Frozen Game

[zelieandsophia]

So, I have had the Sims 3 for about two or three years now. I have the base game, world adventures, ambitions, generations, late night, and pets. A very long time ago I had some issues with my game. Back then, I could still get help from the Sims 3 site, and they helped me out and sent a new game. Since then, I have had more technical difficulties, half of which I can't remember, and many times I gave up, only to come back to it a few weeks later. I have already tried the activity moniter about a million times, and I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything twice. My ambitions wasn't working for a while, so then I bought a digital download and still had issues, so I bought another game.

Okay, so now I need help with my most recent and my biggest problem. Soon after I got pets, I would play for about 5 minutes and then the game would freeze. I could still move the mouse and the bushes would still move, but the only thing I could do was the manually unplug the computer and start it up again. I kept on trying to play, and once it let me play for about 2 hours before it froze. Now sometimes it will unexpectedly quit by itself and I am getting really frustrated at this point.

Has anyone else been through this? Does anyone know how to help?

[warr2098]

I get this alot, usually when going on x3 + x4 speed, it freezes, then I press pause and after about 30seconds starts again. I don't know if theres a solution? It might just be my computer not handling the game.

[zelieandsophia]

But when this happens to you do you have to turn off your computer manually?

[warr2098]

Nope, If you press "P" (to pause it) it should start playing again after 30seconds-2minutes, It's a bit annoying but its worth it. Sometimes it completely crashes though like at a ratio of 1:10, It helps if you save after each day though, to be safe. Thats what I do.

[zelieandsophia]

Well, when I play and it freezes, the buttons don't work. Is it the same for you? Will "pausing it" (which is hard to do if the buttons don't work) work?

[Twinmum]

I've had this just recently with one particular game file. Unfortunately, I ended up having to scrap that file and start a new one.
war2098 could be right, it may be that your computer can't handle the game. Every time you add an expansion pack, it puts more demands on the computer.

[alex51299]

I had this problem for a while and someone on here suggested that I check how much memory I have. I suggest you do too because sometimes you are just running out of memory and may need to buy more.

If that isn't your problem, Twallan made some helpful mods that helped me solve this problem. I used Overwatch, ErrorTrap, and Saver. Unfortunately if it is a dynasty file or challenge attempt then you wouldn't be able to qualify if you use these. They really helped me and they should help you too.

[zelieandsophia]

So when I asked around, I was told that it was because my computer was an older model. Could this be the case? I have an iMac with Mac OS X Leopard, version 10.5

[alex51299]

I doubt it is because of an older computer, I have an old Dell PC and I can still play sims on it.

[Twinmum]

It's not so much the age of the computer, but rather the processing capabilities and the RAM. I have a computer that is only a year old, but it was bought as a second computer and so didn't need to be a gaming computer. It does not have the processing power to handle Sims.

**edit** There is an on-line utility that can tell you if your computer meets the requirements to play a game. It's called Can You Run It and can be found here - http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

Just select the Sims 3 with the latest EP you have and it will run a check for you.

[zelieandsophia]

I momentarily fixed it by minimizing the screen. Now I can play for about 5 minutes before I have to force quit.

[zelieandsophia]

**edit** There is an on-line utility that can tell you if your computer meets the requirements to play a game. It's called Can You Run It and can be found here - http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

So I have tried this site before when I was trying to fix my game, but it just stayed at the screen that says "Can you run it" and it doesn't do anything. Is there any other site or way to make it work?

By the way, I want to thank everyone who has posted replies to help me. Every post gets me a little closer to fixing my game.

[Twinmum]

Do you know the specs of your computer?

[zelieandsophia]

Well, I'm not sure if these are the specs, but here you go:

Processor: 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Memory: 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

is that what you needed?

[warr2098]

My Ram is 2GB..  after deleting some cache items in the sims folder and uninstalling a few downloads it runs fine!