably go about 30-45 sim minutes with out any problems maybe a little longer. Thank you for your help, it did make an improvement Now if only people on that minecraft forum for my son were helpful like everyone on here is. You all so patient with all of us with questions. Thank you very much.

How do you know if the lag is caused by "routing lag" and not from something else? I didn't create any new folders in the ramdisk, the instructions said it was an option but not required. If I wanted to allocate more space for the folder worldcache, do I have to give it its own folder in the ramdisk? I gave the ramdisk 1.5g of space. Didn't know you weren't supposed to clear out your cache. I always did because that was the most common answer to several posts online to help with lag, by clearing out some space. The one that really bugs me is the featured items. It fills up so fast sometimes and I've had 2k items in that folder before.