More Awesome Than You!

My game has been crashing a lot lately. At one point it crashed only when I hadn't saved in a while, so I started saving frequently. Then it started crashing when I tried to edit a sim's clothing in CAS through the dresser. I removed a few mods (pregnancy morph, and the NRAAS computer) and tried again. I was going okay for about fifteen minutes, I managed to edit a sim's appearance, and then I got a crash when I tried zooming out. Other than AM, I only have the gym buff and no intro mods, and some non-mod CC, mostly stuff that's been in there a while.

My computer might be borked, but usually when it gives me trouble it's because it overheated, and it's fine now. Any ideas?

How densely populated is your town? I've temporarily removed nearly everyone because of instability.
Are there big detailed lots? Some taller buildings can be very taxing on the game, causing crashing.

And CAS? Does the screen go black, or is it just a desktop crash?

Possible culprit is overheating, if it's occurring in CAS.

AM story mode has been rapidly increasing the procreation in my neighborhood, but this is at least the second generation, and it never crashed this often before. The lot is pretty big, but the house is not so huge, and again, this is at least the second generation that's lived in the biggest lot.


Desktop crash. I click something, suddenly I'm looking at Firefox, no error message or anything.

Whenever my computer gives me trouble, I put my hand on it to feel how overheated it is. This time it just wasn't that warm. I preemptively closed a bunch of background processes. Still, getting it cleaned is the A-plan, I think.

As a test I would put your currently family in the sim bin, then 'destroyallhumans', then place them back in their house.
See how it runs with a small population, and save under a different name.
My town with a population of 6 runs crash-free, yet when i place the other 55 sims in there, it crashes left right and centre.
I am also in the process of placing lots back in the hood slowly due to crashing. I placed about 90 lots in the town and it was fine. But then I tried to put the last 5 lots back in there and it started going funny again. Also worth considering.

Causes of crashes, especially if you are doing things that are graphically intensive, include overheating, and bad CC. If the crashes occur at during activities like extended use of CAST or normal play, overheating may be to blame. But if the crashes occur when you are zooming in or out, or something new appears, you could have a bad piece of CC that has corrupt LOD settings.

This is not a sure test to see how much heat your computer may be generating inside. You should look up the temperature in BIOS. Since also maybe it only gets hot when you run graphic applications (maybe the graphics card is hot) try using a software program called SpeedFan  (http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/SpeedFan.shtml)to monitor all aspects while you run TS3. It is better if you can remove all non-necessary processes, startup items and services before hand. Your CPU should only be 0%-5% when you finish start up at desktop then.

I got a CTD last night in CAS for the first time ever. I took two sims to the dresser to change all their outfits after aging up to YA (you know, those purple shoes with the outfit just didn't go). First Sim went fine, although I do get this strange static sound when clicking on each different outfit. It sounds like one of those bug zappers. But the zapping sound has been happening for weeks and I'd still never experiened a crash in the past, although I haven't tried editing two sims back to back, either. When I got to the second Sim, everything was OK although things were going more and more slowly and taking longer and longer to generate the image for each outfit. Finally when I got the the second formal outfit, it makes a zapping sound like usual but, and here is the very strange part, the sim looked like it was wearing a black body suit under her dress. All of her skin tone, from her toes to what looked like a turtle neck, were completely and utterly pitch black. Face/head was not affected, but the rest of her body was. I tried clicking back on formal outfit # one but got the same 'cat woman bodysuit' effect. It wouldn't go away although I clicked on a few other buttons for the next minute or so. Strangest thing I've ever seen. Then the program just closed down and I was back at my desktop.

I'm guessing this was a video card failure of some kind, since the card is an unsupported NVIDIA variant that HP used to cut costs on this laptop, and the game will occasionally minimize to the task bar without warning when the card needs a break. I haven't opened the program back up yet tonight but otherwise the PC seems OK. So, yeah, if it works I will know better than to tax the system again by trying to edit several sims in a row. I also have beaucoup CC but all's been working fine for some time now so I don't think it was caused by CC.

If the card "needs a break", you're getting the overheating issues and should try 3booter + fpslimiter.

Normally when the "card needs a break" it just minimizes the program to the task bar, it doesn't close down. So I just leave it there for a minute and maximize it again and go on playing with no problems. In the past I used the FPS command and I don't remember the numbers generated exactly, but it was very low (like 16?) so it didn't seem like the limiter would be useful. I think this was one of the saved games where I was experiencing extreme lagging. I'll take another look at the FPSlimiter.

You're certain it's not some other program, like an antivirus program, wanting your attention on the desktop and so minimizing your game?

