Hi all,

I'm new to this CAW thing and just started randomly creating a large island.
It's almost finished and i started testing everything, but the game freezes randomly for about 10seconds.
It only happens when playing the game. If the game is paused it doesn't freeze, if it's on normal speed it freezes every +/-60sec and if it's on ultra speed it freezes every 10sec.

Other custom maps i downloaded work great so it's probably not my game installation or PC.

There's still some work on the routing but it can't be that bad right ?? just a few lots that slightly cover the road or pieces of road that doesn't have routing lines on it and such ... ( see screenshots below )

Maybe to many spawners ? i did place allot of them

Or ... I have a small island that can only be reached by using those subway tunnels ?

Any ideas ?





BTW is there any way of fixing that bridge "bug" ?
(When a car wants to drive under the bridge it flies over it and that just looks really stupid )


Processor: AMD Phenom IIx4 975 running at 4.1GHz.
RAM: 16GB.
Video: ATI Radeon HD5970 2GB.
OS: Windows 7.


Sry for my bad English, i'm dutch

There is no way around the cars leaping into the air when they try to drive under a bridge. Technically, they were never meant to be used that way. It's one of those things you might need to ignore. I love the way the bridges over roads look in your world. Make sure you rebuild your routing in CAW before you try to test with an export. There may be broken routing in the world that you may not see. Trees can even break the routing. 9 times out of 10, that will cause lag. Check out the Create A World forum under the Create > Sims 3 > Create A World at the top of the screen. There are many possible solutions there. I never actually made it to in game testing with any of my worlds so kudos for getting that far!

Brady

Hey Tommy, it looks like a very nice world!

We have a thread dealing with routing, it is one of the more tricky aspects of the CAW tool.
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=439329

Please feel free to post there if you have any specific questions; you can post pictures too so that we can see what you mean.

Routing problems can come from almost anywhere- the most likely places are where you have objects blocking a road, routing splines beneath an object or areas where sims can get trapped. It's really difficult to diagnose this, so the best thing to do is to show your routing data and hide all objects and trees (View> Layers, remove the ticks from the layers to make objects/terrain vanish). That way you can see the routing unobstructed by objects, and can see any likely errors.

You can also get routing errors from lots, for example if you have a blocked staircase or if the route off the lot is blocked. More about that here:
http://modthesims.info/showpost.php...4&postcount=395

I hope this helps a little!

KK thanks !

Im glad that it's just because of the routing :o

I'll see what i can do and hopefully it wil fix the problem ...
Never thought the routing would actually be the hardest part oh well, this world was actually ment as a test ... just to learn how the program works and all.
Finished it annyway and now i want to start using it :p

I found the problem !
It was my island ... the island was only accessible with those subway tunnels and that caused the freezes.
To bad, i really liked it any way around this ?

You could always mod your subways to be usable by NPCs, that way they will use them automatically without route failing.

Hi Tommy D

I had your problems in my world. You're right about your tunnels on the islands. Subway is not a way to connect islands. If you put a bridge between islands you'll not have a problem with game's freezing. All islands in the world must be connected to each other. You can't connect some island only if you do not plan to place lots on this island.


The second problem: the car can not drive under the bridge because all the roads are locate in two-dimensional space. It's very nice to have the roads on different layers, but it is not possible in The Sims #3. I declined this idea.

Well i'm not installing another mod because there's always a chance of getting errors or just mess up the game ... especially when you instal new expansions.
I'll just try to connect the island with a nice bridge or something. I'll figure it out

As for those bridges ... It really looks stupid and i noticed that sims always take a shortcut from one road to the other but i'm not planning on changing that it's just something i'll keep in mind for my next world, but for now you'll just have to ignore those flying cars. As i mentioned before it was just a test to learn everything and i finished it anyway Don't know when i'll start a new world ... It's more and harder work than expected !

You wouldn't need to install someone else's mod, you could just make your own. Activating the subways for NPCs is a simple xml edit and is easy to re-make wherever there is a game update.

Here's a link to a method of finding routing problems quickly and easily using Twallan's mods: Fix Routing We really need to get the word out on this.

Another idea is to make your own custom bridge. There is an upload from Moria on custom bridges. What you really want are the bridge bases. While Moria has also included a number of other structures for a bridge, like the superstructure, these can be replaced. Of course, this does take a little (surprisingly little modding skill). But the bottom line is, you can put in just about any bridge from anywhere in the world if you are willing to spend a little time.

In the case of a world with several islands, I tend to think of something like the Florida Keys, where you have a pretty simple causeway connecting many of the Keys. In fact, you could probably do a causeway without installing a real bridge. You just have thin strands of land, gussied up to look like a bridge, connecting the islands.

Here's another though about the overpasses/underpasses. I don't know if some of these roads are really are serving a purpose or are just there for the decorative effect. However, if a road really is not needed, but you want the decorative effect, you might consider replacing it with something entirely decorative, like a railroad bridge. You can have a rail line running through your world, and where it intersects a road, you can put in a pretty fancy overpass or underpass. In the case of an overpass, use something like Moria's bridge -- however, don't use the bridge base -- just the superstructure. Or make your own. You get the same visual effect, but without the funny routing.

