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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Jan 2022 at 5:32 PM Last edited by Simone95 : 13th Jan 2022 at 1:37 PM.

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default SOLVED - game crashes on new windows 11 pc when loading/building in certain custom appartment lots
Hi all,

Context
I recently got a new gaming pc, running on Windows 11, as an upgrade of my laptop, running on Windows 10. I tried to make the Sims 2 run again and succeeded (4 GB patch + moving .exe file, graphics rule maker, compatibility mode XP pack 2, enabled run as administrator). I briefly tried playing a household in a custom created test hood in a vanilla game, and it ran great, better than on my laptop despite having more modern hardware and a higher version of Windows.

When that worked, I just reinstalled my downloads. That was largely a copy-paste of the Downloads folder (and only the Downloads folder, which *does* include my lots in SIMS2PACK files) through an external harddisk from my laptop, but I also edited the program files map for things like CEP, Lord Darcy's application fixes and Jawusa's stealth hoods. I also reinstalled the lots using the Clean Installer tool, which largely concerns apartments. I made sure to not install the CC included, since that should already be somewhere in my Downloads folder from when I installed it first on my laptop.

The problem
I then built a new neighbourhood, using these freshly installed apartments, and I wanted to edit some of them before moving in Sims. So I took one of those lots, entered build mode, and started editing, until I got the message that the application had crashed and would be terminated (~2 minutes). I then tried several lots: some would crash after a while being there, some would even crash during loading. Right now it seems that vanilla, non-custom buildings are not affected, and that I am able to open some custom apartments.

When looking at my task manager, I could see a sudden GPU spike during the crashes (from 20-30% usage during play, to a sudden 100%+, to 0%).

One of those lots that crash on loading for example, is the TuTelle Tower here on MTS: https://modthesims.info/d/574444/tu...apartments.html . This tower has no CC and I see no one else having a problem with it in the comments section. Another lot that crashes upon loading are the Avalon Condomiums, also without CC: https://modthesims.info/d/651427/av...iums-no-cc.html . I actually actively used that lot on my laptop, so I know it ran before. A lot that did not give me any problems was the Colonial Apartment House II: https://modthesims.info/d/500171/co...t-house-ii.html , same as on my laptop.

What I've suspected and tried
I could, of course, exclude the apartments from play which give me problems, but since this happens to a lot of custom lots, I think that it is better to solve the problem. However, I don't know what course of action to take:
- I don't think the lots are corrupted, since they have worked before and this is about a LOT of lots. No pun intended.
- The amount of stuff on a lot also doesn't seem to be the problem: I've tried clogging an H&M community lot with stuff, I barely saw the GPU doing anything more than normally.
- The amount of CC does not seem to be the problem, because the crashes on non-CC lots also happen when I seriously tone down the amount of CC in the game.
- This also lets me think that the CC itself is also not a problem, on top of the fact that I already played with all of that before without problems.
- The graphics themselves seem fine: I have not seen any pink flashing, and the graphics rule maker did its job in increasing screen resolution and recognising my video card. I only see square shadows, but I turn those off with 'useshaders off'.

Question
Does anyone know what other causes there might be for this problem, or what course I should take for troubleshooting?

I have not really seen any guides for the Sims 2 on Windows 11 yet, so I don't know if any problems might lie in that direction. One interesting topic, non-Sims 2 and non-Windows 11 related, suggest that my graphics card might be too new for older games and that I should try 'underclock' it (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...0-and-crashes/). I have not tried this before, because although I know this is quite safe, this is new terrain for me, and I don't know if this is really necessary considering the vanilla game does not really pose issues.

My processor is an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, my GPU is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 , and my DirectX version is 12. If I see any more issues or out of the ordinary, I will update my findings.

Thanks in advance!

UPDATE: I have seen that my game also crashes whenever I try to open the chairs/beds section in buy mode. I'm currently investigating the possibility of conflicting GUIDs: if a piece of conflicting furniture is present on some lots but not others, that might explain it.
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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#2 Old 13th Jan 2022 at 1:36 PM
I singled out a piece of Custom Content that caused my buy catalog to crash for chairs/benches/beds. Turned out this chair was dependent on the IKEA stuff pack, which did not install properly. I checked the Avalon Condominiums, and one of the tables contains the IKEA clock. I guess this was my problem, with quick testing I had no more crashes
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