My game chugs like mad now, even in a new, freshly built town with only a few people in it. A lot of stopping/starting, and when they walk they sort of drag along the ground like Tinkerbell fairies. Also the speed is super slow, like it used to be before the last patch when ultra-fast was the same as daytime speeds. Making me nuts, I've resigned myself to just building to get my fix and not even bothering with the characters...

For the record, cleaning the computer did reduce overheating dramatically, but the culprit is some CC, I'm not certain which. I'm still in the process of isolating the problem, but once I went down to the basic mods I could play for an hour or so with no problem.

World Adventure must have changed "something somewhere somehow".

I've never had any CTD prior WA, but since I installed it on a clean install of the base game (no cc, no store content, just AM now), my game is often lagging (especially in foreign hoods) and I have frequent CTD. Mostly with CAST indeed, to the point that I don't dare recolor anymore!

It's quite strange and more than annoying, because those CTD occur even with a "simple and basic" use of CAST, in freshly started game and computer (I'm not sure if that's correct English, but you understand what I mean : I haven't been playing for hours before I have CTD).

Well, the good point is that, prior WA, my crashes were the "game freezes" type ones, so probably memory leak or bad CC. Now, the game auto shuts down long before that point :-)

I've been having the same issue, and it isn't related to overheating. Could any of this possibly be a bug linked to an event like pausing/unpausing the game? For me this happens during regular gameplay, not while in CAS.

I'm having random CTDs also.  My laptop is not even warm.  I am in a tomb, and my sims bladder is about to asplode.  I can play about 30-45 seconds right now without a crash.  Only mods I have in are Awesomemod and the body sliders, which have not been used yet.  I do not get error messages.  I have 2.2.8 WA with a purchased copy of TS3.

CC is mostly store stuff, with a few clothes and hair from TSR.

UPDATE:  It seems to be consistently happening at speed 3 or 4.

The above 5 words caught my attention because of something I discovered last night.  When Pescado first brought up the fpslimiter, I thought it was geared towards newer graphic cards than my Nvidia 8500GT.  I did check fps in game and ran around 24, so didn't worry about it.

Last night I happened to think that I had not checked fps since installing WA and decided to do so.  What I found in a foreign destination was that I had about 24 fps while in base camp, fishing, some routine action.  In travelling to a tomb, or elsewhere, I saw spikes up to 55 fps and much to my shock that while inside a tomb the fps went nuts.  The number  jumped up to 96 to 105!

I have no clue as to why the fps changed so dramatically while inside a tomb but it doesn't really matter.  Since I have an Nvidia card, I got out of the game and forced VSync on for TS3.  I went back into game and found it then ran at a steady 28fps.  I can't say with certainty that this would be cause for your CTD but don't think it would hurt to check your fps, if you haven't already done so.

Thanks for the tip.  I will look at that for sure!  It is still happening at high speed now that my sims have returned from vacation, when they go to sleep and the speed changes to 3, I have just a few seconds before it crashes.  

EDIT:  After reading more about the fpslimiter, I think that may be the issue, d/l now.  I have a fancy new laptop with a 1 gb dedicated video card that is probably turning into molten plastic as I try to play.

Another edit:  fpslimiter did not help.  They slept at speed 3 for a little longer, then, CTD just like has been happening.

fps limiter didn't help my ctd either. My dh had me download something to monitor my heat and its not showing anything out of bounds. Prior to WA/WA patch, I had no problems.

I'm getting random CTD too. I'm at the point now where I have to save every 5 minutes. Whenever I don't because it hadn't crashed in awhile, it will then crash and I'll lose an hours' worth of play. There doesn't seem to be anything in common with the times when it's happened. I never had any crashes before WA, but now it will CTD anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours after starting the game. My sims can be standing around, working on skills, on a trip, it doesn't seem to make a difference. But before the game crashes, it does sort of lag for a bit, so I'm thinking it has to do with RAM. I have 3 GB, but after quitting TS3, even if it doesn't CTD, my whole computer runs a bit slow until I restart. I'm going to try turning off DEP for TS3 and see if it helps.

Running "slow" has two possible causes:
1. Everything in your computer has been forced into swapspace by TS3's RAM-eating, and as a result, the computer disk-thrashes.
2. Your computer is overheating, and modern computers will downclock themselves in response to heat buildup to avoid a fire, and thus will run slowly.

Based on the claim that restarting instantly fixes it, case 1 seems more likely, meaning your crashes are caused by TS3's memory leaks eating all your RAMs, finally running out, and crashing.