You might even be able to find or make a train model to go on your bridge. I know Carlos has some trains. but I don't know if they have been enabled for CAW. (I don't use them because I want American style trains!)

Unfortunately I have no suggestions to add, but I will note that I've also heard of this lag issue relating to areas that are only accessible by uber-warp dive wells. Which sucks, because I've used dive wells to connect two smaller islands in the archipelago I'm currently building. I haven't noticed any lag myself though.

I never thought about using the subways!

It's not really a huge problem though; in my Jericho world I have two islands accessible only with dive wells, and I'm not noticing a big problem. In my current game I've been playing for 16 sim weeks and in that time I've only had one sim stranded on one island (a bartender); resetting him fixed it. Usually the NPCs will pick a vacant residential lot to 'exist' in, meaning that they will go there to dematerialise and rematerialise, and leave your inaccesible places alone. So, inaccessible community lots marked as 'hidden tomb' or 'No Visitors Allowed' should not cause too much of a problem, but it might be different if you have an inaccessible residential lot (mail carriers, visitors and newspaper delivery, to name a few).

I can second that. Our world, of course, has Liberty Island (for the Statue of Liberty) and so long as it's classified as 'No visitors allowed' it doesn't cause any problems. If though, you allow NPC sims to have access to it, you will get continuous huge freezes from them trying to calculate a path to said area

Hmm, well maybe that explains my problem - I can't play Jericho for more than ten minutes without a permanent freeze or crash (even with no mods, cleared caches, and a new game). I didn't realize there were islands that could only be accessed by dive wells and I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out what could be causing the lag-freeze-crash pattern since it only affected Jericho but not any of the other custom worlds I have. (It's also good to know, because in one world in progress of mine, I have a lot that requires dive well access, so I might need to change that!)

Jericho looks awesome, btw - I just can't play it for too long!

It's odd that this issue doesn't affect France, though, since the small island there can only be accessed by teleporting or the dive well. (Maybe the fact that it's a hidden tomb helps.) Then again, I haven't been back to France since starting a new legacy in Generations, and I know a lot of people started experiencing all sorts of routing issues with travel destinations after that patch, so maybe it is affecting France and I just haven't seen it yet. Bummer. I was really looking forward to creating my "undersea Temple of Thoggus" too...

It does mention this in the notes in the download thread- plus some solutions for if it occurs. However that wouldn't cause crashing, that's more likely due to your computer specs, since Jericho is larger and more complex than the EA worlds. I'm only having sims end up on the islands very seldom.

I seem to have missed that bit in the description. (I was too busy looking at the pictures and reading the backstory!)

It only crashed twice, and to be honest, it was probably my fault since I was doing some redecorating (heavy use of Create-A-Style can sometimes make my PC cry), but it always lags then freezes after about ten minutes, even if I don't do anything unusual. I didn't think it was a problem with the world per se; I'd just assumed that it was either too big (although I do have other large maps installed) or too complex (spawners, effects, etc.) for my current setup, so I'd resigned myself to not being able to play it. I hadn't considered the possibility of the dive wells causing lag/freezing, though (which is what I get for skimming!), so now, I can check out the download thread and try some of the solutions there. I'm looking forward to playing it, since it looks amazing!

As for my world-in-progress, I think I'll forgo the Undersea Temple of Thoggus just to be on the safe side. (Not only is it submerged, but it can only be accessed by dive wells!) The Dark Emperor will have to make do with the Seaside Temple instead.

Thanks for all the help !

Well, i went for the easy solution and just connected the island to the main island
I think it looks even better then before
It still needs to be tested but the lag should be gone.

Once this is done, the world should be completely finished and ready to get populated !
I'm planning on following this tutorial ...

Well done for finding a solution, Tommy_D!

It's been a while now and i have been using this world quite a lot.
All works fine...

So i thought i might as well share it.
Download link

The world already contains sims but they may look funny in your game since i used alot of custom items on them.

I also used some custom items in lots.

Expansion packs:

World Adventures
Ambitions
Late Night
Generations
Pets
Showtime



Enjoy!
Tommy_D

Wait, what? Subways aren't auto-enabled for NPCs? *stares in shock*

I haven't played in a world with subways for a while now but I've always assumed NPCs would use them. Looking at the ITUNs I see no reason why they shouldn't, they appear to be enabled for everyone. Your post made me curious, though, and I'm eager to learn, so ... where would I find this specific information regarding NPC use of an item? I'm guessing it's not in the ITUNs since they seem to look fine, and the XML files appear to only contain some generic "NPC exit" rabbithole data which isn't connected to the actual action of purposefully *using* the subway, I think?

Could it be the mysterious 'RouteLeadIn allowed="False"' that you're talking about? *curious*

It's just a tuning in the gameplayData.package- kNPCSubwayUseChance in the SimRoutingComponent. It's a value of 0 to 1, 1 means NPCs will always use subways in the route if they can. I found that since pets, horses, dogs and cats will also use subways though, which is probably why EA didn't allow subways for NPCs in the first place. It's not pretty seeing a horse distort to get through the doors!

Hi,

Is your world still available to download please?9

@pixie-pig, since this thread was created in 2012, it's pretty unlikely they'd see this reply. Though the download link is actually already linked in the thread (See blue link saying "Download link")