Re: Will there be a 64-bit version of Sims 3 for Windows 10?

Sims 3 tends to crash midway through playing, so I wonder if me running 64-bit Windows has anything to do with that?

@Mythdon  There are a lot of reasons Sims 3 crashes, too many to list.  The only one related to the game being 32-bit is when a crash is the result of it going over the ~3.7 GB RAM limit.  You can check the game's memory use in the Task Manager if you're curious.

If this is in fact a memory issue, there are plenty of ways to try to address it.  Most of us manage to play just fine, at least for a few hours at a time, without having a memory-related crash.  But sometimes compromises need to be made, for example not playing in overly complicated worlds or with extremely overstuffed households.

If your crashes aren't due to the RAM limit, I can try to help you troubleshoot that too.  Just let me know.

My desktop is 16GB of RAM, i3-8100 and Intel UHD Graphics 630 if that info helps any.

@Mythdon  It doesn't help with the memory question.  The point is how much RAM Sims 3 is using while you play, in particular after you've played for a while and right before it crashes.

If the game is not in fact running out of memory, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

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

dxdiag says "no problems found".

@Mythdon  That's not the point of running a dxdiag.  The point is to provide one so people can see your hardware and look for potential issues that might interfere with the game.  The "no problems found" covers only a narrow band of issues, not usually enough to say anything useful.

Please do the following:

• Play for a while and check RAM use in the Task Manager periodically.
• Let me know how much memory the game is using throughout the session and whether it eventually crashes.
• Run the dxdiag, click "save all information," and attach the file to a post.

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@puzzlezaddict wrote:

@Mythdon  There are a lot of reasons Sims 3 crashes, too many to list.  The only one related to the game being 32-bit is when a crash is the result of it going over the ~3.7 GB RAM limit.  You can check the game's memory use in the Task Manager if you're curious.

If this is in fact a memory issue, there are plenty of ways to try to address it.  Most of us manage to play just fine, at least for a few hours at a time, without having a memory-related crash.  But sometimes compromises need to be made, for example not playing in overly complicated worlds or with extremely overstuffed households.

If your crashes aren't due to the RAM limit, I can try to help you troubleshoot that too.  Just let me know.

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That’s what I was trying to confirm. It’s almost 2022 now and I can’t avoid the infamous Error Code 12, and was wondering if this update would help with it. I have 8GB of RAM, and made it so the game used 4GB, and weirdly enough, every time I get the error and check Task Manager, it shows that the game’s using ~1,5GB, so honestly I don’t know why it happens. I’ve done absolutely everything I could to fix it. Deleting the .bad file, saving ‘as’ instead of the usual save (and rotating between 4 save files with Nraas Saver), using save cleaners, deleting and disabling memories, limiting household members to 8, reducing graphics, using mods such as Nraas (MC, Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Saver, Traffic, Register, Go Here), you name it. But I’m still getting it no matter what. I’ve found people that are going through the same problem, and it shouldn’t be an issue anymore. It’s frustrating that they haven’t released a 64 bit version when it could avoid an error such as this one. 

@AnnaBprp  Error 12 is an out of resources condition.  It's usually but not always related to RAM, but it can also for example refer to VRAM or something else entirely.  Does this happen in all worlds in which you play?  Have you taken steps to manually limit your in-game framerates?  If not, I can help with the process.

For good measure, please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

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

Hey, thanks for replying so quickly (even though it's an old thread). I've been playing Sims 3 since 2013, and it happened for the first time a couple of months ago, in this specific savefile. To be fair, it's a 2-year-old save, and I only started taking measures to avoid it after it happened (since I never had to worry about it before). Here's my situation:

⠀⠀• I’ve been playing in the same save for the past 2 years, and I’m in the 7th generation

⠀⠀• I used to play with 14 sims, but I’ve reduced them to 7 and a dog

⠀⠀• I play in Agnes Crumplebottom’s mansion in Sunset Valley, so it’s a big lot with a bunch of stuff in it

⠀⠀• My pc has 8 GB of RAM and I set the game to use 4GB; I keep my desktop clean before I open the game

⠀⠀• I have an NVIDIA GTX 1650 card and was playing in Ultra quality, but I’ve reduced a few settings to Medium

⠀⠀• I use LadyDuchess’ Smooth Patch to make the game run better (which also comes with an FPS limiter)

DxDiag is attached. Thanks so much for the help!

