Hi,
I just want to say I'm posting here because I am literally going crazy with my Sims 3 kerfuffle!
Short version: I had the Steam versions of all Sims 3 games + Stuff packs and they worked perfectly on my laptop, as do all of my games until I bought Generations. Since then I was plagued with crashes to desktop upon entering any lot/house. I've tried a fair amount of fixes so please read on.

It was shortly after Generations that my troubles began. After a very, very long back and forth with Steam and EA and no resolution I bought the Sims 3, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations & Pets on cd to avoid the 36 hour download times I was dealing with before getting my games from Steam.

I have a HP Envy 17" laptop, Win 7, 4GB Ram and not an integrated graphics card + a big, raised fan to cool my system which has allows me to play Minecraft, Witcher 2, etc. My drivers are up to date, my system is defragged and I try to be a decent pc user.

Today my cds arrived and I followed the Sims forum guidelines to completely uninstall my Sims 3 content before reinstalling the games. Unfortunately I'm still suffering from the exact same issue as before: my game crashes to the "Sims 3 has encountered an error and has been forced to close" windows message about 1 ingame minute of playtime on any neighbourhood, lot or sim - including the pre-made sims.
The error message is as follows:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX
Application Name: TS3W.exe
Application Version: 0.2.0.164
Application Timestamp: 4e72aec1
Fault Module Name: StackHash_044f
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Offset: 233660a0
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Data: 00000008
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 044f
Additional Information 2: 044f5d804e095772eddecffc100bd7ae
Additional Information 3: bbf4
Additional Information 4: bbf4cb14577eb4e51cf2a5c5744a4f4c


Now I've read around the forums and added my game + expansions to the DEP list, Run the program as an administrator, bypassed the launcher and ran the game from the "TS3W.exe" (as admin). I've installed the game completely free of custom content and tried using the Overclocker mod as that worked for me before to remove previous lag but nothing helps! I've played the game using "gamebooster" and I've changed my laptop's power setting to max performance as that can help. I've run the game in windowed mode, I've stopped the "superfetch" process but I still cannot play my games!

As I say, I apologise for the rant but this has been going on for over 2 months for me and the Sims has been my favourite pc game since Sims 1! It's so frustrating to have these issues and I just would appreciate some insight and help into all of this mess especially from more experienced Sims and pc users. I'm confused and frustrated and I just want to enjoy my games.

Thank you in advance for reading and/or helping me!
Kitty

Edited to add: I've also tried running my game without being connected to the internet with my antivirus software (Windows) and Firewall disabled but still no joy.

Well, your laptop is under spec to play TS3, but there may nonetheless be ways to prolong its gaming life. One very important question is whether this just happens in live mode - can you, for example, load up a new town, go into CAS, and create sims without crashing? Can you use buy/build mode, or Edit Town?

It is?

It is just in live mode - I can choose any town, create sims, build/buy.

I had the same problem until about an hour ago; now my game is OK. The problem in my game seems to have been the origin/store/launcher patch. I only downloaded Origin yesterday or the day before and said yes when it wanted to update with a patch. The patch clearly didn't take as I could see something called patch in the list of downloads and it wasn't checked as installed. Restarting origin and the PC didn't fix it and yes I tried several times. Today I downloaded a new 'hood from MTS2 (Charlton Island looks great btw), clicked the origin icon and the launcher asked if it could patch. I said yes and behold the game worked fine. The trick may have been to have that new 'hood there to kick the patch into action somehow. Installing Riverview again was mentioned in a thread about how to get Barnacle Bay to install.

DK if it's the same for you, but worth trying as it's a lot less painful than reinstalling. Anyway good luck in getting your game to work.

"Sims 3 has encountered an error and has been forced to close" and Exception Code: c0000005 and this crashing in Live mode is usually a DEP problem. If you have done it, I'd suggest to remove everything in the list. Reboot. And do the DEP tweaks for TS3W.exe ONLY. Then create a shortcut to that executable to your Desktop if you have not done so, and start the game using that.

You only have the Overclock mod and no other CC? Same crashings in vanilla, cc-free settings? Well, you mentioned being cc-free and then having Overclock, so I thought I had better confirm.

On patch 1.26? You installed the patches via the game's installers or a direct superpatcher download to run 1.26 and then you install the add-ons? I mean, Standard or Alternative Method, from Game_Help:TS3_PatchingEPSP^wiki?
Did the base game on retail 1.0, ie totally unpatched run? Or you didn't test that?

