Re: Sims 3 crashing before opening at all

Hi Puzzlezaddict,

I figured out what was causing me the problems.  My antivirus software was screwing stuff up.  I'll just have to switch that off when I want to play The Sims3.  I wanna thank you for all you help with trying to figure this out.  Thank you for all that you are doing in helping all of us fix the problems we are experiencing, it's greatly appreciated.

Thanks Again

Shannara76

I've been having the same issue after getting a new gaming laptop! I've been trying to fix my game for about 2 weeks now. 

@XSIMplyMarieX  If your computer has a 12th-gen or newer Intel processor, please see the accepted solution of this thread:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-3-won-t-open-Alder-Lake-Intel-12th-gen-CPU/m-p/11057820

Otherwise, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

I've reinstalled the game completely and now even vanilla, the game crashes after I press play in the launcher. Before I tried to reinstall directx9, it gave me an error saying that there's a missing .DLL file. Thankfully, after reinstalling directx9, the dll error is gone but, the game crashing at launch still persists. I'm going to try the powershell method but, I'll leave my files here.

@XSIMplyMarieX The crash in your xcpt file is definitely the Alder Lake issue, and you'd need to reapply the patch (or use the PowerShell or Task Manager method) to get around it.  The Task Manager method is the most reliable, so please try that if the others don't work.  And if you try the Alder Lake patch and it causes more problems, repair the game in the EA App (Sims 3 > Manage > Repair) to undo its effects, then use the Task Manager workaround.