I've been trying to build my sims this big house (there are 7 sims in my household, 2 adults, 3 children and 2 toddlers). But every time I go to save after building, I get a message saying 'The Sims 3 has stopped working' and then it forces me to close the program. My computer is running it on Windows 7 and I have tried turning off weather and changing compatibility modes around. Nothing works. The game saves normally if I haven't done the building, but it is getting frustrating. I haven't got any custom content, so it can't be that. Please help! Any answers appreciated!

How big of a lot are you trying to build? When I try creating large builds (generally over about 40 squares) on my Win7 laptop the game crashes sometimes. Also what are the specs on your computer (RAM, hard drive space, etc)?

The house is about 30 by 28 squares and is two stories high.

Specs are:
CPU Core i3 1.8GHZ dual core
4 GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 4000
HDD 296 GB free (standard laptop HDD not SSD)

TS3 sometimes crashes or refuses to save after spending too much time in Buy/ Build mode. Try leaving Buy/ Build every 20 minutes, saving, then return to Buy/ Build. Good luck!

Thank you , I'll give it a try and let you know!

Not working unfortunately. Suspecting that my graphics card isn't powerful enough :/

Have you been able to create similar builds before using this computer?

It's a long shot, but here's a few ideas:
- Try updating the drivers for your graphics card.
- Lower your graphics settings to the very lowest quality in the Options menu, and enable object hiding. It might not be pretty but it might reduce the strain on your machine enough to allow you to finish your build.
- Last idea, you might try allocating more virtual memory following the instructions here. This does have some drawbacks, but it has helped on some computers and it's easy to change back if it doesn't make a significant difference.