Atomic Systems

Thanks Kromaatikse. I am not used to the more up to date Machines and all my previous Computers have never bleeped at Startup.
This problem with The Sims 3 has got me baffled. EA seem to be sending out a lot of stock answers like how to deal with crashes to Desktop which I have never had. So I have sent them another quite terse reply to read carefully what I have said.
The problem would seem to be my C Drive not giving the information to the program fast enough. Yet it is a Caviar Black which should be much better that the Generic one on my last Machine which ran the Program without any Stutter or Pauses.
Maybe it is because I have the rest of the Program on the SSD Drive or the Lots are too big and Complex. The resolution was 16:10 format on the old machine and I ran it at 1600 x 1000.on a 22 Inch Monitor. This Monitor is 16:9 Format and a 24 Inch Screen. The only resolution available is the top Full HD one. I just can't understand why a Program that will run on average Machines and was not really designed for Gaming Machines will not run without stutters and pauses on this one.
I really expected to have problems with TS2012 not The Sims 3.
Kind regards James.

Ea have just emailed me about the Sims 3 being on the SSD second Drive which I told them in my first email. They do not support this method of installation and The Sims must always be stored on the OS Drive. It is the OS Drive IMHO that is causing the stutter because when it freezes momentarily the Drive light flickers. So putting the whole Program on this drive presumable will make it worse.
Kind regards James.

Good afternoon James
I would be inclined to install the sims 3 on the drive EA recommend
Kind regards Stephen

Good evening James,
Sorry I didn't read the whole thread but I did see somewhere that you have the z68 chipset.
So my question is are you sure you are running the Sims3 with the GTX 570 you have, or
is it using the onboard graphics. Maybe something to look into.

Frank

I am going to Stephen once I have saved the empty Lots. Hi Frank it is running through the GTX 570.
Kind regards James.

That does sound like a massive cop-out by EA. Nowhere in the documentation I have for The Sims 3 and all the expansion packs does it state it has to be on the same drive as the OS.

Like a lot of people I run the OS and MS Office on the C: drive and have a separate drive for games and non-critical applications. Not had any particular problems with The Sims 3 or any other games on the D: drive.

I think it is a Cop-out John. They are running out of ideas I think. I only had a C drive on my last Machine so it was on there. I had no problems with the Program on what was a pretty poor Machine.
As John CaptScarlet has said there seems to be a lot of Topics on the Web about this Program and Higher end Machines plus also on the subject of stuttering.
Kind regards James.

I have installed to whole lot on C Drive. It takes longer to load than it did on my old Machine and every stutter is caused as the Program reads the Drive. This Drive should be able to run fast enough to avoid this and it does not look like it is using the Memory. Railworks only runs well because it is on the SSD. So I would suspect the Fault lies with the Hard drive and or the Memory. That to me seems a logical conclusion. The drive is very noisy also.
Just tried an experiment and turned all the Options to low. No difference. Then turned all the Options to the Highest possible and it seems much the same.
Just put one of my large Lots in and it is running quite smoothly with everything set to High including full Smoothing or AA. Cannot understand this at all.
Kind regards James.

I could really do with something that tells me Memory Usage etc. when the Sims 3 is running in Full Screen Mode then I could find out what the Machine is doing. Still can't understand why having everything on Max has improved things. It probably won't last for long.
Kind regards James.

The latest in this sorry saga. EA have sent me full instructions to manually remove the game from my System and the Registry. They are way behind as it is now installed back on the C Drive. It is running a bit smoother with all settings at High than it does with the default settings which I used on my old machine. Still not as smooth running however than it was on the old Machine. The only time it is smooth is when the Lot is there on it's own with no Sim's or storyline in progression. This still convinces me that the Hard Drive is not doing it's work as fast as my old Machine's Generic 1TB Drive. This Caviar Black 1TB should be streets ahead in Read and Write speed. The only other option is the Memory hence the need for more access to the Hard Drive. This new Drive is noisy compared to my old one which you could hardly hear. I cannot install the Program again as I will have gone past my Monthly Download allowance. I am going to put on my largest lot in terms of size, the number of Sims and long storyline. If this fails to operate smoothly even if I reduce the settings I will call it a day. This Machine is well above the Specifications for a specific Machine designed to run The Sims 3 of which there are a few available from Computer Builders and Manufacturers. I have fully defragmented the Drive and have run in Clean Boot and this seems to make no difference The other Games are now on the SSD and work fine. When Bioshock was on the C Drive I got the Computer is running slowly Window appearing so by logical process of elimimation it would seem that the Drive is to blame. This message according to posts found on the Web should not be appearing on a Machine with my Specifications and certainly not with an older less demanding game.
Kind regards James.

I wonder whether your hard disk controller is set to AHCI or IDE mode, and if the latter, whether it is in DMA or PIO mode. This should be easy to determine in the BIOS.

Thanks for your post.
Sorry I have no idea what all that means.
Using the free version of HD Tune I get these figures on the Benchmark Test
Read Speeds
Minimum -61.9 MBs
Average - 104.3 MBs
Maximum - 133.7 MBs
Access Time -12.2 ms
Burst Rate - 318.4 MBs
CPU Usage 1%
Temperature 26 Degrees C
I have no idea what these figures mean or if they are good or bad.
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
Kind regards James.

Those seem to be normal statistics, and essentially rule out the controller being in PIO mode.

Thanks for that information. Much appreciated.

Just added my largest Lot and it runs but not as smoothly as it did on my old Machine. Still not convinced that the Caviar Black or the Memory is functioning correctly.
Kind regards James.