Whenever my game crashes I use the Crash Log Analyzer to see what (most likely) the issue was, and 9/10 times it was a 'ran out of memory' issue. That answer can be caused by many things though, in my case (I play in borderless window) when I would switch the window to another program a few times and then tried to save the game, it would almost always crash. So now when I play, I just don't switch windows or tab to another program and haven't had any crashes. But for others the answer isn't so easy to find. I asked this question on Twitter and Reddit - you can read the responses if you'd like, and I wanted to ask the same thing here just to see if game crashing is an issue for you and when it happens and if you know a specific reason why it's happening. https://twitter.com/AstroX14242/status/1542274200697982976https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims3/comments/vnr9wd/how_often_does_your_game_crash/

Probably an interval of once every few weeks since it’s either a combination of running out of memory or something gimped up with the various mods affecting my game. Since I started using NRAAS solely for game framework affecting mods and utilizing workarounds within NRAAS for various necessary things I need done in Sims - pretty much 75% of all stuff that are accomplished by other mods can be done through NRAAS if you dig hard enough in the NRAAS menu. So I’ve cut out most other third party mods that affect gameplay controls and found an alternate way through NRAAS. Now the only other third party mods I use are stuff that cannot be replicated by NRAAS and add new gameplay options.

Mine crashes occasionally. In my opinion, I think it's typically either because I have left my game on in pause mode for days while I am not actively playing it, or I have done too much customization in Nraas Stylist, or both. (I do play during that time, it's just left on when I am on the forums or eating or napping. I do close it sometimes when I go to bed, and almost always when I go out of the house.)

Mine crashes probably every couple of months, usually after spending a long time building / decorating & CaSTing. And it isn't so much a crash, it's that when it does choose to misbehave, it's the UI that disappears and I'm forced to task manager out of the game.

"Astro;c-18139633" wrote:"Pary;c-18139590" wrote:Mine crashes probably every couple of months, usually after spending a long time building / decorating & CaSTing. And it isn't so much a crash, it's that when it does choose to misbehave, it's the UI that disappears and I'm forced to task manager out of the game.That's a new one, I've never heard of that happening before. :D Yeah it's a pain in the bum, especially if you haven't saved. There is a fix for it outlined here - https://fleurdeprairie.tumblr.com/post/87089812065/i-have-always-cried-every-time-someone-told-meBut it only works intermittently for me, so sometimes I lose everything I've done. There are odd occasions that even task manager wont fix it, because I can't even tab out of the game, I have to reset the PC. Thankfully those kinds of episodes are very far and few between ?

The UI crash seems to happen if you press buttons too quickly one after the other, while the last task you gave it is still loading stuff.I voted "once every few weeks", but it's rare. I always have the Resource Monitor running on a second screen, so I have an idea how much memory the game is using at every moment in time. This also means I know when to make my final save before I have to restart the game to get to a lower memory baseline again.That said, I have crashes once in a while. It may happen if I have a big household, especially if the household members are doing stuff on different lots, stuff I told them to do, and then I go and switch between them all the time to give them new orders. That way, the game is loading different lots all the time, and it certainly doesn't like that if done too often. A specifically crash-prone situation is when a sim finishes an instrument performance with lots of spectators. The instrument animation has to stop, the game then waits for any potential incoming tips from the crowd, and then the animation to put the instrument into the inventory has to play. It's better to keep my fingers off keyboard and mouse during that time.Another more common crash reason is turning the camera while all sims in a big household are busy doing stuff. Bonus points if the camera lands inside a wall and doesn't know what to show. Turning the camera on a tiny lot with lots of sims that have trouble routing is also an issue. Bonus points if that lot is next to a mountain or high building and the camera has to go up and down.That said, all of these instances are relatively easy to avoid. I know I have to give the game time to finish something it's computing, and crashes usually happen if I forget that for a moment. Which is, as mentioned, rare.

