My sister and I both are getting in the habit of doing this. We think it's really depressing to go back to the old hood and try and re-create what we lost after the crash. Sometimes we forget to save often, obviously .

Does anyone else do that? If not, how do you deal with it when you lose days or weeks of Sim-time when your game crashes unexpectedly?

I never start new when the game crashes. If it happens and I hadn't saved, oh well, chalk it up to "Damn forgot to save!"

I think tho I saw a Mod that auto saves, could be wrong. Maybe someone else will know for sure. Would be a lot easier than starting fresh!

I don't restart after a save, but I usually do a clean install with every other pack. I find that most bugs come from using a pre-existing save with a new expansion. It just doesn't seem to work. I try to remember to export families that I like, to the library. You can stick them in a new hood and they still have their old skills etc., but are clean of relationships and general borkdom.

What? Don't you ever backup?

I just forget to save, which is the point of the question. Is there a different and better way to back up that's easier to remember to do?

In The Sims 2, my game never crashed and I think I've only ever crashed once since The Sims 3 launch day. I also end up starting from scratch with each EP that comes out because I end up doing a clean install with a new EP. I install it and it works ok... then it goes thru the buggy stage and I get frustrated and just uninstall/reinstall and start from scratch. My game usually ends up playing a whole lot better than it did before the new clean install. The only time I didn't do that was with Late Night. The game runs so well and no lag, bugs, glitches that I haven't done a clean install with this EP. I haven't got Generations yet .... we'll see if I need to start from scratch with that install... when I get it

I don't know about backups per se, but when you save, you get a folder in your /Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Saves that has a .backup folder of your current world and its the back up of that hood. If your hood gets corrupted, you can use that last backup to start your saved game again I guess. Since I've never done it, I'm not too sure how it's done actually. I'm sure someone else will come along and give you a hint of how to do it.

Wouldn't removing everything from My Documets be enough?

I've only had to re-install twice, when my computer broke and I lost everything, and when I messed around with the files in the Sims folder under Program Files. I don't think there is anything as boring as a clean install, I did it when I had OLS, so that was 3 EP's + 3 SP.

I play in 1 Sim week rounds, then switch families, and I do a "Save As", every time I switch households, then on Sunday, when I'm done playing for the week, I zip the latest Save and put it on an external hard-drive.

So far I've only restarted three times, when the computer broke, when I messed up my hood by trying to switch France to another holiday location and when I messed up my hood by installing LN but not removing my mods folder.

Neither games (TS2/TS3) feel buggier than the other, the only crashes I've experienced have so far been related to mod incompatibility. So far the backups have just been there to give me peace of mind, and haven't yet had to use them.

So the answer to the question is no, I wouldn't re-start the whole hood just because of a crash.

I've never started a new game because of a crash, but I have had crashes where I thought, "I'm bored I want to play xyz neighborhood now" and scrapped the old save. I play challenges so when a family finishes the challenge, they're kind of boring after that. As for that, though, I don't get very many crashes as I have a ton of memory, keep an eye on Task Manager while I play, save frequently (Using "Save As" with a unique name) and exit the game and restart it every few hours to clear the cache.

Lately the only crashes I've been getting are when I use a mod or CC that isn't compatible, and that's not such a big deal. Just remove the item and re-launch the game.

I get crashes from patch bugs. It's highly annoying. And I think I probably/might go back to my old hood when I forget what I lost in the crash. it's a decent system for me to have more than one hood going at a time .

Thats whats saves are for.....i might get 1 CTD a month at most....but i have 12 different COMPLETE saves(the whole sims 3 folder)....so when it does happens...
well cut and paste is your friend...

No but then again, I've never had a crash.
*knocks on wood*

Wow, some of you go to real extremes. Restarting from scratch everytime an EP or crash comes about? For real??
The only time I completely scrapped my progress was when the game kept crashing repeatedly on TS2.
LAA was in its infancy then, so options were limited.
And when I was forced to give up due to constant crashing, I uninstalled TS2 rather than face the pain of starting over, and waited the 15 months until TS3 came out.
I don't know how you guys delete your saves so easily. I even keep some on a DVD so that they will forever be there.
And when I die, they will get passed onto my kids.*


*Okay, that bits a joke, but you get my point.

I've only had one crash yet, nothing big because I wasn't playing with my sims *luckily*

No, I grit my teeth and redo. But it's taught me to save all the time now.

You would think so but even after I've done that the game still was wonky and a clean install was the only way I could get my game right again. As I said installing Late Night was the first time ever I never had to do it and I'm hoping Generations will be the same so I can just carry on playing

Only ever times I switch hoods is because either I am bored with the hood I am in now or because my game safe has become corrupted and unplayable. I save very often an old habit from other games and from school (word is notorious for crashing). And especially now as my computer card has decided to change the resolution on me on occasion while I am playing Sims3 and that usually results in me having to restart the dratted computer because I can't do anything. Not even alt-tab out of the game.

Usually if I do change hoods I migrate my favorite Sim and his/her immediate family & best friends over to the new hood.

I don't restart after crashes since I don't tend to crash that often. I also don't restart due to corruption because I'm a bit overzealous with my backups...

I have my computer auto copy my saves, 7-zip them, and upload them to my dropbox account when I turn it on. That way if something corrupts I can just unzip one of my backups, or if my computer explodes my backups will auto-download back to my computer when I get everything set up again.

A bit excessive maybe... but I damn sure don't ever lose my saves.