Sims 3 Success! Now Sims 3 Failure. (Crashes)

Ok, so I reinstalled with the manual patching. Success! The game runs.

Sort of.

I'm experiencing crashes at semi-random intervals. I have a crash log, along with a rough idea of what provoked each crash, as well as what I've done to avoid the crashes.

I can give the extended version if you'd like, but to summarize, the longest period without a crash was just under ninety minutes from booting the game. Shortest was maybe 20 seconds in to actual playing. It has happened in Create-A-Sim, build/buy/live modes, and even changing options.

I've tried Compatibility mode. I get the map-loading error. DEP hasn't worked, but is still in effect. Moving files from the My Documents folder didn't help. In fact, that made it crash just loading the town. Video card vertical settings are off. Settings are at lowest (though my PC can, in theory, handle a significant amount higher.)

Thoughts, O mighty mods?

Admin edit: Topic moved to right section.

- ADMIN

No custom content. I agree, it does seem very random. However, certain things seemed to provoke it more readily.

For example, I got two crashes after simply expanding the needs tab during live mode, and two when attempting simple interactions with a sim's dog. The kicker is, my girlfriend (who the game is really for in the first place) played a test character who had pretty much every animal, including a dog, horse, and cat, and played for nearly an hour with no problems whatsoever.

My first thought was corrupted files, but as it works for everyone else fairly consistently and depending on the sim, that theory sort of went out the window.

In truth, I wouldn't mind the random crashes so much if they weren't SO random. It makes it nearly unplayable when you don't know if you have an hour or two minutes to get anything done. Especially in Create-A-Sim. "Okay, create your dream family! But don't take too long, and just know that everything you click is like punching boxes at random in minesweeper. And you can't save. Good luck!"

I don't know. *grumble*

Edit: Oh, and my bad on the section.

Negative. I close everything, and usually run after a fresh reboot just to avoid that.


*feels like a problem child*

Funnily enough, it runs WORSE as an admin. I just played as my personal log-in (which has admin power), and played for, oh, 15 minutes or so. Even more strangely, this was the guy and his dog who crashed more or less every time I tried to interact with the stupid pooch.

Tried it as an admin, with and without the save files from My Documents/Electronic Arts, and both times it would crash at the main loading screen or about an inch (that's 2.54 cm to you crazy Dutch) from a town loading.

Also, to clarify, even with her original discs, the authentic ones, my girlfriend's game crashed on her computer (prior to its demise), and mine. It honestly just frustrates me that EA put out such a terrible product. When I can run Skyrim with no problems but not this, that came out what, 4 years ago? There's a problem.

But the crashes have been going on pretty much forever, with this download/install and original discs on two different machines.