Hello,

Do you think Error 12 will always be a thing, even with best current and upcoming hardwares?

This still keeps me from playing the game.
It's so frustrating because it is so complete and you can do many things, but you can't have a big save no matter what.

It will be for as long as TS3 remains a 32-bit only application. There is no way to get a 32-bit app to use more than 4 GB of RAM (the actual limit for TS3 is ~3.7 GB) nor to coax the game into using more than about 800 MB of video memory no matter how much one has installed and available for use. The trick for most of us who continue to get enjoyment out of the game for all these years is to keep worlds each a reasonable size and monitor resource usage throughout gameplay so that this hard limit is never approached through routine play. Managing that becomes part of the game after a while.

That doesn't mean we can't have thousands of sims going, they just can't all be simulated at the same time -- NRaas mods such as Traveler for example offer ways to arrange a game that more safely spirals outwards to other connected worlds without keeping all of our sims and everything else concentrated in one.

I still get it sometimes, usually when I least expect it. Memory usage doesn't even seem to be the deciding factor, but the way I usually solve it is by tabbing out of my game and letting it cool off for a bit. Not too much, because tabbing back in when it's almost entirely unloaded may cause a crash.

Definitely an overdecorated lot will error 12 or CTD. I know - I have converted the riverboat on MTS to a riverboat casino.

I had a same problem with the No-Tell motel too - that lot would Error 12 all the time.

I DID find a teeny workaround solution (that I use because I use the game for storytelling - @AGuyCalledPi - this might help you too) - I only furnish the rooms I'm going to shoot in. Everything else gets a hidden room marker and nothing but curtains/glass "pane" CC effects and a buydebug light source on dim. Seems to have really lessened the crashability.

I do try to kill off service NPCs and the homeless (not me I swear) regularly but the game just starts spawning the miserable bastards back in immediately.

no objects in those rooms except curtains, a glass pane panel and a light. Marking it as a hidden room helps to keep the sims from going in it, but allows me to have doors, etc. I dunno why it works for my game, but it seems to, so I'm not gonna argue with the game mechanics on my game. XD (what I was doing before was furnishing them all and then locking the doors, so the lack of objects loading in on the lot also helps.

Definitely set lots to 1 unless I'm going to do a panoramic open world shot, yep.

I also dropped/cleaned up a lot of my shops/buildings in Twinbrook to be shells because I've made that town too damn big. Need to do it again tonight, just for cleaning up purposes.