I have TS3 version 1.46

I mostly downloaded all my CC from MTS. A few from Simlogical, stylistssims, etc... mostly objects, hair, painting. I have the latest Awesomemod.

The game just can not run stable enough. I tried with and without awesomemod without any help. I have checked Indie Compatibility Checker with 1700 compatibilities but all of them point toward the same files (which stated by Delphi that it is false alarm).

Problem: The game can not seem to run stable at all. Once in a while it would freeze when I switch between Play/Buy/Build mode. Indication of the game about to crash is when my menu is darkened or my sims' clothing lost texture (like wearing a 1 color cat suit). When it comes to saving, even saving to a new file, I have a 60% chance to get error code 12 or 13. And when it does save, I find certain buildings such as the EA made Museum, all the wallpapers are gone to be replaced with alot of "?" wallpaper.

I have a very powerful computer, Quad Core Intel CPU 9450 with 8Gb RAM DDR2, 4890 ATI video card with 1Mb RAM and plenty of HDD space.

I just do not know what to do anymore, I have tried everything, I can not find which files cause problem. The only hacking mod I have is probably Awesomemod. Anything that comes close is objects from lemoncandy, and other stair/fence recolor. But Indie Compatibility Checker can not find any error in this. I need help!!

I'm moving this to game help since you don't mention having any *other* issues with your computer (Technical Support is for general issues, hardware problems and the like).

The "?" problem is a known issue – for some people it seems to go away when they re-wallpaper the entire lot. It looks like a few broken lots were shipped with the game. Do a search for "question mark" or "rainbow tile" in this forum, there's a handful of threads about it.

Your error codes are indicating that you have a computer problem. Losing textures might mean your gpu is failing or overheating. Have you tested your machine for temps while playing?

I am sure it was not shipped with broken lots. I am sorry I forgot to mention that in order to fix this .... I create brand new game of the same map so I can save the good lots, and replace my current game with these saved lots. And these lots manage to break all the time with "?" wallpapers. And not just "?" but depending on the degree of damage, sometimes doors and windows disappear too. So it is safe to say that these lots are broken during game play, not original shipment.

I attached 2 screenshots. But I found out there are more than just these 2 buildings, but EA buildings are getting affected, such as Goth's building. And once again, no matter how often I fix this, it is getting plagued again, with different various degrees. Yes, the "?" can appear progressively on an infected building base on how heavy the "infection" is.

There are 2 reasons I don't even bother recolor, or fix with original lots because it keeps happening again, and second, saving a file is barely possible. I tried to save a game about 10 times only to get error 12 and 13.

I ensure you it is not my graphic card failing. If I relocate all the mods, this kind of problems do not seem to happen at all. I highly doubt a few mods have the ability to cause my GPU to overheat.

The thing is: I do not wish to play TS3 without mods.

But I hope we focus on the bigger issue: I can not save my game. Every time I save, it is either code 12, 13, or it will crash to desktop, or it will save indefinitely that I have to force close the game (I waited 20 minutes for it, no reason a game save would take that long while a known successful save took 1 minute).

EA *did* ship the game with broken lots. It's nothing you did or didn't do. If you did that search that was suggested, you'd have found that a lot of people have the issue (and I'll bet most go unreported - I've just started having the issue myself, despite not having any other game issues at all, and I didn't see the point in mentioning it). You'd also have found that they only affect about three or four specific lots in the whole game - all of which are EA's. It never happens straight away...you could play for a week and *bam*, suddenly your town has some new eyesores, or you could be playing for a few generations before it happens. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all. As far as I'm aware, nobody knows exactly why these lots are buggy, but it can happen under so many conditions (people with mods, people without, people with strong computers, people with weak ones, people with patched games, people without etc) that it is apparent that it is EA's doing. This issue is probably unrelated to your "error 12 & 13s", which is most likely coursed by a hardware issue. You can deny that until the cows come home, but you asked for help, and you're getting it. If you *really* think it's something to do with a mod, we can't help you - you'll have to manually go through your folder and find the dodgy one, or play without. There isn't much point asking for help then disagreeing with everything that is suggested, including getting rid of mods that even you think might be the issue.

I am not trying to disagree with everyone's opinion. I am just eliminating non-possibilities. I mean, how will I accept the answer that it is my graphic card's problem when removing the mod folder I have no problem at all? And regarding PC spec, I believe my spec is way better than most TS3 players. How do I accept that my 8Gb RAM is *not* enough for TS3? Most of the players do not use 64-bit OS therefore their highest RAM they can get is 3Gb. This is definitely NOT my concern. I am sorry if I offend anyone here who tried to help, but I did search for the "?" tile as suggested. And all their problems seem to be weak computer, low RAM, corrupted saved games, etc... I have tried numerous saved games, restarted my computer a dozen times, the rainbow tiles still come back. But again, that is not even my biggest concern. Why do you guys force me to accept that my computer is not powerful enough? I highly doubt I need a $5000 computer to play this game while most players here play just fine without it.

