Trouble with 'Sims 3 stopped working' and Error code 12s

This is one of the few examples in the world where the crash log, together with the dxdiag anyway as by itself they usually tell us nothing, actually gives us some useful information.

The first issue to address is that your C drive is critically low on available space. Out of 128 GB (I think? There's some extra overhead going on there), you have 16 GB free. Clearly your TS3 game is installed on D, but I can't tell where your TS3 user game folder in Documents with your content and saves really resides -- is it on C or has that been redirected to D as well? Regardless though, Windows does not have enough free space in which to maneuver. Without even doing much within the game, it's running out of what it calls virtual memory, which can be a function of no drive space for the operating system to work with--nothing to do with RAM, you have plenty. If it's not the user game folder hogging up the space, what else have you got on C, besides Windows of course, that you can shift elsewhere? I would say you want at least 35 GB free on C, more would be better but might be difficult to manage on such a small drive.

The secondary issue is that your graphics card is not really strong enough to carry the game and 10 EPs well and on high graphics settings/high resolution. But if it has served you well up through 10 generations thus far, let's gently set that aside for the moment. This is a desktop and not a laptop, right? We might return to it later to see if a graphics card upgrade is feasible for that system.

As for the mods, the one thing I am not seeing mentioned is a MasterController Reset Everything run from City Hall (or Base Camp for a WA world that has no City Hall). Perhaps you are doing that routinely anyway, meaning like every 6-8 sim weeks or so per world. But the C drive space is much more important to address first and if the current issue is affecting both your homeworld and other worlds, it's not likely to be the need for this alone that is causing it.


Edit: I've just noticed a recent post of yours on another thread mentioning a high population level on your homeworld and your having trouble gaining re-entry there from China. That shouldn't affect gameplay while still in China, but how high a population are we talking about? On City Hall, NRaas > MC > Demographics > Population > "X" to dismiss the filter. The most important stat on that screen is Residents, unless you see Homeless or Service Sims reaching astronomically high levels.

I gave it another go, this time I went in and deleted a lot of things from each of my sims and the family inventory. I didn't even play two seconds, not even long enough for the Nraas pop up, try to save and immediately get error 12. This can't be right? I didn't leave the lot or anything.

So I went back again and changed some of the graphics settings. I didn't want to initially but now it's running at 20-30 fps and so much smoother. There's a few jagged lines but it's not too bad. I've saved twice and no errors so fingers crossed.

This is what I changed from maximum:

• Edge smoothing: Low
  
• Lighting and shadows: Medium
  
• Tree detail: Medium
  
• Draw distance: Medium
  
• High Detail Lots: 2
  
• Texture Detail: Medium
  

That's kind of where I would expect the game options need to be on a GT 630 video card and with carrying 10 EPs no matter how strong the rest of the system is, even though you have been able to manage better in the past. But...erm, about that C drive and homeworld population again or are those your next intended things to look at? ;)

@igazor Sorry I didn't see your first reply. Usually it sits around 20GB free, once I move some older saves onto my D drive. The game's program files are installed on my D drive but my save files etc are on the C drive. It really does take up the whole thing. I've moved everything else out apart from the odd Word files. That's why I'm so glad to have a big backup drive. Is it possible to shift the user game folder into another drive? I've never been able to work it out.

Yes, it's a desktop. I'm aware it's not a great card. My computer is only a few years old though, I think I got ripped off honestly.

Resetting Everything was the first thing I did as straight away something didn't feel right right.

Here are the demographics:
Households: 51
Residents: 126
Service: 77
Homeless: 0
Tourists: 378

Tourists seem very high but I doubt there's actually that many of them walking around because I sure haven't seen them.

Thanks so much for your help by the way :smile:
I hope to get a new pc by the end of the year.

Edit: The only other thing in my C drive is TS2 Ultimate Collection which is 1.6GB, TS4 is 135MB and a couple other folders which have less than that. A while ago I figured how to disable my pc's hibernation state and I got about 10-15GB back so believe me it used to be so much worse.

LOL, yeah that is quite a few tourists you have there. That can't really be causing the virutal memory, no drive space related issues if they never appear on screen (imagine if they all came over to visit you at the same time!) but it's not really expected either. Do you not have NRaas Register in play? Tourism is controlled by that mod and you can set a more reasonable cap on them, like maybe 10 or 15 or the level you really want. Or 0 even (meaning set Allow Tourists to False) to get rid of them all hopefully within a sim day or two and then set a more reasonable level.

