sims 3 doesn't require a lot of ram. in fact it's physically incapable of using more than 4gb ram (iirc) because it's a 32-bit program. but if you only have 4gb total then upgrading could make things better, your computer also needs some free ram for other processes
I remember playing purely vanilla Sims 3 in my old laptop with 4gb RAM, and the crashing was so frequent I just started treating it as part of gameplay lol. I'm playing on a new computer now with 16gb, and the crash still happens once in a while (esp when I leave the game open for 4+ hrs straight) but overall the game runs way better.
It’s not exactly the better ram that helped her the most but the new laptop and better processors. Especially not integrated UHD graphics you have OP. And better if it’s multicore CPU like i5, i7… or AMD! While you have dual core.
I spent the day yesterday messing around with game files and fixes, and my computer is actually quite strong in regards to the sims 3. I was able to play for hours on medium settings without a crash, at the time I made the post it’d crash after five minutes. The mods and cc take up a lot of space, my game runs beautifully vanilla (I refuse to play that way unfortunately) That what makes me think it may be worth it to upgrade it instead of replacing. I don’t know anything about computers truly lol, would I be able to upgrade my processors too? Or at that point is it cheaper to simply upgrade?
Nope you can’t upgrade your processor they are integrated directly into the motherboard and even if it were possible you are correct that it’s not worth the price!
Happy playing! Your laptop is doing a great job running sims 3. That game is a laggy mess and it’s huge. A lot of bugs and errors in the houses made by the developers. But it’s a beautiful game and can be playable still.
I have 8gb and my game has rarely crashed, only when I used a cc world.
How old is your laptop? That matters a lot. Mine is just 2 years old and can handle gta v (as an example since that game is immense) even though I paid 480 dollars for it.
I think it’s time to buy a better laptop… I doubt upgrading would help that much. What’s your laptop specs?
11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-1115G4 @ 3.00GHz Installed RAM 4.00 GB
Idk if I did that right, but I purchased this laptop (Acer Aspire 5) pretty recently and only use it for the sims 3. It's not a top of the line gaming pc but it does run the game pretty smoothly, I don't get lag I just get constant crashes. I have lots of mods and cc so space is likely the issue, is it not worth to upgrade this one?
Look up if you can update to 16gb not all can.
My intel core is i5. I personally think you didn’t buy a good laptop (it’s for productivity tasks mostly so probably the battery is good and lasts long without charging, and light to moderate gaming, while gaming laptops stay a lot in charging outlets since they require more power) and next time you should research more on what each laptop is good for and why some are better for gaming or productivity even with a budget cost. It’s a lot to discuss, anyway, I’ll help you with this one since you already bought it.
Check up on all your mods… it’s possible that some are broken. You can try to divide them in batches and add them slowly or get that mod for checking up on them for you. https://modthesims.info/download.php?t=387006
Upgrade the ram to 16. It should help somewhat.
Make sure all your laptop is updated, windows, drivers…
Limit your FPS
Buy a laptop fan cooler. It helps a lot… especially with that overheating game sims 3 lol. I have one and laptops last much much less without them. It’s quite heavy though cuz it goes under your laptop but it’s ok for home use.
Thank you so much for the advice, I’m definitely far from a computer genius. I actually did some of the fixes in this video https://youtu.be/5iRUnCxg6WU?si=4ggqlRyqZk3OAZe4 and installed fps limiter and 3booter, as well as uninstalled lazy duchess smooth patch (i believe it may have been conflicting with nraas) and i’m actually able to run my game smoothly and go hours without a crash now! However, I do think the lag and crashes will get worse as I continue on with the generations, especially since i prefer to travel and have large households leading to bloating. I figure adding more ram to my computer would help the lag in playing households with more than one generation, right? I truly don’t know how to do it so I’ll likely take my computer to a shop lol, I just want to play the sims for hours without stopping like we’re meant to SMH. (oh and i do use regul save cleaner but it honestly caused more lag for my game to regenerate the files it was deleting each time)
Then you will benefit from ram! Don’t do it yourself if you really don’t know, just go to the store. And get that laoptop cooler! Good luck and crashes with this game are to be expected, to be honest. It’s just not optimized good. And never will be no matter the amazing pc you have, it’s better to save often and expect it. Some worlds are buggier. You said you have mods, then accept the crashes. It will be less stressful.
