Sims 4 Crashing 2019 MacBook Pro!

[Bluebellflora]

@selfpng

Yeah you're right, the 13" doesn't have a dedicated GPU. I have an M1 MacBook Air and a 2017 15" MBP with 4GB GPU. The game plays really well on both. I'm really amazed how powerful the new chip is but it certainly isn't a rival to a MacBook Pro with dedicated GPU.

I really hope that the problems with the 16" MBPs is eventually fixed. They're great machines but not if you're a Simmer!

[pcjr_ea]

I've upgraded to Big Sur 11.2. I've played with and without an external monitor. I've configured the game I play (Magic Arena) to the lowest graphics settings possible. I've set my Displays resolution scaling factor to the middle option (using an LG UltraFine display). My laptop is generally much cooler with the lid shut. The fan eventually comes on high while I am playing Arena. Both of my fans were replaced the second time my logic board was replaced.

None of these helped.

I think that what's going on (with me) is that when the laptop gets hot, the problems start happening (freezing, crashing). I'm getting a laptop cooling pad thing to see if that helps.

Meantime, while playing competitively, I will borrow a 5 year old MacBook Pro which has none of these problems.

[selfpng]

I have noticed as well that my issues seem to be more prominent when my laptops starts to heat up, so I will probably get a cooling pad too and see if that changes anything.

[pcjr_ea]

I got a cooling pad. I run it on its highest setting as well as my fans set to Full blast using Macs Fan Control. I play with my laptop closed using an external display thinking that this will lessen the load on the system. My GPU and CPU temperatures still regularly approach 80C and I still have problems.

Today, my system froze completely after getting lots of graphics artifacts (such as screen tearing). I had only been using it for about 10 minutes after waking it up. After rebooting, I played for about an hour before I got any glitches (but no crash yet). I have been playing with my display set to full resolution (5120x2880). I'm going to try lessening it to see if that might help with the cooling pad. Before I got the cooling pad it didn't help.

[lyanneeelow]

I've been playing this save with two new expansion packs I just got (Realm of Magic & City Living), and was encountering some graphic issues (some parts of the screen were black and sometimes flashing), so I tried changing some settings. After that, my game has just constantly been crashing and I've tried so many different things to fix it but it still crashes. 

I have no cc or mods in the game, and I've tried the "removing save files and deleting Sims 4 folder to let Origins create a whole new game folder" thing, and the "new" game seems to work fine but once I start importing my past saves back into the folder, the crashing comes back. When it first happened it was pretty quick to crash, the moment I load into the household it would crash. But after a few days I tried again and now it's allowing me about 3-5 minutes of gameplay before it crashes. No matter which save I try to load, it does the same thing.

Are my saves just straight up corrupted? Can I do ANYTHING to keep playing on this save? I really don't want to start from scratch again. I just started getting back into the Sims after a 2 year-ish hiatus and I was REALLY getting into it especially after buying my first two expansions, and this is reallllly frustrating :c

Also, I'm trying to upload my last crash file as an attachment here and it's not letting me, I'm getting the error message: The attachment's lastcrash.txt content type (text/plain) does not match its file extension and has been removed. ???

[Bluebellflora]

@lyanneeelow 

Open the lastCrash using TextEdit and remove the XML from the first line then you should be able to attach it.

Please can you provide more information about your Mac. Instructions on how to do so and what to provide here - http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-Mac/READ-FIRST-Sims-4-Mac-Help-Guides-and-Troubleshooting/m-p/4612...

If it's only happening with specific saves then unfortunately yes, it seems they may be corrupted

[pcjr_ea]

It looks like my particular issue has been solved. I can run my game (Magic Arena) inside a Parallels Windows VM if I boot that VM up with Apple’s Metal API disabled (there's a boot option for this in Parallels). I've been playing without my cooling pad, fan control set to automatic, and my LG UltraFine Display at full resolution (5120x2880).

I haven't yet figured out how to run a MacOS native App with the Metal API disabled...

[lyanneeelow]

Hi thanks for responding! I've attached them all here. 

Yeah I'm guessing so because I thiiiiink a completely new game works fine? I maybe didn't play it for long enough to figure that out yet and I'll go try it out. 

I'm really sad that that happened, it was literally the only save I had because I just started playing again.

What can I do to make sure my games don't corrupt in the future?? I don't even know how or why it happened in the first place

[Bluebellflora]

@lyanneeelow

Oooooooh, you have a 16" MacBook Pro and you've just installed City Living. Have a look at this thread and try the tips in the opening post and solution on page 1 - https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/-WORKAROUND-Problems-playing-Sims-4-on-the-16-quot-Ma...

The game does not play well at all on these model Macs, especially with CL

[lyanneeelow]

OMG this would make A LOT of sense. I can't believe this could be the cause of the problem but yes, the household I'm currently trying to play is vacationing in San Myshuno. Will be trying these out for sure!! Thank you!