Game crashes and how do YOU deal with them?

[simlover16]

Oh dear, when my game crashes the wrath of simlover16 raises World War III. Lol. Naw. But I usually get a little heated and quit the game for a little while, depending on how much I lost. I use to never save until I got ready to get off. Whew boy, I learned my lesson. I save regularly now.
 I deal with them usually trying to get back what I lost. But if I lost a TON, I'm usually disgusted with the game and quit for a while.
 But usually, I immediately launch the game right back up, but it's not intended; I ALWAYS end up playing out different.

[Aspen]

I do 'saves' just before my sim goes to bed every night and 'save as' every hr on the hr- save 1, save 2, save3 that get overwritten regulalry so I never lose more than 1 hr max at any time

[Frey]

I save every night before my sims go to bed. My game used to be the crashing king so I got the habit of being paranoid about it. Now I got more RAM it's a lot more stable but it still crashes sometimes... and when it does it's great to be able to think "oh, you stupid game, I don't care because I just saved 10 minutes ago!" 

It may sound weird but I've also learnt to notice when the game is about to crash. My game runs pretty smooth so when it starts lagging or freezing I know something strange is happening and save immediately. It usually happens around 3 AM sim-time (no idea why) so saving every night also helps.  Of course the game also crashes without warning sometimes though.

Yesterday I lost some progress in my Life States Dynasty. I had saved the night before but the game crashed just after my founder had rolled her last 5k wish and I didn't get to save. It was awful! I'm still waiting for it to show up again .

[Angélique]

My game runs pretty smooth so when it starts lagging or freezing I know something strange is happening and save immediately. It usually happens around 3 AM sim-time (no idea why) so saving every night also helps.

I think that 3 AM is the time when several things on all the community lots are automatically reset by the game. Misplaced books are put back in the shelves, puddles on the floor from broken sinks or showers disappears, and dirty plates too. Maybe this sudden game activity causes extra strain on your computer, and makes it more prone to crashing?

[Frey]

I think that 3 AM is the time when several things on all the community lots are automatically reset by the game. Misplaced books are put back in the shelves, puddles on the floor from broken sinks or showers disappears, and dirty plates too. Maybe this sudden game activity causes extra strain on your computer, and makes it more prone to crashing?

Oh, I didn't know that. That's probably the reason then. It doesn't happen every sim-night, only when I've been playing long-ish sessions (a couple of hours). Probably my computer is already stressed by then and the 3 am game reset is just too much for it to handle. Thanks for the info!

[Tigerskin]

My game started crashing pretty much every time I went into build/buy mode. I read on the forum about disabling the Internet could make a difference. My game has not crashed since.

[Angélique]

Oh, I didn't know that. That's probably the reason then. It doesn't happen every sim-night, only when I've been playing long-ish sessions (a couple of hours). Probably my computer is already stressed by then and the 3 am game reset is just too much for it to handle. Thanks for the info!

You're welcome, Frey! Glad to be of help.

I was wondering, have you ever checked the memory usage, both when you just started playing, and then after a couple of hours, to see if there is a difference, and if so, how big? I assume that you already know how to do that, so I won't go into any details about that. Monitoring the memory usage can be very important though, when you're trying to come to terms with crashing issues.

[Frey]

Yeah, I do it all the time actually. I use a little program called MemoryCleaner that frees memory usage automatically everytime it reaches  80% or every 5 minutes, depending on the settings you choose. I was sceptic at first because I thought freeing memory while playing would cause more lag than anything, but it doesn't. I run it in the background while playing and it has actually helped me reduce my crashing and lagging issues. It also monitors how much RAM you're using and tells you your max memory usage during that session. Before upgrading my RAM it would stay at 80% the whole time, but now it stays between 50% and 65%.

I think my problem is more related to overheating, so I'm considering buying a better cooling mat. The one I have is 5 years old and has seen better years, lol.

