Hey @SimplyJen and @igazor I apologize for bothering you again, but my game is still crashing occasionally after these changes. It's crashing more than it did on my older system. Granted, it is running waaaaay more smoothly than it did before. Now, I was getting Error 12 messages, which I've read means that there isn't enough RAM.. but that can't be the case for me. The only files I have on this new system are sims 3 and 4. I've also disabled memories as I read those can cause issues with lag and such as well.
I've gotten into the habit of "saving as" every 10-20 minutes of play. After about 3 hours of play it crashed while attempting to save.
Sounds like we made some progress here but now have to take a step back.
Error 12 is an out of resource condition. Usually, the vast majority of the time, this does mean usable memory (RAM). It has nothing to do with drive space or the number of things stored on your computer. RAM is memory, it's what a program runs on and what it uses and reaches for more of while running, not the storage space it takes up. When a program is quit, it releases all of the RAM is was using for that session, thus making it available again.
You have 16 GB of RAM, or at least the configuration you linked me to on that vendor site does. That's more than plenty. The only way you could use all of that up is if you had very intensive programs running alongside of the game at the same time, or maybe 50+ Google Chrome or other browser tabs and some high def videos playing all at once. That's probably not it.
But TS3 is a 32-bit application. That means it can only use up to 4 GB of RAM by itself, the actual danger zone is somewhere above 3.5 GB. If the game reaches for more than that, it will essentially lose its mind and crash or Error 12 no matter how much RAM the system has available. We cannot make 32-bit programs use more RAM than the laws of physics allow, so instead we need to find ways to reduce their usage.
So do these unfortunate things happen only on one or several long-running games brought over from another system, or does a newly started test game fare better? How much RAM is the problematic game using when it starts up (check the Task Manager, you need the column for RAM usage), and how much after it runs, being played for a while? Can you bring yourself to play offline (not logged in at the Launcher or in-game levels), and can you switch off the in-game EA Store shopping experience as well as the Hidden Object game that plays while the game starts up from within the Game Options? All of should help to reduce RAM usage and other forms of pressure on the game.
Hey @igazor apologies for the delayed response.. just got off work!
So here is my usage at the start up -
And after my first successful save as, it climbed to 2.5GB.
I've followed your instructions on disabling online features and the start up game. Hopefully this will reduce my usage. But I have a feeling I'm going to have to move my sims to a new save. This game I have is a super long, 12 generation legacy that I moved over from my previous computer.
So with that in mind I have a question. Is there a way I can transfer a physical copy of a world without the households? I love my world, and the way it's set up. I want to reuse the world but with a new legacy save. Is that possible?
Well, a world that starts up at 2.2 GB of usage and increases to 2.5 sounds fine to me. So we're going to have to go with what you said about the ongoing save possibly having maybe been through too much and carrying too much baggage so that after a few (real time) hours of play it really needs to be saved (saved as), quit, and reloaded in order to continue smoothly. A couple of options might be to consider moving your household and any others that you want to keep in play using NRaas Traveler to a connected world or Porter for an all at once, replace them in a new world type of solution.
Although before doing anything drastic, I hope that you already using Overwatch and ErrorTrap? You might also want to consider a MasterController Reset Everything run from City Hall. Had we covered that one yet? It's mentioned somewhere on the page full of performance tips I linked to in the very beginning. I run one of these every 6 sim weeks or so in each world I play. It catches debris and invisible junk that Overwatch and ErrorTrap either miss or take much longer to notice. It's also intrusive to gameplay and can take as long as 15-20 minutes to run, so this wouldn't be an everyday procedure or anything. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips+For+Better+Game+Performance
On the new question, what I would do on a copy of the saved game is use MasterController to Totally Annihilate the entire population, running from the Town menu on City Hall. That doesn't really kill anyone, what's left would be the world just as it stands now, except with no sims ever having existed in it. Then save that for use as a "new" world to repopulate.
Have both those mods installed. Just monitoring my RAM before each save. Hopefully that will be an indicator of when to shut down and restart.
After about an hour of real time gameplay, it's at 2.7. And I've saved several times so hopefully no interactive loading screens and staying offline will keep my usage manageable.
So @igazor I have another issue. My new gaming PC just restarted on me without warning while I was playing S4.
How do I find out what caused that? There is no way that it's overheating, right? I mean that just seems silly..
A more common symptom of overheating would an abrupt shutdown, not a reboot, and that tends to happen with over-stressed laptops not desktops. Could it be as simple as this is when Win 10 decided to reach for updates and reboot on you to complete the process?
A more common symptom of overheating would an abrupt shutdown, not a reboot, and that tends to happen with over-stressed laptops not desktops. Could it be as simple as this is when Win 10 decided to reach for updates and reboot on you to complete the process?
I really hope so. But I would have received a notification about an update, right? Either before, as a warning, or after telling me it was successful or something?
My experience with Win 10 is limited. But if you play in full screen mode, seems like any beforehand warnings might not be possible to see?
I would probably be looking over my Windows system logs prior to the reboot to look for clues as to what might have been going on at that time. Or you could just wait to see if this is a one-off or if it keeps happening.
