Recommended technical mods?

[BoxingBud]

My computer is definitely fine when it comes to running this game, it's less than 2 years old. That being said while playing my computer totally resets/reboots and I lose my current save's progress. Is there any mods that patch up this buggy but great game?

[BoxingBud]

And I followed possibly the worst written guide when it comes to modding the sims 3. Anyway do I just unzip a mod into the mods folder then in the pre-game interface just install the content?

[igazor]

Content for TS3 comes in two forms. Sims3packs are installed by way of the Launcher. Package based content, and actual Core, Script, and Tuning mods are always this kind while Custom Content can be either, are installed by placing them unzipped into a Mods\Packages subfolder within the Mods Framework. The game doesn't come with a Mods folder already in place, the player needs to add one in themselves, including the required Resource.cfg file.
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help%3AInstalling_Sims_3_Package_Files%2FSetup_and_Files

At the risk of showing bias, several NRaas mods work very hard to help preserve game performance -- most notably Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Register, Traffic, to an extent GoHere, and MasterController for its Reset Everything function on City Hall.
https://www.nraas.net/community/home
https://www.nraas.net/community/TIPS-FOR-BETTER-GAME-PERFORMANCE

The program lagging, locking up, or crashing is one thing, but if your computer is routinely rebooting itself during gameplay, there may be something else wrong here that mods alone cannot reach. Possibly your computer no matter how new it is might not be allocating the correct resources to the game and possibly (this is common) you haven't addressed the need for vertical sync and frame rate (fps) limiting on a powerful graphics card that will otherwise run wild on the game and lead to all kinds of instability. Unlike more modern games, TS3 has no functional built-in fps limiter. What have you got for a GPU and what kind of frame rates are you actually getting in-game? If you don't have a third party tool to measure fps, Ctrl + Shift + C to bring up the cheats console and then type fps on (enter).

[BoxingBud]

I wonder if I can just use my video cards limit? EDIT: It turns out I can! I'm going to like limit it to 60 fps.

[BoxingBud]

You know what I think I jumped the gun too soon and posted befor I investigated more. I finished installing requisite NRaas mods as well I noticed my graphic.gpr file or whatever it's called was absolutely not optimized compared to my available ram, dxdiag settings and video card settings. I'll work with all this and if that does not pan out I'll blame my PC for sure. Igazor thanks for the advice!!!

[BoxingBud]

The game is running quite a bit smoother but it did crash in the midst of my sim using a science research station. I don't think the "use" caused the crash but that it's a chronological play time one since it seems to happen about 30-35 minutes into playing each time.

My GPU is: Radeon (TM) RX 460 and it has 3738 MB

I can bring up any other requisite information in the future as well. Might be important but the dxdiag I opened was not the 64 version. It gave me the option to open dxdiag 64 and I did, the information was the same (however maybe running the 64 version affects resources, maybe it's just information? I don't know.)

[BoxingBud]

I also found gpu clock speeds and temperature etc! I fully updated my card too as an update was due. I'll try this out again I don't expect it to automatically work but I did quite a bit so it'll be good to see.

[71006.1644]

If you're running Sims 3 in 32-bit mode, it seriously limits the resources you can make use of, the biggest being that it limits you to about 2G of memory. It SHOULD be running in 64-bit mode, but you might want to check that if it's crashing a lot.

[igazor]

Originally posted by 71006.1644:

If you're running Sims 3 in 32-bit mode, it seriously limits the resources you can make use of, the biggest being that it limits you to about 2G of memory. It SHOULD be running in 64-bit mode, but you might want to check that if it's crashing a lot.

Sorry, but there has never been a 64-bit version of TS3 if this is what you meant. It's TS4 that has the two different modes.

[71006.1644]

Not true, EA adapted Sims 3 to make use of 64-bit architecture because of the problems caused by only being able to use 2 gigs of ram that 32-bit architecture allowed.

[igazor]

Originally posted by 71006.1644:

Not true, EA adapted Sims 3 to make use of 64-bit architecture because of the problems caused by only being able to use 2 gigs of ram that 32-bit architecture allowed.

I'm afraid you are confusing Large Address Aware (LAA) with 64-bit. TS3 became LAA and will use up to just under 4 GB of RAM all on its own when it feels that it is needed and provided that enough RAM is available for it to use as of Patch 1.17 many years ago (except for the Mac version of the game which never got this benefit). There is no 64-bit mode, the game still runs as a 32-bit executable and LAA in a 64-bit operating system environment, which remains the best that it can do.