Hello, my sims 3 randomly crashes into blue screen and reboots the pc.
I've noticed it eases the issue when i reduce some graphical options. Has anyone had this issue with a 970m graphics card?

Hi there,

Can you provide us with the following information of your system and game:
1. Just to confirm this is a Laptop correct and the 970m is the only graphics device on your PC?
2. Where did you get your game (retail disc/origin/steam/some other place) and is it fully patched (which Check Patch Level)?
3. Open your Sims 3 Userdirectory (Documents\EA\TS3) and open the file: DeviceConfig.log in Notepad or any other text editor, now select from top till where it says === options === and post it here within a reply, so we can see a portion of your system spec.

Cheers!

No, it's a dual, it has intel graphics and nvidia ones. I have enabled nvidia ones for sims 3
For the version it seems new patch is around, i'm still at 1.67 (can you link me a change log?)
http://puu.sh/q6TSY/a6eae04df1.jpg

<h3 id="toc0"><a name="x--Application info"></a> Application info </h3>
Name: Sims3
Version:
Build: Release
<h3 id="toc1"><a name="x--Rating info"></a> Rating info </h3>
GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 2 CPU: 3 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2594 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 3059 RAM: 16268 Adjusted RAM: 15756 Cores: 4
<h3 id="toc2"><a name="x--Machine info"></a> Machine info </h3>
OS version: Windows 7 6.1.7600
OS prod type: 0
OS major ver: 6
OS minor ver: 1
OS SP major ver: 0
OS SP minor ver: 0
OS is 64Bit: 1
CPU: GenuineIntel
Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
Family: 6
Model: 12
Cores: 4
HT: 1
x64: 0
Memory: 16268MB
Free memory: 10177MB
User: Admin
Computer: ADMIN-PC
<h3 id="toc3"><a name="x--Graphics device info"></a> Graphics device info </h3>
Number: 0
Name (driver): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M
Name (database): GeForce GTX 970M [Found: 1, Matched: 1]
Vendor: NVIDIA
Chipset: Vendor: 10de, Device: 13d8, Board: 65551558, Chipset: 00a1
Driver: nvd3dum.dll, Version: 9.18.13.4752, GUID: D7B71E3E-5098-11CF-7864-58451CC2C435
Driver version: 4752
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY1
Texture memory: 192MB <<OVERRIDE>>
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1

The new patch (1.6943) is coming from Origin, the purpose of that patch is to tie Origin with the Sims 3 game and has more negative side effects than positives (if you can call disabling an EP in the launcher a positive), game wise nothing changes but the build version of the game. If you can avoid it please do, though whenever you need to reinstall, you will be tied to patch 1.6943 and its functions as documented in here: Patch 1.69.

As to your Graphics, the 970M is an onboard GPU chip connected on your Motherboard. I've seen that you already made some changes in the Graphical Files of the game to make your GPU card recognized.

A few changes you can make in the GraphicsRules.sgr, since you have 16 GB of RAM is to increase the Texture Memory from 192MB to 1024 and reflag your GPU Memory from 2 to 3 or 4.

If you aren't sure how to do this, follow these steps:
<ul class="quotelist"><li>1. Open your edited version of the GraphicsRules.sgr</li><li>2.Look for this line (near the top):<ul class="quotelist"><li>setb textureMemorySizeOK true</li><li>if ($textureMemory == 0)</li><li>seti textureMemory 192</li><li>setb textureMemorySizeOK false</li></ul></li><li>3. Change it to:<ul class="quotelist"><li>setb textureMemorySizeOK true</li><li>if ($textureMemory == 0)</li><li>seti textureMemory 1024</li><li># setb textureMemorySizeOK false</li></ul></li></ul>(don't forget the hastag!!, it will remove the <<OVERRIDE>> from the Texture Memory)
<ul class="quotelist"><li>4. Now look up this section within the same document:<ul class="quotelist"><li>seti gpumemLevelUber 4</li><li>seti gpumemLevelHigh 3</li><li>seti gpumemLevelMedium 2</li><li>seti gpumemLevelLow 1</li></ul></li></ul>5. Change them all to 4, like this:
<ul class="quotelist"><ul class="quotelist"><li>seti gpumemLevelUber 4</li><li>seti gpumemLevelHigh 4</li><li>seti gpumemLevelMedium 4</li><li>seti gpumemLevelLow 4</li></ul></ul>
Save the file and (put it back in your install directory) start the game, see if that makes any difference. If GPU memory 4 is to much for your system, decrease it to 3 on point 5.

Since you haven't confirmed that you are on a laptop and I highly assume you are on one, other causes that can produce a CTD and Blue Screen:
- Too much dust has gathered inside your laptop which results to overheating problems
- You're playing too long and the temperature of your PC is too high, restrict to 1/2 hours of gaming, shut it down and let your laptop cool off or if possible put more fans in it or get a cooling pad.

With apologies to my learned colleague, afraid I'm going to have to step in here and offer some additional comments.

The 970M is the mobile version of the 970, but it's not the same as say Intel integrated graphics. It carries its own dedicated video memory. It should be running the game much better than what has been described on medium graphics settings if not higher.

Although the steps above might help, I would be more concerned about the frame rate you would be experiencing in TS3 and I don't see this mentioned yet. TS3 has no built in frame rate limiter and a higher end video chip like this one will run wild given a chance. When in game, hit shift+ctrl+C to bring up the cheats console and fps on (enter). As you play and move the game camera around, the frame rate displayed should never wander far above 60 fps (or 120 fps if you have a 120 Hz monitor/television that you are playing on, but that would be unusual). To stop the displayed rate, cheats console again and fps off. Even if you already have Vsync enabled (Adaptive or On) in the Nvidia control panel, it doesn't always "take" and it's better to check in-game for sure.

Thank you all for the excelent help. I was using the ts3 limiter, and yes this is a laptop (clevo p650se). But I control the temperature very closely with hardware monitor and overheat is not an issue.
There was a point in the game that, after saving, it would crash exactly 5 minutes after the game. That's why this is not a heat issue (that varies with time) but a hardware one.

Anyways, am I the only one with this?

I'd also like to know if there's a sims 3 complete edition with all the extra packs and stuff in a single release.

Well, the crashing and blue screen could be something else entirely. But I think it's still worth checking the frame rate in-game as suggested to make sure it's doing what it says it is. Do you get any different results on a new, freshly started game? How about one on a clean folder, generated for you if you pull your entire TS3 folder out of Documents?

I wouldn't say you are the only one having issues with the later released graphics cards/chips, but most have found a way to work around them. The game was originally designed many years before these came out and EA hasn't been updating it for quite a while to account for changes in technology.

There is no TS3 complete collection available from legitimate sources. The illegitimate ones are actually illegal and hacked to where they cannot be patched/modded properly -- of course, they are not supported here.