Sims 3 troubles :(

[Wildfilly94]

I rarely pay my Sims 3 Pets/Sims 3 anymore because it always freezes. Sometimes it unfreezes but generally after a time of that, it ALWAYS freezes to the point I have to hold the power button down and shut it off because it won't unfreeze and no other button function will work.

This makes for a very sad and depressed wild. D:
I love my sims 3 games, and I'd say last year or the year before they worked okay, with the occasional freeze but would always unfreeze. Before that, it was INSANELY glitchy and freezy so I reinstalled it, but the problem fixed itself.

Now its so bad, as I said, I can play for about 10 minutes before it freezes so bad I haev to restart the computer. :/ I don't understand whats wrong. I also REALLY don't want to have to re-install AGAIN, because I have SO many downloaded content bits on there, and my beautiful sim families, and it would take hours to go through all the patches/updates, and just plain installations again.. D:

We have a really good laptop, and as far as I know, we exceed the minimum requirements in all aspects.

[Wildfilly94]

Also, its an HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook PC Windows 7

2.26GHz Intel Core i3-350M Processor
Microprocessor Cache    3MB L3 Cache
Memory   4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 DIMM)
Memory Max    8GB
Video Graphics   Intel HD Graphics
Video Memory   Up to 1696MB
Hard Drive   500GB (7200RPM)
Multimedia Drive   LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support

[Wildfilly94]

New thing- now the game apparently shuts itself off on occasion. -.-

[Kadana Sorano]

You mentioned you have downloaded extra's, where did you get these?  A while back I was having the same issues with my game, plus a few others and for the life of me couldn't figure out what was causing it.  I had downloaded content from the sims 3 store, and user content form the exchange, so thought I should be 'safe" from potentially bad custom content and mods form user created sites.

What I discovered however, is that (and I dunno the technical/geek terms for it, apologies) but basically some of the content I had assumed to be "safe" because it was on the exchange, wasn't really safe.  There is apparently someway/somehow that some actual custom content (badly made/badly coded etc) got "tied" to stuff when folks uploaded it to the exchange, and thus got onto my comp and into my game.

There are programs/mods you can get to check your downloaded content, but I haven't felt like getting those and learning how to use them as of yet, so I settled for completely uninstalling everything, and reinstalling it all.  Now the only content I have is stuff made by EA.  It's sad, because I miss a lot of the exchange content I had, but my game runs so much better now.

There ARE still crashes and freezes, and I continuously search for reasons why, but so far have come up with nothing.  Apparently some of the EP's and World's EA released are causing quite a bit of lag and freezing, and I dunno if/when they will fix this.  I have trained myself to save frequently, at regular intervals (every 10 to 20 minutes) and extra whenever I accomplish something I especially don't want to lose or have to redo.

Another note, when saving, don;t just click save and let it overwrite your existing game.  Something else I had to train myself to do, is to each save click save as, and change the file name.  I typically save my games with the sims family name, and abbreviation for the world they are in.  For example, playing a family with the surname of Jones would be JonesRV (RV for Riverview of course) and no spaces, this also I have been told can cause issues when saving.  So my next save would be Save As JonesRV2, then JonesRV3, JonesRV4 etc.  You can always delete the prior saves later, so you don;t have so many copies, but this way serves two purposes.  1. for some weird reason, the game sometimes glitches, crashes, freezes, and/or corrupts files when you save overtop the existing game.  2. If when saving, your file does corrupt, then you can go back to the prior save from 10 to 20 mins ago, and not have lost quite so much.

I dunno what could be causing issues for you, but these are some of the things I did in the end to get my game to a workable usable state.  I hope it helped anyway, and you can also go to the sims 3 forums, and find some nice folks there who can prolly help you much more. 

[Wildfilly94]

I do have content from the exchange but I never saw a problem before. I've had this content for ages and it used to run fine with it all there so it can't be the exchange content.
I thought it could be that my mom has about 20 games on the computer but we have a huge amount of space on the computer so it can't be that.

As far as overwriting, I have to because I have 4 seperate families on my sims game and I'm pretty sure you can only have 4 in the first place. Again. Something I never had an issue with before.

It's just spontaneously started happening worse and worse then past year or so. I can't think of anything I'd done before that was different or any content I've downloaded since the problem started. I haven't downloaded any content or anything since it started messing up, only the patches and updates.

[Kadana Sorano]

It could well be one of the patches, I've read that some of those (especially the ones for Midnight hollow and Island Paradise) have caused several users problems.  I don't understand why/how they can cause issues for some folks and not others, but it seems to be the case anyway.

Other then the that and the things I mentioned, I;m afraid I can;t be more help.  I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff, it took me months to finally get mine working halfway decent, and like I said that's with removing everything not made by the company itself.

I'm curious though, about the saves.  When you say you have 4 separate families, do you mean all 4 are in the same world/save file?  Or 4 separate worlds/save files? 

[Wildfilly94]

Uh.. XD O have four families in different places, I guess you'd call them worlds? On the same game but they take up slots on my saved game spaces. Like when you play an online game and make a profile, and there's only 5 slots to host profiles. It's like that. I'm clueless on sims terms. Lol!

I'm thinking it could be a patch too. Which would suck so bad cause I'll have to erase all my beautiful sims again and redo then and risk it not even fixing the issue. :/
I think I'll research tomorrow and see what I can find

[Wildfilly94]

Bit the bullet and I'm reinstalling the sims 3 and the pets expansion. I deleted everything and every trace of sims three I had on my computer.
I'm going to see about checkers for customs content, as I really love some of the things I had from the exchange.

[Kadana Sorano]

Goodluck Wild!  I dunno what else to suggest, I do hope you get it working!

[Wildfilly94]

What should I look for to find those checkers?

[Kadana Sorano]

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=390235

This is the program I have seen most people advise to use.  I've bookmarked it, in case I cave and decide to get it.  But frankly, I just don't feel like learning to use it, so am sticking to just EA stuff.  At least for now.

I've not found any negative talk about it, but be aware I am not personally endorsing it, because as I've said I haven't downloaded/used it.

[Wildfilly94]

I found that, but I don't want to download this winrar thing to download the custard thing. I just hate things that make you download this program after this after this. Why can't they just make it accessible without having to download more and more things.
I just downloaded some stuff from TSR or whatever its called. Sims is running fine so far. Some things take a little long to load than I'd expect, but working well. However, it crashed after about an hour of play today. :/ Hopefully its just a once in a while deal and wont happen all the time.

[Kadana Sorano]

that sucks, goodluck anyway!

And yea, with Sims 3, once I put even one EP in, I can't play continuously like I used to do, got to shut it down and restart it every so often.  It seems to be different timing for those of us that have to do it though.

I can get mine to run longer, if I make my bedroom an icebox.  Which isn't SO bad for me, but 60-65 degree rooms aren't for everyone.  Seriously, Sims 3 seems to have a lot more issues then Sims and Sims 2, I really hope what I'm hearing about 4 is right, and they made it less resource intensive and more user/comp friendly.  Not that I see myself capable of getting 4 anytime soon lol

[SkySong]

Most winrar files you can download without actually getting winrar. From my experience, it pops open this please buy thing, which you can just hit close on, and go on your way without having to do anything. I might have something on my computer that you don't, though, so it might be different for you.

[Wildfilly94]

So excited for sims 4. I saw the trailer and I'm buying it as soon as it's out... Next fall. Sucks it's do far away.

Sky, I wish I had whatever you have. Mine will show this screen that asks if it should look up a program on the internet to download the file or select a program from my computer. Basically saying it has no clue how to handle the file and I need to give up. Lol.