So I did check my logs and the only thing I was able to find that there was a check for updates done near the time of the crash, but nothing installed.
I just find it so bizarre. And I'm cautious to load up the game in fear of it happening again.
The research I've done says it restarts because hardware failed, but how can that be?
Sudden unexpected reboots while reading an email, loading up a simple website, or typing into a Word document (or while doing nothing at all) could be a sign of hardware failure if it happens repeatedly. My Mac rebooted on me while it was waking up from display sleep a couple of weeks ago, hasn't happened since and I still don't know why it did that although it was a one-time thing so I didn't look very hard to find out.
But while playing an unoptimized mess of a game like TS3 or TS4? Frankly, I'm surprised half of us haven't had our computers explode and burned our houses down while trying to play these games.
You could post on the TS4 Tech Discussions board to see if others are experiencing this, but if it only happened once and something related to Win Updates seemed to be happening or trying to happen at around the same time, it's more likely nothing serious.
Hello!
I know you have solved your freezing issue but I thought I'd leave this here incase you experienced it again, or if anybody else with the same problem comes across this thread.
I've experienced this freezing issue for years now. Everytime it would occur, I'd suck it up and make a new save, which I absolutely DESPISED doing. I experienced it today and knew I was not going to start up a new save. I've been playing with this family for months now and they were, byfar, probably my most favourite save. So, I thought once and for all I should contact EA instead of testing out everything and not having it solved. I was pretty confused with what EA told me. They said to disable my firewall and antivirus, run the game via admin, blah blah blah. Well I tried it, and nothing helped. I started my game back up, clicked on Cityhall, went to Mastercontroller and reset everything. My problem was finally solved! I hadn't experienced crashing for the rest of the night.
Mastercontroller is honestly a lifesaver. I always thought the problem was my mods (don't get me wrong, mods CAN corrupt your game), but in this case, the mods were not the problem and helped me instead.
Best of luck!
@KatyJay88 you could have had a brown out where the power goes off for a second and comes back on. You may not notice but that would cause your computer to reboot. If it happens allot you may have a bad power supply. If you continue to have issues, pm chesterbigbird. she is a computer build expert and also has windows 10 . she can help you figure out if you have a power supply issue or a windows 10 issue.
@KatyJay88 you could have had a brown out where the power goes off for a second and comes back on. You may not notice but that would cause your computer to reboot. If it happens allot you may have a bad power supply. If you continue to have issues, pm chesterbigbird. she is a computer build expert and also has windows 10 . she can help you figure out if you have a power supply issue or a windows 10 issue.
Hey @phoebebebe13 I think that is exactly what is happening. When it reboots, it says "power surge detected" or something along those lines. I have messaged chesterbigbird and hopefully can help solve my problem. I appreciate your help as always.
Actually the more I read about brownouts the more nervous I become. I truly hope I'm not damaging my computer. Is it because I have too many things plugged in? Is it simply a matter of unplugging a few things?
brownouts is the electric company working on outside lines and they quickly turn the electric off and on. When they do that my computer reboots, the microwave etc. .
Are you having internal electric issues? Do you have a surge protector? I try to keep my electronics spread out so they are not all on one outlet. If we have storms , I unplug everything
Im sure Chester will help you figure it out. Igazor and I don't have windows 10.
Right, and many of us live and work in buildings that have "unclean" or rather unsteady electric supplies. Geez, my apartment was built in 1880 or something, we're fortunate to have running water and electricity at all (slight exaggeration). The issue if this is the case might not be the devices that are plugged into your computer, but the source of electricity that your computer is plugged into. A power strip with proper surge protection is essential, not all power strips have this, and I would never plug a computer directly into a wall outlet because of these things.
But chesterbigbird would be the best one to help you figure out if your computer's internal power supply is sufficient for what is being demanded of it.
Hi Guys, we figured out the crashes via PM
Found the issue was either the power supply (dropping to low voltage) or the Asus surge feature which could be faulty.
Either way the power supply was not a very good one and @KatyJay88 maybe replacing the power supply for something decent
Just thought i would update this thread
Hello, sorry I can't give any input on your situation but I also have weird things happening with my game. I was playing sims 3 with all the expansions but no modified content and when I sent one of my sims to university, he wasnt anywhere to be found. What can I do? I already searched it up but it seems like it's not a common issue. Thank you so much.
Comments
I've gotten into the habit of "saving as" every 10-20 minutes of play. After about 3 hours of play it crashed while attempting to save.
Advice?
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
Error 12 is an out of resource condition. Usually, the vast majority of the time, this does mean usable memory (RAM). It has nothing to do with drive space or the number of things stored on your computer. RAM is memory, it's what a program runs on and what it uses and reaches for more of while running, not the storage space it takes up. When a program is quit, it releases all of the RAM is was using for that session, thus making it available again.
You have 16 GB of RAM, or at least the configuration you linked me to on that vendor site does. That's more than plenty. The only way you could use all of that up is if you had very intensive programs running alongside of the game at the same time, or maybe 50+ Google Chrome or other browser tabs and some high def videos playing all at once. That's probably not it.
