My game crashes, please help!

[caffeinated.joy]

I took a look at your error logs and they all have the same exception errror: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION

OK, to put simply, the access violation error comes when the processor is being instructed to access information in an area that doesn't exist, or from an area the current process doesn't have access to. This can happen for a few reasons. The first most people suggest is you don't have enough available memory to run the game but I see that's not the problem. In all the exception logs I see out of 1536 mb available you have between 992 and roughly 1000 mb free.

One of the things I hate about this error is it's so ambiguous and can apply to so many things (not enough RAM, bad RAM, bad drivers, bad cards). I'm thinking though, because you stated your graphic settings have been "lost" is it's a video issue. First thing I would try is updating your drivers. Also it wouldn't hurt to use some compressed air to blow out the dust from around your cpu fan and heatsink. Extra dust in your computer can cause the whole system to overheat, which can make things go all hiccupy.

In general, are you having any other graphic related issues with your computer?

Oh and it definitely wouldn't hurt to do a spyware scan, if you haven't already.

As gazania has mentioned, it could also be a matter of too many Downloads. I would do as suggested there and try running your game without your Downloads and see if that helps too. 

[Kristof]

Hm, starting the game vanilla means that totally empty, without any downloaded stuff?  
If I can get into the game again, I'll surely delete lots of files, I already wanted to do this, just never found the time (and the mood).


*Caffeinated.joy: thank you for the help! I had graphic problems last year, from january till june, because I got a new graphics card in june, it's ASUS AH3650 and it worked perfectly till now.

[Theraven]

Then chances are it's the drivers that needs updating

[caffeinated.joy]

Hm, starting the game vanilla means that totally empty, without any downloaded stuff? 
If I can get into the game again, I'll surely delete lots of files, I already wanted to do this, just never found the time (and the mood).

Yes it means running your game without any downloads. You don't have to delete them completely just yet; just move the Downloads folder to your desktop.

[Kristof]

My Downloads folder is already moved to the Desktop.
And I'll try some other things tomorrow, for today I'm finished, here's evening already and I'm totally dead, so I'll go to bed now and tomorrow I'll try out some other things, thank you for your help, I really appreciate!

[Kristof]

Yay, I'm so happy, I loaded my game totally vanilla, and it worked! It loaded for about 2-3 minutes (oh what a dream!) without any stuff in the game.

Thank you so much for the help everyone, you're all amazing!

And what should I do know? Try to put back the CC, or?
THANK YOU!

[Theraven]

Little by little, yes

Half'n'half usually works. Test one half, then test the other half. Wherever you get problems, you know where to find the bugger. Split that part in half, and test again...

[caffeinated.joy]

Well, if you have updated your drivers, now we get to see if that fixed the problem. It's entirely possible it could have been a combination of bad drivers/bad content. First thing is to try your game with your downloads in to see if it all runs. If it runs fine, then you're good to go. If you still get a crash, then you have one or more bits of bad cc. Then comes the happy process of weeding out whatever causes your game to crash. This guide will help you there. The most effective one is the 50/50 method listed at the bottom, but don't be afraid to try the others first. It can be labour intensive, but it's better than wiping everything out and starting over fresh.

[Kristof]

Okay, thank you I'll do this. I'm patient so if I'll have to look through on the DL folder to find the bad file, I'll do that.

[gazania]

Yes, you're now at the good news/bad news portion of The Sims 2 saga ... that is, if your computer hardware is behaving itself.

The good news is that you might have one or more pieces of CC in your folder that just isn't playing nicely with the other content in your game ... or was wonky to begin with. This is fixable ... you just have to find it.

The bad news ... you have to find it. And with more than 14 GB on your computer, this may take a while.

Do you have Nightlife? And do you subfolder? When you get a chance, you might want to do that. It makes wading through thousands of downloads much easier.

Good luck!

[Kristof]

Gazania: I have Nighlife, I installed all the EPs, and I have some SPs too.

Ok so I used the sims2 file compressorizer, from 14,5 GB it made 8 GB! I seperated all my DLs to 5 folders. I put the first in the game folder, I went through the folder in game, deleted all the stuff that I don't need. And I did this with all of the 5 folders. I deleted more than 600 mb, but... In the folder #3, My grame always crashes when I click on Decorations -> Misc.
After, I put there the whole DL folder, started the game, and it crashed when I clicked any object, it started to load the object, after it crashed.
Why is this?

Maybe the problem could be that I put the whole DL folder in the game. Should I put it there like the folder #1 first, after folder #2, then folder #3 and so on... should I try this?
THANKS!!

[MaryH]

I have a little solution that might work in this case-in my downloads folder, I have a file "Before Install downloads" which is where I put brand new unzipped files to check if they're going to crash the game. This has the advantage of isolating those that will crash the game into smaller parts so that you can find them more easily.
Once they pass that test, then they can go into the appropriate folders. I know that with the size of your downloads, it might be a real pain to do this. But besides the half and half way of finding bad CC, I can't think of anything better.
You should remove and check as many folders as possible, to find the culprit. I've done that before, and while it is very tiresome, it is actually the only way sometimes to find the one file (which is it usually is) that is causing your game to crash.

[Kristof]

Yes, I did this, I made a new folder every day when I put a cc into the game, and if it was okay, I deleted.
but I think I started doing this too late (some months ago) because I already had the bad file before

so you think I should try the 50 / 50 method?

[gazania]

I hope I'm understanding you correctly, because if I am, this might make your life easier, but ...

You say that there might be a problem concerning Folder 3?

Have you tried playing the game with the other four folders and NOT with Folder 3? Once again, don't save until you're sure those folders are not the troublemakers.

It doesn't matter what folder you put in what order when you're testing, as long as you do not save. If Folder 3 is the culprit, then you might just have to do the 50/50 in Folder 3, which is whole lot easier than doing it with all five folders! If it is Folder 3, most likely, something in there is not playing nice with something else in your game. And that might be a great start to finding out what's wrong.

If I'm mistaken, yes ... you can put in Folder 1 ... test for several minutes ... don't save ... put in Folder 2 ... test ... don't save, etc. But if you want to work backwards or try another folder first, I found that I didn't have any problems when I did that.

P. S. I too have folders that I mark as "testing", such as "Testhair", "TestObjects", "TestMods", etc. It does make it easier to pinpoint the culprits before I move them over to the proper folders.

[Kristof]

Yes, maybe there's the problem is folder #3. I just can't understand something. Before this whole crash thing, I had exactly the same files, like now. And I had no crashes in the misc. section. But now I do...
but thanks for the tip, it would be  lot easier like this.

And I noticed that I have another crash in folder #5, in the sculptures section, near the end. So I have these 2 crashes.
Tomorrow I'll try to put only folder 1, 2 and 4. And will see
*hunting for a bad file*