Forum Discussion

Nathipha's avatar
Nathipha
Seasoned Rookie
7 years ago

Sims 4 crashes GPU driver/makes PC restart

About two weeks ago I installed a couple of new EPs (Seasons, Get Famous, Bundle Pack 5 & 6) after not having played the game for over a year. When I last played the game back then, everything was fine - no crashes, no freezes, nothing.

But for the last two weeks 50% of the time the game crashes the gpu driver. The problems starts right after loading into the main menu: The screen turns black and when it's back, a message pops up, saying that the driver has crashed. This repeats every 5-10 seconds until I close the game. If I then try to play a different game, it happens with that game too. Only restarting my PC fixes it.

Just now I had the same problem again and this time Sims 4 even made my PC reboot on its own!

I've never had any problems with any other games with crashes like that - Sims 4 is the only Origin game I play, the others usually use Steam - it's always Sims 4 that causes it initially and only then it's affecting other games too.

PC specs:

- Win 7 (64 bit)

- i7-3770k (no OC) - still using the same driver as a year ago (if it ain't broke...)

- nVidia GTX 1070 (no OC)

- 16gb DDR3 RAM

I always use the 64bit version of Sims 4, it's completely patched and I am using mods but, like I said, the problem occurs right in the main menu.

I can't re-install the game completely because the download speed of EA's servers is really bad (250kb/s if I get lucky) and it would take me multiple days!

I've read similar posts with suggested solutions of overheating or running out of RAM but the other games I play regularly (e.g. Ark, which is a graphics-wh*re) are way more demanding than the main menu hardware-wise and I've never had any problems or crashes with them (apart from the ones Sims 4 is causing).

Has anyone got any idea what's causing this and how I can fix it?

pc

13 Replies

Show More
  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    7 years ago

    @Nathipha 

    Nathipha wrote:

    "You got at least one BSOD" - The screen just turned black, then the PC restarted, so I can't be sure if it actually displayed a bluescreen.

    You did, trust me. 😉

    Nathipha wrote:

    "The old driver you run." - Like I said, everything was fine until I installed the new EPs and only Sims 4 is affected. I'll try to install a newer driver but if it messes with the control panel again, I'm going to reinstall the old one.

    That you have problems with the control panel under different driver points already to some problems on your system.
    And because other games run fine it is very well possible that there is a incompatibility between the Sims and this driver.

    Windows 7 loses all support in January 2020. Did you consider to upgrade to Windows 10?

    Nathipha wrote:

    "Overclocked hardware components. (Everything, from the GPU over the CPU to motherboard and RAM, even your 240Hz monitor could be the problem.)" - Nothing is overclocked, even the 240Hz of my monitor are a standard setting.

    I know, for the Monitor, but such high Hz Monitors are still far from standard for the driver or Windows, and certainly for a game that was programmed at a time nobody dreamed about such Monitors.

    That does not mean that the problem is there, but you should have a system that is as much "standard" as possible if you troubleshot.

    Nathipha wrote:

    Wouldn't other games be affected then too? Everything else I'm regularly playing is more demanding on my hardware/power consumption.

     Probably yes, but as long as I did not see the Dump, I can't say for sure.

    Nathipha wrote:

    The file is 1.3gb. I already tried to open it when I saw the error in the reliability monitor but no text editor would open it, not even Visual Studio, which seems to be the default app for some reason.

    Yeah, that it is so big is normal. You need a debugger to open that file, no application that was standardly installed whit Windows will open a dump. 

  • Nathipha's avatar
    Nathipha
    Seasoned Rookie
    7 years ago

    @holger1405 

    "That you have problems with the control panel under different driver points already to some problems on your system. " -

    As I said, I'm (was) not the only one with this problem. I tried different drivers and this one's the first one that actually lets me open the control panel, so Sims 4 is currently the only app that's causing problems.

    "Windows 7 loses all support in January 2020. Did you consider to upgrade to Windows 10?" -

    No, I'm going to get a new PC in November or December - with Win 10 (unfortunately). Going to enjoy Win 7 on this PC until then.

    "but you should have a system that is as much "standard" as possible if you troubleshot" -

    So basically turn it down to 144Hz or worse, 60Hz and run the game a couple of times to see if the driver crashes?

    "You need a debugger to open that file, no application that was standardly installed whit Windows will open a dump. " -

    There's no way I can upload that file. Can you recommend an app that is able to read it?

  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    7 years ago

    @Nathipha 

    Nathipha wrote:

    As I said, I'm (was) not the only one with this problem. I tried different drivers and this one's the first one that actually lets me open the control panel, so Sims 4 is currently the only app that's causing problems.

    I know, but there is a reason that the CP is not working, and we don`t know what that reason is.

    Nathipha wrote:

    "Windows 7 loses all support in January 2020. Did you consider to upgrade to Windows 10?" -

    No, I'm going to get a new PC in November or December - with Win 10 (unfortunately). Going to enjoy Win 7 on this PC until then.

    Good plan. 👍

    Nathipha wrote:

    "but you should have a system that is as much "standard" as possible if you troubleshot" -

    So basically turn it down to 144Hz or worse, 60Hz and run the game a couple of times to see if the driver crashes?

    Yes.
    Please also preform clean boot and test the Game in clean boot mode.

    Nathipha wrote:

    "You need a debugger to open that file, no application that was standardly installed whit Windows will open a dump. " -

    There's no way I can upload that file. Can you recommend an app that is able to read it?

    BlueScreenView is a automated program that will give you some information.

    It is not a real debbuger, but it is much easier to use.

About The Sims 4 Technical Issues - PC

PC players get help with their technical issues in The Sims 4 here.52,541 PostsLatest Activity: 2 hours ago