Forum Discussion

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
13 years ago

Not happy with support

I've got an issue with Supernatural (below). The suggested solution didn't work. I can't now get back to the live chat advice because of "Technical Problems" which seem not to end. It won't let me resubmit a new enquiry... how do I get help now???

The problem:

My daughter has used Sims 3 vanilla for some time on her computer. We gave her Supernatural as a reward for good schoolwork. Despite trying a range of things, it kept crashing during the create a Sim stage, displaying “SIMS 3 has stopped working” . She is very upset.

 

I installed on my computer, which runs everything easily (Skyrim Mass Effect 3 etc), and exactly the same thing happens. Given the two different setups, I don't think the DXDIAG route is the thing.

 

It seems time dependent- I can get one character out OK. I can get two out if I don't edit much, but eventually it freezes.

 

I've read through the various forums, but apart from specs, and clearing caches (which won't apply on my machine as the install was new), and applying the update via the launcher, nothing seemed obvious.

 

I contacted via the live chat method, and was given this advice:

“Go to document\electronic arts\sims 3\dc cache and delete the missingdeps.idx then check your game. “

 

I did this- it didn't solve the problem.

pc
technical issues

25 Replies

Show More
  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    This is extremely helpful.

    I had used the Steam graphic driver update system, had updated just prior to the DXdiag and assumed it knew what it was doing. The control panel check seemed to confirm that the drivers were up to date. I'm going through the AMD route to re-update anyway. 

    It seems Supernatural only scores "Maybe" on the 4800 series. Given the minimum spec is 128Mb, and my card is running at 512Mb, there shouldn't have been an issue, but obviously there is!

    We've never got as far as running the game- only got as far as CAS.

    I won't run it on my daughter's computer- if mine won't run it, it probably will fry hers.

    I'll give the testing a run in the next couple of days (life just got busy) with the suggestions you make, and get back to you. What would be a safe maximum for the GPU?

    I especially like the suggestion about the new GPU. Whether the wife will...could the "old" GPU be put in the other computer?

    Many many thanks!!!

  • crinrict's avatar
    crinrict
    Hero+
    13 years ago

    I'm really not a hardware specialist and can't tell you what will work together and what will not.

    If you just have SN and the base game, it shouldn't be a problem on your computer. It's more if you have all of them. Pets and Seasons are more heavy on the graphics but SN shouldn't be.

    Try picking a pre-made family to see how it works in game without going through CAS.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    OK, I've run some tests. I turned the graphics right down/ off and tried it in windowed mode for better monitoring.

    The thing that jumps out is the fps- regularly over 200, often hitting 260+. Is there a solution?

    Temperature stays mostly at about 75 deg C/ 170F with occasional peaks to 81 C / 180F; Skyrim runs at 81 C without problem.

    The game itself seems to run OK with a created family, but I wouldn't know if there could be situations I haven't tried yet which could give problems. FPS drops when the SIM is doing something, and rests around 220.

    The game always crashes during the second SIM in CAS, and I'm not sure why that should be. Surely doing the second one isn't more power hungry than the first? The fps seemed higher during the second SIM; it varied wildly, and crashed at fps=237 for reasons that seemed unclear.

    Thanks again.

  • crinrict's avatar
    crinrict
    Hero+
    13 years ago

    Try limiting the fps. You can do that on the Nvidia card you can turn on an option called vsync which syncs the frame rate with your screen rate. You can do this for an individual program. I'm not sure how to do it on AMD cards. I think there you can only do it for all programs together.

    Here's a thread on the issue: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/450859.page

    As for your temperature. I find that rather high.  This can damage your computer. Did you clean out the fans ? Make sure you have enough cooling.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    The PC is due a clean...

    I've done some research on your ideas. I think we've got the problem- now for the solution!

    Setting vsync on ATI seems a problem. I'd be happy to do it globally, because then we could do CAS once, at which point it can be reverted. However it seems either ATI don't do this (some posters believe this) or if the "Wait for vertical refresh" slider is the same thing, it doesn't reduce fps rates in Supernatural.

    I've put in Radeonpro, which is supposed to have an fps limiter on it, but that doesn't seem to work either.

    The search continues...

Recent Discussions