Didn't know where to post this.

I solved my crashing to the desktop and this is how I did it!

After much trial and error I found that Sims3 wasn't crashing to the desktop, Windows was CLOSING it. I installed a memory monitoring program and a mini DUMP viewer. Using these 2 programs I was able to find the problem. I had all the symptoms like slow saving game, Running slow and many more.

After viewing the Dump file I found I was getting a 0xC0000005 Access Violation error which suggest maybe bad memory. But my memory is good. Further research led me to DEP (Microsoft's Data execution prevention). DON'T TURN IT OFF! I did this and big mistake!!! Go into the setting and turn it on for all programs except the ones that you can add to the list and add TS3.EXE to it.

I have Windows XP SP2. Vista and Windows 7 may be slightly different.

To access this goto (Start - Settings - Control panel) and run System. Click on the Advance tab and click on the Settings button for Performance. Click the TAB for Data execution prevention and click the option to (Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select: ) and add TS3.EXE to the list and ok it and reboot.

Hopefully this will fix your problem like it did for me.

Now my game is fast and stable.

You may have to add other programs to this list that you use also. Because this turns on DEP for ALL programs and not just for Windows.

0xC0000005 Access Violation Link
http://www.updatexp.com/0xC0000005.html

DEP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Execution_Prevention

Tim

P.S. I also posted this here - http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/po...47.page#1616896

That's interesting. I had always suspected some sort of memory leak was causing the random crashes.

maybe there should be some official thread for people to post about how they solved their problems [ the ones that the FAQ dont help with and/or mods dont fix 100% ].

Turning off the EA story progression keeps my game from crashing at 1 a.m. (I do still keep randomly minimizing my window when I am moving my mouse around, but I just click on the minimized window to return again.)

People who have solved their problems are welcome to monitor the help forum and offer sound advice to others whose game exhibits the same symptoms, but we're not going to have a thread of random solutions. It would cause more harm than good.

People who have problems in their games should start by reading the Game Help FAQs, then searching the Game Help forum for similar issues, then starting their own thread in the Game Help forum if they are unable to resolve the problem.