The reality is that EA will do nothing! I've have been reading every post on here since I bought my first Sims game last summer. EA was voted worst company of 2012 beating out Bank of America. Read for yourself.
I'm pretty much done with these games and will just move on. At the end of the day they are just games and not worth my aggravation and money. EA will only respond when their sales drop dramatically.
Good luck everybody.
I can't play the game more than half an hour till it lags and crashes. It's ridiculous. I'm not going to bother buying any more TS3 games until they get their act together and fix the problems mac users are facing. It's been AGES.
TS3 is taking up quite a bit of space on my iMac and it's not even playable... i'm going to wait barely 2 weeks and if nothing has changed then i'm done with the game.
After opening the launcher, clicking the update-tab and then eager to update my game refreshing the page/ search for new updates-button two or three times (quick) – even my laucher crashes.
Exception raised
Unhandled page fault on write access to 0x746e6f43 at address 0x1005522b.
Do you wish to debug it ?
MacBook Pro late 2012
OSX 10.8.2 (12C3012)
Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB
On Monday night i decided to risk it, and bought seasons from origin. The first time I went on and loaded my save file it crashed after about 5 minutes and came up with exception raised etc and i panicked. i restarted my comp and tried again and managed to play for something ridiculous like 4 hours, saving every 15 mins or so. Yesterday i played for about 2 hours and everything was fine. It didn't crash at all either time.
MacBook Pro late 2012
OSX 10.8.2 (12C3012)
Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB
On Monday night i decided to risk it, and bought seasons from origin. The first time I went on and loaded my save file it crashed after about 5 minutes and came up with exception raised etc and i panicked. i restarted my comp and tried again and managed to play for something ridiculous like 4 hours, saving every 15 mins or so. Yesterday i played for about 2 hours and everything was fine. It didn't crash at all either time.
Did you have to avoid CAS & Build/Buy Mode like I've been doing lately??
no i've got custom hair, clothes and cars all working fine, and spent ages in CAS, build and buy. everything is working fine, and only minimal lag for snow.
My mac keeps crashing when i play ever since I installed seasons, I have tried so much to stop it and hope that maybe installing university could fix it, but it is extremely annoying that EA hasnt fixed it or even addressed it yet. If it keeps going during university, I may just stop playing because the game is supposed to be for both PC AND Mac. It's ridiculous that EA has let this go on with no fix whatsoever.
I just started playing on my new macbook pro with seasons (which I just bought) I had taken about a year long break from playing but before was on a PC).
MY specs:
Proc: 2.6 Ghz Intel Core i7
Memory: 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 384 MB
Software OS X 10.8.2
I was playing fine with pets then installed seasons and the crashing started. I get them with or without cc or mods. Most of my cc is package files. And I am not using the launcher to start the game anymore. But it was crashing before that anyway.
I'm running on a mid to late 2011 Mac book Pro. I did not have issues until I installed the Seasons expansion. I have all expansions but University life, and the newest stuff packs. My game will freeze at various points in the game, forcing me to force quit it. I have to click 'Save As' for the game to work right. Oh, and I do not have custom content or MODs.
However, I did have success today with no crashes. I lowered all the graphics qualities in the options screen to medium, it is loading faster, and did not crash. My game play was over 2 hours, which usually, I can get up to 30 minutes before a crash, and that includes many 'Save As's.
I'm fairly certain now that the cause of my problem (and likely many others) is due to Sims 3 not being a native MacOSX application. It is still a Windows application that runs on an emulated 32-bit Windows environment (Cider) which is only able to address 2GB of virtual memory.
From my exception report:
Total virtual memory: 2047 Mb
Free virtual memory: 0 Mb
I expect that if I remove either some EP (have 'em all) or some SP (have most) or possibly eliminate store stuff (have a bit), I can get stability. In my case, this crash was encountered while attempting move in a household during initial game setup on a game with zero CC or mods. As I don't want to remove any SP or EP, my only real option is to run Windows on my Mac. At least with my Origin account, this is now fairly easy to do...
