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tommyiliev's avatar
tommyiliev
10 months ago
Solved

The Sims 3 crashes to desktop without error message

Hi, all! It seems that I'm stuck with this very infamous issue of The Sims 3 closing itself to desktop unprompted, without an error message and with a crash report in the Documents folder. I've gone ...
pc
technical issues
  • tommyiliev's avatar
    tommyiliev
    9 months ago

    Hi again, I'm sorry that my last reply to you got marked as spam, because I went back to edit it too many times, but surprisingly - I fixed the issue and both games are currently running without any issues! I've been able to play The Sims 4 for several hours without forcing it to DX11, and then I exited myself, whereas it crashed in under 40 minutes before my previous reply to you. Also not only did I go through 11:33PM on my main custom Riverview save in The Sims 3 without stuttering, but I could also finally celebrate Spooky Day and reached to the first day of Winter in-game before I saved and exited! My other games and softwares are also running with no issues. 

    I had to prevent the newest graphics driver update from rolling back to an old one by installing it manually after downloading the official installer from Intel's website and then going through Device Manager > Display Adaptors > Graphics driver (in my case Intel Iris Xe) > Drivers > Update > Browse my computer for driver software > Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer and select the right release. I've done several power-off's and restarts and the update hasn't rolled back.

    Turns out, I'm sorry, but I should've listened to you at your first reply to my post and checked if my graphics drivers was fully updated, but to be fair, I was left with the impression that all my drivers were up to date, because Intel's Arc app said so. But after reporting the issue to Intel, I decided to check what's the latest release of the graphics driver on their website and compare it to mine - and the one installed on my computer was several months old (from Jan 2024), in comparison to the latest one (released Nov 19th - while I was still troubleshooting). For some reason my OS kept rolling back to the Jan 2024 version after updating and I never noticed. I read that this is a common problem for Windows 11 PC's and there are several solutions such as blocking automatic driver updates from Windows Update, which didn't work for me and I had to do the installation manually as I've described above.

    P.S.: I understand, I thought the NRaas forum post had a similar issue to mine, as the description seemed to match. I was hoping the Alder Lake patch could help - although it fixes a different issue, since I've read that Alder Lake is another name for Intel's 12th Gen processors, such as mine. I really don't know why I couldn't get DXVK to work, I presume it's because of the way the EA App starts The Sims 3 regardless if I've marked it to run as Admin or not - it always launches through EA and then the game's launcher. Lastly, I was considering investing in an external GPU, because the integrated graphics aside, I'm otherwise satisfied with my current laptop and prefer using it for everything - work, studying and playing. But I need to research more into that - if and external GPU or even using it for everything is a good idea.

    I need to thank you personally for engaging in my issue so thoroughly and for helping me also indirectly through your replies to other forum posts here! You're a treasure! I'll keep testing the games during the next couple of days to make sure it's all running smoothly and also wait for a response to my Intel report, which contains info on the old driver version, as they might be able to help me prevent future update roll backs. Once I'm 100% sure the issue is completely fixed and I can play uninterrupted, I'll be back to mark this reply as solution.

puzzlezaddict's avatar
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
10 months ago

@tommyiliev  You've been very thorough, but I do have a few more questions.  First, in a given save, does the crash happen at the same time no matter what?  For example, you save at 9 am on day 12, it crashes at 2 pm on day 12, and if you reload to 9 am, it still crashes at 2 pm that same day no matter what you do?  Can you avoid this by running an NRaas MasterController town reset (City Hall > NRaas > MC > Town Options > Reset Everything)?  Does ErrorTrap throw any errors just before the crash?  You might not see them on-screen, but there would be scripterrors in your Sims 3 user folder.

I'd also like to know whether there's any pattern to the weather at the time of the crashes.  Even if you don't get to winter, maybe it's fall and there's a frost, or it's raining.

The Sims 3 crashes in your dxdiag point to a component of the Intel graphics driver, specifically dxilconv.dll, which his involved in converting DirectX 9 commands to (I think) DX12.  This is a workaround on Intel's part to avoid having to properly support DX9 games.  We've been seeing this a lot recently in Sims 4, and the fix is to force the game to run in DX11 mode, but that's not an option for Sims 3.

Point is, there may or may not be a good workaround for this, depending on how much effort you're willing to put in.  One option is to use the player-made DXVK (DirectX to Vulkan) tool for Sims 3, which should get around the issue, and also possibly make your game run better overall.  I haven't tried it myself, so I can only go by what other users say, but at worst, it won't help and you can remove it again.  Another option is to try the newest Intel driver for your processor and graphics chip, but you'll have to jump through some hoops to force it to install because HP generally blocks drivers not provided directly by HP; and there's no guarantee this driver will do any better.

Anyway, please provide the info requested above, and let me know what direction you'd like to go if the dxilconv.dll crash can't be resolved with in-game troubleshooting.  I would also highly recommend keeping ErrorTrap and Overwatch in place, and adding MasterController, bofh for now and once your game is stable again.

