Here is my system setup if makes any difference:
Windows 10 Home 64x
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor 3.60 GHz
Crucial Ballistix 32,0 GB Ram
Crucial MX500 1TB SSD
Gigabyte Geforce RTX 2070 Super
Thanks in advance
@Avareee That is quite the interesting development. I don't know whether the cause of the issue is something involved in Origin's opening of Sims 3, or whether the fully patched game uses some resource that an original disc install does not, but either way, it would narrow things down.
Unfortunately, I don't currently have a disc install myself to compare against and Origin one; like you, most of my packs were purchased digitally. I can make some suggestions for the Origin side of things though. First, disable the Origin in-game overlay: hover over your username, select Application Settings, then the Origin in-game header, and disable the option at the top. Disable all notifications (under the Notifications header) as well. It shouldn't be necessary, but you can also disable Origin in-game at the Sims 3 level by right-clicking on the game tile and selecting Game Properties.
If that doesn't help, try disabling the Origin Client and Web Helper Services. Hit Windows key-R, enter "msconfig" without quotes, click the Startup tab, and uncheck the box next to each one. For good measure, look for an EA Background Service entry and disable that as well. I don't know whether that only gets installed with the EA Desktop App or whether it comes with Origin too, but after I installed the app last year, I caught this service running in the background with Origin a couple times, and it doesn't need to be there.
Finally, try running the game while your computer is offline. You can sign into Origin and put it in offline mode, then disable wifi and/or unplug the ethernet cable before pressing play.
By the way, when you installed via disc, did you let the game patch or run the Super Patch yourself, or did you just play it as-is? I'm curious whether you ran a fully patched disc install at any point—the game changed a lot between its original release and patch 1.67.
As for Restoro, Malwarebytes wasn't saying it was running, just that its files were present, and you could have installed it but never opened it yourself. I do see links to it on sites offering single file downloads, e.g. if you're missing this .dll let this tool install it for you. But it doesn't really matter how you got it, just that it gets removed one way or another.
I have deinstalled origin and the sims 3 via revo again, clean installed both and done your latest suggestions. But it didn't help, sadly.
When it comes to your question of how I did it with the disc;
I have installed the game with the disc, like two times. First it launched without a patch whatsoever, in-game it said I could update the game through the EA Download Manager so that was what I did. I closed the game and updated it.(it got updated to 1.67). And later when I have installed Origin to download all the rest of the addons, it launched once, funnily... it didn't even wanted to update the game o.O. But after closing the game it forced the game to get "repaired", so it could get updated to the newest version, but it got broke and stopped launching with that same error code. So I have deinstalled both again(Origin & Sims3)
Later I have installed it again with the disc, and the game didn't launch, not even react with any error. But it did launch after the patcher. I wanted to try it again with Origin, but it did something similar to before, but instead of launching it once, it wanted to "repair" it right away.
@Avareee It does sound like the issue is Origin itself, or rather some resource Origin wants to use that isn't working on your computer. The only things that change between patches 1.67 and 1.69 are the Origin tie-in, the pack selector (the Expansions & Stuff tab) in the launcher, and the .exe that Sims 3 uses. The pack selector shouldn't have anything to do with this, and TS3.exe itself supposedly works in almost the exact same way as TS3W.exe, which runs the non-1.69 versions of the game.
One thing I thought of that I've never tried is renaming TS3.exe to Sims3Launcher.exe or S3Launcher.exe; I don't remember off the top of my head which one Origin calls to open the launcher. Point is, inside ...\The Sims 3\Game\Bin, you'll see a bunch of .exe files, one of which Origin uses when launching the game. (The ones with a W in them are only used in patch 1.67 and earlier.) So if you rename TS3.exe, which opens the game itself, to the name of the .exe that's supposed to open the launcher, and the process of calling the launcher is the problem here, maybe you can bypass it.
Be sure to rename each launcher .exe (you can put an -old on the end) before renaming TS3.exe, so you don't have two files with the same name in the same folder. If this doesn't work, repairing will restore the files.