But I can live with broken lots. I just can not accept the fact that I can not save any game at all. There is no way I can go through 2000 mods myself. But my biggest question is should I worry about normal object/hair/clothing mods with key_ID overriding each other reported by Indie Compatibility Checker? Or I only worry about "TUNING" and "CORE" mods?

If I don't have to worry about normal mods with similar key_ID, then this will definitely narrow down my problems.

If Delphy said not to use the checker for it, then don't use it for it. I don't use it myself, but I'm sure I've read that it will always come up with errors if you try to put things other than tuning mods through it. As much of a pain as it will be, you're just going to have to sift through all your mods until you find the dodgy one...I have to do it all the time, and it's one of my biggest pet peeves of this game. Still, it's got to be worth it if it means all the crashing and not being able to save goes away.

Delphy did not say NOT to use the mod. Indie Compatibility Checker is definitely not the cause of this problem.


from http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=356733

Correct me if I am wrong, this program does no modification to anything, it simply "checks" for errors in its own standards. Yes, there are false positives, but it is the only program out there if I can check mods for what they are, to tell whether they are normal, Tuning, or Core mods. Please correct me if I am wrong, but Indie Compatibility Checker is definitely not the cause of my problem.

No, I didn't say that it was causing the issue. I said that you can't use it for anything other than tuning mods. I'm sorry that I said Delphy said that, I thought you mentioned that before. However, regardless of who said what, there's no point putting through other files and getting false positives, what's that going to achieve? Put the tuning mods through and see if they clash, but the rest of your CC will have to be sorted manually. Yes, it's frustrating, and you're not alone in wishing there was a one-click solution to bad/clashing/issue-causing mods, but there isn't one at this time apart from the Indie one, which only does tuning mods. Besides, this isn't likely to be a compatibility issue at all - if it was, the game would most likely crash at start-up, or hang. It's more likely that you've just got a bad mod in there somewhere.

You might want to keep an open mind and make sure to monitor your hardware so you don't fry your card. It takes minimal processor power to run CUPID and make sure your fans are spinning at the proper RPMs and that your cores are not running hot. If you have no baseline for normalcy how will you know when it is overheating?


Um, yes. You put them in your Mods folder so you have the responsibility to find which one causes your game not to save.

We won't be able to tell you what mod is causing the problem. Use the 50% method as outlined in the FAQ. It will probably only take a few restarts to figure out which mod is causing your problem.

We've been doing this for a long, long time and have FAQ's for just your sort of problem.
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?..._Custom_Content This is written for Sims2, but can easily be tweaked for Sims3. Skip to the 50% method.

What is considered a "bad mod"? What kind of mod has the ability to crash the game? That is very unclear to me. Take a simple mod, say, some cloned decorative "useless objects" made by lemoncandy found on here, MTS. Would these mods have the ability to crash the game, too? Would any mod have the ability to crash? Or only certain mods, such as hacking mod (modify car speed, learning speed, change scripts, etc...)

I just realize that while removing all the mods as I tested before, I have yet to remove those mods that are installed via .sims3pack. Would these mods be inclusive to the problem causing? And if they are, where can I find them?

Also, please stop attacking my computer. I am running this computer in an air conditioned room. I have software monitoring CPU temperature, and in fact, I have a window to look into my computer case, and all the fans have LED. I run intensive programs on this computer, including simulation programs from work. I also do a lot of work on Photoshop while multitasking with 20 other programs running. This has taken my Quad core CPU threshold to 90% before. All these have not crashed me once. So running TS3 on a clean system (rebooted, with only 1 web browser and MSN running) should not come crashing on me. So while I am very frustrated with TS3, my computer hardware is definitely NOT an issue here.

Thanks for the response, haylz320. I know Indie Checker is giving a lot of false positive data, but among it, I still can retrieve a lot of good info from it. At least I can find out which mods are considered Tuning mods (presumably with XML files in there). And yesterday I found one odd mod considered as "Core" mod by Indie. Yet I am surprised it did not crash with Awesome mod. Anyhow, I removed the mods, the game still behaved the same way, so that little Core mod is not the cause.

I am not hoping for 1 click solution. But instead, I am hoping for someone who is knowledgeable enough to point out to me the "possible suspects". Another word: all the .package files are suspects? Or only certain ones (namely Awesome mod is a prime suspect). Because my issue is not an instant crash on load screen issue like loading CAS Slider mod on new TS3 version, it takes a lot more probing around.