But TS3 is a 32-bit application. That means it can only use up to 4 GB of RAM by itself, the actual danger zone is somewhere above 3.5 GB. If the game reaches for more than that, it will essentially lose its mind and crash or Error 12 no matter how much RAM the system has available. We cannot make 32-bit programs use more RAM than the laws of physics allow, so instead we need to find ways to reduce their usage.
So do these unfortunate things happen only on one or several long-running games brought over from another system, or does a newly started test game fare better? How much RAM is the problematic game using when it starts up (check the Task Manager, you need the column for RAM usage), and how much after it runs, being played for a while? Can you bring yourself to play offline (not logged in at the Launcher or in-game levels), and can you switch off the in-game EA Store shopping experience as well as the Hidden Object game that plays while the game starts up from within the Game Options? All of should help to reduce RAM usage and other forms of pressure on the game.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
So here is my usage at the start up -
And after my first successful save as, it climbed to 2.5GB.
I've followed your instructions on disabling online features and the start up game. Hopefully this will reduce my usage. But I have a feeling I'm going to have to move my sims to a new save. This game I have is a super long, 12 generation legacy that I moved over from my previous computer.
So with that in mind I have a question. Is there a way I can transfer a physical copy of a world without the households? I love my world, and the way it's set up. I want to reuse the world but with a new legacy save. Is that possible?
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
Although before doing anything drastic, I hope that you already using Overwatch and ErrorTrap? You might also want to consider a MasterController Reset Everything run from City Hall. Had we covered that one yet? It's mentioned somewhere on the page full of performance tips I linked to in the very beginning. I run one of these every 6 sim weeks or so in each world I play. It catches debris and invisible junk that Overwatch and ErrorTrap either miss or take much longer to notice. It's also intrusive to gameplay and can take as long as 15-20 minutes to run, so this wouldn't be an everyday procedure or anything.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips+For+Better+Game+Performance
On the new question, what I would do on a copy of the saved game is use MasterController to Totally Annihilate the entire population, running from the Town menu on City Hall. That doesn't really kill anyone, what's left would be the world just as it stands now, except with no sims ever having existed in it. Then save that for use as a "new" world to repopulate.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
After about an hour of real time gameplay, it's at 2.7. And I've saved several times so hopefully no interactive loading screens and staying offline will keep my usage manageable.
Thank you again!
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
How do I find out what caused that? There is no way that it's overheating, right? I mean that just seems silly..
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
I really hope so. But I would have received a notification about an update, right? Either before, as a warning, or after telling me it was successful or something?
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
I would probably be looking over my Windows system logs prior to the reboot to look for clues as to what might have been going on at that time. Or you could just wait to see if this is a one-off or if it keeps happening.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
I just find it so bizarre. And I'm cautious to load up the game in fear of it happening again.
The research I've done says it restarts because hardware failed, but how can that be?
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
But while playing an unoptimized mess of a game like TS3 or TS4? Frankly, I'm surprised half of us haven't had our computers explode and burned our houses down while trying to play these games.
You could post on the TS4 Tech Discussions board to see if others are experiencing this, but if it only happened once and something related to Win Updates seemed to be happening or trying to happen at around the same time, it's more likely nothing serious.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
I know you have solved your freezing issue but I thought I'd leave this here incase you experienced it again, or if anybody else with the same problem comes across this thread.
I've experienced this freezing issue for years now. Everytime it would occur, I'd suck it up and make a new save, which I absolutely DESPISED doing. I experienced it today and knew I was not going to start up a new save. I've been playing with this family for months now and they were, byfar, probably my most favourite save. So, I thought once and for all I should contact EA instead of testing out everything and not having it solved. I was pretty confused with what EA told me. They said to disable my firewall and antivirus, run the game via admin, blah blah blah. Well I tried it, and nothing helped. I started my game back up, clicked on Cityhall, went to Mastercontroller and reset everything. My problem was finally solved! I hadn't experienced crashing for the rest of the night.
Mastercontroller is honestly a lifesaver. I always thought the problem was my mods (don't get me wrong, mods CAN corrupt your game), but in this case, the mods were not the problem and helped me instead.
Best of luck!
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
Hey @phoebebebe13 I think that is exactly what is happening. When it reboots, it says "power surge detected" or something along those lines. I have messaged chesterbigbird and hopefully can help solve my problem. I appreciate your help as always.
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
SimmerJay CAS Challenge! ✨
Are you having internal electric issues? Do you have a surge protector? I try to keep my electronics spread out so they are not all on one outlet. If we have storms , I unplug everything
Im sure Chester will help you figure it out. Igazor and I don't have windows 10.
But chesterbigbird would be the best one to help you figure out if your computer's internal power supply is sufficient for what is being demanded of it.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Found the issue was either the power supply (dropping to low voltage) or the Asus surge feature which could be faulty.
Either way the power supply was not a very good one and @KatyJay88 maybe replacing the power supply for something decent
Just thought i would update this thread
16GB hyper X fury
MSI GTX 1080
MSI gaming M5 mobo
Evga 750 supernova
Corsair hydro h110i GT
Corsair obsidian 750D
500GB SSD
6TB Seagate Barracuda Pro
LG 34" ultra wide