Best ways to reduce number of crashes?

[BuildingUp]

I don't have a very fast pc, it's a Dell starter-end pc I purchased 3 years ago. It's basically a weak multi-media PC, but it was all I could afford at the time. Right now, with the turbulent economy, I can't afford a new computer yet. So until then, is there any ways to reduce the number of crashes, and if so, what are the best ones?

To give you an idea of what is happening: I will be laying underground pipe-work zoomed out, and when I would get out of that mode and zoom in it would crash. Or if I try to put more than a few trees on a map, if I zoom out, it crashes.

I have a 1GB 2.8Ghz PC with onboard Intel Graphics. 128MB PCI (non express) to be specific.

Any help or redirection would be greatly appreciated. Thank-you in advance.

[j-dub]

3 years, ago, huh? Its still newer. This game was rushed to the market in 2004, but not completely finished. We can tell now. Isn't the programmers mistake a pain in the *ss or what?
Unfortanetly, the way the game is programed, its impossible. Some people have had there Intel cards updated, and less crashes have been reported, but nothing guarenteed is going to prevent crashing. I wouldn't recommend being further out than the 2nd closest view when laying pipes. I would wait 10 seconds after whatever last action so the game continues safely. In my experience, if you try to navigate faster than the game, it will crash. My mouse is way too touch sensitive on the wheel, that it can cause crashing when zooming out, thats why I don't like using the mouse to do that. I don't think it has to do with what computer you have, unless its before 98, but I heard someone say that they have the best new computer in the world, and this game still crashes. So in your case, you may want to put the games settings lower, maybe even moving the sound.dat file completely out of where the game is installed, along with moving the intro.dat file somewhere else away from this game, because the less stuff it has to load the better. See if taking the sound file out helps you, especially when laying pipes. There have been cases where it turned out the sound did cause problems. If you are using any plugins, getting them compressed once in awhile may help. As with any Sims game, it is said that as soon as your pc is turned on, you do that first before 15 minutes you do anything else, that its the first priority. The way my game is, I had learned to set it to a high priority, but if it can't crash, it will freeze that I can't get back to the desktop. So I don't think trying to prevent the crash is a good idea either.
Hope I'm not repeating anything, but I would set
Visual Effects medium, #of cars/Sims to Low, Shadows low, Building Draw Speed low, City Detail low, Clouds/Fog off (personally that cloud gets in the way), Color Cursor off, Color Quality 16 bit, UI translucency off, Varriable Speed Automata off (you don't want the game to crash unexpectedly), Renderer: Software

[BuildingUp]

3 years, ago, huh? Its still newer. This game was rushed to the market in 2004, but not completely finished. We can tell now. Isn't the programmers mistake a pain in the *ss or what?
Unfortanetly, the way the game is programed, its impossible. Some people have had there Intel cards updated, and less crashes have been reported, but nothing guarenteed is going to prevent crashing. I wouldn't recommend being further out than the 2nd closest view when laying pipes. I would wait 10 seconds after whatever last action so the game continues safely. In my experience, if you try to navigate faster than the game, it will crash. My mouse is way too touch sensitive on the wheel, that it can cause crashing when zooming out, thats why I don't like using the mouse to do that. I don't think it has to do with what computer you have, unless its before 98, but I heard someone say that they have the best new computer in the world, and this game still crashes. So in your case, you may want to put the games settings lower, maybe even moving the sound.dat file completely out of where the game is installed, along with moving the intro.dat file somewhere else away from this game, because the less stuff it has to load the better. See if taking the sound file out helps you, especially when laying pipes. There have been cases where it turned out the sound did cause problems. If you are using any plugins, getting them compressed once in awhile may help. As with any Sims game, it is said that as soon as your pc is turned on, you do that first before 15 minutes you do anything else, that its the first priority. The way my game is, I had learned to set it to a high priority, but if it can't crash, it will freeze that I can't get back to the desktop. So I don't think trying to prevent the crash is a good idea either.
Hope I'm not repeating anything, but I would set
Visual Effects medium, #of cars/Sims to Low, Shadows low, Building Draw Speed low, City Detail low, Clouds/Fog off (personally that cloud gets in the way), Color Cursor off, Color Quality 16 bit, UI translucency off, Varriable Speed Automata off (you don't want the game to crash unexpectedly), Renderer: Software

That sound issue sounds familiar, I had recently added a ton of music to listen to because the old stuff was getting old. Hmm, well if it can stop the crashes I can just listen to my ipod while I'm playing. I appreciate the help, thank you! 

[HandsOn]

You might want to take a look at No Crash Course; even though it was written for dual cores, it does work with single cores as well, especially part II.

[flame1396]

Thanks HandsOn, that was useful for me.