Sims UC crashing, here's what I tried so far

@BoilingOil - I meant several hours of sim time passed in the game. Play time was mere minutes before crashing.

@CatOfEvilGeniu yes, that's exactly what I mean when I say "Several in-game sim hours is still just as many minutes in real time."
I could also have said: <any number> of hours for your sims equals <the same number> of minutes for you. Meaning that you have very little play time before stuff goes wrong again. Must be frustrating.

@BoilingOil - Quite frustrating but reading leefish and MTS is quite soothing so big thanks to everyone who's been posting. I have found some older nvidia drivers at guru3d that I'm going to try before I attempt rolling my Windows back to 1703. Windows won't let me go without updating forever and it is a security risk going back so I'd really rather not have to.

Tried an nvidia driver from a year ago, 376.60. Did not help, same behavior, game crashes after playing for a few minutes on a community lot. No difference between driver 390.65 (current) and the one from a year ago.

I have submitted a report to Origin, 0d48e1e9a000c5e7, making a note for myself in case they get back to me. Will also go poke Microsoft. Where in the EA forums would I submit an error report? Do they even read the Sims 2 forums anymore? Maybe I'll go bother nvidia too. *sigh*

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I talked with an EA tech support guy on the phone. He said always launch the game from Origin, not from a desktop shortcut. It actually crashes faster when I do it that way. He also said to change the Origin desktop shortcut, make it run in compatibility mode for XP sp 2 and as admin. Ok, did that. Same thing I had done for the Sims2EP9.exe shortcut earlier but whatevs. He said they don't recommend making desktop shortcuts directly to the game executables, ok. Launching directly from Origin does not help.

Next, he wants me to try making a brand new admin account, installing Origin and UC on that account, and trying there. He thinks maybe some registry keys got mucked up. I don't understand why I can't just uninstall and reinstall Origin on the account I'm already using. He says I would lose game progress or something. That's fine, I didn't have any progress I care about keeping anyway.

I told him we tested UC on Win 10 1709 and Win 10 1703 but he seems convinced that reinstalling it on another account will help. I'll try it, for science. I want it to work on *my* account but let's try, for science.

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Before I try making a new admin account, which I seriously doubt will help, here's more stuff I'm trying in my account

* do NOT install nvidia audio drivers - did DDU uninstall, clean install of nvidia drivers 390.65, but without GeForce Experience and no HD audio driver
RESULT: sound works fine, game sound works fine, game still CRASHES on community lots, maybe faster than before? So I'll probably reinstall those nvidia audio drivers I uninstalled. *sigh*

* will try step 5: disable Windows driver verification, from the page below (usually a bad idea but they broke my game)
https://www.drivethelife.com/windows-gam...pdate.html

* will try step 6: fix driver issues with driver talent, again from the page linked above

* will try a driver fix tool Jules1111 at MTS suggested

Here's Microsoft admitting they borked lots of games with update 1709
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-ad...ors-update

And here's instructions for rolling back to Windows 10 update 1703 like gwynne did (but I can't)
This is drastic, you will lose some files you made after the update, and temporary because Windows will eventually force an update back to 1709
https://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/...ws-10.html

(23-01-2018 04:13 PM)CatOfEvilGeniu Wrote:  Here's Microsoft admitting they borked lots of games
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-ad...ors-update

I tried a couple of fixes people had mentioned for other games that were broken by 1709, btw, including ones you will see like this:

"Right click on Overwatch.exe and select Properties. Select the Compatibility tab and check the box that says "Disable fullscreen optimizations"

(I tried this on the Sim2 .exe, no change. Well, actually I think it crashed slightly differently.)

Another one is going to Settings, Gaming, and disabling the stuff there like "Record game clips" (also made no difference).

Thanks for escalating this through EA. Their troubleshooting script is going to be annoying, but if enough people with the problem report it to them it might get fixed ...

@gwynne - Thanks for reporting stuff you tried, helps eliminate possibilities. I think the fixes people talked about are for modern games that people usually play in fullscreen mode and have fancy options for recording. I will try those changes too, just in case, but will probably get the same result you did. I think the HD audio driver thing I tried was also a fix for modern game issues.

Ah, I must have picked up the 'disable audio' thing somewhere too, because I know I did that at one point. (No memory of where I saw it.)

Oh, I keep meaning to add this to one of the threads, but I also tried rolling back a few individual security fixes (instead of all of 1709), but none of that helped.

"World of Tanks" is a game that seems to have been pretty borked by 1709 as well. I guess it's technically a newer game but its development started in the late 2000s.

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?...date-1709/

Edit: I guess this might be the 'fullscreen' problem.


(edited by BoilingOil to remove unneeded quote of the message directly above this.)

@CatOfEvilGeniu I'd really would like to thank you for documenting this so thoroughly. Your job rules out some of my own theories, so it really helps a lot, thanks. This is also the first time I remember anyone connecting the usage of noCD exe with the pink flashing, which raises many thoughts indeed as the flashing is my main problem (boring story). But I've had my fair share of random crashes lately too.

Thank you all for letting us all know what steps you have taken to attempt a remedy and for letting EA know that there is a problem. I still haven't given up and seeing your posts makes me feel a tad bit less alone in all of this. I will say that I don't use the noCD exe with my game (I never did allow Origin to patch) and my main problem has still been the pink flashing, unfortunately.

@Epi7 - You are welcome. Sorry I haven't got anything helpful so far. Your 'boring story' is very interesting to me, as a fellow programmer. Especially this bit here, where you suggested changing this line. I will try that myself. I predict the game will take longer before crashing, let's find out! Think I'll add some logging to see if the script gets to this part or not too.

Epi7 Wrote:# never trust the driver to manage its own memory
boolProp enableDriverMemoryManager false

@mortia - For fixing pink flashies, you may try removing all files from the Thumbnails directory. The game will regenerate them. It helped me, got rid of the pink (my game still crashes for different reasons). Don't know why only the noCD version gave me pink flashies. Epi7's thread has some good suggestions for pink flashies, worth a read.

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@Epi7 - I tried letting the graphics driver manage its own memory. Had such high hopes for that change but I keep crashing. Might be crashing faster than before, not sure, needs more testing. Still think it was a good idea.

Tried changing lighting in game from high to medium, did not help, still crashing.