Storytime: Error Codes and Me (Part 1)

From all these years of Sims 3 experience I took it just way too far. I mean who plays for like many hours a day and then leads to a dreadful error code. I've encountered something like this, but anything as bad as this.

So, here's how it all started.
One Saturday of April 2016 I wanted to continue playing my Capps in Roaring Heights to renew the saved game. I had a tendency of saving the game before 1 month of the save date in order for the picture to stay as in Edit Town.

I turned the computer on, opened The Sims 3 and started to play. Common thing for a 15-year-old girl then...

Then came up the main menu. I, wanting it or not, loaded Roaring Heights as I had the Capp family from the Sims 2. It was like a Generations series, therefore my channel wasn't made yet. I had the whole thing based on the generation from The Sims 2. I was playing The Sims 2 at the same time and wanted to modify the saved game just like in Veronaville. My crazy mind had turned the whole town a heap of chaos that's why I based the story per se.

It was about time to create more Sims. First I created a girl based on Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series, I definitely didn't know my -strange- obsession with Harry Potter. That was at noon. Then I created a girl inspired by an actress (Shannon which you see at the header) and was about to save the game. If I had a channel I'd livestream this. Then...

It took a long time to save the fucking game. To avoid the waiting I ended up listening to The Fray and Secondhand Serenade. It not only took a long time to save the game but got an error code 12. I didn't know it had to do with installed RAM and how many CPU the game eats for the disk space.
After saving the game crashed in edit town mode. And yes, this is TRUE. I deleted whatever .bad files there were on my saves folder and continued normally my games WITHOUT loading that dreaded corrupted or WHATEVER THE HELL it is Roaring Heights town!!!

Then the CHAOS began. I was insecure of loading Roaring Heights to see if I get serious errors during loading, so I asked on the forums. I asked about "if I load Roaring Heights will I get the serious error message" or something like this. Some crinrict user replied to me "please send me your saved game to see if I can test it" I couldn't do that because I had other things to do in my head like... FINISH MIDDLE SCHOOL! Nor couldn't I find a way to do that. I didn't know her email only if I provided a download link for this atrociety or grey screens in game then back to the main menu!

Does this have to do with vanilla? To me nah. Just kept on playing the game on my laptop until finding a possible solution to this. I could be able to load other worlds EXCEPT for Roaring Heights. That mattered on my PC the most because of that issue. The day when I experienced the issue my game had crashed with an ACCESS_VIOLATION crash! (or whatever it was I just don't remember) Had to check the system overview - my OS was genuine. It had nothing to do with genuinity. I mean...

But my old laptop never had problems with error codes! For some weird reason I made the HUGE mistake of posting to a MAC forum (bluebellflora is the helper on MAC's) & then some igazor user ordered me to create a new thread even though I had the "new member" rank...

Part 2 coming soon!

Joanne

How I Prevent Desktop Crashes in the Sims 3

Even though I'm on an 8GB computer, here are my tips to preventing desktop crashes in the Sims 3, and that's what most of you can do when you experience a crash.

• Make sure your game is up to date. A healthy game might be always up to date, no matter how many CC you install. Or how many times you play it. In fact, don't overuse the CPU on your task manager, prefer to play in windowed mode because it's easier for you to access the task manager, by going through the taskbar>right click>open Task Manager. If you see just your mouse and the game just stopping working (with animations continuing), force closing it through the task manager.

• Prefer to play in Windowed mode. It's easier for you to access whatever you want by playing in windowed mode. Even the smallest crash can be present in Windowed mode. As mentioned previously, it's easier for you to access the task manager (and not only).

• Add the game to the Data Execution Prevention (DEP). This can prevent almost every crash of your game. You can go to Control Panel>System>System Overview (something)>Advanced System Settings.

• Save in different game slots. This helps preventing error codes 12, 13, and 16. I got an error code 12 two years ago and demanded the whole forum for an answer. Check your CPU in the task manager, if the app "eats" CPU or not. Do NOT overwrite save games, they may cause you error codes, so avoid overwriting save games, or overpopulate worlds! You can read about this one here. (I don't know the link)***

• Make sure you have lots of free space on your hard drive. A secondary drive is necessary for a gaming PC, since I'm on a laptop 1TB of HDD does the job right. You can save whatever you want, but even if you have VERY little hard drive (or SSD) space try holding off the usage of your PC or laptop and use it after a couple of days if you prefer. Easiest thing to clean useless files is CCleaner, google it and it's free to download!

• ***As for the save thing; save 1-2 times a week to prevent getting glitches on the family or the lot like duplicated lot instead of family icon or stand alone family icon with empty lot. It happens most when playing a sub world off the World Adventures pack (France/Egypt/China). I've had one with Moonlight Falls, but it didn't have to do with the World Adventures pack! Ever since I saved in Sims University & overwrote the file (quite some time later), NONE of these happened. Absolutely NONE of these, I mean. Because of a powerful laptop!

These are pretty much what I do when I play The Sims 3. Ever since it's a very demanding game and requires a powerful PC, make sure you do the following I stated above, they'll help you out, so watch out unexpected crashes and game on!

Joanne