@dentfaceah First of all, those of us who help regularly do so because we enjoy it. But when we're helping someone who's thorough, who properly follows directions and reports back with all the requested info, and maybe some useful observations as well, as you've done, it can make the process quite fun.
Given how you described the crashing, I wondered about your system temperatures. And that's the issue: your hardware is overheating. Here's what your CPU and GPU temps look like over the entire logging session:
The processor starts to throttle performance when it gets near 90º C, and the graphics card at 80º. But even with the throttling, your processor still has intermittent temps above 90, which is likely why the game crashes.
There are a few other high values in hwinfo's logs that I don't fully know what to do with—if they're cause or effect, and what can be ignored. So I'll ask for a second opinion when I can get one. In the meantime, clean your fans. Even if you've done it recently, a bit of dust or pet hair in the wrong place can quickly build to a large problem. Hopefully, the cleaning will fix the issue. But if not, repeat the test and upload the new hwinfo logs.
(Also, thanks to @holger1405 for teaching me how to do this, as well as all the other things.)
Seeing that now, it makes sense. Some other games I'm playing see frame rate drops or other performance issues when my PC overheats. Considering TS3 is a bit poorly optimized and heavy on the computer, my PC overheating seems to be the most likely cause of these issues.
I'm going to do a thorough cleaning of my fans tomorrow, and will report back soon on whether or not the issue is resolved. If it isn't, I'll provide another log.
Thanks again!
Okay - @puzzlezaddict, here's the deal.
I cleaned my fans, dug up a laptop cooling pad, and most importantly, manually increased my fan's power to max via Asus' built-in gaming center. Temps seem to clock in around 47-57°C now. Even with this improvement, the game still crashes, so here's another HWiN log.
1-5 Min: Wait
5-6 Min: Load to Main Menu
6-end: Load Town + Live mode.
So what I've noticed is I can cause the crash to happen much faster, almost in seconds if I just page through tabs quickly (Relationships, needs, etc.). Earlier, it seemed to trigger when panning over to load a lot/house. So I wonder if the sudden onrush of new stuff to load is somehow triggering the crash. Not sure what that would be indicative of though.
Anyway, here's the new HWiN log: https://mega.nz/#!7OxxTaaK!SdmA2QfELMTjY_5fzfBtmmiMUbEU-_QObsQK32YRFvs
@dentfaceah Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to get that second opinion, since this is venturing into territory I don't really know much about. You're right that your CPU and GPU temps are fine now, although there are still a couple of abnormal values in your second hwinfo log. (The second opinion is looking into it.)
In the meantime, I was also reminded that some of the errors in your dxdiags may indicate a GPU driver issue. So it's a good idea to do a clean uninstall and reinstall of the driver. First, download Display Driver Uninstaller from here:
https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1750
You can download a fresh driver (1070, notebook) here:
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/147966/en-us
Next, take your computer completely offline—disable wifi and/or pull the ethernet cord—and double-click the DDU.exe. Take note of where the file will land, and click Extract. If it's easier, you can copy the path and then paste it into the address bar in a File Explorer window. Open the folder and then Display Driver Uninstaller.exe, and you'll get a message that you're not in Safe Mode. Click OK, then go to Options and enable Safe Mode dialog. Here's a screenshot of what your options should look like:
Close options, and the DDU, and then open the DDU.exe again. For launch options, choose "Safe Mode (Recommended)," and then click Reboot to Safe Mode (you'll need your password, so find it before rebooting). Once you login, you'll see this:
Choose GPU in the dropdown menu (step one), then Nvidia (step 2) if it's not already showing. Then click Clean and Restart (step 3).
Once your computer has rebooted, now back in normal mode, run the driver install .exe in custom mode. Select "perform a clean installation" and install ONLY the GPU driver and the PHYSX software. Reboot again and see how the game runs.
With how you described the crashes, I had to test for myself, and I could cycle through the info tabs without any problems. Of course, that doesn't mean anything, other than this probably isn't a game glitch. Anyway, I'll keep on this, and if the clean install of the driver doesn't help, we'll dive back into the hwinfo logs.
Also: Thanks again @holger1405 for the images, and the original instructions.
Thanks for the response, and thanks for your hard work on this @puzzlezaddict (and @Holger1405!)
I already did a clean install of my graphics driver about a day before making this thread. I followed this guide: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10/kw/remove and it didn't really do anything. Is this sufficient? Seems somewhat identical to what you're describing, just without the custom program to do the uninstall. I did the clean install afterward.
Do you think I should do it again with the program you mentioned? Would that be necessary?