Note that this would also explain why this problem became more prominent as of a certain EP since the more SP/EP you have, the more memory and virtual memory the game will need.
Assuming my above speculation is correct, I further speculate that this is known by at least somebody at EA and likely another reason why they are doing a native Mac version for SimCity rather than go with this cludge of emulating Windows on a Mac. Also, unless Cider itself is fixed (eg. made able to address more than 2GB of virtual memory), I doubt this problem will be fixed.
Note that I haven't read through all of this thread, so the above may not be new news to those that have.
I just bought this, and sadly did not check the forums first. I can't even get through the Create a Sim before it crashes (yes, it takes me longer than 5 minutes to create a sim). I tried about 3 times before giving up and hitting the forums. I'm extremely disturbed as having just dropped $40 on a brand new game it won't even run freshly installed - especially since this thread (and others) have been around since November of last year.
Freshly loaded out of the box (well, download) with the following Xpacs:
- Seasons
- Ambitions
- Late Night
- Supernatural
Normally I'd take it on good faith that something this heinous would be fixed soon, but since this thread goes back so far I don't know if I should just not wait it out and try to return it as a defective product.
MacBook Pro 2013
OSX 10.8.3
16GB 2.7GHz i7
Nvidia Geforce GT 650M / Intel HD 4000
I'm fairly certain now that the cause of my problem (and likely many others) is due to Sims 3 not being a native MacOSX application. It is still a Windows application that runs on an emulated 32-bit Windows environment (Cider) which is only able to address 2GB of virtual memory.
From my exception report:
Total virtual memory: 2047 Mb
Free virtual memory: 0 Mb
I expect that if I remove either some EP (have 'em all) or some SP (have most) or possibly eliminate store stuff (have a bit), I can get stability. In my case, this crash was encountered while attempting move in a household during initial game setup on a game with zero CC or mods. As I don't want to remove any SP or EP, my only real option is to run Windows on my Mac. At least with my Origin account, this is now fairly easy to do...
Note that this would also explain why this problem became more prominent as of a certain EP since the more SP/EP you have, the more memory and virtual memory the game will need.
Assuming my above speculation is correct, I further speculate that this is known by at least somebody at EA and likely another reason why they are doing a native Mac version for SimCity rather than go with this cludge of emulating Windows on a Mac. Also, unless Cider itself is fixed (eg. made able to address more than 2GB of virtual memory), I doubt this problem will be fixed.
Note that I haven't read through all of this thread, so the above may not be new news to those that have.
I tend to agree with this. The Sims on the MAC is a very poor port. It is not a native application and anyone who has used Macs for a while knows that ports running Cider run remarkably bad. Other than EA investing the time and money for a native Mac client (which is very unlikely) I don't see this ever getting fixed either. EA just wanted to grab some mac users to boost their bottom line. Your only option is to wait for Cider to get upgraded or use BootCamp. At least all the sims games purchased on Origin are cross platform so you don't have to buy them again. Gee I wonder why they made sure to add that in....
Mine seems to crash when in CAS mode or if planning outfits after the sim is created but only for female sims, works fine with male sims. The same if I change outfit on female sims
Well, I don't know if this will help everyone, but after playing around I found that I was able to play for a few hours if I disabled the "Enable Advanced Rendering" option. So far so good, no crashes (which I was getting consistently after 2-3 minutes before). Unfortunately turning this option off makes the game look like crap (the blurry green instead of grass is the worst part of it, it looks like my town is a smeared oil painting), but it runs!
Edit: I knew it was a little too convenient. I reached a point in the game where the game would freeze. It no longer crashes to desktop, but actually freezes requiring a force quit - won't even let me tab applications or anything. It seems to be at a specific point in time (for me 2 days before summer ended). I also found that I couldn't save just before this happened with error code 12. Well, back to uninstalling it. I think it was messed up anyways - my ponds were frozen all sumer and it just hailed and rained the whole time.