@Avareee I meant to ask another question but forgot to include it: Do you own any other Origin games, and if so, do they work on this computer? Please let me know what they are.
Yes I have Battlefield 3, which works seamless. I own some others aswell, but never tried them on this Computer.
EDIT: By the way doesn't the launcher "call" the TS3.exe anyway, when you press 'play'?
Also, when I just launch TS3.exe without opening Sims3Launcher.exe(in ProgramFiles(x86)\Origin Games) I have the same error.
So what kind of difference would that make, renaming them?
@Avareee If the launcher is somehow the problem, whether the launcher itself or the transition to or from it, then bypassing it entirely could help. I've always read that the launcher can't be bypassed on a 1.69 install. However, I wasn't sure that this was technically true: if Origin is trying to call the launcher but just blindly opens whatever is labled "Sims3Launcher.exe," then renaming TS3.exe to that might cause Origin to open the game directly instead of forcing you to go through the launcher. But like I said, I haven't tried it myself.
This is different than trying to open TS3.exe directly: doing so points back to Origin, which points back to the launcher, at least under normal circumstances. This I know is how things work because many players have tried it and reported the results over the years.
So I've finally got a computer that can run The Sims 3, after many many years of not being able to run it. My friend lent me a USB DVD drive so I could install from the disc that I've owned for years—I was so excited!
But I've now been faced with days and days of the '0xc000007b' error message and seemingly no way to fix it.
Things I've already tried:
I'm at my wits end after waiting so long to play this!! Is there anything else that anyone can recommend trying?
@proverb_jackson If you're running a disc install that doesn't involve Origin, please run the Super Patch to manually patch the games files to 1.67. The launcher may claim that everything is updated, but that's not a reliable metric. You'll want the "Cumulative base game super patcher" offered here:
The Super Patch will undo the changes you've made to add your graphics card to Sims 3's database, so put aside the new copies of the .sgr files if you want to keep them. Since getting your card recognized isn't necessary for the game to work, please leave out the altered copies and try to play with the game's default versions.
If that doesn't help, please let me know which versions of DirectX, .NET Framework, and the VC++ runtimes you've replaced.
Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
@puzzlezaddict Thank you so much for the help!
Sadly the patch didn't work. I've attached my DxDiag along with a list of the .NET Framework and the VC++ versions on my laptop. At some point or another, through troubleshooting this problem, I've deleted and reinstalled all of them.
If it helps, my laptop specs are:
| CPU | 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-9750H 6-Core |
| Maximum Boost Speed | 4.5 GHz |
| L3 Cache | 12 MB |
| Memory Type | DDR4 |
| Total Installed Memory | 8 GB |
| Memory Configuration | 1 x 8 GB |
| Graphics Type | Dedicated |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 with 4 GB GDDR5 VRAM |
@proverb_jackson I should have clarified before, but in case you're wondering, Sims 3 uses DirectX 9, VC++ 2005 x86, and .NET Framework 3.5, so troubleshooting issues with any other runtimes would likely be irrelevant. Also irrelevant is that your laptop's processor is actually an i5-9300HF (perfectly capable of running Sims 3), not a 9750H, but I figured I'd mention it in case you were expecting something else.
Please undo any compatibility settings you're currently using: Sims 3 runs fine in Windows 10, and compatibility settings add complicating factors. Please also run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:
Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates. If any install, restart again afterwards. (Even if you keep your laptop up to date, it's important to do this after running DISM and sfc.)
If Sims 3 still won't open, try launching it from TS3W.exe rather than using the launcher. I believe the file path in a disc install should be something like this:
Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin
I understand you may still want to use the launcher, but I'm curious whether this works at all.
Either way, if the launcher still isn't cooperating, try playing in a new admin Windows account. The username should contain only letters and/or numbers, no special characters, accents, etc. Make it a local account, as in, don't sign into Microsoft, and don't sync with any other services you normally use. You won't need to reinstall the game.
If that doesn't help either, please let me know what antivirus you use, and if you used to have one that you removed.
