New pc and many TS3 crashes

@Maninha  What world(s) are you playing in?  Have you added a large number of sims to the worlds, or are you perhaps running NRaas StoryProgression on a fast setting?  EA worlds shouldn't throw an Error 12 at first, not with the number of sims and the worlds' complexity, but adding too many sims or demanding mods can change things.  And some custom worlds are too large or complicated to run well.

Please also let me know whether you've taken steps to limit your in-game framerates, and what you mean when you say you "dedicated an amount of memory to video card."  And I'd like to see a dxdiag for reference.  You can attach one to a reply here.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

@puzzlezaddict First of all: thank you very much for replying!

The game "was crashing" (crashing to desktop or error 12) when I was playing in Island Paradise and Sunlit Tides. 

I've edited completly Island Paradise (no house boats at all) and Sunlit Tides I've edited it too just to make sure there's no routing issues.

The family has 4 people (adults only).

Now I'm playing in Sunset Valley and after taking some steps, there's no crashing issues.

Here's what I do: I have to close all programs that can be closed, of course, to not run in the background (this step I'm used to take for years), I use "mem reduct" and each 20/30min of play I refresh the memory (page file, system cache and physical mem) and as I always "save as", I have to take off from the folder previous saves, because I save the game each 30min and I think the amount of saves was doing some harm...  Doing this, I had no more crashes. But it makes me think what's happening with this new pc, if I was used to play for 24h without exiting the game and had no issues in my old laptop?!

What I mean about "page files" is that I managed an amount of SSD to enlarge the page files because video card has only 3gb of memory. And now, when I take a look to performance monitor, there's 9gb to video card...In simple words, because I can't explain it in technical words...

About mods: not so much mods..mainly about clothes, hairs and few others that I use since I was playing with the laptop (smooth patch, annoyance disabler and Cmar's).

Edit to say: Nraas' mods-> Overwatch, MasterController, Register, Debug Enabler, Error Trap, Once Read, Portrait Panel, Retuner, Woohooer. And yes, I limited fps to 60.

I'm not on my pc right now, but I wanted to give you an answer for you to know I'm checking this thread.  

Should I run dxdiag when running the game or there's no need to be running the game?

Thanks for your help!

@Maninha  The dxdiag is a general system report, not tied to what you're running at the time.  I always want a new one so the information is as fresh as possible, but aside from that, run it whenever you like.

The Error 12 is an out of resources condition, usually but not always related to the game's RAM use.  It could also be video memory—the game can only use 800 MB no matter how much you have installed or what edits you make to certain files.  This can be a problem with certain custom content, so it's worth testing with no cc at all, even if you don't save your progress.

In general, it's best not to mess with the page file unless you see evidence of an issue there.  Windows generally manages it fine on its own, and unless your system doesn't have enough RAM for Sims 3 and whatever else you're running alongside it, the page file shouldn't come into play anyway.  (It's always going to be in use to some extent; I'm just saying it shouldn't affect Sims 3.)

And I agree that you shouldn't need to take all these steps to try to keep the game running without crashes.  It's worth tracking Sims 3's RAM use overall, if not formally then at least by checking the Task Manager every so often.  My current save's memory use is above 2 GB, but not by a lot, nowhere near the ~3.7 GB limit, playing in Appaloosa Plains with NRaas StoryProgression present.  My point is, you should be able to play in Sunset Valley without getting anywhere near the RAM limit as long as you haven't added anything else that eats memory or run into a bug that increases memory use beyond what the game can handle.  But it's all speculation until you have some hard numbers.

@puzzlezaddict - Hello!  I'm on pc now. Just ran dxdiag to send it to you.  About 1h ago I ran the game but 2min after it crashed to desktop.  In my Documents/ElectronicArts folder there's a ''xcpt'' file about the crash (breakpoint). I've read it trying to understand what the heck is going on, and I think it's something related to ''Windows Photos'' (because I took some shots of the game yesterday and was seeing them -  the game wasn't running yet - but the program ''windows photos'' kept running after I started the game...I just think it's the issue...). If you don't mind, I'll attach ''xcpt'' here and the ''dxdiag''. 

About TS3 memory usage: I always check task manager to see TS3 memory usage and the higher I've seen lately was 2.240gb while running the game. 

I don't know whether it can be relevant, but I've made few changes in Sims3.ini file according to a trustful youtuber.  The default ''texture memory'' is 2048. I downloaded a program called ''vramsizetest'' and its result was something like 9000mb but I felt unsure to set so high number then I set it to 6144mb. So in my deviceconfig it's 6144 to texture memory. I haven't changed everything that youtuber suggests because I'm not sure if my machine supports all those changes.  And I just remembered I've also ran ''TS3 RAM Editor by Alpha1295-Nexus'' that limits the game to use 4gb of ram.

I don't know if something of my windows is eating memory while I play the game... I'm used to close all programs/tasks that I can before running the game.  Normally my game starts with the OS memory usage of 9%... and I'm always checking the ''mem reduct'' to see OS usage and refresh the memory - back to 9%.

