I recently got a handfull of what I was informed were Sims 3 .sim files and I think there are a few Sims 2 or Sims 4 Sims mixed in. Is there a program or method to identify which game they belong too? I removed the saved sims folder and the game works fine without it buy freezes with it in. Before I have to manually search the web for where they all came from or install and restart after each one manually. I'm looking for a quick way to identify (xxx.sim) files, so far none of the programs I've DL'ed will open a .sim for inspection unless I missed something. I had this proble a few yrs ago when Sims 3 first came out after adding one file and that was easy to fix but now I have 50.

You can eliminate The Sims 2 because its SavedSims are .Package files, but I'm pretty sure that The Sims 4 is also not the culprit because I have Sims in my Tray and there are no .Sim files.

Used the 5x method, removed all .sim files and added in sets of 5 until crash. found a collection of Dr Who sims that weren't compatible with Sims 3. I seem to remember it being Dr Who files a few yrs ago too. any way my game is working again, Thanks all for the suggestions, would be nice if people would tag their uploads in the names as to game version, S1,S2, S3 or S4 would help a lot of people when searching for files on some sites, sometimes things get mixed up in databases.