You said ever since this past September?

Makes me wonder if an update to your system or a program you installed isn't interfering with the game, or that maybe something else is going on. There's no reason why the game should be crashing this much on a gaming machine, but anyway, here are detailed explanations of what you should be doing.

1. CLEARING CACHES
If you go into Documents/ElectronicArts/Sims 3 you'll see five files that end in .package. It's recommended that you delete them on a regular basis. I'm too lazy to type them out but they all end in .cache, like socialCache.package. Only delete these files that have "Cache" in the name (NOT the folders!).

2. USING THE GPU SUPPORT ADD ON MOD FROM NEXUS MODS
This is a step that everyone keeps thinking they can skip but it's important. Because your GPU is so new, the game doesn't recognize it, which can impact your card. So, you need to have it recognized. Nexus Mods is here: https://www.nexusmods.com/thesims3/mods/106

3. CAPPING FRAME RATES
Today's graphics cards will run the game at over 1000 FPS, causing it to crash. You have to use a program to limit the FPS to 30-60. AMD has a program called Adrenalin Edition and Nvidia a program called Nvidia Inspector where you can do this but you can also use something like Riva Tuner, a third party program. Not capping your card could be the very reason why you're experiencing so much crashing.

4. UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS AND SYSTEM
It's very important that you have your graphics drivers and system updated. Nvidia and AMD both have programs that should be doing this.

The other stuff you mentioned sounds like B.S. from trolls giving fake advice. I've never heard anything about power cycling or transcripts or anything else like that regarding this game.

"Power cycling" and "clean boot" are actually legitimate computing phrases for trouble-shooting and problem solving. You ever hear the old joke about the first suggestion computer techs give always being to turn a computer off, wait a little bit, and then turn it back on? That's power cycling, and the reason computer techs suggest it so much is that it often works. Turning a computer off, waiting a little bit, and then turning it back on gives the computer a chance to reset itself internally and resolve issues before they become problems.

As for clean boot, that's a legitimate trouble-shooting term. It's like starting Windows in Safe Mode, but even more bare-bones. The Windows support site has more information on what it is and how to use it. However, considering its nature, I'd use it ONLY AS A LAST RESORT! Remember, ONLY as a last resort.

Originally posted by Valden21:

"Power cycling" and "clean boot" are actually legitimate computing phrases for trouble-shooting and problem solving considering its nature, I'd use it ONLY AS A LAST RESORT! Remember, ONLY as a last resort.

I never said they weren't legitimate computing phrases. I'm talking about troubleshooting The Sims 3. Never in the 20+ years of this franchise have these ever solved anything, because there's no such thing as fixing crashing in this game by merely clean booting or power cycling. It's always something specific causing the issue. That's why I said advice OP read sounded like B.S., like a version of "git gud" or "just get more RAM" when trolls weren't interested in giving helpful advice.

A VERY common issue these days is simply not having .Net Legacy Framework 4.5 installed.

However, it seems you are getting past the launcher so that's likely not your issue.  However, if you are skipping the launcher, the game will launch it at certain times to interact with the EA websites. This will cause a crash if you don't have .Net Legacy Framework 4.5 installed.

The other most common issue is the GPU spindling (meaning going to fast.)  Force V-Sync on from your GPU utilities to deal with that.

The final issue is not having the appropriate Microsoft Visual C++ runtime installed.   Steam SHOULD take care of that one.

There is a whole list of other things, but I would have to see more details on exactly how it is crashing.

Originally posted by Valden21:

As for clean boot, that's a legitimate trouble-shooting term. It's like starting Windows in Safe Mode, but even more bare-bones. The Windows support site has more information on what it is and how to use it. However, considering its nature, I'd use it ONLY AS A LAST RESORT! Remember, ONLY as a last resort.

Power cycling, and clean boot just mean to turn off your computer with a full shutdown and turn it on again.   It's hardly a last resort. In fact, this should be done on a nightly basis, but nobody does.

Now a clean OS install, that is something completely different.   That means nuking everything on the hard drive except the most vital data that you back up and reinstalling the operating system and all software from scratch.  THAT is a last resort, unless you have an immutable clean turnkey system at the ready (those make life easy, as they run a fresh OS install every boot.)

Originally posted by Aoi Blue:

Originally posted by Valden21:

As for clean boot, that's a legitimate trouble-shooting term. It's like starting Windows in Safe Mode, but even more bare-bones. The Windows support site has more information on what it is and how to use it. However, considering its nature, I'd use it ONLY AS A LAST RESORT! Remember, ONLY as a last resort.