About ''page files'' -> I've tried to leave it in all the possible ways:  ''managed by windows'' (game crashed), ''no page files'' (game crashed), ''recommended limit'' (game crashed) and the best way until now was setting it to ''minimum 16.384gb and maximum 24.576gb.

Well, I hope I haven't forgotten any other details to give you as for you to help me to fix this annoyance. 

Please, let me know if you received the attached files (deviceconfig.log, dxdiag, xcpt.txt)

Thank you so much! <3

@Maninha  First, the easy parts.  A Sims 3 crash log is mostly useless, but it does have one helpful feature:

Total physical memory: 13234 Mb
Available physical memory: 9796 Mb
Total page file memory: 29618 Mb
Available page file memory: 23485 Mb
Total virtual memory: 4095 Mb
Free virtual memory: 1789 Mb

This is a report of the RAM use, from the game and overall, at the time of the crash.  You can see that there was more than enough physical memory available for the game plus a buffer (9796 is far more than 4096), and that the "free virtual memory," which is how the game reports its own memory use, is nowhere near the limit.  Anything above 500 MB means the crash was likely not memory-related.

Please repair the game in the EA App (Sims 3 > Manage > Repair) to undo the changes you've made to the .ini file and anything else.  There is, somewhat surprisingly, a lot of misinformation still floating around about which values in which files correspond to what and how far they can be pushed, or whether changing them does anything at all.  It's best to run the game in as close to a default state as possible while troubleshooting.

For the record, there's no way to force-limit Sims 3 to using 4 GB RAM, or to make it use more.  And the default texture memory is 32 MB if the game doesn't pick up the GPU's VRAM on its own, which it usually doesn't with newer devices.  The default of 2048 you found a reference to is either something else or not a default at all.  Besides, since Sims 3 can only use 800 MB VRAM, seting the value higher than that has no practical effect.

For the issue itself, two of the Sims 3 errors in your dxdiag are crashes of the AMD graphics driver.  Two are breakpoint errors, which have several causes, one of which is an issue with the graphics driver.  So that's the place to start: with a clean uninstall and reinstall of the driver.  Here's how:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/02/clean-re-install-of-graphics-drivers-with-display-driver-uninstaller-ddu.html

You can get a fresh copy of the newest driver from AMD here:

https://www.amd.com/en/support/downloads/drivers.html/processors/ryzen/ryzen-5000-series/amd-ryzen-7-5800h.html

Run the installer as an admin: right-click the download and select "Run as administrator."  Restart the computer afterwards and before trying to play.

@puzzlezaddict  Hi, cat lover 😉   It's a relief and an honor to have a help from someone like you, I mean it!  

1) Sims3 crash log -> low free virtual memory is something that made me think why could it happen... I couldn't find an answer after exausting searchs.  It's like this since the first game crash. In my searchs, looking for help to understand and fix it, I only found answers about increasing ''page files'' amout.  That's why I've changed it to those values I told you before.  :/

2) I'll replace my original Sims3.ini file that I have in safe place. Well, as a matter of fact, I'll replace whole TS3 game bin, as I've also installed LD's smooth patch.

3) About texture memory -> wow, I didn't know that... It's been so long I've changed it to 2048, and for years I've used it like this, that I had forgotten the default value. You probably have seen a trustful source give this ''clue'' (to set it higher). Anyway, I'll leave it as you suggest.  I'm sorry, but I couldn't understand what you said:  ''And the default texture memory is 32 MB if the game doesn't pick up the GPU's VRAM on its own, which it usually doesn't with newer devices.''  The game picks up GPU's Vram of newer devices or not? 

Only for record:  yesterday I've taken out my Sims3 game folder from Documents and ran the game to create a fresh new Docs folder. I played about 3h in Isla Paradiso, created a new Sim, build a house, played a while and had no issues. It made me think my last saves were broken... or maybe some ''cc''...  But now I see can it be related to graphic driver, as I always take a look to devices drivers and about graphics driver there's a message in details that it was not started.  I've used DDU at least 4 times, reinstalled the driver with ''amd software adrenaline edition'' but it's always ''not started''. :/ 

I'll try those links you provided and I'll be back to let you know the results.

Thank you very very very very (hey, stop!) much! :D

@puzzlezaddict  Thank you very much for your help! 

When I told you I had used DDU many times and installed graphic driver (also many times), I could not imagine it hadn't been installed correctly... for some weird reason. 

When I checked the device manager I noticed in "update driver" "details" that it was installed but not "started".  I always found it strange, but as my graphics was working okay, I didn't mind it.

After reading your help, I made a search on YouTube to understand what the heck was going on with this driver.  

I found a 2min video, excellent, that helped me to install the graphic driver and have it started.

In other words, now I can see that the driver is installed and started.

...and now I can play TS3 without crashes or errors.

I can't thank you enough for giving your time to help others!

Have a nice week, a wonderful a Christmas day and a very happy new year!!! <3 <3 <3