@AnnaBprp  Please confirm in-game that your fps is limited to 60 (your screen's refresh rate) or whatever you intended to set.  I haven't looked into the smooth patch's fps limiter—I still use the original version—so I don't know whether it works in all circumstances.

If that's not the issue, please try moving the household to a different lot, just as a test.  Make it relatively simple, no clutter; it's a good idea to sell the furniture rather than taking it when the sims move, or else use Edit Town to evict them and place them elsewhere.  You don't need to save your progress, or if you do want to save, use "save as" and rename it so your original doesn't get overwritten.

The method commonly cited to make Sims 3 use 4 GB RAM doesn't work and is unnecessary, as the game has been large-address aware since 2010.  What this method does is change the size of the script heap, and its default is 20 GB (count the zeroes).  We're not sure whether changing this value has an actual negative impact, but since it clearly doesn't help, it's best to undo that change.

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@puzzlezaddict wrote:

@AnnaBprp  Please confirm in-game that your fps is limited to 60 (your screen's refresh rate) or whatever you intended to set.  I haven't looked into the smooth patch's fps limiter—I still use the original version—so I don't know whether it works in all circumstances.

If that's not the issue, please try moving the household to a different lot, just as a test.  Make it relatively simple, no clutter; it's a good idea to sell the furniture rather than taking it when the sims move, or else use Edit Town to evict them and place them elsewhere.  You don't need to save your progress, or if you do want to save, use "save as" and rename it so your original doesn't get overwritten.

The method commonly cited to make Sims 3 use 4 GB RAM doesn't work and is unnecessary, as the game has been large-address aware since 2010.  What this method does is change the size of the script heap, and its default is 20 GB (count the zeroes).  We're not sure whether changing this value has an actual negative impact, but since it clearly doesn't help, it's best to undo that change.

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I always play with FPS on so I can keep track of it, and the limiter works normally. I’ll move them then, and see if it changes anything.

Thing is, I had managed to avoid the error for about a month, and it just started happening again once I added Ambitions to the save (obviously a mistake, but since I bought 3 new packs, I thought it was worth giving a shot to see if the game could handle it, considering I only play that specific save nowadays). I still have the backup save from before I made changes with Ambitions, and I hadn’t gotten the error for so long, I don’t know if I would’ve avoided it definitively if I hadn’t added any more packs. I’ve been recommended to move my Sims to a new town to start afresh, since it’s an old save and the town is overpopulated (with both dead and alive sims), but I’ve been trying to avoid that, since my family is not limited to a single household. For now, I’ll go back to where I was before making any changes on the packs used, my new packs will have to wait, and then will do as you told. Thank you for the tips!

@AnnaBprp  Ambitions is relatively low-impact, as expansions go, so it would be surprising for it to have such an impact unless your save was already on the edge of sustainability.  It's always possible that something about how the game added Ambitions content affected the save though; you could try reverting to the pre-Ambitions save and adding the pack again.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but if all else fails, NRaas Porter will let you pack groups of households together to drop into a new save, with the sims' relationships preserved.  Even the dead ancestors can be preserved as long as their graves are included; this helps preserve family ties where the living sims don't still have a common living ancestor.