Game Crashes - Your Personal Experiences.

graceymanors
Rising Hotshot
3 years ago
Most of my crashes happen when I minimize the game.However, lately its been when my sim is performing showtime acts.
AstroX1424
Seasoned Newcomer
3 years ago
"Cororon;c-18140519" wrote:
The disappearing UI:

https://i.imgur.com/tkFvNkY.jpg

Always annoying when I have spent an hour decorating...

I've never had this happen. It's really odd that some people frequently have crashes due to the same issue while others don't.
Cororon
Rising Traveler
3 years ago
"Astro;c-18140997" wrote:
"Cororon;c-18140519" wrote:
The disappearing UI:

https://i.imgur.com/tkFvNkY.jpg

Always annoying when I have spent an hour decorating...

I've never had this happen. It's really odd that some people frequently have crashes due to the same issue while others don't.

Yes, it's odd. I have another strange problem that others don't. I can't use cars by Fresh Prince, because they either corrupt or crash my game. I have no idea why.
DEtherean
3 years ago
With my playing style, it may happen every few weeks. I use quite a bit of custom content, and I travel frequently as well via NRaas Traveler.

The last time it happened was several weeks back while playing Twinbrook, and I had someone dancing inside an upper floor room of a skyscraper. I used testingcheatsenabled true to go into Build/Buy to change a radio station on one of the Wall Speakers to a custom station I made using Broadcaster. Once I tried to go back to Live mode, the game crashed without an error message. It's happened before due to this, though.

Nevertheless, unlike my first year of playing The Sims 3, it now rarely crashes due to suspect custom content. Most of the time, the crashes are due to "out of memory" errors while traveling if I have played for too long without restarting before beginning the travel process. More rarely, it may crash if I travel from a certain map if a memory leak occurs during the travel process, and RAM usage maxes out as a result.
fruitsbasket100
New Vanguard
3 years ago
I feel like I get them once every few months. I get them a lot more often in the summer though as my computer overheats faster.
mw1525
Seasoned Newcomer
3 years ago
I have had this game installed on three different PC's and I have never had it crash not once. The closest thing I have had to being a crash was when my electricity went out during a storm. Because the game wasn't properly shut down when I went back, I was greeted with the 'fatal error' screen. Compared to what is/has happened to others on this thread, I am beginning to feel like I am very lucky.
AstroX1424
Seasoned Newcomer
3 years ago
@Onverser
Since I made this discussion I've actually completely solved my crashing 'issues' (I basically found out why the game would crash, which was rare but it did sometimes). For some reason if you tab out of the game or minimize it or switch to a different window, anything that requires TS3 to not be on the screen will cause the ram usage to shoot up, saving the game also makes the ram usage spike as well - those two things were causing my game to almost always crash while saving.

Not related to crashing but I also had this issue where sims weren't rendering correctly when I would pan the camera back towards them, they'd be really low quality and it would take a few seconds for them to load in. Found out the reason for that was because I had set the SimCompositorCache size to 4k and the game can't handle that, so I put it back to 2k and everything works perfectly now!

If you need help troubleshooting your game to get it to work correctly feel free to ask!
commandermctosh
3 years ago
never crash, regularly error12
Evalen306
3 years ago
I have never crashed. When I looked at what a crash is and how to fix a crash, then I realized I have never crashed as I never had to do those things to fix my Sims game. In all the years been playing. Sure, hope I never do, sounds terrible.
WatrDragon
Rising Newcomer
3 years ago
My game hardly ever crashes - it freezes sometimes when I´m playing an old save or a full household when everyone is running around doing stuff, but it nearly always recovers from that. In case that happens, I reset the town with Nraas, I´m sure their mods do a lot to keep my game stable. I also regularly clear the caches and do all the other little thing you can do.

I do treat the game like a raw egg - I have a "gaming pc" (not actually a real gaming pc, just a solid desktop pc but it runs all of the Sims games well) with nothing else but said games on it, I play in fullscreen mode and never try to tab out of it (because the game does NOT like that), and there´s no internet connection when I play.
The game and the pc always get shut down when I´m done.

The last time my game crashed, was when I tried to cheat an werewolf into CAS, but as I learned, that´s a known issue.