[CURRENT ISSUE] The Sims 3 - Issues playing on newer (post 2013) Macs

I downloaded The Sims 3 yesterday on my early 2015, 13 inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1536 MB. After waiting for like twelve hours for it to finish installing and struggling to find the registration code due to unclear directions, I went to play it. At first a window popped up, it was light blue with the big green diamond. I forget what happened but it wasn't going to do anything so I had to force quit on it. Now every time I try to hit play, this error message pops up: "Cannot start the process when the Game is running. Please quit the game and try again."

I read that other people have this same problem. I think someone said that there's no way to fix it? But that's not fair. Why doesn't it work on this specific computer? I really wanna play the game and I can't figure out how to actually call Origin. All that it lets me do is answer a few little questions and then directs me here.

My friend has the same computer as me and she has the CD version of the game and she said that hers works fine.

Can someone help me?

I do not understand and I just want to play the game now. 

@samanthatroulis

Does your friend have the exact same model Mac as you? Same year, model, processor, RAM, graphics, operating system?

The problem is your graphics card not being supported in the game, you have to add the details for it manually in order to be able to play. 

 Please follow the instructions in the opening post.

I have merged your thread with this one so all information can be in one place.

Hey i hope you guys can help me!!I always played the sims on my windows laptop.
I recently got a macbook pro 13inch and i bought sims 3 for mac on origin since there is no room for a disk.
I installed sims 3, and after midnight and it wont start. I tried it with and without the launcher bypassing it. The only thing that happens is that i click play in the launcher and the blue screen pops up with the diamond (when its suppose to play the vid) it freezes. When that happends i can not stop the sims i have to force stop it and restart my mac, if i try to open it after only force stopping it a screen pops up saying; i cant play because its already running. (Lol i wish) This happends with and without the launcher. I deleted everything and only installed the sims 3 again but the same problem appears. (Its up to date). I never played it because i just bought it from origin. Can someone please help me.

@Sorayalps moved your post to this help thread. Please read the opening post for more information. - BluebellFlora

Hi there. I'm in desperate need of some assistance - I've literally non-stop all day been trying to get my sims 3 and its expansion packs to work and they just won't. I've got the latest edition of the Macbook Air and there is plenty of space and the system I'm running on is Yosemite. First, I redeemed the base game and some expansion packs and then bought the Supernatural expansion pack from Origin. The downloads went fine but when I went to the launcher an update was there. I accepted the update and I would be sitting there waiting for it and when it was about 3/4 of the way there the download would just randomly disappear and it would pop up saying the download was available again. I tried again a few times and when that kept happening I tried to launch without the update and it would just stay on that screen with the light blue background and the green diamond. It wouldn't even let me quit the program to try again so I had to turn off my computer before trying to do it again. When that didn't work still I saw that people were saying I needed to install the expansion packs in order and that I needed to update the base game before installing any expansions and then update each expansion before installing the next one. I also noticed that when I was installing the expansion packs in the beginning it would say that the expansions might not be compatible because the sims 3 base game was a later version than expected even though all of my expansions were purchased after the sims 3 base game, so I don't really see how that works. Anyway, I tried uninstalling using the uninstall icon in the sims 3 folder but it would just keep loading not doing anything. So then I removed the sims 3 folder and emptied my trash. I re-downloaded the sims 3 and when I tried to open it, it wouldn't even go to the launch - just said that there was an unknown error. I then figured out that I had not deleted every related file beforehand and so there could be conflicting files. I did that and emptied trash but one file would not empty because it was 'still in use', even though I have nothing open or activated. I've just deleted and re-installed origin and am re-installing the sims 3 now to see if it works now that I've removed the other files. I hope it works but any suggestions would be much appreciated becausee I am totally losing it by now with this.

Oh! I also forgot to mention that when I was installing the expansion packs and viewed the expansion packs downloaded to my sims 3 in origin it said all of them were there but my pets and world adventures expansions popped up as both installed and available purchase. I don't know if it's just a glitch that doesn't really affect anything or what but I thought I'd mention it just in case anyway.

@susanmarden I have moved your post to the main thread relating to your problem which is the unsupported graphics card in your Mac. Please read my opening post and follow the links to try the workaround fix - BluebellFlora

@Sorayalps

Yes there is, it's 7th down the link list on the first part and the specific page is here - http://bluebellflora.com/fix-for-incompatible-graphics-for-the-sims-3-on-mac/intel-iris-6100-13-macbook-pro/

🙂

Omg you're an absolute lifesaver - I've actually made some progress! However after I installed my expansion packs it did the same thing again unfortunately. I tried opening each expansion and some of them say there is an error while others open and update fine. I tried looking for their contents to change them like I did with the base game as per your suggestion but I can't find anything relating to that. I'd really not like to go through the installing process heaps of times just to figure out which expansions will mess up my game so if you have any suggestions about finding the contents of expansions or anything else, I'd be eternally gratefully!

@Bluebellflora

Sorry never mind I figured it out

Um sorry to be a bother but I've got another problem. My game works but my map is grey and my game is on all the lowest settings and all unnecessary options have been de-activated. All I see online are possible fixes for Windows systems or people saying that either I must have downloaded too many expansion packs or my graphics card isn't good enough. I really don't want to have to limit my expansion packs or never be able to play because my graphics card won't ever work. Do you know of any solutions for a Mac OS X Yosemite system for an early 2015 11" MacBook Air? @Bluebellflora

@susanmarden

Glad it's kind of working! I think the problem maybe because your Mac isn't very powerful and TS3 is a resource hog. In the GraphicsRules.sgr file try changing the Medium to Low in the 'seti CardLevel $cardLevelMedium' line.

In response to your EP question, another user couldn't run Late Night, Ambitions and Island Paradise but could run all the others ok. They were on a different Mac to you but still one of the affected ones.

Well done for getting this far, so many don't and I think it's because they don't quite edit the files properly or miss out a step.