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xelfie-11's avatar
xelfie-11
Seasoned Newcomer
1 day ago

My game won't start

I bought the game a few years ago, and it works perfectly on my older computer. However, it won't launch on my new laptop. I have the game—along with the complete DLC package—in my Steam library. I’ve heard that a newer version exists, but this update hasn't arrived on Steam. It would be a huge help if the game could run without needing any workarounds. While there are plenty of solutions and mods on the forums to address this issue, I would really prefer to avoid those. I would be incredibly grateful if you could resolve this for me; I’m sure many others would appreciate it as well.

hardware
pc
technical issues

1 Reply

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    1 day ago

    xelfie-11​  If your newer computer has a higher-end Intel processor, you probably have this issue:

    Sims 3 won't open: Alder Lake (Intel 12th-gen) CPU | EA Forums - 8265525

    You'd apply the patch to TS3W.exe, with the W.  It's a one-time fix, that is if you use the patch rather than one of the other workarounds.

    As for EA fixing this issue, it probably costs money and/or other resources to push a new build to the Steam version of the game.  (And to be clear, it's not a new version in the strictest sense—the game itself is the same, just without the startup issue.)  If that were going to happen, it would have at the same time as the EA version was updated, which was almost two years ago now.  So I wouldn't hold your breath.

    If you really won't run the Alder Lake patch, then you can register your Steam CD keys in the EA App and install the game from there.

    For what it's worth, I and many other players with a Steam install of Sims 3 actively do NOT want EA updating the game there.  The entire reason I bought my Steam copy, despite owning some content through EA already, was to avoid the other "features" of patch 1.69, and I would be very upset if those were forced on me through an update.

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