I am playing a modified version of Mayfield Springs (??); a large world. I was running NRAAS SP and some other mods.

Well, when my sim married and I started playing 3 sims rather than 1, the game slows down to a stop. I was hoping this new "gaming" laptop could handle it, but it doesn't. It has a graphics card in it rather than the usual Intel graphics simulation, and 8 gigs memory, but the processor is i5 rather than i7.

I think my sim is going to have to get divorced for technical reasons.

I've been going through some of NRAAS' suggestions for performance increases, like replacing SP with Register. Nope. Still hangs. I'm thinking there's too many people in the world and it doesn't have to do with 3 sims vs 1 sim. Yeah, I should have limited immigration. Is it too late now to fix that?

Any suggestions? Like a smaller world? Maybe try and go into edit mode and get rid of some of the populated lots? I'm not sure I can do that given that it slows down really quick after starting.

I think I lost my save.

"i5 rather than i7": It doesn't matter. For PC gaming, a quad-core, high-clock speed i5 is better in terms of price/performance than an i7 equivalent.

You could definitely try playing in a smaller world. You could also try using NRaas Tagger to monitor all Sims and see if some of them get stuck in certain places. Populations above 150 Sims can cause a performance drop in certain systems. I don't think your sim getting married has anything to do with the performance drop, I think it has to do with the progression of the town in that time. Something that helps a lot in terms of performance is disabling all pets, nuking all stray pets, disabling certain vehicles like taxi boats... all of these is done with NRaas mods, I think Register for Pets and GoHere (not sure) for transportation. Disabling memories is also a must to prevent savegame bloat.

Playing with a household of 8 sims and 4 pets in Storybrook County with 153 lots and its playable, but I have the occasional lock up for a few secs once in awhile, which I think its just the game puking on itself. Haven't actually checked to see what the population is. Error Trap and Overwatch are doing most of the work to keep the game running. I also reset the entire town's objects after a few game days or if its feeling sluggish.

Evansdale County is a smaller map 117 lots and I remember being able to actually super speed in it with a small household and a low population.

Like Naus Allien said your biggest concerns are pets (wild horses are the worst srsly) and vehicles.

Routing is a tedious process when making worlds in caw, but it's also very important for game performance. Have you tested that option?

I'm not familiar with Mayfield Springs, but I've been playing Ocean View, which is small (most of it can fit on my screen) for 17+ in-game weeks, and short of 2 CTDs (which were my own fault) I haven't experienced any lag. If anything, I was expecting lag because the lots placed with the World Builder aren't perfectly aligned to the roads. I keep my sim population capped at 40 (recently raised to 50), built 30+ houses myself, and populated the town myself. No pets, and only two service sims for two bars.

This is some stuff I'd consider:
- cap the number of sims in Story Progression.
- reduce the number of bars and/or service sims that need to be generated.
- consider switching to a medium/small world.
- run the save through Kuree's Save Cleaner once every 1-2 sim weeks.
- avoid heavily cluttered lots. Apparently lots of lights (especially in different colors) are also not performance-friendly.
- if you have the time, you could pop on over to every premade lot and check for routing issues: things blocking the walking paths, objects that sims can't reach etc. Stairs, elevators and narrow walkways are also a concern; large lots should have at least two elevators, the stairs should be at least two tiles wide, and walkways should be at least two tiles wide as well. Several/double doors or arches are also good. Bathrooms should be spacious, as sims tend to crowd in front of the same stall, lol.

Of course, I adapted these things to my preferences. I typically don't make my sims get out a lot during one play session to avoid lag, and at most two bars/entertainment venues are enough for one town. I also don't take many pics so I'm not too concerned with detailed decor or complex architectural tricks.

Okay, I'll try Oceanview. I was thinking about looking to see about capping immigration (I'm not Trump, chill!) in Story Progression; but it's too late now. I guess I could start emptying houses if I can get to edit town.

What's Kuree's Save Cleaner?

Many of these worlds are made to have pretty houses that are unplayable. I was deleting these good looking but unplayable houses in Neverglade just before I switched to Mayfield springs. I mean, a lot of effort and talent went into making those houses, but most are just unplayable.

You can use Master Controller to check the sims in town and see who was generated by the game. I can usually tell the ones in my game apart by weird facial features (SP loooves the eyebrow definition and ear point sliders). Then you can select and delete them.

One word of warning about Ocean View: it doesn't have too many pre-placed residential lots, so you'll have to place some yourself. I haven't really paid much attention to the existing ones but I've remade two and they had lots of routing space (though few beds).

Kuree's Save Cleaner is an awesome little tool that'll get rid of bloat like old Sim headshots. Just be careful that you'll have to go through a workaround if you have sim portraits or photographs.

Edit: @nitromon makes a very good point about the diplomas. Once in a while you may want to use Master Controller to delete all the diplomas, cameras and umbrellas that every NPC seems to have (seriously, I once had a sim's relative die and my sim was given like 10 umbrellas and 5 diplomas, it was ridiculous).