Elfgore said:
Some games just seem to be held together by nothing more than duct tape and wire and the slightest glance will cause it to lock-up, crash, or completely bring your system to a halt. Time to talk about the worse of the worst.
Mine is The Sims 3. This game runs like complete ass on my computer, I'm unsure if it does for others, but mine is terrible. I'm lucky to get thirty minutes of game time before the game hard crashes. Mods that are suppose to fix it don't help, EA technical supports answer was to literally bring this game over to Origin, and let's not forget that I've sunk probably a hundred dollars into a game that I can barely play. I'm pretty sure even if I just glance at it wrong, the game will go down in flames.
Notable mentions; The Sims: Medieval, which would hard crash my entire computer. Broforce, as if you pause during one of their cutscenes, the game just freaks the fuck out. Stranglehold, which was so epic that it couldn't run it correctly on the PS3.
So let's hear all of your unstable game horror stories.
Running the risk of assuming your technical knowledge, I've had family and friends encounter issues playing Sims 3 once they've gotten some DLC and I have some advice that worked for them, I don't know how many of these you've tried but I figured I would try to help (a lot of this stuff can potentially be helpful to anyone having problems with a large selection of games):
Make sure your PC is nice and clean. You may have Defender or some kind of anti-virus solution, but a lot of stuff can still get through.
Completely free programs can help. I recommend giving Malwarebytes Free an update and run:
https://www.malwarebytes.org/.
SuperAntiApyware isn't quite as good at getting rid of the bad stuff, but it is GREAT at getting rid of little shit programs that are tacked on to the installs of other programs as well as browser toolbars and such. It's also free:
http://www.superantispyware.com/.
Make sure your computer is defragmented. Yes, I still have people come back to me saying that their HDD was 55% fragmented or so, and it makes everything better (not applicable if you're using an SSD, you would know if you have one of those). You can run a defragmentation by right clicking on your C: in your "My computer" window and clicking the "tools" tab.
Make sure your computer isn't booting along with programs you don't need at the ready and running all the time. If you're running Windows 7, click the start button and type "msconfig" (without the quotes) into the search bar, in Windows 8, press Windows key+S and type the same command. When this window comes up, click the "startup" tab. This is a list of all the programs that launch whenever you start your computer. If you don't know what a program is, you can google it to see if you want it disabled or just ignore it. Basically, if you don't need Itunes or other programs of the sort running in the background and taking up your boot time, you can uncheck it here and restart your computer to only launch that program when you need it.
Have your graphics card drivers up to date. Even those using Intel imbedded graphics can be helped immensely by updating to their current beta drivers. Just go to the website for Nvidia, AMD, or Intel as applicable and download their most recent driver for chip. Their websites have become much simpler at finding and installing the appropriate driver for your card, and this can make a huge difference. If you have a laptop, see if newer drivers are available for your model by searching through the drivers on your laptop manufacturer's website (the ones that came with it on CD are now very outdated).
Make sure you have the latest dependencies. Steam and Origin usually do this automatically, but if you're having trouble with games it doesn't help to do this manually. For DirectX, just run their web updater:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
Your computer may also not be set to install Windows updates automatically. When I install Windows, I have mine set to only alert me when new updates are available. Just in case, Windows Update can be found in the Start menu of Windows 7 and by searching for "Windows Update" (without the quotes) after pressing Windows key+S in Windows 8. Download and install any critical updates, and most optional updates that aren't language packs that you don't need.
Make The Sims 3 LAA (Large Address Aware). This will only help if you are running an x64 version of Windows and have 4GB or more of RAM. This wonderful little program essentially allows The Sims 3 (or any other non-LAA game, DEFINITELY both Fallout 3 and New Vegas as well to everyone reading this!) access to the RAM that exists above and beyond the original 2GB x86 limit. Just point the program to the Sims 3 .exe (which should be in C:\program files (x86)\Origin Games\ etc until you find the .exe that launches the game, and enable LAA for it using the tool. While you're there, right-click in the same .exe and under the compatibility tab click "Run this application as an administrator". If you still have issues after these steps, try returning to this same tab and click "disable visual themes" as well. You could also try setting it to Vista compatibility mode under this same tab. You may need to make these changes to the .exe for different expansions if they have their own .exe.
http://ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php <----- Again this program will help a lot of people with Fallout 3 and NV problems. I know with the Sims 3 specifically the expansions really up the RAM requirements and you need as much as you can get. If you've installed mods, you may want to consider re-installing the game through Origin and trying to play without the mods you've been using as they are known to conflict with each other.
If you're logging into Origin and the Sims Network, see if your firewall isn't blocking some aspect of it. You can search for "firewall" using the methods we searched for other Windows tools above. When you open it, on the left hand side you should see a link that says "Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall", which will open a list of what goes through your connection and what gets blocked. Click "change settings", then put a checkmark for Origin, anything saying EA, or The Sims, then click OK on the bottom.
Some people don't like running games with 3rd party programs, but I absolutely love this program (not an employee or anything):
http://www.razerzone.com/us-en/cortex/game-booster Razer Cortex game booster. Basically, the program in "boost" mode closes every program and service that isn't needed to play a game, and I've freed up 800-1200MB of RAM at times by boosting with the program. The "recommended" boost settings should be fine. If it doesn't automatically "boost" when you launch the game, manually boost by clicking "boost now" under the boost tab before launching the game. The program also takes screenshots, records video, and shows the current FPS you're running (all optional). You can also defrag the individual game folders for all your installed games through the program. If not even this helps with Sims 3, at least you'll have more RAM available for all your other games and can see your FPS while playing.
Whew. That ended up being more for everybody, but hopefully I was able to help out at all. I do this for a living and a lot of the little things can often make an annoying problem go away, or at least make things faster/smoother. I recommend updating/running Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware at least once a week, and either setting your defragmenter to a time you won't be using your computer (the process makes doing other tasks much slower) or remembering to do it about once a month or so. If I couldn't help, I'm sorry, Maxis let the memory usage and leaks get out of hand with all the expansions and updates, and it sucks that Sims 4 is a lot more reliable.
If you or anyone else needs help about these steps or any PC questions, feel free to PM me, we also have PC Buliders and Hardware group where we sometimes discuss this kind of stuff (it's what I do for fun).
Captcha: problem solver. I shit you not. This thing actually is sentient.