Hello, it’s me again (hopefully for the last time 😅). As nothing really did it for my game, I’ve decided to move my family to Adventureland (I’m not sure if it’s a buggy or broken version of Sunset Valley, but as far as I can tell it’s a normal world). I haven’t done so yet, because I just found out Nraas Porter does not keep the family tree, and I was wondering if using Nraas Traveler would be able to avoid the error 12, even though I’d still be playing the same save (or at least that’s what I think the major difference is in this case, with Porter I’d move my households to a completely different/new savefile, whereas with Traveler, I’d stick with my old savefile, but in a different city). I know this isn’t exactly supposed to be posted in here, but I was hoping you could have the answer. Sorry for kind of going off on a tangent here 😅

@AnnaBprp  Porter does in fact keep the family tree intact IF you pack the necessary ancestors' gravestones.  As long as those ancestors are placed in the new save, their descendants should still be related.  If you're curious, you can always try using Porter to see how it works.

Traveler is also a perfectly reasonable option, and you can add sims to the new world with MasterController once you're playing in it if you don't want to use Traveler to go back for them.  There's a risk of Error 12 the first time you save in the new world because some data will carry over from the travel transition itself, but if you get past that, the new world should run as well as a new save does: the old world wouldn't get simulated at all while you weren't playing in it.

Adventureland is an empty version of Sunset Valley that was apparently supposed to be for testing only and somehow got left in for people playing through Origin.  There's no harm in using it all by itself, but if it has the same underlying world ID as Sunset Valley (I can't remember either way), you might have issues traveling back to it after going elsewhere.  So if you do want to use it, try starting a new save there and traveling a couple times, just to make sure it works properly.  Change something about the world you'd notice, for example placing a new building, and see whether it's still there, and you don't land in Sunset Valley instead, after the return trip.

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@puzzlezaddict wrote:

@AnnaBprp  Porter does in fact keep the family tree intact IF you pack the necessary ancestors' gravestones.  As long as those ancestors are placed in the new save, their descendants should still be related.  If you're curious, you can always try using Porter to see how it works.

Traveler is also a perfectly reasonable option, and you can add sims to the new world with MasterController once you're playing in it if you don't want to use Traveler to go back for them.  There's a risk of Error 12 the first time you save in the new world because some data will carry over from the travel transition itself, but if you get past that, the new world should run as well as a new save does: the old world wouldn't get simulated at all while you weren't playing in it.

Adventureland is an empty version of Sunset Valley that was apparently supposed to be for testing only and somehow got left in for people playing through Origin.  There's no harm in using it all by itself, but if it has the same underlying world ID as Sunset Valley (I can't remember either way), you might have issues traveling back to it after going elsewhere.  So if you do want to use it, try starting a new save there and traveling a couple times, just to make sure it works properly.  Change something about the world you'd notice, for example placing a new building, and see whether it's still there, and you don't land in Sunset Valley instead, after the return trip.

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Before replying, I went after that info on Nraas forums, and yes, Adventureland does have the same world ID as Sunset Valley, and that caused a lot of problems for a player who was going between 2 worlds back and forth, where Adventureland, apparently their main world, was no longer an option on Nraas Traveler, only Sunset Valley. Though, I don’t know if that would be a problem for me personally, since I’ve never moved between worlds in the same save before, nor did I plan to. So I think I’m in the clear.

I’ll try Porter first, see if everything works out normally. It does seem simpler to use than Traveler, and since I have no experience with either of those mods, I’ll give it a shot haha. My last resource will be Traveler. Thank you so much for you help! 

ah, now that you said it, is going to university also problematic? I’ve just moved my family to Adventureland using Porter and everything’s okay, but would the two worlds having the same ID also influence on the return from university or only vacation worlds? That probably sounds silly but it doesn’t hurt to ask

@AnnaBprp  I'd suggest testing traveling to University now, before you're settled into playing in Adventureland and have more to lose.  It might be fine, but better to find out right away.  Travel transitions have the same issues whether your sims are going to a WA world or somewhere else.

Will do. Thanks again! 

Heya! I’ve considered it, but I’ve grown attached to Sunset Valley at this point, and wouldn’t like o leave it 😅 that solution works though, when I eventually start getting the error again (probably after 6 or 7 more gens), I’ll move to another save in Adventureland. I appreciate the tip, though!