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Teaflingg's avatar
Teaflingg
5 years ago
Solved

Sims 3 Crashing to desktop 2021

Hello! I loved the sims 3 growing up and i wanted to play it again because of how good the game actually is, however its 2021 and the game just does not work for me at all anymore. No matter what i'v...
pc
technical issues
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    5 years ago

    @Teaflingg  Your Control Panel settings are working, but your graphics card has the lowest possible rating.  It's easiest to start from scratch with the .sgr files, so please trash the ones you have now and put the originals back.  If you don't have original copies, repair the game in Origin (open your game library, right-click on the Sims 3 icon, select Repair) to put them back.

    Note:  These instructions only apply to and will only work for the original poster's graphics card.  If you'd like help getting your own card recognized, please post the same information from deviceconfig and ask for help.

    Spoiler

    Open graphicscards.sgr (Notepad works fine), and crtl-F to search for 10de.  That will take you to these lines:

    vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
    card 0x0fd1 "GeForce GT 650M"
    card 0x0fd2 "GeForce GT 640M"

    Create a new line under the "Nvidia" line, copy this text, and paste it in the new line:

        card 0x1e84 "GeForce RTX 2070 Super"

    So you should now see this:

    vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de

    card 0x1e84 "GeForce RTX 2070 Super"
    card 0x0fd1 "GeForce GT 650M"
    card 0x0fd2 "GeForce GT 640M"

    (with indents from spaces that this site isn't displaying properly).  Save, quit, and open graphicsrules.sgr.  Crtl-F and search for 8800, which will take you here:

     elseif (match("${cardName}", "*8800*") or match("${cardName}", "*9500*") or match("${cardName}", "*9600 GSO*") or match("${cardName}", [etc.]

    Change the bolded 8800 to RTX 2070.  Don't change anything else, not even the asterisks.  This will classify your card as uber.

    Finally, scroll back to the top of graphicsrules, and look for this, 8-10 lines down:

    if ($textureMemory == 0)
    seti textureMemory 32
    setb textureMemorySizeOK false

    change the 32 to 1024, and add a # and a space in front of setb.  Your card has more VRAM than that, but TS3 can only use 800 MB anyway.  The lines should look like this:

    if ($textureMemory == 0)
    seti textureMemory 1024
    # setb textureMemorySizeOK false

    Launch the game at least once to refresh the deviceconfig.log.  In addition to the [Found: 1, Matched: 1] values in your deviceconfig, you should also see GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 4 in the rating info.  Let me know if not.

    The crash log doesn't say anything useful, unfortunately, other than that Sims 3 crashed and it wasn't because the game ran out of memory.  If you get another crash, please do a clean uninstall and reinstall of Origin:

    • Quit Origin, then right-click on the Task Bar and open the Task Manager.  Scroll through looking for Origin entries.  If you find any, click on them and End Task.
    • Clear Origin's cache.
    • Download Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine) from here.
    • Launch Revo, select Origin from the list, and click Uninstall.
    • When it finishes uninstalling, select "Moderate" under "scanning modes," and click Scan.
    • If Revo finds any remaining registry entries, select all, delete, and click Next.
    • Revo will display "Remaining Data and Folders."  Select all of them except for the "Origin Games" folder, if it appears.  (This is where Sims 3 and other Origin games are installed by default.)  Delete the rest.
    • Close Revo, and restart your computer.

    Next, download the full Origin installer and run it.  Here's the direct download link:

    http://download.dm.origin.com/origin/live/OriginSetup.exe

    Be sure to run both the installer and Origin itself as an admin: right-click on each and select "Run as Administrator."

Teaflingg's avatar
Teaflingg
5 years ago

Sorry for the long wait for a reply to this, but I been taking the time to play test and try different things. I uninstalled and reinstalled again to make sure, deleting any random files that were added. The only thing I kept was my cc and my saves for my game, I had to redownload all my store content. Here is my dxdiag because it still crashes. Idk what the best compatibility mode to run it on and also, after seeing found 1 match 1 in my device file in docs I wasn't sure if I should redo the steps of putting my graphics card info in the graphics rule file (this one specifically, elseif (match("${cardName}", "*8800*") etc) Any help with what I should do specifically is always helpful thank you.

puzzlezaddict's avatar
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago

@Teaflingg  When you load a save and start playing, how high are your framerates?  Bring up the cheats console (crtl-shift-C) and enter "fps on" without quotes.  A number will appear in the upper right corner, and it should never go above 144, the refresh rate of your monitor.  If it's significantly higher, that alone could cause the crashing.

