Sims 3 Keeps Crashing, Repeatedly
Hi All! I wanted to reach out, because you guys have been able to help me in the past. My issue is that starting about a month ago, I was getting back into the Sims 3 after a short break. I'm very ...
Forum Discussion
@TheRaddestCrow How long does it typically take before the game crashes, and is there any pattern at all to what's happening on-screen at the time? You removed mods, but do you have any custom content, and if so, did you try removing that too?
Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post, for reference.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
Hello @puzzlezaddict !
There isn't really a pattern to when the game crashes, sometimes it'll be 8 minutes or it'll get to 30 minutes before it crashes, and the on-screen actions are just typical game play like scrolling over the town or even just watching my single sim in their house. I also lowered my graphics settings in-game, but the crashes still persist at the same amount. I don't use any custom content, so I don't think that could affect it
Thank you so much for your help!
@TheRaddestCrow Your dxdiag doesn't list any Sims 3 crashes, just a number of generic Windows update errors. (The dxdiag only lists the last 10 errors.) So it's best to clean those up first. Please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:
- Hit Windows key-X
- Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
- Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
- The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
- After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
- Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
- Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
- Post the message you receive here
Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates. If any install, restart again afterwards.
For the Sims 3 crashes themselves, I'm wondering whether your computer might be running out of memory while you play. The game can only use a little shy of 4 GB, Windows uses just over 2 normally, and you have 8 installed, but background processes can increase overall RAM use significantly. That's even more true if Windows is trying and failing to update. I also notice that your laptop's page file is not particularly large and almost all used; the page file is where extra data gets dumped when it doesn't fit in RAM.
Point is, please increase the page file size. Here's how (option three):
https://www.elevenforum.com/t/manage-virtual-memory-paging-file-in-windows-11.8618/#Three
Set the minimum to 16000 and the max to 16384. Your laptop has more than enough storage to accommodate the extra 5 GB.
If you get another crash, please look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor. Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day. Today is on the right.
Look for an error that happened at exactly the time of your most recent Sims 3 crash, specifically after you've done the steps I listed. If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here. If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.
Hello @puzzlezaddict,
Thank you so much for this advice. Here is the result of the Terminal scan:
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag. /End
Unfortunately, I did end up having another crash. I followed your advice, and here is the result of the Reliability Monitor:
Faulting application name: TS3.exe, version: 0.2.0.32, time stamp: 0x568d4bac
Faulting module name: TS3.exe, version: 0.2.0.32, time stamp: 0x568d4bac
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x001907f7
Faulting process id: 0x0x354C
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DA10C8557E0610
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3.exe
Report Id: d907c410-e859-4a74-bc88-0905a54fe0d7
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:@TheRaddestCrow This crash is an access violation, probably not related to the computer's overall memory use and definitely too generic to be much use here. But at least it rules out some obvious common causes.
Please list the packs you currently have installed and the world(s) where you've been playing. Please also let me know if you've done anything to cap framerates, use the Smooth Patch or another utility that changes the game but isn't a classic mod, or altered the game's program files in any way.