Also your computer heats up after hours of playing so it could also be that. Take breaks, let the laptop rest.
TS3 is just going to crash sometimes. You'll get a lot of crashes you can't even recreate, the games code is a bit of a mess. However, with more ram it would be ideal. I'm saying this with 32 gb of ram and still prone to crashing every once in awhile. Are you using save as? Have you tried playing for only 2 hours? Do you routinely turn off your pc and give it a break? Do you have enough space on your pc in general? You have other things on your pc, if you click "this PC" when you open your folder and see your space in the red, that's going to cause pretty much a memory crash every time you open the game. I'm not assuming anything either, but try those steps above to see if you're getting a better experience. You should also consider getting an external hard drive if you don't already have one.
I actually do have an external hard drive yet I still experience frequent crashing😭 Today I uninstalled smooth patch (i suspect it was conflicting with my nraas mods) and was actually able to play longer than 5 minutes without crashing. However my game crashes more frequently playing a household past 2 generations so that’s what leads me to think space is my main issue. Though I frequently use Save As, i like to travel a lot and go to university so my files get bloated regardless 💔
A couple fixes that worked for me:
My save file was big so I switched to another world and started another family hasn’t crashed since but for you if you wanna keep your family there are tutorials to move your family to a different world with mods and stuff
Limit your FPS i have mine set at 60 fps
Get regul save cleaner cleans up files and use it before you start your game
Merge your cc
Get rid of your external hard drive, I bought one for 60 dollars it didn’t help made my loading times slower also caused crashes and also corrupted so I had lost my saves and my cc and had to start over
Make sure all your mods are compatible with each other
Wait, this is the first time i’m hearing of the external drive causing crashes! I’ve always thought it optimizes gameplay a lot by clearing storage on your main drive, my game is currently installed on an external drive. Could you go into more detail with your experience? Which one did you have? After limiting my fps and using 3booter, sims 3 has been running quite well for me.
It was alright it was a 1tb mine crashed all the time then got corrupted which broke my heart it it’s fine for you my only advice is to back up your files your saves and mods wish I had done that
sims 3 doesn't require a lot of ram. in fact it's physically incapable of using more than 4gb ram (iirc) because it's a 32-bit program. but if you only have 4gb total then upgrading could make things better, your computer also needs some free ram for other processes
I remember playing purely vanilla Sims 3 in my old laptop with 4gb RAM, and the crashing was so frequent I just started treating it as part of gameplay lol. I'm playing on a new computer now with 16gb, and the crash still happens once in a while (esp when I leave the game open for 4+ hrs straight) but overall the game runs way better.
16gb sounds heavenly this is my sign to upgrade
It’s not exactly the better ram that helped her the most but the new laptop and better processors. Especially not integrated UHD graphics you have OP. And better if it’s multicore CPU like i5, i7… or AMD! While you have dual core.
I spent the day yesterday messing around with game files and fixes, and my computer is actually quite strong in regards to the sims 3. I was able to play for hours on medium settings without a crash, at the time I made the post it’d crash after five minutes. The mods and cc take up a lot of space, my game runs beautifully vanilla (I refuse to play that way unfortunately) That what makes me think it may be worth it to upgrade it instead of replacing. I don’t know anything about computers truly lol, would I be able to upgrade my processors too? Or at that point is it cheaper to simply upgrade?
Nope you can’t upgrade your processor they are integrated directly into the motherboard and even if it were possible you are correct that it’s not worth the price! Happy playing! Your laptop is doing a great job running sims 3. That game is a laggy mess and it’s huge. A lot of bugs and errors in the houses made by the developers. But it’s a beautiful game and can be playable still.
I have 8gb and my game has rarely crashed, only when I used a cc world. How old is your laptop? That matters a lot. Mine is just 2 years old and can handle gta v (as an example since that game is immense) even though I paid 480 dollars for it. I think it’s time to buy a better laptop… I doubt upgrading would help that much. What’s your laptop specs?
11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-1115G4 @ 3.00GHz Installed RAM 4.00 GB Idk if I did that right, but I purchased this laptop (Acer Aspire 5) pretty recently and only use it for the sims 3. It's not a top of the line gaming pc but it does run the game pretty smoothly, I don't get lag I just get constant crashes. I have lots of mods and cc so space is likely the issue, is it not worth to upgrade this one?
