Re: 64 Bit Update

@puzzlezaddictdxdiag attached

@bishty  Even if the game's overall RAM use was mostly fine, something apparently caused it to spike dramatically and quite possibly cause a crash.  Most of the info in a Sims 3 crash log is useless, but this part is helpful:

Total virtual memory: 4095 Mb
Free virtual memory: 424 Mb

That doesn't mean virtual memory in the way that Windows means it, it's referring to Sims 3's own memory use.  424 MB free means that the game was using 3.6 GB RAM at the time of the reading, which is past the point where it becomes unstable and can crash at any time.

There are plenty of reasons this might happen, but usually the underlying issue is that there's a problem within the save that the game engine is trying and failing to resolve, using more and more memory until the game hits the limit and crashes.  So then the goal becomes finding out what that problem is and trying to address or get around it.

Does the save crash at the same in-game time, either every day or just the once?  Is there something you or your sims do in-game to trigger the crash?  Are there any other patterns?

Please also let me know whether you use mods, and if so, which ones.  It's fine to name them, unless they raise the game's rating; in that case, just list the creator, and I'll know.

@puzzlezaddictHi, yes I noticed that bit before as well. Actually I just tried it again and this time the exception said the available page file memory was too low, which is odd. It's just having janky memory problems lol.
There is no pattern to the crashes other than the real-world timing in terms of the maximum amount of gain I can get out of it. Once it happened in buy mode when I wasn't even at the computer, I'd wheeled away for a moment and saw it happen from the corner of my eye. Sometimes it will crash to desktop like this and sometimes just error 12 when trying to save. It's frustrating because it happens even when I start a new game, I reinstalled the world, even the entire game several times and it keeps on happening and I know it's not the world that is an inherent problem because it wasn't like this originally.
I use a dumper truck full of CC haha and a few core mods; nothing that I believe raises the game's rating, mostly just almost everything from NRAAS and a few other things here and there, for example tweaking the degree system, adding careers and custom plants and things. I haven't added any new mods for genuinely years, probably like 4 years now we're talking! I got this new machine about 2 years ago.
Actually there is one pattern I noticed that I believe to be correlated but I can't seem to reverse it. Basically I was disappointed with the performance of the game on my new machine so I followed some of the steps to improve performance listed on NRAAS website. Got to the bit where it said to merge CC and happily did that and it worked like a treat, the game was smooth and everything I dreamt of when I imagined getting an upgraded PC. However, that was when these issues started. They didn't start instantly, it was gradual onset until it became this much of an issue. I noticed the association, however, and restored my backed-up mods folder, expecting the huge lag to return - however, when the game was lagging so, it NEVER did this crashing and extremely rarely did error code 12. I could literally leave the window open for days, and indeed did so because it took so long to save and load! But the lag didn't return. The game still runs incredibly smoothly even with all of the individual package files back in the folder and the issues prevail. So I don't know how to make it go backwards in time ☹️

Edit: I decided to finally test my own theory and took my entire mods folder out and ran the game. It still crashes! But it tends to say something slightly different:

Total physical memory: 16327 Mb
Available physical memory: 4738 Mb
Total page file memory: 23827 Mb
Available page file memory: 6 Mb
Total virtual memory: 4095 Mb
Free virtual memory: 1182 Mb

I don't understand the difference between page file memory and virtual memory but there's no way this save can be corrupt it's practically brand new and I know for a fact it suffered the same problems when it was in fact actually brand new.

I may try running it in a different world to see, but the world was fine before this problem started and I didn't do anything to it ☹️

@bishty  I'm curious whether a crash dump would be more illuminating, not the one the game creates but a Windows crash dump.  Here's how to get one:

• Hit the Windows key, type "command prompt" in the box, right-click on Command Prompt in the search results, and select Run as Administrator
• In the window, paste "reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\devenv.exe" /v DumpType /d 2 /t REG_DWORD" without the outside quotes into the box, and enter
• Launch Sims 3 and play until it crashes
• After it crashes, wait for any crash dialogs to finish
• Then hit Windows key-R and paste "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps" without quotes into the box, and enter
• Upload the last .dmp file to a third-party filehosting site, and link it here
• When you want to undo the auto crash log dumps, open Command Prompt as before, paste "reg delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps" /f" without the outside quotes, and enter.

@puzzlezaddictGood morning!
Here is the crash report: https://app.box.com/s/dhqv6lr6tua7gjnbpczrlqw75u9at93q
I would just like to say thank you for taking the time to help me with this problem! I feel closer to getting to the bottom of it than I have before. Also I really appreciate your idiot proof instructions haha, I barely know anything about how software works so googling stuff can feel like drowning in treacle!

Late last night I continued experimenting. I started a new game (without mod folder) in Appaloosa Plains and it stayed alive perfectly well, no crashing, no nothing. So I did the same thing with the custom world and it behaved itself again! So now I'm thinking that when I merged my CC I damaged something that is now just causing havoc in whatever new game I start. I am going to experiment with my main save by installing just a clean copy of NRAAS master controller to reset everything and then see where it wants to go from there. Worst case scenario I can see myself redownloading every single package in the folder rofl

Edit: I performed my experiment and the game played for a satisfactory amount of time without crashing. So now I guess I begin the process of finding out what on earth has gone so wrong in my mods folder!

@bishty  I think you're right that the cc merge is the most likely suspect.  The crash dump didn't say anything particularly interesting: Sims 3 crashed because TS3.exe tried to read an invalid memory address.  There are plenty of reasons this kind of thing happens, but bad or poorly handled cc is a common culprit.  The fact that your new saves are fine make this all the more likely.

Anyway, hopefully you're able to find the individual issue and fix it.  If you happen to get any scripterrors, from NRaas ErrorTrap or others, you could take them to the NRaas site and ask for help interpreting them.  You might find out at least some of what's breaking and be able to address it directly, for example a sim might have a corrupted outfit that contains formerly merged cc, and you might need to rebuild that outfit.

If you're struggling to make your save playable again, I guess you could experiment on a spare copy of the save: try deleting a bunch of sims and lots (with a MasterController reset everything afterwards) to see whether you still get a crash.  If you do, then delete more stuff; if you don't, restore the previous version and only delete half of what you did before.  This is a somewhat unusual version of the 50/50 method, but it might help pinpoint some sims or lots that need to be redone.  It could take a lot of time though, so you might want to leave the game running while you do other things and see what happens.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that though.