Please try this method I created. It's working for a lot of people.
I have compiled a procedure that should help with lag, freezing issues, crashing, and even some glitches.
First: Go through your HD and trash any unneeded files as well as applications you never use. Empty your trash. This should free up some disk space.
Second: Trash the items in your downloads folder. Empty your trash.
Third: Now open these folders in the following order, HD>Users>(open the user you are in)>library>preferences>The Sims 3 Preferences. Trash al of the files you see in this folder. Also search for files under the name "com.transgaming" and "ipatcher." Empty your trash.
Fourth: open your disk utility. Click on the HD in this window, then select "repair permissions." Wait until this is done.
Fifth: Now open the following folders in the order, My Documents--> Electronic Arts--> The Sims 3--> DCbackup. Trash any files you see here. Also search for files under the name "compositorCache" and "simCompositorCache." Empty your trash.
Sixth: Restart your computer, and launch the sims 3.
I've had numerous freezing, crashing, and lag problems previous to doing this, and now my game runs VERY smoothly. I recommend that anyone who is having problems with their game try it too. Let me know if you have any questions about the process.
If it works for you, do the disk utility repair every week, and empty the Sims 3 Preferences," "com.transgaming," "ipatcher," "DCbackup," "compositorCache," and "simCompositorCache," about every time you play.
Good Show! A player who knows her Mac. I dumped everything you suggested and it's like being reborn in the game. I removed Seasons. Until EA gets it 'beep' together and creates a patch for us Mac users. I will live without snow. After all I am a Floridian and have lived without snow so far in my life.
I removed close to 20 Gigs doing this. Very helpful!!
I took a break for a few months because of how frustrating the crashing and debug errors were since adding Seasons. The Memory Freer app still helps and lets me play for about an hour or so before I get a crash. I came back to check this thread to see if anything new had been said. Was equally disappointed to see that EA hasn't addressed this. I guess it's fitting they earned "Worst Company in America" for the second year in a row. They don't care about their customers, especially the Mac ones. Disappointed that I probably won't be able to enjoy University or Island Paradise since I can't get the game to play for very long.
Have any of you removed Seasons and played with University and found it works?
I have no issues running Seasons on my Mac. I have minimum lag (probably my fault for running programs in the background (PhotoShop, Chrome, Mail, iTunes, etc.) Load and Save time is about the same as it was before Seasons. Sometimes I will even leave my computer for the night...my Sims lives on pause and continue on the next day without restarting the game.
The one problem I do have is that I unable to build a second story (crashes when I go to save afterwards)... That seems to be a common issue after Seasons though (Did not have that problem before Seasons).
I am playing with: Sims 3, High End Loft SP, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Seasons, and University Life.
MacBook Pro
Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512 MB
Software Mac OS X 10.8.2
This is very preliminary, it's certainly not ideal, but early tests seem promising.
Like most all of you I purchased Seasons and it crashed while running and crashed while attempting to save. I hypothesized that the festival grounds are the problem. I believe that the base game cannot handle all of the NPC actions/interactions that take place at the festival grounds. So I deleted them from the world using the editor and so far my game is running and saving smoothly. I have saved multiple times with no problems, I've built second stories and saved with no problems. Prior to deleting the fairgrounds my game would crash about every .5hr and every 1 out of 3 save attempts or more. Since deleting, thus far no problems.
Obviously you lose the fair grounds and the activities that take place there. But, you still have the weather and all that surrounds that. All my sliders are maxed, all graphic settings are at their highest level. I'm running a Mac, specs are unimportant as this is clearly a software issue, not a hardware issue.
I did note that the old park that I replaced with the festival grounds does not appear to be in the world editor. I guess if I really wanted it back I could just dump Seasons and reinstall but not place the festival grounds.
If people are interested I'll post updates as I continue to play.
Note: I have yet to try placing and using festival ground activities i.e. soccer, skating on my property for my sims to use to see if they cause problems.
