Sunday, March 21, 2010

Process Monitor filter for High End Loft Stuff

After struggling to get a certain tool to find issues, despite its creator claiming process monitor isn't needed, I figured out how to make a new Process Monitor filter. It was actually pretty easy! And it solved my problems. The problems that the supposedly perfect tool should've found, according to some stupid people.

So here it is, for you to use, to check and see if any files are being loaded far too often because they are borked. Just load up Process Monitor, choose "Load Configuration" from the File menu, and load this file. Double clicking it might work, too. Also works if you have WA installed, it is all-inclusive.
 
A reader has said that they had to add ".pmc" to the end of the file in order to use it. If you can't get it to open, try that.

Download

Open process monitor. Go to file -> Load Configuration, and load the file. Then start at step 8 in these instructions:
CLICK HERE FOR INSTRUCTIONS


For those who don't know, Process Monitor can monitor your programs to see what they do. This filter will make the program see what The Sims 3 is doing.

Any extremely high numbers should be noted- but ONLY if it's custom content. High numbers for game files are normal. But counts in the thousands for single-item files are NOT normal, and said files are borked and slowing down your game. (Note that this does not apply to combined files. If you have a package that is actually a ton of packages combined, it's normal for it to be a little high.)

20 comments:

  1. Hi
    I have a problem with make this filter to work. Previous filter for WA had extansion.reg and when I double clicked on it it installed in process monitor.
    But this is just blank file without .reg or anything else. Or maybe I am doing something wrong.

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  2. Are you choosing File -> Load Configuration? Or are you just double clicking it? You have to load it when you use it, I didnt want to make a file that edits registries.

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  3. I couldn't load filter this way. Because it wanted file with special extension and this file didn't have it. So i had to add extension .pmf and it looks that it's working. The filter is visible. i will have to make test now

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  4. Please do, I dont know why it wouldn't work. It loads properly for me...hm. If you figure it out I'll update with better instructions.

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  5. I had to add .pmc to the file and it worked. So anyway what is considered a high number for custom content?

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  6. It depends.

    If it's a file that is one object or one hair or something, a couple hundred isn't bad. If it's a file that contains lots of objects, a thousand or more isn't bad. Basically, you need to be wary of things over, I guess, 1500?

    There's no definite way to measure, you just have to think carefully about it.
    For example, I have all my buy/build mode objects combined into one package, and it barely loads 2,000 times. So that's okay, because it's got a bunch of stuff in it, and has to be loaded a lot. But I also had a single hair file, that was loaded 4,000 times. There is no way that the hair had to be loaded 4,000 times. So it's an issue.

    If you're worried about safety, just take the file out and test again. See if your game goes faster/loads faster. Or open the game in windowed mode, and watch the process monitor to see what files are loading. If you see a package loading a billion times in a row it might be an issue.

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  7. Forgive me - should we use this if we're only running World Adventures, and not HELS? I was having the 'crash if you click another window' issue with HELS, so I uninstalled for now.

    Thank you!

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  8. It will work no matter what you are running.

    What it does is it monitors the WHOLE computer, but it is limited to TS3.exe, TS3EP01.exe, and TS3SP01.exe.

    Meaning as long as one of those is running, it will be reading what it does. You can have any combination of them.

    I don't know if it will help with that crash, but who knows? I believe they fixed that in the patch, though.

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  9. I am completely inept when it comes to computers. I've never even heard of Procmon before... But I really want to try your filter out. I downloaded procmon, but there is no 'load config' under file. I assumed it was import config, but even after saving your filter to the desktop the procmon wouldn't show it as being there.

    I knew I'd probably become confused at some point in the process of trying to get this to work, just not so soon. Do you have any idea what I did wrong?

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  10. Load and Import are basically the same thing in this situation.

    Someone above said they had to add ".pmc" to the end of the file. Did you try that?

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  11. Wow, I feel so stupid right now. For some reason I thought the person added .pmc because of an error. My bad. Thanks so much for responding to my stupid/repetitive question.

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  12. does this work for a mac? sorry if it's mentioned somewhere on this page but i couldnt find any info on it...

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  13. this program will check packages or sims3packs too?

    Jo

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  14. this program will check sims3packs or only packages?

    Jo

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  15. I have no idea if it works on mac.

    And the game doesn't load sims3packs like it loads packages, so no. Sims3packs are all stored in one single file and there's no way to see what it's doing in there.

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  16. It doesn't work for mac =/
    is there any way you could make a mac compatible version?

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  17. Once again, it's NOT MY PROGRAM.

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  18. Wow, this totally solved my problem... Last time I had to wait for an hour until it was halfway the neighborhood loading screen. Seems like I just downloaded some Sims2 packages as well...

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