P.S.  I'm a native English speaker, and I wouldn't have known you're not if you hadn't said so.

  • tommyiliev's avatar
    tommyiliev
    10 months ago

    Hi, thank you for your reply! I've been reading some of your solutions here looking for a fix. I'm now intrigued if the issue can be at all resolved and am willing to put some more effort.

    Well, each save seems to crash at it's own in-game time. My first one in a custom Riverview crashes at exactly 11:33PM on a Week 2 Wednesday with clear weather, doesn't matter if I saved it at 9:03AM on a Week 2 Monday or 10:30PM on the same Wednesday. Another one of my tests in Bridgeport crashed at 6:02AM on a Week 2 Monday with foggy weather. The Isla Paradiso (I've read that it's the heaviest and buggiest EA world) test crashed at 4PM on a Week 2 Tuesday. I haven't been able to notice any pattern prior to the crashes other than that my game completely avoids Spooky Day ☹️ ErrorTrap doesn't always show an in-game notification for errors before crashing, and when it does it's a different one each time, however I did get a couple of ScriptError files in my user folder. I have no idea how to read them though.

    As soon as I got your reply, I went and downloaded MasterController to try it and reset the towns, but the game crashed again while I was testing in my custom Riverview save file and a brand new Bridgeport save. Seems that the issue can't be fixed in-game via NRaas' mods.

    I've read about the DirectX to Vulkan tool some time ago, but didn't look deeper into it as I got busy and eventually forgot, but now you reminded me of it! It seems to me that it just might be the right fix needed for this issue, as forcing Intel to run on the newest driver might need to be done regularly. Do you know where I can find reliable info regarding the DXVK tool? Do you think it's safe and getting this tool won't affect my other games, which are running great?

    • puzzlezaddict's avatar
      puzzlezaddict
      Hero+
      10 months ago

      @tommyiliev  These crashes sound like what happens when a sim has a corrupt outfit, more often than not a corrupt work outfit.  This would likely be an inactive sim being pushed to go to work, spinning into this outfit, and therefore triggering the crash.  This isn't definitive, but an easy test would be to remove all sims from any career with a shift that starts 30-60 minutes after the crash.  For example, the Bridgeport crash at 6:02 am could be due to a military sim who starts work at 7.

      You can use MasterController to force sims to quit; you may need the Cheats add on.  From City Hall, select NRaas > MC > Sim > Intermediate > Career > Quit, filter by career and then the category, and just force them all to quit.  You don't need to save your progress, of course.

      The useful thing about this test is that it checks for bad outfits and also for problems with the lot that hosts the rabbithole for the career.  So if it helps, you could try reseting the lot, or placing a new copy elsewhere (first, so sims don't lose their careers) and bulldozing the original.

      If this doesn't help, there are other places to look as well, but it's a good place to start.

      Isla Paradiso is definitely the buggiest world, to the point that crashing there isn't indicative of anything.  I'd put it aside for now and test elsewhere.  Bridgeport also has its issues, mostly due to sims getting stuck in elevators (Overwatch helps but doesn't entirely remove the problem), and resident sims materializing inside NPC areas and being unable to get out.  The quick and dirty test is to remove all high-rises, other than perhaps one your own sims live in, and place the households elsewhere.  This kind of defeats the purpose of Bridgeport, but it's a useful test, and you can use "save as" to leave your original save intact.

      I have no idea how your custom Riverview is put together, but if you want to be thorough, I'd suggest testing elsewhere for now and going back to it when the game is stable overall.

      The point about the Intel graphics driver is not that you'd constantly have to update, rather that we'd see if the current driver gets around the dxilconv.dll error.  If it does, you could keep that version indefinitely.  If not, you'd want to keep testing newer drivers as they're released.

      As far as DXVK goes, this is a good tutorial, written by a user who's been active and helpful elsewhere:

      https://nornities.tumblr.com/post/751283334185959424/how-to-use-dxvk-with-the-sims-3

      As said, I can't promise you it will work, or even that it won't brick your Sims 3 install, but that is all it could do.  At most, you might need to reinstall the game.  Your saves and other user data should be entirely unaffected.

      • tommyiliev's avatar
        tommyiliev
        10 months ago

        Thank you very much! These suggestions seem like a good place to start. I'm not entirely sure about the career outfits though - even if troubleshooting points to a corrupt outfit, I wouldn't know who's wearing it or how to fix it. I have also tested a world with empty lots, without any CC, mods, townies or rabbit holes and I suppose anything corrupt regarding a career would've showed, yet it still crashed.

        I'm going to try out your suggestions over the next few days and I'll come back here to update this thread once I have any results. I'll start with the MasterController add-on just to make sure if the outfits and rabbit holes have any issues.

        Thank you again and I'll keep you posted!

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