Update One: After realizing that many of the festival elements were too large for my property I decided to place them in the central park lot by utilizing the town editor. I placed a half pipe, roller rink, ice rink, and horseshoes. Preliminary results show the game running smoothly and saving with no problems. Hopefully these results continue thus allowing me at the very least to take advantage of a majority of the aspects of the Seasons EP minus the bugs.
Preliminary results also continue to suggest that the problem lies with the placement of the festival grounds. I'm not 100% sure what aspects of the Seasons EP will be missing by eliminating the fairgrounds, but at least thus far the game appears to be working with the sports aspects and the weather aspects still intact. I will update in regards to stability as I continue to play and/or if I come across any other possible workarounds.
*It should be noted that the new park I created was set to No Visitors as to keep the NPCs from interacting with the elements.
Update Two: 3.5 hours of game play in real time, 2.5 hours continuous & 1 hour with quitting and loading, with daily saves(in sim time) and no issues to report. No crashes and no lag. Save and load times are much shorter. My goal now is to continue to build into my created park all of the fair ground elements. My lot for park / fairground is still set to No Visitors.
Update Three: Many hours of game play with no significant issues now. Have had a few crashes, but at about the same rate as before I installed the expansion pack and none while saving. Can build second stories with no problem. The park is still not open to NPC visitors.
This Work Around Works Very Well for Seasons EP for Mac
Summary:
Delete or do not initially place the festival grounds that come with Seasons EP.
Delete the central park and set the lot to 'no visitors'.
Place festival ground elements in the old central park lot using the edit town feature as-well-as any other elements you would enjoy i.e. fishing pond, benches, chess… (You can add to the lot or delete from the lot as often as you like by using the town editor)
You should now be able to take advantage of all the aspects of seasons minus the NPC utilizing your newly created festival grounds. My game runs and saves just as smoothly as it did before installing Seasons EP.
*Note: I have still yet to test opening my new festival grounds to NPC.
*Note: Please see previous post for extended information.
*Note to OP: I believe the festival grounds will ultimately prove to be the common denominator.
Comments
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/04/05/ea-shrugs-off-worst-company-in-america-title/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/09/why-ea-won-the-worst-company-in-america-award/
http://consumerist.com/2012/04/04/congratulations-ea-you-are-the-worst-company-in-america-for-2012/
I'm pretty much done with these games and will just move on. At the end of the day they are just games and not worth my aggravation and money. EA will only respond when their sales drop dramatically.
Good luck everybody.
TS3 is taking up quite a bit of space on my iMac and it's not even playable... i'm going to wait barely 2 weeks and if nothing has changed then i'm done with the game.
This is really starting to get annoying. When i see the light at the end of the tunnel it just goes black again. *** is wrong with EA
Is there any updates on the new patch helping any of us MAC users?
After opening the launcher, clicking the update-tab and then eager to update my game refreshing the page/ search for new updates-button two or three times (quick) – even my laucher crashes.
OSX 10.8.2 (12C3012)
Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB
On Monday night i decided to risk it, and bought seasons from origin. The first time I went on and loaded my save file it crashed after about 5 minutes and came up with exception raised etc and i panicked. i restarted my comp and tried again and managed to play for something ridiculous like 4 hours, saving every 15 mins or so. Yesterday i played for about 2 hours and everything was fine. It didn't crash at all either time.
Did you have to avoid CAS & Build/Buy Mode like I've been doing lately??
MY specs:
Proc: 2.6 Ghz Intel Core i7
Memory: 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 384 MB
Software OS X 10.8.2
I was playing fine with pets then installed seasons and the crashing started. I get them with or without cc or mods. Most of my cc is package files. And I am not using the launcher to start the game anymore. But it was crashing before that anyway.
However, I did have success today with no crashes. I lowered all the graphics qualities in the options screen to medium, it is loading faster, and did not crash. My game play was over 2 hours, which usually, I can get up to 30 minutes before a crash, and that includes many 'Save As's.