Power cycling, and clean boot just mean to turn off your computer with a full shutdown and turn it on again.   It's hardly a last resort. In fact, this should be done on a nightly basis, but nobody does.

Now a clean OS install, that is something completely different.   That means nuking everything on the hard drive except the most vital data that you back up and reinstalling the operating system and all software from scratch.  THAT is a last resort, unless you have an immutable clean turnkey system at the ready (those make life easy, as they run a fresh OS install every boot.)

You're misquoting me. The only thing that I referred to as a last resort is clean boot. I never said that power cycling was last resort; I was just simply describing what it is, as OP outright said that they didn't know what that is.

Originally posted by Valden21:

You're misquoting me. The only thing that I referred to as a last resort is clean boot. I never said that power cycling was last resort; I was just simply describing what it is, as OP outright said that they didn't know what that is.

Sorry, I confused clean boot with clean reboot.   Stupid Microsoft support jargon does not match common IT jargon, because Microsoft is run by idiots who can't use existing jargon.  Something else they probably stole from Apple. ;)

I tend to use Linux, where most people just use a rescue disk image like a sane person.  (Note to self, I'm due to update my rescue image in my boot partition.)  Yes this is what I do for Windows machines too as well as Macs and Androids. (Haven't worked on a near-bricked iPhone yet...)

What Microsoft calls a Clean Boot, is actually called a "Minimal Boot or Diagnostic mode boot" by any sane technician.  It doesn't resolve anything, as when you reboot from it you are back where you started unless you change something.  It is only used to change things that are preventing boot when you need to access stuff not available in safe mode.

This mode won't do squat for a game not working.  It is used for when you screwed your system so bad it won't boot.

@atomicgirl Hey. I tried your suggestion of the GPU support addon from nexus mod. Fixed it all for me. Thanks so much. Definitely would have given that mod a miss if you hadn't recommended it.

Originally posted by atomicgirl:

You said ever since this past September?

Makes me wonder if an update to your system or a program you installed isn't interfering with the game, or that maybe something else is going on. There's no reason why the game should be crashing this much on a gaming machine, but anyway, here are detailed explanations of what you should be doing.

1. CLEARING CACHES
If you go into Documents/ElectronicArts/Sims 3 you'll see five files that end in .package. It's recommended that you delete them on a regular basis. I'm too lazy to type them out but they all end in .cache, like socialCache.package. Only delete these files that have "Cache" in the name (NOT the folders!).

2. USING THE GPU SUPPORT ADD ON MOD FROM NEXUS MODS
This is a step that everyone keeps thinking they can skip but it's important. Because your GPU is so new, the game doesn't recognize it, which can impact your card. So, you need to have it recognized. Nexus Mods is here: https://www.nexusmods.com/thesims3/mods/106

3. CAPPING FRAME RATES
Today's graphics cards will run the game at over 1000 FPS, causing it to crash. You have to use a program to limit the FPS to 30-60. AMD has a program called Adrenalin Edition and Nvidia a program called Nvidia Inspector where you can do this but you can also use something like Riva Tuner, a third party program. Not capping your card could be the very reason why you're experiencing so much crashing.

4. UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS AND SYSTEM
It's very important that you have your graphics drivers and system updated. Nvidia and AMD both have programs that should be doing this.

The other stuff you mentioned sounds like B.S. from trolls giving fake advice. I've never heard anything about power cycling or transcripts or anything else like that regarding this game.

Do i need to do all these steps are are these steps i need to do one at a time to see which works?

Originally posted by MrDinnertime:

@atomicgirl Hey. I tried your suggestion of the GPU support addon from nexus mod. Fixed it all for me. Thanks so much. Definitely would have given that mod a miss if you hadn't recommended it.

Sorry I missed your post. You're very welcome, and glad it worked out!

Originally posted by kaeseyshopper:

Do i need to do all these steps are are these steps i need to do one at a time to see which works?

Just do one at a time to see which one works.

This game does not have its own fps limiter. You definitely need to put a cap on the fps rate for this game. I've done that for a bunch of my older games. 30 fps is all those games were made to use, since that was all computers could do back then. I have an Nvidia graphics card, and I am on a Windows 10 machine, so I clicked on the tiny up arrow that looks like this, ^, in the bottom right of my Windows tray. Then I right-clicked on the Nvidia icon to open the Nvidia Control Panel. It takes a very long time to open on my machine, so be patient. The control panel is a bit confusing to navigate, but that is where you will be able to set the fps for your games.