Game extremely slow, freezes.[SOLVED]

Hello!

A few weeks ago my GF asked me to install Sims3 for her. I downloaded the Razor1911 type base game first. While it was running very smoothly, it had a problem of crashing to desktop time-to-time, and game saving wasn't working after like 3-4 saves, it was all stable, and running on nice FPS tho. We had a good time playing, etc, etc, so i decided to download a few expansions.

I reinstalled the base game (Razor1911), and added Generations, Ambitions, Pets and Seasons (these last 2 were your downloads). I used the Ultimate fix, and the game started, but it was awfully slow, (both FPS, and loadingwise), so i've installed the latest video driver, lowered the graphics options (the original razor base game was running on all high options fluently, now i had to set it to low-medium). The game was still very slow, so i reinstalled it with less expansions, tried to run it without my old saves, tweaked the 3d settings in the video control panel, etc.

After everything failed, (and as an IT student, i never give up things like this so easily ) i downloaded your uploaded base game, and Ambitions, assuming the different sources of games were the root of the problem. I've installed the game following your "How to install the game" thread, step by step, base game, Ambitions, and Pets[FIXED], not cracked, installed the manual patch, and then used the ultimate fix crack.

After this, the game is still loading incredibly slow, it takes like 2-3 minutes for the logo to appear on the blank screen at the game startup, and like 5 minutes for my saves to start (well thats not even the most annoying). In-game, graphics are laggy, even on medium-low settings, whenever i try to use the style tool on an item, it takes like a minute to apply changes to items, the texture on new items start as blank grey for seconds, etc. The performance management says the game (TS3W.exe) slowly eats up like 2.5-3.2 Gb of my 4 Gb of physical RAM, and when this happens (about 20-30 mins after the game has been launched) the game freezes. Sometimes it catches breath after ~10 mins, and works for a few minutes be4 freezing again, sometimes windows shuts it down due to the program not responding.

I tried everything, added the exe files to the DEP exception list as advised in the forum, lowered the graphics, tweaked the video card settings, tried the ultimate fix, so I've really run out of ideas. The most annoying is the fact that the base game was running so fluently, with no lagg, or freeze, while with only two expensions installed and the latest update, it's a catastrophy.

My system specs:

It's a laptop, Acer Aspire 5755G
Intel Core i5 processor
4Gigs of RAM
1Gb Nvidia GeForce GT540 videocard with latest driver installed
64bit Windows7 Ultimate OS

(Btw, ive also tweaked the power management options for maximum performance)

Thanks for your ideas/help in advance.

//MOVED
Hello there,

Holyway wrote:(and as an IT student, i never give up things like this so easily )

I love to hear that!

I'm sorry to hear about your problem(s). It's definitely not caused by the fact that you got the games from different sources. When you add more expansions to the game, the game will, of course, get "heavier", so it might load slow and lag now and then.

There are different things we can try. I recommend you try GameBooster first: http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

Let us know the result afterwards. Good luck!

//EDIT

Also, do you have any Mods or Custom Content?

No, i did everything as i told you, only the base game, Ambitions and Pets are installed. Tbh, the game being a bit slower, or longer loading times doesn't hurt me much. The real problem is, that while playing the game becomes slower and slower over about 20-30 minutes, and then eventually freezes, and this doesn't seem to be normal.

I'll try that game booster.

Hello,

Good, please let us know the result!

Hello,

Ive installed the game booster, and i have to tell you its very promising. While the fps has not increased dramatically, the game launches much faster. The loading of saved games is still slow, but it wasn't the main problem.

I tried out the building and furniture buying modes, and a bit of the living mode, tried to load as much textures and models as possible while monitoring the memory usage, and it seems to be using it much more economically, only using like 2.2-2.5 Gb, that is amazing compared to the usage of 3Gb+ earlier.

I have to study for my finals, so i don't have time to test out how it behaves on longer than 15 minutes of running, but it seems really promising. You can close the thread if you like, i won't have time to go for a longer test until next week. I'll tell you how it behaves then.

Thanks for your help! (If you have any other ideas tho, don't hold yourself back )

Hello there,

Glad to hear it's working better now.
It's OK, we'll keep this topic open for you, please do let us know the result after testing it for a while.

Good luck with your finals!

Hello!

I've taken a break with studying, and tried out a few more tweaks (turned off a few other apps with the game booster, added more virtual RAM, defragged the disc - only 5% fragmented, but i had time, so i did it anyway, ran a drive maintenance - saved more than 35Gb space - and ran the intel, and acer update utilities) It turned out that my integrated videocard driver (some bull*#&! intel HD 3000) had an outdated driver.

Well, i don't know what of the above tweaks were efficient, and what were not, but I gave a try for the game after, and during 2 hours of building/furnituring, 2 or 3 saves, and a few minutes of the living mode the game had not a single problem, no freeze or lagg.

It seems the integrated card update was important as well, cuz i could set the graphics options up to high all around without any lagg. I've noticed from the sound of the cooler, and from a bit of lagg after about 4-5 minutes that the card got heated up a bit, but with a book under the machine, and setting some unnoticable settings a bit lower solved it.

Overall, the problem seems to be fixed, and the game is running smooth, i'll come back if i see anything go wrong again. Thanks for your help!

//EDIT

And thanks for the luck for the finals, I'll try to use it well