Sims2 Access Violation crashes on NVIDIA graphics card

@CatherineTCJD what percentage of Available OS Memory is recommended to set up as Virtual Memory? In my screenshot of the section Total paging size, they only recommend 2669 MB. And does anyone have experience with a more stable game when increasing the virtual memory?

@Softlism: A pity? Maybe you could say WHAT would be a pity, because I'm not sure where you're going.

Virtual Memory is an entirely different beast. But the recommended Value isn't recommended for nothing; usually, I'd say: don't go higher than that. Virtual Memory or Swap File is only needed to use as slower extra RAM when the system doesn't have enough. But this Virtual Memory requires the system to work harder to keep it organised. The more you have, the more unstable your entire system becomes. And slower, too! When you have 16 GB RAM, you really don't need Virtual Memory at all. I have the same amount of RAM as you, and I turned the Swap File down to 0 twenty years ago. I've never had any problems with it. My game is perfectly stable every time I load it. Solid as a rock!
But I'm not you, so you must decide. I won't be mad and bite you, if you don't take my advice.


@CatherineTCJD: No, of course you wouldn't, dear. You're a smart girl who appreciates a good mod

@BoilingOil I was hoping my game would be much less prone to crashing when playing it on 8+ GB RAM + a dedicated graphics card instead of 4 GB RAM integrated, despite Windows 10 shenanigans.

Does it improve the performance on 16 GB RAM if you disable the Swap File?

@Softlism, you said it yourself... Currently it only crashes after you load the third house or so. And I told you that it's smarter to shut down and restart the game after two households anyway, because that cleans up remnants in memory. So from that perspective, your game IS stable, if only you would shut down and restart it now and then.
You must remember that TS2 is an OLD game, that was created in the time of Windows ME and Windows XP. Those OS-es weren't stable to begin with, and things have only gotten more complicated, but TS2 has not been updated in the last 10 years or so. So it will NEVER get more stable, less prone to crashes than it is. But if you just shut down after playing two households, and then restart the game before you load the next house, you will not see many crashes. My game NEVER crashes.

Also, I already explained that my system has exactly the same amount of RAM as yours: 16 GB. My system runs PERFECTLY FINE without swap file or virtual memory.
You cannot expect me to turn on my swap file, only to check if my system then gets less stable. You are fine the way it is.

But what about doing an experiment for yourself? You want to improve stability, and you're willing to change the size of the swap file already. So I tell you what *I* would change it to. You can do that, or not do that. You turn off the swap file, and see what happens for a few days. If it gets worse, you just set up a swap file again. And if it gets better, you leave it off! It is really your own choice.

Another hint: less CC is always a good thing. Do you really use all the stuff that you have? All the time? Throw away what you do not use. Get rid of the trash. The less muck your system has to deal with, the better it works.

This is the guide I was referencing above. It has a few "new" bits of information in it. I found it an interesting read the other day. Good Luck!
https://2fingerswhiskey.tumblr.com/post/...g-crashing

@BoilingOil & @CatherineTCJD : I've disabled the Swapfile (thus no Virtual Memory), have set the Lighting to Medium (one of the advices that 2FW gave in their video), and added " -CPUCount:1" in the EP9 shortcut target (got it suggested on a different forum, but not sure if this makes a difference). The 3rd household rotation caused severe pink flashing instead of crashing this time, so not much progress. So I guess have to deal with the two-household cap for now. Though recently on the 4 GB RAM laptop, I rotated between multiple empty lots for building and decorating, so I can try that out the next time.

I forgot to mention in my OP that I've added "boolprop UseShaders false" on the startup file when I struggled with hood-view pink flashing before.

Next, I want to check if Gussy Up -> Buy Clothes runs a bit stable, check if TS2 is less crash-prone on a 2016 laptop with integrated Intel 8 GB RAM (couldn't install TS2 due to lack of disk space, but now I could move some files to the new laptop). And as adviced, it's also time for me to review my CCs (especially hairs and objects).

Good luck with that, @Softlism. I mean it. If you make a few small sacrifices, you may still enjoy this game for a while.

Gussy Up -> buying clothes failed quickly, even after loading only 2.3 MB of CAS thumbnails What does the memory report mean in this crash log?

Exception time: 02/18/2022, at 1157.
Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.
Current thread ID: 11672 (0x00002d98).
Version information:
Application/module path: C:\Program Files\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSBin\Sims2EP9.exe
Application/module version name: The Sims 2 EP9
Application/module version: 1.17.0.66
System version: Windows NT 6.0
System memory: 4096 Megabytes total, 240 Megabytes free.
Application/module configuration: ReleaseSRT

(18-02-2022 11:07 AM)Softlism Wrote:  System memory: 4096 Megabytes total, 240 Megabytes free.

First of all, this happened while BUYING clothes? So you were in a store, selecting clothes off a clothing rack for your sims to take home and use, right? I'd say the crash meant that some files belonging to that outfit were missing, and the game didn't know how to deal with that. Maybe the memory situation has nothing to do with the crash.

But if this is a memory-related problem, then I think that it's something like the following:
Of the 4096 MB total memory that the 4GB patch gives the game (the maximum amount the game can really use), only 204 MB is left at the moment of the crash. This has nothing to do with System RAM or with Texture Memory (for the graphics). This is just the block of memory that the game uses to store information about the household you're currently playing, the sims in that household, the furniture, floor-tiles, wall-papers, clothing the sims are wearing, their hairs. When only 240 of 4096 MB remain, I'd say the game was running out of room to work with. How many of the sims in that household are wearing very high-poly outfits and hair-dos? Because if this was a memory problem, then I think that the high-poly outfits and hairs might be causing it.

@BoilingOil No, I used the Gussy Up mod where a Sim could buy clothes anywhere. I suspect the 2nd scenario happened, because no crash happened when I was gradually adding clothes and no crash happened instead (before, I also had crashes in Bodyshop). two out of four Sims wear converted "alpha" meshes, but I have to check how many polys they wear. They all wear Maxis clothes. Do you know by chance if it matters if some of the CAS thumbnails were cached beforehand?