Sims 3 crashing

[kbolin]

OK.... (sigh)

I hope this is the right place for this post. This site was referred to me by someone recommending the FPS program and 3booter that you have. I have tried them both.

This game is still crashing on my wife. If I had my way, I'd ...er...nevermind.

At first I thought the fps program was going to fix it, I also used the 3 booter program as well even though she didn't have a problem that specifically needed the 3booter.

As of this writing, it is still crashing randomly at various times. She can only play for less than 30 min before it crashes. Sometimes, it is during a save and sometimes it is 5 min after a save. Other times it is just whenever it decides to freeze or crash.

That's the other thing...sometimes it will freeze up, sometimes it just shuts game off and sometimes it reboots PC. The last is a concern of mine since this is a new PC build.

I DO NOT HAVE A HEAT PROBLEM. I have an after market case, I have 3 intake fans in the front, 1 intake in the side (this one is blowing right on ram). 1 top exhaust, 2 rear exhaust AND the PSU has an intake (although inside the case) and 1 exhaust at rear. (so I guess that's 3 rear exhaust fans)

I have an after market Heat sink with 2 90mm fans attached.

I don't have wires blocking air flow, all of the PSU's wiring is routed behind MOBO mounting plate and come back in case at front next to drive mounting slots. I have flat SATA cables as well.

I monitored temps while she was playing using a 2nd monitor and the cpu core temps stayed at 28.5 -30*C and the GPU temps stayed 50 - 58* C (I have even turned up the fan on the GPU just to make sure)

She hasn't added any extras to the game, no downloads (that she misses)...this is just a plain install of the game.

I have the lots display at 1, all others are well within reason for my card.

It crashed tonight playing quad core and dual core. Either setting didn't matter..

My system specs are:
AMD Phenom II X2 550be dual core 3.1 ghz OR quad core 3.1ghz
Ati HD4870 1 gig video card
4 gig, 1066 OCZ desktop dual channel ddr2 ram
RealTek HD onboard sound
550 Rosewill PSU
Win XP Pro SP 2

I always tweak our windows for best performance, so I have a couple of "hardware profile" from Black Viper windows services site.. http://www.blackviper.com/

I use a variation of his Safe service settings for daily use and\or gaming and I also have a "POWER USER" setting as well for gaming, etc...

Note: I get the best performance from the Power profile, but Safe is very close...both are far above the Default XP services setup, so I try to avoid gaming or doing anything with Default windows services setup.

I should also note that we keep our games\programs on a separate partition from the OS. We have never had a problem with it and it makes reinstalling Windows all the easier too. Less to back up.... Oh...our games\programs partition is always the 2nd partition on the drives, next to the primary (windows) partition. I read that drives are read from outer to inner, so logically thinking that it'd read faster.


All drivers are current and Direct X is the latest Feb 2010 version.

The game itself is installed on a separate partition that has 181 GB free on it. The OS partition has 28.1 GB free on it and her documents partition has 19.5 GB free on it.

All the above specs are well above the min specs for this game....

FOR WINDOWS XP
* Windows XP (Service Pack 2) YES
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent 2 OR 4 3.1 GHz
* 1 GB RAM 4GIG
* At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content 19.5 GBfor extra content, game drive has 181GB
* 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0 1 GB video card and Pixel shader 3.0

I haven't tried using my SB audigy 2 card yet, I figured the on board was better than a 5yr old card???

I also haven't tried just using the FPS program without the 3 booter...

I've not found a common connection to any crashes...it just sucks!!

This game had given me more headaches and stress than any other program we've ever owned. It's ridiculous...I read everywhere about all these common crashes, but everyone has their own specific fix that has to be made for them...WHY??

SO....

I wish I'd have known that this was going to be like a lottery when we bought it... might work, might not...LOL Some people I've read have no problems running less systems and\or even better systems....but some people have problems like we are...go figure..

Any ideas?



Thanks,
Keith

[Lum]

Well, you didn't mention if you have any expansion packs or just the base game. Is the game legit or not? Did you patch? Because my game used to crash occasionally, but after a few patches, it just kinda went away.

[Elektro Guy]

I'm sure you're using the game legitimately, but have you patched?  Did you install the expansion?  Stuff pack?  Patch those?  If so, you may have patched in an incorrect way.  I always install the base game, run the launcher, patch...then install the expansion, run the launcher for the expansion, patch...same way with the stuff pack.

Do you have any other software running in the background when playing the game?  Is your video card compatible (I think it is)?  Have you checked what might be causing a conflict with the game when it crashes using Windoze Event Viewer?  When the game crashes, go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools>Event Viewer>Logs>System and check the event logged during the time of the crash.  You can find some answers there sometimes.  Copying and pasting the error code (with Sims 3 typed in, too) into Google or Yahoo and doing a search for it can result in an answer to your issue maybe.

I'm just grasping straws.  I really don't know what else to say, but try those solutions and see if you come up with a better running game.

[kbolin]

Doh, sorry...

World Adventures pack, fully patched and yes...legit game. She has every Sim title made except that online version that came out a few years ago...

This is a new machine, fresh install as of 3\6 and I installed the game just as you said, base...patches, add on pack, patches....this was also with all downloaded content removed...fresh plain game...

I haven't checked the Event Viewer, thanks..forgot about that one.

Thanks for any ideas...much appreciated
Keith

Ps. FWIW, I'm not a noob with PC's (self taught over 15yrs)  and consider myself above avg user. I hate even asking for help, but this one has me stumped...

[Elektro Guy]

Doh, sorry...

World Adventures pack, fully patched and yes...legit game. She has every Sim title made except that online version that came out a few years ago...

This is a new machine, fresh install as of 3\6 and I installed the game just as you said, base...patches, add on pack, patches....this was also with all downloaded content removed...fresh plain game...

I haven't checked the Event Viewer, thanks..forgot about that one.

Thanks for any ideas...much appreciated
Keith

Ps. FWIW, I'm not a noob with PC's (self taught over 15yrs)  and consider myself above avg user. I hate even asking for help, but this one has me stumped...

Let me know what you find in the Event Viewer.  Also, have you run any other games on this system?  Do they play fine or crash?  Any problems with your system at all besides the borked game that's called The Sims 3?

[Slymenstra]

Well I have Vista, and I was randomly crashing left and right a while ago and I found this thread: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=375907

I followed it and have not crashed since.  I'm not sure if it would help you, or if you have already applied this.  But maybe it will help you!

[Tangie]

There was another thread here at MATY that also discussed how to do this, and I did it. Worked great. Until HELS/the latest patches. Now I have a very temperamental game again and it crashes way more often than I'd like.

Last week I tried to add a basement to a house that I downloaded and it crashed every time I touched the screen with the tool (figured out how to fix this but very annoying repeat crashes over that one). This past weekend I probably experienced 2-3 crashes while trying to save plus an error 12. I thought perhaps it was time to consolidate files again but if it behaves this way on an unmodded game, I'm not sure I should bother.

[ciane]

I don't have WA or HELS, but that CFF_Explorer in the above link worked for me. I have a quad-core Vista machine with 8 gigs of RAM and was getting the error 12 and 13s as well as crashing to desktop until I used that program to allow more than 2 gigs of RAM for game use. Good luck!