A Resident population of 126 for most worlds is just fine. Some of mine go well into the 200s, not that I would recommend that for everyone.

On the full C drive, well that would explain how this happened. And at high graphics options, your game is going to try to reach for more virtual memory at times, but that's a function of Windows and it's going to try to use more C drive space for it than you could possibly have to work with while the game is running and has an extra copy of itself inserted into the Current Game folder, again all taking place on C.

I would suggest moving your user game folder out of Documents to your Desktop or some other location temporarily so it doesn't get messed up in the process and then redirecting your entire Documents library to the D drive. This shouldn't be difficult to do, but I don't have a Win 10 install near me so I can't give you screenshots of my own. This is the first hit I got on Google, though.
http://www.dummies.com/computers/operating-systems/windows-10/how-to-change-the-location-of-user-folders-in-windows-10

Maybe other here can tell you how they've done it, in case that doesn't work as expected.

From a Windows expert on MTS:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=5276232#post5276232

(look for post # 35, not the earlier ones where some of us were "arguing" about other things ;) )

I forgot that I do indeed have Register. The maximum is set at 10... yeah thanks for stabbing me in the back, game! I'm thinking that some of the tourists are remnants from my sims holidays via Traveller. They have been to Isla Paradiso, Monte Vista, Bridgeport and China and some of these sims still show up in the relationship panel.

Thanks for the link. I did look into this kind of thing a long time ago but it seemed risky. I'll have a look at it and let you know how I go. :smiley:

@igazor I linked my whole Documents folder to my D drive and now I have 35.6GB free. I'm not sure how that works but I'm not complaining! :sunglasses:

I hope this makes a difference. What you were saying before about it being too full makes sense for the random crashes, I hadn't thought of the size of the CurrentGame folder either. I just don't know why it's happening now all of a sudden. I might nudge the texture detail up a bit since I like taking pictures.

Edit: There seems to be a small pause every few seconds. Is that a due to moving the files? I'm hoping it will go away but it doesn't seem to be. Maybe it can't read my D drive as fast and that's what's causing it? (I have no idea)

I'm a little surprised you haven't managed to recoup more than that but of course I don't know how large your entire game folder is. Did you get rid of any extra copies of your game folder on C and empty the Recycle Bin? Have you tried rebooting since freeing up the space?

From what I could see on your dxdiag, both drives are internal. There shouldn't be any noticeable difference in read/write time between the two. The D drive on a setup like this isn't really your backup drive, it's where usable data not directly related to Windows and programs are meant to go. A backup drive would more typically be an external one. But the very worst case is that you could always put things back the way they were before (wouldn't really recommend that though).

Wait a minute, I misread something. Sorry!

Your C drive is a Solid State Drive (SSD). I didn't realize this until I looked up the model number just now. So yes, your game folder and the program both on D would run more slowly only because you are no longer getting the benefit of either being on the SSD. But the SSD is too small to really accommodate either as we have been saying. We always advise players with a small SSD to not put anything other than Windows and what really needs to be alongside of Windows there.

There may not be a solution here other than to dial back expectations of how well things are going to perform unless you really do want to put your Documents folder back on C and find another way to conserve space on it. Or get a larger SSD, but that wouldn't be cost-effective if you are planning to replace the entire computer soon. Drats, again sorry about that but I just didn't recognize the brand name of the C drive at first.

I could get rid of a couple more saves that would give me a few more GB. I'm constantly emptying my recycle bin. It was starting to lag badly but got a lot better as soon as a few of the sims and kids went to school and work. I imagine when they come home again or if I go to a populated place the lag will return. I will test this for a day or two and if I don't like it I can always revert it back.

I'm playing at the moment, surprisingly when I drift around the town there isn't any noticeable lag. It's performing fine with 6 people at the performance park.

The only other thing I can do is delete all my custom music (nooooo :cry:) or merge more package files which is more realistic. But it's not like I'm going to save that must space. All my programs are stored on my other drive so I might just have to deal with it as you say.

Just so I get this straight a SSD isn't bad it's just the size of it which is causing me problems? Is my D drive an SSD as well? I really appreciate your time by the way. Even if I don't have a solution per se, I am actually able to play. Chances didn't look so good this morning, or this week, I've been trying to figure this out all week. So thank you! :smiley:

Edit: My game folder at the moment is 16.6GB, with my save folder 7.80GB. If I bring that down to one save as I usually do it's 1.3GB.