Sims 3 Crashes to Desktop with No Error Message!

@puzzlezaddict Thanks for all of your help so far! 🙂

Sorry, but I got a few questions about uninstalling my drivers. 

1. Do I download the drivers before I even begin uninstalling them?

2. What drivers exactly do I download? All of them? 

3. What do you mean by password? Do you mean to my laptop? 

Sorry if the questions are dumb, but I just wanted to make sure before I started the process and screw something up. 

@tbluitt2326  It's always better to ask before rather than after.

1. Yes, download the drivers first.  When you do the clean uninstall, you'll be offline, and you want to stay that way before going online again.
2. Download only the video driver you're about to install.  Among the 16 that Acer offers, there's one from Intel, and one from Nvidia, both listed as VGA drivers.
3. I mean your computer's password.  Some people use a PIN associated with their Microsoft account instead, which won't work.

nvm i think I found the drive to install...

@puzzlezaddict Ok, so I got confused when reading the instructions and messed up when installing the drive. I just had clicked it and installed it normally. Should I uninstall and reinstall again?

Also, what do you mean by ‘custom’? Is that under properties?

@tbluitt2326  Yes, you should redo the install, this time using the Display Driver Uninstaller that I linked in the instructions.  The point is that your current driver(s) may be corrupted, and it's best to remove all traces of them before installing the new ones.  A regular uninstall doesn't do this, hence the need for DDU.

The custom setting should show up when you're reinstalling the drivers.  I actually don't know if the drivers you download from Acer allow for a custom mode, although I would think so.  At any rate, when you open the installer, look for a tab that says "custom," and click on that.

@puzzlezaddict Their was no custom tab. It went straight into installing with no option to customize how...I did use the drive uninstaller you linked above the first time and the second time. I just got confused when you mentioned ‘custom mode’ to install the drive. 

Edit: intel didn’t have the tab but NIVIDA did. Sorry about all the questions. I’m going to play and see what happens.

@puzzlezaddict It crashed 3 minutes in even after uninstalling and reinstalling drives. There was still no dump files. I also notice black lines appearing when the game first opens (before first loading screen) which started appearing during the clean boot and hasn't gone away since. I attached the new DxDiag to this comment. 

Could it be my laptop temperature? Task manager didn't show me much since the crashes seem to have no correlation to what's happening there. I asked the same question on another forum and someone noticed that my windows 10 needed to be updated...

I noticed a common error in event finder that appears when I play the game. 

Error: 10016

This application-specific permission settings does not grant local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID.

@puzzlezaddict Any advice on what to do next? 

@tbluitt2326  Sorry for the delay; I wanted a consult, as this is kind of at the edge of my abilities to help.

(@holger1405 you're wonderful, as always, thank you so much.)

Anyway, it does sound like the driver install didn't go so well, and hopefully tweaking the process (see above) will help.

You already have DDU downloaded, but go ahead and redownload fresh drivers from Acer.  (You can trash the old ones.)  Be sure to get both the Intel and the Nvidia VGA drivers now, since you'll be offline until you finish the process.

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/7571?b=1

Take your computer completely offline (again, disable wifi and/or pull the ethernet cable).  Double-click on Display Driver Uninstaller.exe, and you should get the message that you're not in safe mode.  (If you don't, go to options and enable safe mode dialog, as before, close DDU, and reopen it.)  For launch options, choose Safe Mode, and then click Reboot to Safe Mode.  Once you login, you'll see this again:

Choose GPU, then Nvidia, then click Clean and Restart.  Your computer will restart in normal mode.  Launch the DDU again, reboot into Safe Mode, and repeat the above steps, but this time, choose Intel instead of Nvidia in step 2.

After your computer reboots into normal mode, still offline, you can install the Intel driver, then reboot, and then install the Nvidia driver and reboot again.  For the Nvidia driver, choose a custom install again, and only install the driver an the PHYSX software.

If it helps, you can print this out, since you won't be able to go back online and have a look until you're done with the whole process.

When you're done, try TS3 again.  It's best to remove your TS3 game folder from Documents\EA before you test, just to be thorough.

@puzzlezaddict Thanks for getting back to me, I uninstalled and reinstalled my drives again. The post was easy to follow and understand. 🙂 

Unfonrtanetly there was still no change. My Game crashes barely a minute in. I had deleted the Sims 3 folder and re-downloaded all my CC and put back my mods and saved game and sims after reinstalling the drives. 

I was even playing around in another sims 3 vanilla game on another account on the same laptop, and it didn't crash, but the moment I put even a little CC in the game, it eventually did. I also updated Windows 10 and turned off Game Mode as another forum suggested, but it made no difference. 

@tbluitt2326  If a new save runs perfectly well with no custom content, but crashes when you add your existing save and cc back in, then the problem isn't your computer, it's your content.  This is why I said you needed to test in a clean game folder.  If you're using NRaas mods, that's fine, but any other third-party content could potentially be a problem.  Your save might also be corrupt to some extent, either from bad cc or just because TS3 saves get corrupted over time.

Please test the game in a completely clean game folder, without your saves, or any custom content, or any mods not made by NRaas.  If you get a crash, let me know.  If not, then this isn't a hardware or system issue.

@puzzlezaddict I don't mind trying to play without CC, or test to see what could be causing the crashes, but I do want to point out that I never had this problem with my old laptop. When I first got this laptop I used the exact same CC as my old one, and instantly ran into this problem. I think CC is just a trigger not the main problem. I also think that my save game is corrupted at this point. 

@tbluitt2326  Some bad custom content doesn't cause any problems until a sim is wearing it, or tries to spin into an outfit that contains it; or until a sim is assigned it that shouldn't be able to use it, as in the case of clothing or hair that has not been properly categorized.  Saves can also get corrupted all on their own, and constant crashing in your current save doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your installed content.

It would be very helpful to play in a clean game folder, no cc, for a while, to test.  If you don't get any crashes, you can test your save in the clean folder, without moving over the cc; just make a copy of the save, so you don't have to worry about missing objects.  You can also test your cc in a new save, again in an otherwise clean folder; copy over the .dbc files in DCCache and test.  Let me know how things go.

@puzzlezaddict So far I only flagged a animation mod. Just like my save with cc, as soon as I put it into my clean one, the game crashed a few seconds in. Weird enough I didn’t have any issues with this mod until I changed packs and couldn’t open up a town.  

Regardless, the crashes has happened even without this mod in my game. I only got it cause I was told it was compatible with Nraas.

Edit: I got the mod working. I think I downloaded it wrong. Game hasn’t crashed yet. Will try to add more cc to see what happens. 

Hi there, this topic hasn't been updated since June, so I was wondering what your current status is. I recently downloaded Sims 3 & Sims 4 back onto my laptop a few weeks ago (after having general non-Sims performance issues over the summer so I reinstalled Windows onto a clean drive). The Sims 4 worked perfectly fine from the get-go, but The Sims 3 was always crashing like 5 - 10 minutes into it, and just like your issue, with no visual error message evident. I was wondering if you're still having the crashing issue as I did something so simple that fixed it for me, was actually quite shocking to say the least. :-)

Hey, what did you do to fix this issue? I’m having the same problem?