NEWS: NEW Address

Please update your bookmarks.

My english blog can now be found over here:

http://sims3.crinrict.com/en/

I'm not happy with the design yet and there might be links that are not working correctly but I will post anything new only over there.

I will leave this blog up for a few month.

NEWS: Merry Christmas To Everyone

glitter-graphics.com

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas.

Thank you all for the wishes in my comments on the official site and around the forums.

Tutorial: S3SBrowser

I have added the newest sets and there's also a new Version available.

Everything can be found here now:

• Downloads
• Installation & Startup
• Tutorial
• Updates

TUTORIAL: Turning off ingame Store and preventing loading of pictures

Patch 1.29 extended to the ingame store. Besides the already introduced functionality, the user now sees offers for selected items directly in build/buy and CAS mode. On top of that around 250 MBs worth of pictures is downloaded to your computer without your knowledge.

Luckily there is a way to prevent both from showing without having to close the Internet connection.

Turn off the Ingame-Store

The ingame store can be turned off inside your options. Simply untick the option Enable Shop Mode and it will not further bother you. No offers will show in buy/build or CAS mode.

You can also edit your options.ini to turn if off before you first start the game.

• Open the file [User file directory]\Options.ini with notepad
• Look for the following line: enableingamestore = 1 and change to  enableingamestore = 0
• Save the file
• Start the game.

Unfortunatly, neither of these options prevent that 250 MB worth of pictures are downloaded to your computer.

Prevent pictures from being loaded to your computer
The pictures are being loaded into the folder  [User file directory]\FeaturedItems. Make that folder read-only so the pictures can't be written. If you don't have that folder yet, simply create one.

What to do (Win 7)
Credits for the pictures go to elanorbreton.


Right-click on the folder FeaturedItems and choose Properties

Make sure to choose the user with which you play the game and then click on Edit...

Make sure again, that you've chosen the user you play the game with look for the option Write. Tick the check box for Deny.

Confirm with OK

Now this folder is read-only and EA can't send you anymore pictures. You can delete the ones EA has already sent you.

The ingame store should work as intended, you simply don't have any pictures.

Further Reading

• CRASH: Ingame advertisement

CRASH: Ingame advertisement

Update: EA has confirmed this issue and they hope they can fix it without a patch (which they should be able to if my theory is correct).

It seems the new ingame advertisement (read all about it here: 1.29 Patch Triggers In-Game Advertising/Purchasing and here: Discontinued Sets + Freebies in Buy Mode & CAS!) now makes many games crash.

What happens is, that the game downloads many pictures to a new folder called featuredItems. Those pictures are probably used to be displayed ingame and I suspect one or more of those are corrupted. When those pictures are downloaded to the folder, the game crashes. Once you do get your game to work (took 3 attempts for me until it would load), it will crash/freeze in buy mode (especially entertainment and electronics).

The best you can do for now is turn the ingame store off entirely. To do so, either go to your options and untick (if you can get in the game) or find the file options.ini in the User file directory. Open it with notepad and change to line enableingamestore = 1 to enableingamestore = 0. Save the file and try again.