The Sims 3 - constantly freezing and crashing

@Ronchelina  Thanks for providing the dxdiag; it makes things a lot easier.

Your laptop has a good dedicated graphics card, but it's not being used at all: the dxdiag doesn't even list it under Display Devices.  That may be because the driver for that card is three years old now; drivers that old are kind of hit or miss.  The driver for your integrated chip is the same age, so it's a good idea to update both.  Lenovo doesn't have any new drivers for your laptop, but AMD does.

Start with the driver for the integrated chip

https://www.amd.com/en/support/apu/amd-series-processors/amd-a10-series-apu-for-laptops/6th-gen-a10-8700p-apu

Restart your computer, and install the driver for the dedicated card:

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/amd-radeon-r9-series/amd-radeon-r9-300-series/amd-radeon-r9-m385x

Stop if you get an error—just take a screenshot and attach it to a post.  Otherwise, restart again and test the game.  With (hopefully) the dedicated card in use, Sims 3 should run better, but if it doesn't, let me know and run another dxdiag.

Please also check your in-game fps: bring up the cheats console (ctrl-shift-C) and enter "fps on" without quotes.  If the framerates are consistently high or wildly erratic, you'll need to cap them manually.  But there's not much point until you know the game is using the correct card.  On that note, if you're not sure whether it is, go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3, open the file called deviceconfig.log, copy the lines between "Graphics device info" (about 25 lines down) and "Options" (about 40 lines down), and paste them here.

A separate issue with University Life just surfaced, but the GPU issue should be addressed first.

Thanks @puzzlezaddict for help!

I did what you suggested, I updated both driver and the chip and there was no errors. However, the game still doesn´t function. The sim won´t come home from college after dropping out, it stops loading at the very end of the loading screen. I have minimized the game, not using all the packs and am playing in a windowed mode, but still doesn´t work.

I have no idea if I´m using the right card - so here´s the info you asked:

=== Application info ===
Name: Sims3
Version:
Build: Release
=== Rating info ===
GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 1 CPU: 1 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 1797 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 1996 RAM: 7127 Adjusted RAM: 6615 Cores: 4
=== Machine info ===
OS version: Windows 8 6.2.9200
OS prod type: 0
OS major ver: 6
OS minor ver: 2
OS SP major ver: 0
OS SP minor ver: 0
OS is 64Bit: 1
CPU: AuthenticAMD
Brand: AMD A10-8700P Radeon R6, 10 Compute Cores 4C+6G
Family: 15
Model: 0
Cores: 4
HT: 0
x64: 0
Memory: 7127MB
Free memory: 2760MB
User: Tietokone2
Computer: LAPTOP-LULNFLTA
=== Graphics device info ===
Number: 0
Name (driver): AMD Radeon R6 Graphics
Name (database): AMD Radeon R6 Graphics [Found: 0, Matched: 0]
Vendor: ATI
Chipset: Vendor: 1002, Device: 9874, Board: 380717aa, Chipset: 00c5
Driver: aticfx32.dll, Version: 26.20.15019.19000, GUID: D7B71EE2-DB34-11CF-223E-AC227EC2D735
Driver version: 19000
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY12
Texture memory: 32MB <<OVERRIDE>>
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1

and:

edgescrolling = 0

winterenabled = 1

videocapturesound = 0

agingstagelengthyoungadult = 21

agingstagelengthdogelder = 0

springlength = 7

terrainquality = 1

enableintrotutorial = 1

hailenabled = 1

voicelevel = 255

edgescrollingwarning = 1

soundfxlevel = 255

agingstagelengthtoddler = 7

edgesmoothing = 0

twelvehourclock = 1

agingstagelengthadult = 21

winterlength = 7

agingstagelengthhorseadult = 0

petautonomylevel = 2

showplacementgrid = 0

agingstagelengthkitten = 0

enabletutorial = 1

agingstagelengthpuppy = 0

falllength = 7

disableautonomyforselectedsim = 0

visualeffects = 3

suppressopportunitydialogswarningproducts = 2097151

ambientlevel = 255

receiveddevgift = 0

lunarcyclelength = 3

nummaxactivelotoptions = 6

enablepets = 1

snowenabled = 1

agingstagelengthdogadult = 0

musiclevel = 255

springenabled = 1

enableaging = 1

audioquality = 1

focusmute = 1

agingstagelengthcatadult = 0

iscelcius = 0

maxactivelots = 1

objecthiding = 1

resolution = 1024 768 60

receiveconnecttns = 1

requireloginbeforeload = 0

simquality = 1

inverthorizontalrotation = 0

autonomylevel = 2

fallenabled = 1

invertverticalrotation = 0

lightingquality = 1

agingstagelengthhorseelder = 0

enabletombresets = 1

videocapturehideui = 1

soundfxmute = 0

enablelunarcycle = 1

enablefairies = 1

rainenabled = 1

videocapturesize = 1

fullscreen = 0

enablevampires = 1

agingstagelengthelder = 17

agingstagelengthfoal = 0

enableinteractiveloading = 1

aspectratio = 0

enablelunarphase = 0

aginginterval = 2

supressopportunitydialogs = 0

agingstagelengthbaby = 3

videocapturequality = 2

enablewitches = 1

videocapturetime = 60

treequality = 1

lastdevice = 0;1002;9874;19000

musicmute = 0

lunarphaselength = 0

agingstagelengthchild = 7

enablememories = 1

advancedrendering = 1

pseudoresolution = 0,0

enableingamestore = 1

audiooutputmode = 1

enablestoryprogression = 1

summerlength = 7

drawdistance = 3

summerenabled = 1

postfilterflags = 0

fogenabled = 1

forcesquarepixels = 1

enablewerewolves = 1

simwhileminimized = 0

enableoptoutceleb = 0

agingstagelengthcatelder = 0

agingstagelengthteen = 14

Oh, and I also added the new dxdiag! Thank you so much taking the time to helo me out with this! I feel so useless not getting this to work.

@Ronchelina  You're not useless, your computer isn't cooperating.  The second dxdiag still doesn't list your dedicated card at all, which isn't a great sign.  (It might be fixable, or the card might not be working anymore.)  Hit Windows key-X, select Device Manager, expand Display Adapters, and let me know whether there are one or two entries.  I think there will only be one, but check anyway.

@puzzlezaddictIf I looked in the rright place for the adapters (I´m Finnish, so my computer is also in Finnish and sometimes translations aren´t as obvious you may think xD) I did see two things there, Radeon (TM) R9 M385X and Radeon R6 Graphics.

@igazorI have been freeing up some space the best I can, but it´s difficult because the only thing I have installed apart from The Sims 3 is The Sims 4. Other than that, there is only the stuff that came with the computer and I´m not sure what is safe to delete and which is not. I´m not too good with computers, if you didn´t guess that already. :D

@Ronchelina  Yes, you looked in the correct place.  it's a good sign, and better than I was expecting, that your dedicated card is listed.  (I was worried that perhaps it wasn't working at all.)  So the question is how to get it to work in-game.  Please check if your Radeon software has a switchable graphics option, and if so, you can try adding TS3.exe and selecting high performance.  This video is a year old, so I'm not sure whether your software looks exactly the same, but hopefully it'll be close enough:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgwSSujfTfw&feature=youtu.be

Start watching at the 7:15 mark; the earlier stuff isn't relevant, at leats not at this point.  If you don't have settings that look like that, let me know, and I'll try to find a more helpful guide.
 
It's a good idea to turn off all other settings (aside from high performance) in the profile for TS3.exe, at least for now.  To see whether changing the settings worked, look at deviceconfig.log again, specifically this:

Name (driver): AMD Radeon R6 Graphics
Name (database): AMD Radeon R6 Graphics [Found: 0, Matched: 0]
Vendor: ATI
Chipset: Vendor: 1002, Device: 9874, Board: 380717aa, Chipset: 00c5

If it now lists the M385X, you're good.  (It'll still not be found or matched, but don't worry about that.)  Let me know.

@igazor  The second dxdiag shows almost 50 GB free, which should be plenty.

@puzzlezaddictMy Radeon Software looks nothing like that, and also that too is in Finnish so I have techincal difficulties for sure. 😃

I took screenshots for you. I don´t know if it makes any sense to you since it is in Finnish, but maybe it helps. To me it looks like it should work hella fine. I´ll start a new game and see if it works this time.

@Ronchelina  I knew the software had changed, but I was hoping there was still a switchable graphics option.  Apparently not though, despite the fact that AMD still has a guide to using it up on its site, with no date or notice that it only pertains to older drivers.  The newest drivers leave it to the OS to assign the proper card for a given task.

I did however find this lovely thread on the AMD forums.  Aside from the (very mild) ranting, there's a potentially useful post right at the end:

https://community.amd.com/thread/246289

You probably missed my edit of my previous post (sorry, I got distracted and only came back later), but I said you'd know the game was using the correct GPU when this part of the deviceconfig:

Name (driver): AMD Radeon R6 Graphics
Name (database): AMD Radeon R6 Graphics [Found: 0, Matched: 0]
Vendor: ATI
Chipset: Vendor: 1002, Device: 9874, Board: 380717aa, Chipset: 00c5

lists your M385X rather than the R6 chip.  It still won't be found or matched, but you can ignore that for now.

@puzzlezaddict  After hours and hours of clicking around, I managed to get the game working! I believe it was that I changed the setting in Radion to "eSports", whatever that means. The game has been running smoothly now for a few hours. Thank you so much for your help!!🙌