The Sims 3 64-Bit Keeps Crashing on Mac

@SamCollings  Isla Paradiso is the most unstable of the EA-made worlds, so much so that its unedited version causes problems on pretty much any system sooner or later, and usually sooner.  A player created an edited save that addresses most of the issues and uploaded it for others to use:

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/811253/removing-ip-lag

You could try ciane's save, or you could copy her edits into your own save and see whether it helps.  She does go somewhat overboard, at least relative to what high-end systems can handle, for example I don't think you'd need to remove the fog around the hidden islands.  But this at least gives you an idea of the problems the world has and what you might do about them.

Overall, you should be able to play on ultra graphics settings, even in IP.  It's worth turning down water and high-detail lots a bit since those are the most demanding on the game engine, but on your hardware, there might not be much benefit to lowering any other settings.  Your graphics card would simply render more frames per second, at least up to a point, as each individual frame required fewer resources to render.

One other thing that might help is disabling automatic graphics switching while you play.  Here's how:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043

Be sure to only play with the laptop plugged in as well.

World Adventures is actually one of the mildest expansions in terms of the demands it places on the game.  The travel transition is fragile and breaks easily, and each world that gets simulated increases the size of the save file, but the presence of WA itself doesn't really cause issues.  So go ahead and add it back if you want.  If you'd like your sims to travel, just add NRaas Traveler.

I would also add Register regardless of your other decisions.  IP the expansion brings resorts, and with that come resort workers, sometimes far too many of them.  (I once saw the number get into the thousands in someone else's save.)  Register should keep a lid on things, hopefully.

Sims aging shouldn't cause crashing or other performance issues, and nor should your sims having a few items in their inventories.  A few hundred items could be a problem, so just keep the number manageable.

For the new save, try using MasterController to give Linda Scott a few days off from work (NRaas > MC > Sim > Intermediate > Career > Days Off).  She starts out pregnant but without any days off, and she doesn't have a valid work outfit, so the game can hang or even crash when she tries to spin into her work outfit.  Other guides will tell you to delete the Scotts, but that's not necessary; the problem will be resolved once she has the baby.

mac os Ventura 13.4

chip M2

memory 8gb

seems to be running smooth and then randomly crash

also mods don't seem to work  

@MrMicMe  What do you mean that mods don't seem to work: are they not loading in-game, does Sims 3 not work with them present, or something else?  Does this include custom content, or just mods?  What world are you playing in?

Hi! Hope you're doing well, thanks for helping everyone out! Like everyone else, I'm having trouble with the Sims 3 crashing on mac randomly. I actually gave up on the game for a few years, but I recently moved Sims 4 onto a 1tb hardrive which helped that game so I figured I would try Sims 3 too. It worked amazing and I played the game yesterday (new save, deleted the old ones from main menu in game since it had been years since I'd play since anyway) for like 6 hours. Then randomly it just crashed. I wasn't loading a world, in build mode, or CAS (all of those worked fine when I was in it though).

I have no cc's, mods, etc. I have seen your suggestion about starting from a completely new EA folder, and I'll try it if you really want me too, but being that the game can be played for so long without crashing it would be a big time investment. I'm going to play it again today to see how long it lasts now that I would be loading a save.

Computer specs:

13 inch 2017 macbook pro

Processor: 2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 1536 MB

Memory: 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

macOS: 13.4.1 (c) (22F770820d)

Startup disk = mac HD

The laptop itself has 250b but the game is now pulling from a 1tb samsung SSD. Is it just the case that I might just have to save frequently to play the game, or do you think there is an actual fixable problem? I think I'm going to try playing offline, not sure if this just means Origin the app being offline or like turning off my wifi completely? I will do both. 

Please let me know if you need more information, thank you!

Oh! I also have the details all on low pretty much since the new game defaulted to that. And the save is in Sunset Valley and it is in windowed mode 

@vanessaneye  Sims 3 isn't the most stable game, and the 64-bit version is a little less stable than 32-bit in certain ways.  So I would say that if you have an occasional crash but can otherwise play for decent stretches of time, that's a reasonably good outcome.

There are some steps that can help here.  One is lowering the in-game resolution: the fewer pixels your computer's graphics chip needs to render, the lower its overall workload.  You could play in fullscreen if the game window gets too small in windowed mode.

Mods can also help too, and perhaps quite a lot depending on the packs you have installed.  For example, if you're running Pets in a world that wasn't designed with animals in mind, they could be getting stuck and causing the game engine to bog down trying to reroute them.  The mod that steps in to fix stuck sims is NRaas Overwatch, which is great to have for multiple reasons.  I listed a number of helpful mods here, all of which are completely compatible with the 64-bit version of Sims 3:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-3-Common-Game-Fixing-Mods-Hero-Approved/m-p/9838855#M244208

There are plenty of other examples of problems that can trigger a crash, but the problem is that it can be difficult if not impossible to figure out what's happening behind the scenes, even with a mod like ErrorTrap that reports and tries to resolve the errors it finds.  Repeat crashes in the same situation are usually simple to diagnose at least in general terms, but random crashes, not so much.

So in general, your best bet is to save often and look for any patterns to the crashing, or any extra lag or stutter that might indicate that a problem has arisen.  For example, recently, I noticed my game bogging down for no apparent reason, I mean it was clearly a different experience than normal.  Overwatch notified me 30 sim-minutes later that two sims were stuck and would have reset them for me had I not disabled that, but the point is, I already knew something was wrong and it was time to save, then investigate.  This is something you can get a feel for once you've played on the same machine for a little while—it's difficult to describe objectively but easy to recognize in the moment.

Hi! Ok great, thank you this was helpful. I played 2x today for around 3 hours each time and even traveled w World Adventure with no crash. I took your tip and just downloaded Overwatch and Error Trap. I'll try to pick up on patterns if it continues to happen.

Thank you!

i may be a bit late to respond but i have found that if you have the family inventory open it increases the chance of crashing but the game can over all be unstable i would recommend mods to fix it but cant get them to work  

Did you ever figure this issue out? I just downloaded TS3 on the same MacBook and it crashes every 10 minutes or so of gameplay. 

@AlexisLaShay213  Which Mac do you have?  Please click the Apple icon in the upper-left corner of the screen, select About This Mac, and post everything you see there except for the serial number.

Please also list the packs you've installed and the world(s) you're playing in.