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Please save my game!
eyesetokill25
Posts: 49 Member
I've been having a number of issues with Sims 3 recently, and it's making my game unplayable!
I keep getting the Error Code 12 when trying to save. Sometimes I can save once, but recently I can't even get to that stage. The game just closes itself down and Origin says 'Something went wrong.' Now even the Game Launcher just closes at random. When playing the game, it's quite smooth and I can have recent graphics. I'm playing on a Windows 8 Toshiba Satellite laptop. Maybe it's not meant for gaming, but I barely have anything else on the computer and it was fine until a few months ago. I have 892MB left on my computer out of 308.
I feel like I've tried all of the ways to get rid of Error Code 12 and it's just made it worse as now it's just crashing. I'm wondering whether I should just uninstall everything and reinstall it all? I don't want to lose my family or their home though, and I have a fair amount of custom content - namely clothes and a few locations and careers. I can't even scroll down the Installed Content list without it closing itself.
I did accidentally delete CCmerged.package but I restored it from my Recycle Bin. What do you think the problem is? What should I do?
I keep getting the Error Code 12 when trying to save. Sometimes I can save once, but recently I can't even get to that stage. The game just closes itself down and Origin says 'Something went wrong.' Now even the Game Launcher just closes at random. When playing the game, it's quite smooth and I can have recent graphics. I'm playing on a Windows 8 Toshiba Satellite laptop. Maybe it's not meant for gaming, but I barely have anything else on the computer and it was fine until a few months ago. I have 892MB left on my computer out of 308.
I feel like I've tried all of the ways to get rid of Error Code 12 and it's just made it worse as now it's just crashing. I'm wondering whether I should just uninstall everything and reinstall it all? I don't want to lose my family or their home though, and I have a fair amount of custom content - namely clothes and a few locations and careers. I can't even scroll down the Installed Content list without it closing itself.
I did accidentally delete CCmerged.package but I restored it from my Recycle Bin. What do you think the problem is? What should I do?
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If so, go to your electronic arts folder --- the sims 3--- saves, you'll see all your saved games in there
So for example my saved town is called los santos.
So I would find my saved file "Los Santos.sims3" Copy and back that up.
Next I would see one called "Los Santos.Sims3.backup" This is a back up of my save file.I would rename it to "Los Santos.sims3" by deleting the backup at the end.
can't promise that this will work, but its worth a try.Also if you notice any files in your saved folder that ends with .bad delete it, their corrupted.
Once you do that go into your game, launch your save.And play for a bit, see if any of that helps.
You could also try restoring your CCmerged.package if that is when the trouble began.
Edit: It could also be you have too much custom content in your game.Try removing unnecessary CC and see if that speeds it up.
https://graceymanorsims3.tumblr.com/
Error12 is an out of usable resources condition. If it's caused by RAM usage, that means the computer doesn't have enough RAM to service the game (how much have you got?), it's all tied up running other programs, or you have plenty but the game is trying to reach for more than it can possibly use.
What have you got for a graphics card?
If you don't know how to answer these questions, a full dxdiag report would provide the necessary info and more. You could run one and send it up to pastebin.com, then supply a link so we can read it if you like.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information
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Sorry, I meant it the other way around. So that's 308MB free out of 892MB in my Local Disk, and apparently windows has 725GB free out of 929GB. That was fine in the past but is it not enough for Sims 3 anymore?
I don't know the name of the card, but my DirectX Diagnostic Tool says that the chip type is the:
Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
DAC Type: Internal
Approx Total memory: 1792MB
Display memory: 32MD
Shared memory: 1760MB
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
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Here you go. I've never used pastebin before so hopefully this is right: https://pastebin.com/cScdQ8Vc
By the way, the ram is 4096MB apparently.
The lack of memory is almost certainly the cause of your crashes, and it's manageable but not fixable. Even on startup, Windows 10 might take around 1.5 GB RAM for itself, leaving only 2.5 GB for the game and everything else you might be running. The more packs you have installed, the more game the game will need, even on startup. A longer-running game will take up more resources than a new one, a larger world will need more memory than a smaller one, more sims in the household will require more memory, etc.
Some of the things you can do to keep RAM use down are to play completely offline (if you startup through Origin, take it offline after signing in), turn off memories and the hidden object startup game, and restart your computer immediately before playing. Other strategies are detailed in this NRaas post:
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/TIPS+FOR+BETTER+GAME+PERFORMANCE
It also sounds like you have some bad custom content. That could be a significant drag on game performance as well. If you don't know how to get rid of it, please see Crinrict's post on removing it from your game:
https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/01/tutorial-how-to-get-rid-of-unwanted-custom-content.html
This machine would also have originally shipped with Windows 8.1 on it. However it came to be upgraded to Win 10, I'm afraid that isn't doing it any favors either as Win 10 can use more system resources than its predecessors and some machines just don't take to the upgrade well.