And, yeah...is Origin installed? Does it crash with Origin uninstalled?

C -
I tried to force the Origin update by downloading Riverview as I hadn't done so but I had the same issues.

Ella - I didn't word my original post very well! What I meant is that I'd read about Overwatch being useful for lag/crash prevention so I'd tried using that after a vanilla fresh Sims 3 (cc free) did not work - sorry for the confusion!
As of right now I played for about 20 minutes (real time) without issue after removing my DEP exceptions and then rebooting and adding TS3W.exe back to the DEP exception list (the only other exception I had previously was Steam?)
I rebooted and played for about 20 minutes as I was excited! Sims 3 Pets is not unwrapped as of right now and I'm chomping at the bit hehe. However, I've just gone to play again (still a fresh CC free without Overwatch, just Riverview installed) and the game froze on a black screen and I had to manually power off my laptop.
I've reinstalled the Catalyst Control software (my graphics card is the AMD Radeon 5800HD) and re-updated the driver and I'm just about to test the game again.

I'm really frustrated right now: I realise that actual tower pc are better in terms of gaming performance but I travel a lot for my job and a laptop is the best choice for me. I consulted some friends who know more about pcs than I do and they advised that to play Sims 3, games like the Witcher 2 etc that this machine would be powerful enough and I'd had no issues until June 2011! I even bought a huge external cooling system thing to place my laptop on which keeps the temperature down

The updates came from the installation process and then the Sims 3 Launcher (blue window thing). The Sims 3 installation asked me to patch my game and I did and I ran it at that point and got the DEP problem which is why I added TS3W.exe to my DEP list so I naively thought it was fine. Via Steam I had the base game, Ambitions, WA, Late Night and Generations running along with Sims 3 store content that I got from having Simspoints and as I say, until the patch in August time everything was perfectly fine.
I've double checked that I have the "middle of the road" graphics settings enabled, my Win 7 settings are performance chosen (as per other guides on optimising gaming) so I'm just at a loss really

Sorry, I forgot to mention I'm just trying out the TS3W shortcut now

Hi,
Sorry for the delay in responding! I tried to remove everything except for the TS3W.exe dep and it worked for the 10 minutes (real time) that I tried it.

Earlier on today I tried to play and it loaded up but after a while the game began to freeze, I got a black screen and then Sims 3 reloaded - this happened three times until I was able to "Save + Exit". I had a message in the taskbar saying that "AMD graphics driver stopped responding but had recovered". I tried to reload the game but it goes right back into the freeze - blackscreen - error - recover cycle. This only happens in Live mode, build and buy modes are fine and it loads perfectly.

I'm really confused to be honest as I shopped around for a reliable, capable machine and the Envy should deliver and be able to cope with the Sims graphics. I even googled people asking if the Envy could handle the Sims 3 and the results say that it can
I think at this point I'm going to contact HP on Monday as the machine is still under warranty and see what they say as I can't find a fix that helps me.

Thank you very much for your advice and suggestions.

Was this ever resolved? I'm having the same problem with my game crashing on live mode. Just at my house. I have base game only, and Twallan's SP and Master Controller. I have a very similar laptop, all up to date and all. any ideas? I can play with my sims if the aren't in the house, but if they are, then the game will black screen, and if I don't get out fast enough, have my computer crash to BSOD. My base game is on the DEP list.

My game also crashes in live mode. I took out all CC and mods and then launched it. If I pause it, I can zoom around town. But once I hit play in live mode, I got 10 seconds before the game crashes.

I have the exact same problem. I can do everything in my game except actually play it in live mode. Yesterday, it was working just fine. I haven't installed any CC or patch since then.
Great.

Exact same problem. I have tried all the fixes recommended by Mod The Sims, and the game crashes ~10 seconds after a family loads. I have tried loading several different families--with or without pets--in different towns, and they all crash within 10 seconds of playing live. The game can be "played" in pause mode, meaning I can zoom in and out and pan around, but as soon as live mode is engaged, I get a "The Sims 3 has stopped working." Windows error.

I am having the exact same problem as all of yall. so frustrating

Please all of you start new threads for your individual problems. Please also post your system specifications and check that your games are fully patched. Also try the game problem guide.

Game Help:System Specs^wiki
Game Help:Sims 3 Game Problem^wiki
Game Help:TS3 Patching^wiki

In your threads, please let us know what you have tried.