My specs:
OS: Mountain Lion - 10.8.3
Memory: 16 gb 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB
Processor: 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
I know this isn't a great solution, but it worked work for me, and hopefully it will work for someone else.
From my exception report:
Total virtual memory: 2047 Mb
Free virtual memory: 0 Mb
I expect that if I remove either some EP (have 'em all) or some SP (have most) or possibly eliminate store stuff (have a bit), I can get stability. In my case, this crash was encountered while attempting move in a household during initial game setup on a game with zero CC or mods. As I don't want to remove any SP or EP, my only real option is to run Windows on my Mac. At least with my Origin account, this is now fairly easy to do...
Note that this would also explain why this problem became more prominent as of a certain EP since the more SP/EP you have, the more memory and virtual memory the game will need.
Assuming my above speculation is correct, I further speculate that this is known by at least somebody at EA and likely another reason why they are doing a native Mac version for SimCity rather than go with this cludge of emulating Windows on a Mac. Also, unless Cider itself is fixed (eg. made able to address more than 2GB of virtual memory), I doubt this problem will be fixed.
Note that I haven't read through all of this thread, so the above may not be new news to those that have.
Freshly loaded out of the box (well, download) with the following Xpacs:
- Seasons
- Ambitions
- Late Night
- Supernatural
Normally I'd take it on good faith that something this heinous would be fixed soon, but since this thread goes back so far I don't know if I should just not wait it out and try to return it as a defective product.
MacBook Pro 2013
OSX 10.8.3
16GB 2.7GHz i7
Nvidia Geforce GT 650M / Intel HD 4000
I tend to agree with this. The Sims on the MAC is a very poor port. It is not a native application and anyone who has used Macs for a while knows that ports running Cider run remarkably bad. Other than EA investing the time and money for a native Mac client (which is very unlikely) I don't see this ever getting fixed either. EA just wanted to grab some mac users to boost their bottom line. Your only option is to wait for Cider to get upgraded or use BootCamp. At least all the sims games purchased on Origin are cross platform so you don't have to buy them again. Gee I wonder why they made sure to add that in....
So, should I buy seasons? What do you think?
MacBook Pro
13-inch, Early 2011
2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Edit: I knew it was a little too convenient. I reached a point in the game where the game would freeze. It no longer crashes to desktop, but actually freezes requiring a force quit - won't even let me tab applications or anything. It seems to be at a specific point in time (for me 2 days before summer ended). I also found that I couldn't save just before this happened with error code 12. Well, back to uninstalling it. I think it was messed up anyways - my ponds were frozen all sumer and it just hailed and rained the whole time.
I have compiled a procedure that should help with lag, freezing issues, crashing, and even some glitches.
First: Go through your HD and trash any unneeded files as well as applications you never use. Empty your trash. This should free up some disk space.
Second: Trash the items in your downloads folder. Empty your trash.
Third: Now open these folders in the following order, HD>Users>(open the user you are in)>library>preferences>The Sims 3 Preferences. Trash al of the files you see in this folder. Also search for files under the name "com.transgaming" and "ipatcher." Empty your trash.
Fourth: open your disk utility. Click on the HD in this window, then select "repair permissions." Wait until this is done.
Fifth: Now open the following folders in the order, My Documents--> Electronic Arts--> The Sims 3--> DCbackup. Trash any files you see here. Also search for files under the name "compositorCache" and "simCompositorCache." Empty your trash.
Sixth: Restart your computer, and launch the sims 3.
I've had numerous freezing, crashing, and lag problems previous to doing this, and now my game runs VERY smoothly. I recommend that anyone who is having problems with their game try it too. Let me know if you have any questions about the process.
If it works for you, do the disk utility repair every week, and empty the Sims 3 Preferences," "com.transgaming," "ipatcher," "DCbackup," "compositorCache," and "simCompositorCache," about every time you play.
Happy problem free simming
Good Show! A player who knows her Mac. I dumped everything you suggested and it's like being reborn in the game. I removed Seasons. Until EA gets it 'beep' together and creates a patch for us Mac users. I will live without snow. After all I am a Floridian and have lived without snow so far in my life.
