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Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 10:03 AM Last edited by Elynda : 12th Aug 2021 at 10:36 AM.
Default The Strange Phenomenon of the Ghostly Castle
Now, it may be that I am going batty in my old age, but I just witnessed a very strange occurrence and I wondered if anybody else had ever seen it, or can shed some light on the matter.

For some time now I have been setting up things in Moon Valley for a story. I deleted one lot and replaced in with one of my own, a castle, which I had built on Builder's Island before moving it into Moon Valley. It has since been modified considerably and is now very lavishly furnished and decorated. And you can bet I have been saving regularly, and making new saves each time rather than overwrite previous ones. And up till now, apart from the fact that it takes a while for everything to render, everything has been fine.

But today I zoomed out for an aerial view and suddenly found I was not looking at my castle, but the one that was there before! I couldn't believe my eyes. WTF? Was all my work lost? I zoomed back in again, and slowly the 'ghost' castle disappeared and was replaced with mine. I zoomed out again, and there was the phantom castle again! What on earth was going on? I've never seen anything like that before in all the time I've played the game. I zoomed in and out again and, as I sat there considering what to do next, the ghost castle suddenly turned back into my precious Brelor Castle and this time it appears to be back to stay. I hope!

But what was going on there? I thought when you deleted a lot it was gone for good, but it seems like the game retains some memory of what was there before. I suppose I could have deleted the original building AND the lot it was on from the outset and placed a new one but, as you may have found yourselves, it is not always possible to replace a lot after deleting it, and 64x64 on a hill top is particularly tricky in my experience.

Hopefully it has fixed itself now, but I should like to know if there is any way to be sure the ghost castle is gone.

Legend is history as we would like it to be. We pick through the dusts of time for what is worth keeping and, here and there, we occasionally find treasure.

Simblr: Elyndaworld *** Wordpress: Tales of Nantrelor
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retired moderator
#2 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 10:09 AM
It's a caching issue; delete your caches (including the world caches for the world you are playing); this should solve it. Warning: If you are playing a custom world, your game will need to cache the textures again which may make gameplay a little slower for a while and you may see some blank textures at first. This should clear up as you play.

If you are playing an EA world that came with the game then those caches are part of the game install files, so you can't delete them unless you want to switch that world to using dynamic caches. So, if you play Sunset Valley and delete some of the original lots and build new ones, this will always be a problem as long as your game uses the original static caches.
Mad Poster
#3 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 10:16 AM
Is it always caching like that, though? My experience has been that the problem of the low resolution copy of the lot, the one we see from far away, still being a prior one can usually be fixed by going into Build/Buy on that lot and adding something trivial like a rock or a wall. Point being, some action like that needs to trigger a refresh of the low resolution, far away version.

We had added a MasterController command to do the refresh from the mod's menu years ago, but the results were not very pretty as it kind of broke whatever the actively being played lot was in some amusing ways (if one is into that sort of thing). So that command got removed again while it was all still in beta testing.
Scholar
Original Poster
#4 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 10:32 AM
Ah, so I'm not going barmy, and it really is a thing. Fortunately this is in a custom world so I will be able to delete the world cache. And I will probably be adding many more items to the lot as I go along, so if one thing doesn't fix it the other will. Hopefully I will have seen the last of the ghost castle. Thanks guys

Legend is history as we would like it to be. We pick through the dusts of time for what is worth keeping and, here and there, we occasionally find treasure.

Simblr: Elyndaworld *** Wordpress: Tales of Nantrelor
Scholar
Original Poster
#6 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 11:24 AM Last edited by Elynda : 12th Aug 2021 at 11:34 AM.
Well, if that's the case, I will just have to live with it. My castle will render properly if I'm patient, and I'm used to long waits when it comes to shooting screenshots on big busy lots. I'm certainly not going back and starting again with that world. I've had to edit pretty well every lot, replacing things that were not right for the time period, and adding little touches of my own. Now that things are sort of complete I've started populating the town, and everybody has to wear appropriate costume. I've even dressed the maid so that he looks like one of my palace guards. I don't want to go through all that again. Meantime I've done as simsample and igazor suggested and must hope for the best.

EDIT: Oh dear. It looks like you were right. The save just finished loading and there it was again!

It only does it when I go to map view. If I zoom out using the mouse wheel it looks fine.

Legend is history as we would like it to be. We pick through the dusts of time for what is worth keeping and, here and there, we occasionally find treasure.

Simblr: Elyndaworld *** Wordpress: Tales of Nantrelor
Scholar
Original Poster
#8 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 12:09 PM
Yes, I forgot that I hadn't yet tried that. So I just placed a small boulder on one corner of the lot, went back into live mode and into map view and the lot looks the way it should now. Hopefully that's fixed it. Once again thanks to all for your help.

Legend is history as we would like it to be. We pick through the dusts of time for what is worth keeping and, here and there, we occasionally find treasure.

Simblr: Elyndaworld *** Wordpress: Tales of Nantrelor
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retired moderator
#9 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 12:33 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
Yet still, I see this from time to time. It's rare, but it does happen. I think there is something retained in the savefile itself.

Oh, maybe it's a lot thumbnail then? Thanks for the info.
Mad Poster
#11 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 7:56 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
It's just a guess.

My guess is that mischievous gnomes have something to do with it.
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retired moderator
#13 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 10:03 PM
Arghh! The plane is going to crash!
Hanging with the Gnomies
#14 Old 12th Aug 2021 at 10:38 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
My guess is that mischievous gnomes have something to do with it.

Wasn't me.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 13th Aug 2021 at 12:49 AM
Quote: Originally posted by The Gnome
Wasn't me.

Ha, sounds like a confession to me!
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