@Dasiapasiaa Even though it technically meets the minimum requirements EA lists for Sims 3, your laptop is far under the practical requirements, especially with more than the earliest few expansions installed (anything past Late Night). That doesn't mean you can't play at all, but I wouldn't expect performance to be great, and you might not be able to play with Pets or Seasons, or even Island Paradise or Into the Future, at least not without significant issues. The laptop is also under the minimum reqs for Sims 4. You can of course try to play both games; I just don't want to make it sound like the issues you're seeing are entirely fixable.
One thing that will help is playing either game with nothing else running in the background, not even a browser window. Putting the EA App in offline mode can help too since it eats more resources while online. RAM is in particularly short supply since you only have 4 GB installed.
Your dxdiag lists a number of generic Windows errors, so I'd suggest running a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:
- Hit Windows key-X
- Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
- Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
- The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
- After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
- Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
- Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
- Post the message you receive here
Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates. If any install, restart again afterwards.
For Sims 3 itself, all NRaas mods would be fine to use with the exception of StoryProgression. The other mods are neutral or help performance, but SP increases the game's RAM use, and significantly on higher settings. If you really want to use it, run it on Snail.
For your other mods, try the 50/50 method to figure out what was preventing the game from working:
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content#The_50.25_Method
If you're still looking for your missing saves, download Everything, from VoidTools, which is a free and highly efficient search tool. Search for .sims3 , which is the extension for any Sims 3 save, and let me know what you find.