I removed close to 20 Gigs doing this. Very helpful!!
THANK YOU BETACETI
Have any of you removed Seasons and played with University and found it works?
The one problem I do have is that I unable to build a second story (crashes when I go to save afterwards)... That seems to be a common issue after Seasons though (Did not have that problem before Seasons).
I am playing with: Sims 3, High End Loft SP, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Seasons, and University Life.
MacBook Pro
Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512 MB
Software Mac OS X 10.8.2
21.5-inch, Late 2012
2.9 GHz Intel Core i5
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512 MB
OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3
*** note*** See summary in next post.
This is very preliminary, it's certainly not ideal, but early tests seem promising.
Like most all of you I purchased Seasons and it crashed while running and crashed while attempting to save. I hypothesized that the festival grounds are the problem. I believe that the base game cannot handle all of the NPC actions/interactions that take place at the festival grounds. So I deleted them from the world using the editor and so far my game is running and saving smoothly. I have saved multiple times with no problems, I've built second stories and saved with no problems. Prior to deleting the fairgrounds my game would crash about every .5hr and every 1 out of 3 save attempts or more. Since deleting, thus far no problems.
Obviously you lose the fair grounds and the activities that take place there. But, you still have the weather and all that surrounds that. All my sliders are maxed, all graphic settings are at their highest level. I'm running a Mac, specs are unimportant as this is clearly a software issue, not a hardware issue.
I did note that the old park that I replaced with the festival grounds does not appear to be in the world editor. I guess if I really wanted it back I could just dump Seasons and reinstall but not place the festival grounds.
If people are interested I'll post updates as I continue to play.
Note: I have yet to try placing and using festival ground activities i.e. soccer, skating on my property for my sims to use to see if they cause problems.
Update One: After realizing that many of the festival elements were too large for my property I decided to place them in the central park lot by utilizing the town editor. I placed a half pipe, roller rink, ice rink, and horseshoes. Preliminary results show the game running smoothly and saving with no problems. Hopefully these results continue thus allowing me at the very least to take advantage of a majority of the aspects of the Seasons EP minus the bugs.
Preliminary results also continue to suggest that the problem lies with the placement of the festival grounds. I'm not 100% sure what aspects of the Seasons EP will be missing by eliminating the fairgrounds, but at least thus far the game appears to be working with the sports aspects and the weather aspects still intact. I will update in regards to stability as I continue to play and/or if I come across any other possible workarounds.
*It should be noted that the new park I created was set to No Visitors as to keep the NPCs from interacting with the elements.
Update Two: 3.5 hours of game play in real time, 2.5 hours continuous & 1 hour with quitting and loading, with daily saves(in sim time) and no issues to report. No crashes and no lag. Save and load times are much shorter. My goal now is to continue to build into my created park all of the fair ground elements. My lot for park / fairground is still set to No Visitors.
Update Three: Many hours of game play with no significant issues now. Have had a few crashes, but at about the same rate as before I installed the expansion pack and none while saving. Can build second stories with no problem. The park is still not open to NPC visitors.
You Suck EA :evil: Extreme Avarice
Summary:
Delete or do not initially place the festival grounds that come with Seasons EP.
Delete the central park and set the lot to 'no visitors'.
Place festival ground elements in the old central park lot using the edit town feature as-well-as any other elements you would enjoy i.e. fishing pond, benches, chess… (You can add to the lot or delete from the lot as often as you like by using the town editor)
You should now be able to take advantage of all the aspects of seasons minus the NPC utilizing your newly created festival grounds. My game runs and saves just as smoothly as it did before installing Seasons EP.
*Note: I have still yet to test opening my new festival grounds to NPC.
*Note: Please see previous post for extended information.
*Note to OP: I believe the festival grounds will ultimately prove to be the common denominator.
You Suck EA :twisted: Extreme Avarice