[Angélique]

I use a little program called MemoryCleaner that frees memory usage automatically everytime it reaches  80% or every 5 minutes, depending on the settings you choose.

That sounds interesting, I've never read or heard of that program before. Where did you get it, and was it free, or did you have to pay for it?

How much RAM do you have installed now, and how much did you have before the upgrade? I have 4 GB on my laptop, and 8 GB on the desktop. Before I bought the desktop I used to play Sims 3 on the laptop, and it actually became rather hot, even though the cooling fans were whirring at least 2-3 times louder than normal. Maybe laptops aren't really intented/suited for playing computer games? At least all the hard core gamers seem to use desktop machines.

Do you know when your laptops birthday is? If you do, you could buy it a new cooling mat as a birthday present! Silly joke, sorry about that... it must be because of the unusually hot weather we're having around here right now.

[Frey]

I have 3 GB usable RAM in this laptop. Before the upgrade I had a little bit over 1 GB usable. It has made a huge difference! Before, it used to crash everytime I played the game, between 10-30 minutes after loading depending on the world I was playing in. I actually stopped playing for several months because I just couldn't enjoy it. Now it only crashes every now and then... I think it has happened abour 5 times since I upgraded the RAM about 2 months ago... and I've been playing a lot. It does overheat, even with the cooling mat, so I have to be careful with that. After an hour or so playing the fans start making weird noises and it gets really loud so I just quit the game, turn the laptop off for a while and wait until it has cooled down. If I don't do that the laptop shuts down automatically. I have to take it to a technical service to fix my virus problems (the laptop shuts down everytime I try to do a full scan with my new antivirus...  ) so I'm going to ask them to look at the overheating issues as well. I have no idea but maybe they can clean the dust inside or at least give me some advice.

Anyway, the program is free and can be downloaded here: http://www.koshyjohn.com/software/memclean/ . I'm not really tech savvy but I have noticed a difference in performance. I installed it before the RAM upgrade and it did help reduce freezing and lag. The game would still crash after a while but it took a bit longer. I'm not sure it would help with performance on a gaming computer for example, but for my not-exactly-great laptop it does. I haven't tested it further but I think at least some of the few times my game has crashed after the RAM upgrade I had forgotten to run MemoryCleaner. I'm not sure where I found out about it, but it was while trying to fix my crashing issues. It may have been here, or maybe at Crinrict's website or some website like that  .

Sadly, I have no idea when the laptop's birthday is lol. It used to be my mother's laptop before I 'stole' it - it has a Geforce graphics card and my old one had an integrated chipset so I gave mom my laptop and kept hers (she only uses it for Facebook and Gmail).

[Crazylittleloon]

Usually I just yell at my computer. I save a lot, but sometimes I forget.

Sometimes I even threaten to throw it out the window.

[Aspen]

I actually stopped playing for several months because I just couldn't enjoy it.

I know that pain, when the very thought of launching the game brings back nothing but memories of crashes.
Sometimes I'll try to troubleshoot but the wait times on loading and reloading are soooo long, that I run out of patience.
But usually I try to save each in 3 slots, usually the name of the town then 1, 2,3

[SayNoToGnomes]

This is a thing that I sure wish they fix in the Sims 4. Not many games still need manual saving. Sims with Autosave? That would be something!

I would love this! Autosave sims *gets excited*

[Axiom]

I would get disappointed and stop playing for a little while [a few hours] then go back to the game.

[Radou]

Currently rotating about 5 saves, with a couple of special saves in between on certain occasions like before traveling and before returning or when I am going out of my way to test something and the test takes a while and I don't want to lose progress on the test.

When the game crashes, sometimes even during saving, my jimmies become rustled but I just suck it up and continue. CAS crashes can be very annoying when you've managed to make the kind of face you are happy with. Redoing a wardrobe set isn't as hard as you can remember most of it but with a big bunch of custom sliders remaking the face can be a pain. Having to rebuild a building/lot is not fun either.