Ramdom Crashing - Please Help!

[Cherrie1980]

I have been experiencing random crashes during game play. I can not play for extended periods of time. Usually it crashes 30 minutes into the game. So far, I tried:

1. Playing the game in windowed mode
2. Updated my display/video card driver
3. Uninstalled and reinstalled the game including the World Adventure pack
4. Fallowed the steps list in this forum's FAQ
5. Deleted cached files

I have the world adventures expansion pack installed and I have been experiencing most of my problem since installing the expansion pack. Help on this would be appreciated.


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System Information
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Time of this report: 3/22/2010, 19:36:51
Machine name: CHERRIE-PC
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Ultimate (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.091208-0542)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Dell XPS420
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A04
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 3326MB RAM
Page File: 2308MB used, 4548MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 7.00.6002.18107 32bit Unicode

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DxDiag Notes
------------
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 2: No problems found.
Sound Tab 3: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.

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DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D: 0/4 (retail)
DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (retail)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail)
DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

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Display Devices
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Card name: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x9501)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9501&SUBSYS_25421028&REV_00
Display Memory: 1913 MB
Dedicated Memory: 506 MB
Shared Memory: 1406 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Dell E248WFP(Digital)
Driver Name: atiu9pag.dll,aticfx32.dll,atiumdag.dll,atidxx32.dll,atiumdva.cap
Driver Version: 8.14.0001.6095 (English)
DDI Version: 10.1
BGRA Supported: Yes
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 2/2/2010 23:22:58, 20480 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp:
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-D641-11CF-5764-4305A1C2C535}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x9501
SubSys ID: 0x25421028
Revision ID: 0x0000
Revision ID: 0x0000
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_C

[DarkAmaranth]

Is the launcher and the actual game executable both set to run as admin? Also if you have RealTek HD audio, USB speaker or use headphone and your monitor is connected via an HDMI cable, you will want to go to your computer manufactuer's website and update the Realtek driver. It fixes and issu where in the above senario the audio driver would fail then recover without notifying you. That never caused a crash for me, but it did cause the game to freeze or sim to freeze while time still moved forward. It may be the cause of your crash. Worth a shot since everything else looks good.

[Cherrie1980]

@DarkAmaranth The game should be set to run as Admin. I am not sure, but I will try that and updating the RealTek Driver.

[ellacharmed]

In order to better solve your problem, please go through the following as listed below:

Sims 3 - Game Crashes
For game crash related issues, please see this FAQ:

Game Help:Sims 3 Crashing

Do you have CC? Have you tested new game without CC, with new user files?

What graphical settings do you play on? Low, mid, all high?
Are you monitoring temps?

There are several threads here on crashing. You might want to browse through the first 2-3 pages on this forum for them, for some other suggestions you could try.

In particular, knowing the answers I posted in post#3 in this thread would be extremely helpful. There are more questions than what you've already supplied in your first post. :)

On occasion you might be asked to do a long FAQ - please make sure you do all the steps and don't just skip over them. You'll often find that these long FAQs have all the details you need. If nothing in the above FAQs fixes your problem you may post again detailing exactly which you have done and which steps failed.