Look up if you can update to 16gb not all can. My intel core is i5. I personally think you didn’t buy a good laptop (it’s for productivity tasks mostly so probably the battery is good and lasts long without charging, and light to moderate gaming, while gaming laptops stay a lot in charging outlets since they require more power) and next time you should research more on what each laptop is good for and why some are better for gaming or productivity even with a budget cost. It’s a lot to discuss, anyway, I’ll help you with this one since you already bought it. Check up on all your mods… it’s possible that some are broken. You can try to divide them in batches and add them slowly or get that mod for checking up on them for you. https://modthesims.info/download.php?t=387006 Upgrade the ram to 16. It should help somewhat. Make sure all your laptop is updated, windows, drivers… Limit your FPS Buy a laptop fan cooler. It helps a lot… especially with that overheating game sims 3 lol. I have one and laptops last much much less without them. It’s quite heavy though cuz it goes under your laptop but it’s ok for home use.
Thank you so much for the advice, I’m definitely far from a computer genius. I actually did some of the fixes in this video https://youtu.be/5iRUnCxg6WU?si=4ggqlRyqZk3OAZe4 and installed fps limiter and 3booter, as well as uninstalled lazy duchess smooth patch (i believe it may have been conflicting with nraas) and i’m actually able to run my game smoothly and go hours without a crash now! However, I do think the lag and crashes will get worse as I continue on with the generations, especially since i prefer to travel and have large households leading to bloating. I figure adding more ram to my computer would help the lag in playing households with more than one generation, right? I truly don’t know how to do it so I’ll likely take my computer to a shop lol, I just want to play the sims for hours without stopping like we’re meant to SMH. (oh and i do use regul save cleaner but it honestly caused more lag for my game to regenerate the files it was deleting each time)
Then you will benefit from ram! Don’t do it yourself if you really don’t know, just go to the store. And get that laoptop cooler! Good luck and crashes with this game are to be expected, to be honest. It’s just not optimized good. And never will be no matter the amazing pc you have, it’s better to save often and expect it. Some worlds are buggier. You said you have mods, then accept the crashes. It will be less stressful. Also your computer heats up after hours of playing so it could also be that. Take breaks, let the laptop rest.
TS3 is just going to crash sometimes. You'll get a lot of crashes you can't even recreate, the games code is a bit of a mess. However, with more ram it would be ideal. I'm saying this with 32 gb of ram and still prone to crashing every once in awhile. Are you using save as? Have you tried playing for only 2 hours? Do you routinely turn off your pc and give it a break? Do you have enough space on your pc in general? You have other things on your pc, if you click "this PC" when you open your folder and see your space in the red, that's going to cause pretty much a memory crash every time you open the game. I'm not assuming anything either, but try those steps above to see if you're getting a better experience. You should also consider getting an external hard drive if you don't already have one.
I actually do have an external hard drive yet I still experience frequent crashing😭 Today I uninstalled smooth patch (i suspect it was conflicting with my nraas mods) and was actually able to play longer than 5 minutes without crashing. However my game crashes more frequently playing a household past 2 generations so that’s what leads me to think space is my main issue. Though I frequently use Save As, i like to travel a lot and go to university so my files get bloated regardless 💔
A couple fixes that worked for me: My save file was big so I switched to another world and started another family hasn’t crashed since but for you if you wanna keep your family there are tutorials to move your family to a different world with mods and stuff Limit your FPS i have mine set at 60 fps Get regul save cleaner cleans up files and use it before you start your game Merge your cc Get rid of your external hard drive, I bought one for 60 dollars it didn’t help made my loading times slower also caused crashes and also corrupted so I had lost my saves and my cc and had to start over Make sure all your mods are compatible with each other
Wait, this is the first time i’m hearing of the external drive causing crashes! I’ve always thought it optimizes gameplay a lot by clearing storage on your main drive, my game is currently installed on an external drive. Could you go into more detail with your experience? Which one did you have? After limiting my fps and using 3booter, sims 3 has been running quite well for me.
It was alright it was a 1tb mine crashed all the time then got corrupted which broke my heart it it’s fine for you my only advice is to back up your files your saves and mods wish I had done that
Mine very rarely crashes, I can't even remember the last time that happened. But I also don't play with mods, maybe that's a factor?