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Seasoned Novice

Re: Sims 3 won't open: Alder Lake (Intel 12th-gen) CPU

I recently bought The Sims 3 through Steam, and I can't get it to launch. The Sims 3 Game Launcher pops up, but once I click the Play button, the Game Launcher window goes away, and TS3 never starts. The "Stop" button in Steam just changes back to "Play" after a second, as if I had closed the game or if it crashed. But I don't get any sort of error message, it just won't start. I tried reinstalling, but that didn't help. Any thoughts on what to do here?

2 Replies

dundunlovesbread
Newcomer
4 months ago
what are your computer specs (cpu & gpu)? do you have an newer generation (12+) intel cpu? if so, you must do the alder lake patch for the game to launch properly. if you haven't already, you should follow acottonsock's guide for setting up your game. I provided the link below timestamped at the alder lake tutorial, but should honestly watch the whole video & read the comments for some tips. You should also follow the sims 3 steam performance guide. It has some overlap with acottonsocks video, so just skip anything you've already done.
acottonsock sims 3 guide: https://youtu.be/yC3tNYsfAI8?t=593
acottonsocks google doc with links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mYAAd3WSqSWqQSiMYMTZB4NLlshMaQi37p7mreZI3I8/edit?tab=t.0
steam performance guide (more fixes): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1131162350
SweetsGlitch
Seasoned Novice
4 months ago
I double checked my CPU and yup, it's 14th gen. I had no idea that was causing issues with TS3. But I just tried out the patch and my game started up! Thank you SO much for the links. I'll check out the performance guide, too, I really appreciate your help.