Game alternates between freezing and playing

[jmz95]

My game has recently been freezing every few seconds, staying frozen for up to a couple minutes, then running smoothly again for a few seconds before starting the process all over again. I can honestly say I have no clue what could be the cause: I still have plenty of RAM unused, I have more than enough processing power, I have recently uninstalled everything and reinstalled.

I close every possible program running in the background so there is more memory available, but that doesn't seem to help. I have no mods installed, and the only custom content are items from the official store. I have disabled memories and I have logged out of Simport in my game. The only thing I can think of is the fact that it's a legacy, but even then I'm only on the second generation. The game is currently on Week 6, Day 6 which is longer than most games I play.

I'm at a loss at what to do other than start a new file. This file is the only one I can have fun right now, and I don't want to start over only to find out that I'll have the same issue down the road. Any suggestions?

[Pam]

Well, look who's here!  It's good to see you again, jmz95.

It might be that your graphics card isn't powerful enough.  The more recent expansions, at least Pets, have increased computer requirements.  Which expansion packs are you running?

[jmz95]

Haha, yeah. I haven't posted in a while, but trust me, I have stayed around the site and forum, reading and gathering information I can use for my game.

I have all the expansion packs installed (but not all stuff packs, if that matters). My graphics card is an (integrated) Intel graphics HD card. Yeah, I know, not the ideal or even truly acceptable option to run the Sims 3, but I wasn't thinking about the graphics card too much when I got this laptop that I use to play. It ran fine 95% of the time I played, and I started the file fairly recently, after Showtime came out I know for sure. The other 5 % would be when the problem arose. I'm sitting there waiting for the game to respond again more often than I'm actually playing, so I don't get much enjoyment.

[jmz95]

Is there anything I can do to try to save my game, or should I just go back to my old desktop and try there?