Error Code 12!!

An Error12 is an out of resources condition. Usually it means that the game's RAM usage has spiked above the danger zone of ~3.5 GB, even for a brief moment, and the memory registers (RAM only) are polluted with unusable garbage so a save cannot be completed. It can also happen during/after very long CAS or Edit Town sessions where many changes were made and the game runs out of usable resources of other kinds along the way. There are often enough no ways to recover from that within the current session.

What one would want to do if these are happening constantly on each game session is use Task Manager to check the game's RAM usage on startup, when the game clock begins moving forward smoothly, then again frequently throughout play. If the RAM usage is not leveling off at a safe point, well below 3 GB for most worlds, the eventual Error12 is inevitable. If one's session is running at or above around 3.3 GB, experiences will vary but the Save or Save As process itself will cause a temporary spike in RAM usage and can also lead to the same error.

TS3 is a 32-bit application only and cannot use more than 3.7 GB of RAM or recover from more than that trying to be used under any conditions even if the player's system has more RAM than that available.

It kind of depends on how big and complicated the worlds are. Some beautifully designed custom ones (most notoriously Alpine County, Setra, I think Vice City is one, there are others) will be unplayable for most all of us or at least become so after a while for this reason. Other simply large, rather than ginormous, or even medium sized worlds will max out if the resident population is let to grow too high. How high depends on the world and the player's system, but 300+ resident sims would be too heavy for most of us to carry and successfully stay under the RAM limit as well.

Yes, NRaas mods can help make the game run more efficiently and smooth out growth issues and of course are highly recommended. But they can't allow the game to use more RAM than it possibly can as 32-bit should it still keep calling for that much.

I had an Error 12 just once in 8 years time and never when I played vanilla so I can hardly imagine that has something to do with it? It indeed rather is space related. I have two drives now (C and D) and made the mistake to install the game on the smallest one, so now I do have this issue occasionally. In fact I noticed the driver is in the red yet again a few days ago, which will mean saving probably will be a problem when I won’t do anything about it. I’d reinstall if it weren’t for 1.69...

Lack of drive space is a different problem, although admittedly sometimes the symptoms can be similar.

Running Windows and/or the game on a drive that lacks sufficient space for both of them to maneuver properly will lead to stability issues on the part of the game and just about anything else Windows has to run. Even web browsers will malfunction under such conditions. We generally recommend at least 15% free space for Windows and at least 35 GB free, whichever is higher.

Error12s are more typically RAM and graphics memory related and pertain to the current game session being played, not drive space, but again when operating with not enough space to work with just about anything strange can happen.

sometimes if I keep playing and try saving again a bit later, it goes alright. It's like at that time it won't, but a bit later it will, whatever event it was getting through has passed.

I never go more than one simday without saving as at least a few times during that day and I will stop partway through a build to save as just in case I did have a crash though that's very rare.

Sometimes zooming into a patch of grass helps, but it that fails then it's a lost cause. Error 12 can happen to anybody. I've suffered with it for years because I played in one town for too long. Now I moved my sims over to a fresh world and I haven't seen it since, but I still get CTDs sometimes. I save every two in-game hours because I've played this game 'Groundhog Day' style many times and it's not fun.

I know you are all tired of hearing about this by now, but sorry. One ongoing game ever, 16 Traveler mod connected worlds. Of course I've had Error12s occasionally, most of us here have, and they were essentially the order of the day back when I played the more crippled Mac version of the game before porting everything over to Windows. Now, hardly ever.

Number of worlds abandoned and moved on from because of Error12s or any other technical reason: 0. Got bored with a couple of them, extracted my sims, and moved on but that's not the same thing as it was my decision to do so.

This would be impossible without NRaas, other tools to keep the game files clean, and just kind of knowing when things feel right with each world vs. something is going wrong and not going to correct itself. AwesomeMod used to help too, until I found NRaas ways to do (almost) everything it can in this regard and sent it packing. And I know I'm not the only one with such a long-running game, I'm just more vocal about it than most.

Players have asked what kind of monster gaming system I must have. I don't invite diehard gamers over to admire my system because they would just point and laugh, then I would have to politely ask them to leave. It's suitable for the game and hits all recommended requirements but, like me, is aging now and gets a bit cranky when started up at times. Nothing special.

When the game starts fighting back on me, either something is wrong and needs to be investigated or I really have gotten sloppy and tried to do far too much within a single game session.

I would love to get myself a nice new gaming system, but the potato that I'm running TS3 on right now seems to be working...at least while I save up for the new whopping game system that will double as my photo/video editing workstation - for my photography (at least that's the excuse I'm using and I'm sticking to it). It's a 2.2GHz...and it seems to do the trick...and frankly, I don't even get an Error 12...My game window just up and closes on me if it gets too darned cranky about how long I've been on Sims 3. But then, I have Pets, but I don't run it on my current computer, unless I'm just running the base-game, Seasons and Pets by themselves. In July I'm planning on getting my 3.2 GHz's CPU fan replaced so that I can use it again and hopefully it will stand me in good stead until I can manage to get my gaming/photography/video editing rig.

I'm getting used to the NRAAS Traveller to send my sims to and from vacation worlds. Error 12s may be annoying...but they're considerably lessened with NRAAS and I wouldn't think of playing TS3 without them. You remember, @igazor, there was a time last year that I didn't know anything about how to install and utilize NRAAS? It's probably one of the best things I've gotten for the game. Thanks to you and @Mikezumi for encouraging me to get the mods and for all your help on using them.

Over the years I've worked out a way that works for me to avoid error 12. I do still get one occasionally if I've decided to continue playing beyond the point I know I need to stop and refresh.

I find I can't let my game go over 3.2 GB of RAM used when playing. If it is over that point and I want to save I do a few things and usually do get it down below 3.2 GB. Thing I do include - moving down to a patch of grass or sand, going into map mode, going into edit town, going out over the ocean, changing to a different household with only one sim and a very basic house.

If none of that works, and any of them usually do work for me, I reduce my graphics. I reduce draw distance, number of lots visible and just about anything that will stop my game from needing more resources. but this type of thing is affected by the world I'm in at the time and how much complexity I've introduced to the game.

I also save often. The more often I save the less there is for the computer to hold in RAM and the less chance of an Error 12. But each time I save more junk seems to get retained by memory and that means I need to shut down the game and reload to fully clear the memory.

There are other things to try when reloading such as clearing cache files.