I'm quite certain MOAR RAMS is not my answer.  I have 4 GB plus 1 GB on the dedicated card.  I'll try rebooting though.   :-\  For me, it happens EVERY SINGLE TIME I put the game in high speed.

ETA:  I also forced vsync on my card and it made no difference.

The only thing that may be of note is that when I was installing, it did tell me my video card was not on the list of supported cards.  It is an nVidia GeForce GT 220M 1 GB

I wasn't talking to you. YOU are on a Lappy. Your problem is clearly that your computer is melting down. Lappies have terrible heat dissipation and getting a powerful laptop is a recipe for a fire.

I have been monitoring my Ram while playing and I absolutely agree that this is what is happening. When I CTD my Ram is down in the double digits (45 - 90)!  I think this is always why I get error 16s.  I think it is almost out of Ram and hasn't CTD so I save and it barfs.  I have 4 GB of Ram.

I watch my heat and that is in okay levels.  It does get hotter when playing the Sims, but not out of the range that is acceptable. I also use the FPS limiter.  I recommend watching your Ram, save often, and reboot often.

I guess I know what Santa is getting me for Christmas heh.

I'm curious to know. My desktop runs Windows XP which can only be maxed out at 4GB of ram and that apparently isn't enough for TS3? What a mess.

I am not sure about it being the ram, I have 8gigs of ram and I still get occasional CTD's. If this game needs more than 8gigs of ram then there is something really wrong..

Well, I followed the instructions I found on MTS for turning off Data Execution Prevention for TS3 and I was able to run my game for like 6 hours straight without any crashing. So that seemed to fix things for me.

I was positive it was a RAM issue because my computer really doesn't get hot at all. I have 5 case fans and a heatsink/fan combo over the processor and I've done a crazy amount of monitoring my computer since getting TS3. Originally, I had my Radeon HD 4850 installed and TS3 would BSOD after just a few seconds in CAS and after lots of testing to rule out overheating, which seemed most likely, as well as other causes, I finally gave up and put my x1900 back in. Nothing in my computer ever goes above 55C and from what I've read, that's not bad.

XP can't use more than 3GB anyway, so anything above that is a waste.

Well, uninstalling and reinstalling fixed my CTD issues.   :-\  I"m running awesomemod and the no-intro mod and all the Sims Store stuff with no issues.  I have not yet replaced any custom hairs or clothes that are not from the store.  So hopefully I can add my stuff in bit by bit without starting the crashes again.

XP will recognize up 3.75GB of ram so it will be faster than having just 3. It's only kind of a waste if you went out of your way to buy more. But since sticks can be bought cheaper in a dual pack, most pre-assembles came with 4gb for XP.

I'm confused as to how this will help. As I understand it, it's only on for Windows services anyway. So by changing it to be on for everything except sims, you are turning it "more on" but it doesn't change whether its on or not for sims. It shouldn't be on for sims to begin with at default setting. Since it is not a Windows "essential program or service."

I'm not sure how or why it works, but it is.

Maybe I'll give a try if my crashes come back. Deleting my cache files before play (cross fingers) plus fps limiter (knock on wood) seems to have at least slowed my CTD's. Up until a week ago, I thought they were only happening when attempting to play with AwesomeMod. Then they started happening in vanilla game, freshly installed.

After turning off DEP I haven't had any crashes. However, it seems to have just swapped one problem for another. What happened was once I disabled DEP, I played my game for like 6 hours with no crashes or anything. The next day, I played about 3 hours or so when the game suddenly froze. I couldn't minimize the game, and nothing was responding so I had to manually reboot my PC. Once it restarted, I booted up the game again and that's when I noticed the houses I had built weren't showing anymore from the map view, they just looked like empty lots until I zoomed in on them. I don't know if it's related or not, but this was the first I noticed it. I saved and quit the game thinking it was just a glitch, but it wasn't. The same thing happened again when I restarted the game. I ignored it this time and went to actually play the game. I sent my guy to China, got him married to his fiancee there and at the end of the vacation, they came home. Shortly after that, as I was moving the camera around to take a pic, the graphics suddenly looked really crappy and a second later, it froze again. I'm going to try turning off DEP to see if it fixes it. If it doesn't, then I have no idea what's wrong.

On the official sims 3 forum someone said that the crashes happen at game speed 3 and 4 due to frame rates being too fast.

They suggested you lower the frame rate to a steady number (do not remember if it was 24 or something but look on the forum) and while I still blame the code, it was reportedly a fix for some people.

Also, it could be your nvidia driver if you are using up to date ones.

This game requires that you rollback to an older driver version.