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riccifacce's avatar
riccifacce
Seasoned Newcomer
1 day ago

Create-a-World - GameData Folder?

Hi folks. I really want to try and make a custom world for something specific, but of course EA is like "haha forget u and ur desire to use the products u spent literally hundreds of dollars on" right?

I am running Windows 11 on a powerful gaming tower that a friend of mine built and gave to me a few years back.

So, I originally bought it on Steam, I tried every workaround I could, but ultimately the GameData folder is only partial, not total? I don't completely understand how that works. No, I don't at all understand it, actually. So, I tried downloading the entire game through the EA app because I read that it would provide me with the complete GameData. It does not. It still only has some bare-bones information and thus CAW can't validate that I do, in fact, own the game. 

So... What do? Is it fruitless? Is there a work-around? Is there a safe source to obtain the GameData that is legal? Or a way to make it so CAW doesn't check if I own the game, since EA clearly doesn't support CAW actually *checking the data it demands?*

pc
worlds

4 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    13 hours ago

    riccifacce​  I'm not sure what the issue is here.  CAW not working with Steam is a known problem, but it's fixable with a registry edit:

    https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=277022926

    What error are you getting though?  I can't imagine a proper install from either Steam or the EA App would be missing some files that CAW needs since CAW doesn't need anything other than the game itself.  But the error message might be misleading.

    And of course it needs to be noted that there are two versions of CAW, one that works with patch 1.67 (disc and Steam installs) and another for patch 1.69 (EA App installs).  So if you originally downloaded the 1.67 version and subsequently tried to use it with your EA App install, maybe that's the issue.

  • riccifacce's avatar
    riccifacce
    Seasoned Newcomer
    10 hours ago

    puzzlezaddict​ Thanks for the quick reply!

    The error I have consistently received is: "This product requires an installed copy of The Sims(TM) 3. Please install The Sims(TM) 3 before installing this product."

    I found the problem just now. Somehow the GameData files were... in a different folder from the rest of the Sims 3 files? I have no idea how that happened (it's probably because I am bad at things lol), but it's letting me install it now from the EA version. So, I suppose problem solved, because I didn't actually know what the problem was. 

  • riccifacce's avatar
    riccifacce
    Seasoned Newcomer
    10 hours ago

    @puzzleaddict

    ...Crap. I spoke to soon. Now when trying to open up CAW post-installation, it's telling me: 
    The Sims 3 Create a World Tool - Beta has crashed!

    Exception information:

    Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

     

    I'm not sure what the standard is here on the forums, should I make a new post since this is no longer an installer issue? Or... is it still actually an installer issue?

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    10 hours ago

    riccifacce​  We can keep using this thread since it's all one general issue.  Personally, I'd uninstall the EA App version of Sims 3 and go back to the Steam version (and the 1.67 version of CAW), this time with the fix in the post I linked.  There are plenty of reasons the Steam version is easier to use in general, which I can get into if you're interested, but one is that CAW has been finicky with the EA App version since the EA App came out of beta a few years ago.

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