I’ve noticed that since the January 2025 update for the Sims 3 my game keeps freezing whilst I’m playing. I can still hear background stuff and sounds like birds chirping or notifications but my game just freezes and stays like that unless I fully shut down my laptop. I’ve never had any issues with the sims 3 before.
@AndreJsy Does this happen at exactly the same sim-time of day, or perhaps when you do something in particular? Or do you notice any other pattern, anything from which sims are around and what they're wearing to the weather?
Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to your reply.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
I've noticed that it works completely fine in CAS and when paused but when it isn't paused and I actually start playing, it freezes. I think it freezes quicker when I have the fastest speed on. It doesn't take long after I've loaded in the game for it to freeze but it slightly varies.
@AndreJsy Have you taken steps to limit your in-game framerates? If not, let me know, and I can help with the process.
If that's not the issue, what world(s) are you playing in, and does the game run better in a new save in Sunset Valley? Have you installed mods, and which ones? If you haven't, would you be willing to add a few that might help?
I had no clue I could limit in-game framerates.
I'm playing in Sunset Valley and the issue seems to happen in every save. I've got NRaas' Master Controller, Story Progression, Overwatch, and Error Trap installed along with default skin and eye replacements.
@AndreJsy Please try running SP on the slowest setting: General Options > Adjust Speed > Snail. If that doesn't help, remove it temporarily.
For in-game fps, right-click your desktop, select the Nvidia Control Panel, then Manage 3D Settings > Program settings, choose ts3.exe (EA App install) or ts3w.exe (with the W, disc or Steam install), scroll down to Max Frame Rate, and set it to 144, or 72 if you'd like to lower the graphics card's workload.
When the game does freeze, can you use ctrl-alt-delete and select Sign Out? That should boot you to the Windows login screen, and close Sims 3, without your needing to manually shut down the laptop.
I've taken out Story Progression and set the Max Frame Rate to 72. I've noticed that I managed to play for a tiny bit longer than usual but it ultimately still froze. But this time I can't hear anything in the game like before. I can still move my cursor but that's about it.
@AndreJsy Please try playing in a clean boot:
The one service to leave enabled is the EABackgroundService, which the EA App needs in order to run. Disable the rest as described.
When you reboot your computer, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down any service that doesn't absolutely need to be running, for example anything from MSI Afterburner to RGB software might still be enabled. If you accidentally kill a critical process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.
Don't open anything other than Sims 3 and the EA App while testing, not even a browser window.
As a side note, if we don't finish this conversation before this site goes read-only, you can find me on the new EA forums in a few days, when that site is out of read-only status, once the transition has finished. This thread should port over intact.