But I have been testing mods all night as well, as we speak.

tomomi1922, please don't be ridiculous -- nobody is "attacking your computer" just because they point out that "losing textures MIGHT mean your gpu is failing". People are trying to help you by pointing out possible causes for your problem, that's all.

Although I'm sure some mods could cause crashes more than others, I've found there isn't a distinct pattern to what is good and what isn't. Awesomemod may indeed be the problem (try removing it and running the game without it for awhile), but it could very well also be something a lot smaller as well. Hair can cause all sorts of issues, but usually that is on lower-end computers as they have extremely high polycounts at times. Try taking out a few larger mods first, or all the smaller ones. If you can rule some of them out, then that's a big step. We can't really help you much more than that, since a lot of mods can cause crashing and we don't know which mods you've got. Plus, just because a certain mod causes issues on your machine doesn't mean it causes it on others some of the time (although again, this is usually more to do with lower-end computers, but not all the time). I'd suggest if you've got an idea on a few mods it might be, maybe retrace your steps and go to the page you go it from (if its from here, anyway) and read the 'comments' section. This could make the whole process a lot longer, but that option is always there.

I am not being ridiculous. I am just trying to narrow down the issues. I have done several tests on my computer, and I even went as far as dislocating CC folder (via resource.cfg) and ran the game with no problem. So by now I am certain it is not GPU issue. Yet, I keep on receiving responses on computer issue, this only escalates the thread longer without helping the real issue, something I am trying to avoid here.

I am sorry if I offended anyone, but my computer is fine, it is not helping to convince me the issue is GPU when all my tests so far narrow down to possible CC issues at large. I appreciate all the inputs, and I am looking forward to solve the problems with all your helps.

Once again, I have narrowed down this problem as CC issue. And I am working on it. Please no more suggestion it "might" be my computer or GPU, it is really not helping me nor anyone reading this thread.

This is something I am waiting to hear. So according to you, "everything" is a suspect. I am already working on testing all my mods, knowing I won't have a better way out.

Do you know where .sims3pack files are installed to? I need to get to them as well. As much as I try to avoid, a few CC out there are available via .sims3pack files only. There is no convenient way to open them up, so I just installed them via TS3 Launcher. Now I need to find them to test. I really hope TS3 doesn't pack them into one gigantic .package file.

The sims3pack files themselves are all thrown into one big file after they're installed. However, a copy of the file you install is moved to My Docs > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Downloads. These aren't the installed files though. The only way to get rid of those (well, the easiest way) is to uninstall them through the launcher.

Do you know if lots can be installed as .package file? I am looking for a convenient sims3pack explorer program as we speak and working toward moving all installed CC contents to Mod folder. I am planning to have nothing but EA files installed via Launcher so I guess all custom lots must go, since they may be a source of trouble as well.

99% of lots I have are from MTS, some lots kept on crashing my game in the past upon placing on map, so I stopped attempting to place them (and the game worked fine). Now with my grand issue, I start to remember about these troubled lots. Please tell me you can install lots without going through sims3pack method?

Update:

After about 20-25 saves and mods switching, here is what I found:

- Basic hacks work: bike speed, no intro, no jealousy, air guitar, floor thickness, no foot tapping while waiting, less blue night/longer shadow, energy gain for all beds, ..... they all work without hitch, yay!

- Skins work!! Yay!

- Cars work, entire objects folder works (whatever objects I got from MTS)

- Clothings work (entire collection of clothing from all over the place)

What don't seem to work?

- Hairs gave me a lot of Error 12/13 on save. Some hair from MTS is giving me problem. I have yet to test out which one.

- Some objects from mangosims2.free.fr, Simlogical.com, stylistsims.net, simscave.com are causing the crash. I have yet to dig out which one is causing.

I love my mods, so as soon as I find out which one is causing problem, I might consider cloning, rebuilding these mods. But I guess that is a long shot. On going with my test!

I know some stylist sims content is incompatible with the newest patch, that may partially account for your crashes.

Have you checked temps? Your computer is plenty strong enough to run the game but that doesn't mean nothing is wrong. Parts break. It's not a reflection on the strength of the machine. You've got some hot running parts running a game that tends to churn out lots of heat. It could be a CC problem but it could be the additional stress of the CC. It would be worth a look.

To check temps, download and run this program: http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php Leave it running while you play the game. You will want to play the game at least 20min. Then close the game, and screencap the program (don't just save a log) and post the image here.

Yep, I am running Real Temp. Temperature is stable at 35-45 degree C.



I am getting to it. But it appears more than stylistsims that cause this. I will update more as I find out. One of the hair on MTS is causing problem, too.

I am getting to it. But it appears more than stylistsims that cause this. I will update more as I find out. One of the hair on MTS is causing problem, too.