You do have lots of hard drive space to work with, that's not an issue, but this laptop is really made for churning out office and school type documents and web related tasks, not so much graphics intensive games. It should be able to handle TS2 pretty well, if that's any consolation.
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Thanks a lot for that evaluation! It was really helpful, must have been a lot for you to go through.
I have Ambitions, Generations, Late Night, Seasons, University Life, Island Paradise, and I'm playing in Roaring Heights with a 12-generation legacy and about 12 Sims in a house so I can see why it'd be impacting the memory! I've been playing it on this computer for a few years and it's been great up until this year, so I imagine that there just must be too much content. I'll definitely check out those suggestions and see it if helps.
If I'm having this problem with Sims 3, do you think I'd have the same with Sims 4? I don't have it in me to go back to Sims 2, but I was considering getting Sims 4 and their expansions/stuff packs because I heard that it's better for laptops not made for gaming. Or should I just change the way I'm playing - smaller family, small town, small lot etc?
You might consider a post on the TS4 forum boards, or actually Answers HQ now since the TS4 Help section has been closed and everyone is being redirected to AHQ instead.
You cannot do anything about the lack of a graphics card on this laptop, but you might also consider upgrading the RAM on it to at least 8 GB if you know you are going to keep it for a while. But honestly, the money to do so might be better used being put towards a new computer in the future.
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Yes, the OP has shown evidence of some "bad" CC from the beginning, but they are also playing a multi-generational legacy on a laptop that lacks the required resources to run the heavy hitting EPs properly. It was actually surprising that they were able to take that game as far as they had on that system, but of course different players even on similar hardware sets will have different performance results with this game. Our point was that chasing down the cause of one Error 12 as their game heads into Generation 13 or so with an overstuffed active household isn't likely to be all that helpful as more such issues will likely be just a bit further down the road with those EPs in play, 4 GB of RAM total, and no dedicated graphics card on Win 10.
A few other things in case this is helpful at all. Isla Paradiso should never be held up as an example of resource allocation or for testing the limits of one's system. The world is design-flawed and will not run correctly for just about everyone on any system unless it is fixed up first.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/811253/removing-ip-lag/p1
The return from travel/Uni broken travel transition issues can also happen to anyone regardless of the system they are playing on. NRaas mods (in particular Traveler, Overwatch, and ErrorTrap) tend to help immensely with preventing those.
Also, much less important but you may want to count your EPs again. There were only 11 of them for TS3.
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I briefly managed to stop the crashing by putting some of your suggestions into action. I've cleaned out some files, I restart the laptop before playing, I've turned some graphics setting down, I've made my household smaller, I play for short periods of time and restart the computer after one save... Then I tried to move my young adult Sims to university and it's crashing during the load screen. I'm still playing the same 13-gen family, but I've made their family tree show less people in the hopes that the game would forget about the older generations and save some memory... So, I'm wondering what my options are for playing a normal, smooth Sims game?
1. Increase my RAM - I've read that for my laptop, I might only be able to boost it by another 3.5GB though, I'm not sure whether that'd be enough to make a difference?
2. Buy a gaming laptop.
3. Delete my saved games, start a new one in a small town with a small family?
4. Remove Sims with lot of ancestry from the household?
5. Go back to Windows 8?
6. Uninstall some EP's (is there any way to do that and save your family)? I don't use Isla Paradiso anyway, my Sims are in Roaring Heights.
Graphics cards cannot be upgraded on most laptops, only some of the very high-end ones would allow this.
You can get some play out of TS3 with the laptop you have as you have already experienced and more RAM will help a little. So would the NRaas mods designed to improve performance. But you would likely have to compromise on how far these games can realistically be expected to be carried on this machine. I would vote for a stronger system if one is at all within reach.
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Download advanced system care, it’s free, install and run a scan, it will clean up your computer. You can uninstall the program after use.
Run task manager, by pressing control, alt and delete together and selecting it from the list. Go to performance tab and tell me what your Disk is running at. There is a bug in windows 10 which can mean your disk is always running at 100%.
If you have not taken those steps with the Nvidia Control Panel (and Nvidia Inspector if necessary) and would like any assistance with that for yourself, please feel free to post on the New Members thread on the TS3 Tech Discussions board.
It would appear that we are approaching this thread from very different vantage points. Having been an admin at NRaas for many years now where our TS3 mods are produced and supported by professional programmers with many of them designed specifically to improve game performance rather than ruin it, I believe I have worked with enough players (thousands?) between here and there and at MTS to be qualified to say that merely adding the mods framework and what should be a harmless No Intro mod should not have any negative impact on the game whatsoever, provided this is all done properly. MoveObjectsOn, on the other hand, is not always safe to use and and I would agree that it should be avoided at all costs if one is having issues with it. The issues with Isla Paradiso are already well-documented and the solutions provided on the thread I linked to are what will work for most who try it if they have sufficient hardware to support the EP.
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