More Awesome Than You!

A very common problem with the sims 3 is that it crashes to the desktop whenever its usage of ram/virtual memory goes over 2 GB. That happens when you have played too long and lots of sim people have been loaded into the RAM and/or lots of textures have been loaded into the RAM. That can also happen immediately if you play on a lot with a 5 story house with lots and lots of objects, all with different textures and 30 people on the lot. Now i've found a way to avoid that horrible crash with CFF Explorer by making the .exe file use well over 2GB of RAM and these crashes no longer occur while playing. However, if i try to save they still DO happen. Again the issue is that lots of virtual memory has been spent. So i was wondering: What if i empty all the loaded memory and THEN save? It's logical that the game wouldn't crash then. Just like emptying your browsers cache. So is there any command or way to do this ingame prior to saving? Or is this theoretically impossible?

Over on Microsoft's site, there are the commands to make your OS Large Address Aware.

If you have up to 4G of ram (which I think should be the mimimum to play Sims3),
there's a utility over on MTS that will make the game Large Address Aware without violating the EA's TOS.

A bit of searching on both sites will help keep your game from crashing from memory shortages.

You simply need to remember to turn off LAA before you add another EP/SP and/or patch your game, then turn it back on before you play.

The Patch Downloader tool at MTS also includes an option to set your game to LAA.

durp durp hurp durp

That'll teach me to SKIM.

I gave him options because: 1. He was still getting the crashes while saving for the same reason, which indicates that CFF Explorer wasn't working.
                                          2. The tool over on MTS doesn't violate the EA's TOS and is "point and clickable" easy to use without having to remember
                                           to save off a copy of the exe file for future expansions and patches.
                                          3. What's the point of playing when you can't save your game's progress?

Unless you know of a way to strip down the VM before the save so that he doesn't crash, can't he try my recommendations before you pounce all over them?

Large Address Aware and using CFF Explorer to allow more than 2GB of ram usage are the exact same thing.

Your "solution" was "do what you've already done, but in a different way".

He had only done half of what I recommended. Making his OS LAA also was my first recommendation.

As a sidenote, I'd like to mention that I've been playing sims 3 with 2GB RAM since it was released. I have had less than half a dozen CTDs in all this time and I play with large lots, overstuffed houses, big hair CC and I sometimes skip around the hood like someone demented.

I have recently dropped the amount of sims in the hood to 130, but that was mainly because all the houses were full. The game does seem a little brisker but it's hard to tell for sure.

Actually, I don't think the frame limiter is working properly either, I'm running between 40-90 fps on average.

If the OS is 64-Bit, it already supports large amounts of RAM.  Are you saying/suggesting it is possible to make a 32-bit OS supportive of large RAM counts?

He might be referring to 3GB mode? Where 32bit OS can be configured to assign 3GB of addresses to programs and leave 1GB for itself.

Not knowing exactly which OS he's running, it's possible, even probable, he's not running a 64-bit OS.  Most computers are shipped with a 32-bit one.

It was just a fair guess that his OS was at the root of his VM problems, and not a shortage of RAM since he is using CFF already.

Hey guys, thanx for all the useful suggestions i'll try them out now, never hurts to use different methods. I'm running on a 32-bit Win 7 by the way.

It seems the game regularly crashes even with LAA checked from the CFF Explorer anytime i'm in a big lot, or going to a place where sims. Meaning when the memory goes over the top, whether i have LAA checked or not the game CTDs. Kind of a stupid lapse on the developers end. This problem has persisted since Sims 2 and you'd think that after ALL these YEARS they'd say: Hey, our game is crashing, let's do something about this, let's just re-work the engine and make the game take up less space. How about we figure out a way to make the game dump all unnecessary memory once it's used up and cache-in only the useful textures and meshes?

Either way, thanx again, and i'm open for other solutions as well.

Did you use CFF to reconfigure the .exe files for ALL the games you have or just the last ep/sp?  I believe for it to work properly, every .exe needs to be modified

         

That might depend where you are.  Locally I have seen more computers shipping with 64-bit OS and 4 GB of RAM.

Have you enabled LAA on your OS also?  Your game could be trying to use it, but if your OS isn't enabled, that will create problems also.
Win7 is LAA capable, but the default configuration on most machines is that there is only 2G or less available.  You may also want to enlarge your paging file to the maximum also.  Default setups are really configured for minimal machines and don't take into consideration individual setups. That's not cost-effective on an assembly line.  

I'm in the NE USA, and when shopping for my daughter's machine, all we found in most of the comp stores was 32 bit OS's. It's is not that 64-bit wasn't available, but it's an upcharge for the shop to install a 64-bit on a specific machine when you buy it.  Many people don't know enough about computers to ask for it.

The computer I just bought is available at Wal-Mart all over USistan, and has 64-bit Windows 7 and 5GB of RAM out of the box.

Yes! That must have been it! Chandria thank you for pointing me out to MTS. I gave it another go and enabled LAA on ALL the executables. Afterwards i increased my 32-bit Win 7 page file to 3 GB. And after almost 2 days of playing the game NOT A SINGLE CTD! I stress tested the game by playing on lots with 5 floors in height, and all 3 floors in the basement brim-stocked with objects and textures and inviting over 40 people for a party. Not even a single problem. Then i saved the game during the max memory usage and it saved it under 30 seconds with no crashes. I saved it repeatedly over and over for about 5-10 times in that period just to make sure, and again no problems whatsoever.
I guess my problem was that either i didn't LAA all the execs or that i didn't expand my virtual memory since my last OS re-installation or both.
The game is totally different now that progress is saved and the time line is actually flowing instead of doing the same things over and over and wondering when the next CTD will be. Where EA has failed you guys have helped me big time, i owe you  ;D

You're welcome, I figured it had to be some combo of both problems since you could play, but not save. 
MATY is famous for fixing EA's stupididties. (Don't pounce! I intentionally misspelled that!)