You've successfully added your graphics card to the database, that's what the [Found: 1, Matched: 1] values mean.  If you want to make sure your card is properly rated, please post the rating info from deviceconfig.log, this section near the top:

=== Rating info ===
GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 2 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2900 Threading: 2
Adjusted CPU: 2500 RAM: 15861 Adjusted RAM: 15349 Cores: 4

You do not need to run the game in compatibility mode, and doing so can only complicate the troubleshooting process.  Sims 3 runs fine in Windows 10.

  • Teaflingg's avatar
    Teaflingg
    5 years ago

    My Rating info is this

    === Rating info ===
    GPU: 1 GPU Memory: 1 CPU: 4 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 3600 Threading: 3
    Adjusted CPU: 4400 RAM: 32702 Adjusted RAM: 32190 Cores: 8

    I actually played the game yesterday with other things running in the background and it worked pretty much perfect no crashing and I played for a good while as well. But again today I insta crashed as soon as I loaded and pressed play. I have limited my fps in the Nvidia Control Panel but I will see if my fps is reaching a higher number, (right now as I'm replying to this) 

    Opened my game up loaded my save, entered the cheat and my frame was maxed going 144 143 73 (ish) 53 before it exited me back out to the desktop. Here is my exception file for that just now if that helps? 

    • puzzlezaddict's avatar
      puzzlezaddict
      Hero+
      5 years ago

      @Teaflingg  Your Control Panel settings are working, but your graphics card has the lowest possible rating.  It's easiest to start from scratch with the .sgr files, so please trash the ones you have now and put the originals back.  If you don't have original copies, repair the game in Origin (open your game library, right-click on the Sims 3 icon, select Repair) to put them back.

      Note:  These instructions only apply to and will only work for the original poster's graphics card.  If you'd like help getting your own card recognized, please post the same information from deviceconfig and ask for help.

      Spoiler

      Open graphicscards.sgr (Notepad works fine), and crtl-F to search for 10de.  That will take you to these lines:

      vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
      card 0x0fd1 "GeForce GT 650M"
      card 0x0fd2 "GeForce GT 640M"

      Create a new line under the "Nvidia" line, copy this text, and paste it in the new line:

          card 0x1e84 "GeForce RTX 2070 Super"

      So you should now see this:

      vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de

      card 0x1e84 "GeForce RTX 2070 Super"
      card 0x0fd1 "GeForce GT 650M"
      card 0x0fd2 "GeForce GT 640M"

      (with indents from spaces that this site isn't displaying properly).  Save, quit, and open graphicsrules.sgr.  Crtl-F and search for 8800, which will take you here:

       elseif (match("${cardName}", "*8800*") or match("${cardName}", "*9500*") or match("${cardName}", "*9600 GSO*") or match("${cardName}", [etc.]

      Change the bolded 8800 to RTX 2070.  Don't change anything else, not even the asterisks.  This will classify your card as uber.

      Finally, scroll back to the top of graphicsrules, and look for this, 8-10 lines down:

      if ($textureMemory == 0)
      seti textureMemory 32
      setb textureMemorySizeOK false

      change the 32 to 1024, and add a # and a space in front of setb.  Your card has more VRAM than that, but TS3 can only use 800 MB anyway.  The lines should look like this:

      if ($textureMemory == 0)
      seti textureMemory 1024
      # setb textureMemorySizeOK false

      Launch the game at least once to refresh the deviceconfig.log.  In addition to the [Found: 1, Matched: 1] values in your deviceconfig, you should also see GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 4 in the rating info.  Let me know if not.

      The crash log doesn't say anything useful, unfortunately, other than that Sims 3 crashed and it wasn't because the game ran out of memory.  If you get another crash, please do a clean uninstall and reinstall of Origin:

      • Quit Origin, then right-click on the Task Bar and open the Task Manager.  Scroll through looking for Origin entries.  If you find any, click on them and End Task.
      • Clear Origin's cache.
      • Download Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine) from here.
      • Launch Revo, select Origin from the list, and click Uninstall.
      • When it finishes uninstalling, select "Moderate" under "scanning modes," and click Scan.
      • If Revo finds any remaining registry entries, select all, delete, and click Next.
      • Revo will display "Remaining Data and Folders."  Select all of them except for the "Origin Games" folder, if it appears.  (This is where Sims 3 and other Origin games are installed by default.)  Delete the rest.
      • Close Revo, and restart your computer.

      Next, download the full Origin installer and run it.  Here's the direct download link:

      http://download.dm.origin.com/origin/live/OriginSetup.exe

      Be sure to run both the installer and Origin itself as an admin: right-click on each and select "Run as Administrator."

      • Teaflingg's avatar
        Teaflingg
        4 years ago

        I've done everything you told me to and I have been play testing it ever since and everything seems to be working just fine! Thanks you for you're help!

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