Game Help:Crash workarounds
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Contents |
Overview
If your game is crashing for no reason, then this page can help you to get it running again in a stable manner. All users should do step 1 first!
Step 1. Disable Custom Content
The majority of crashes in the game can be attributed to bad/incompatible custom content that you have installed at some point. The first thing that should always happen is to disable all custom content and see if your game runs as "vanilla" as possible.
Follow the steps in this guide to remove your custom content and either confirm or rule it out as the cause:
- Delete Cache Files
- Remove the Mods\Packages Folder
- Rename or Remove User Files
Step 2. LAA (Large Address Aware)
Do this section ONLY if removing ALL custom content doesn't fix the issue!!
All 32-bit applications (including The Sims 3), by default, have the large address aware (LAA) bit disabled. In layman's terms, this means the application cannot address more than 2 GiB (2,147,483,648 bytes) of virtual memory. The Sims 3 can, under certain circumstances, reach this limit causing the game to crash to the desktop.
There have also been reports and feedback from users of reduced lag, freezing, and crashes to the desktop who have installed and used CFF Explorer or The Sims 3 Large Address Aware.
For more information, please see Game Help:Large Address Aware.
Step 3. Data Execution Prevention
Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a security feature that can help prevent damage to your computer from viruses and other security threats. Harmful programs can try to attack Windows by attempting to run (also known as execute) code from system memory locations reserved for Windows and other authorized programs. These types of attacks can harm your programs and files.
DEP can help protect your computer by monitoring your programs to make sure that they use system memory safely. If DEP notices a program on your computer using memory incorrectly, it closes the program and notifies you.
For more information, see Game Help:Data Execution Prevention
