Forum Discussion

2 years ago

Solved

sims 3 game opening but frozen while progressing in background

I updated my laptop to windows11, since then, my sims 3 game will open and launch, but the screen itself is frozen while the music is progressing in the background. When I return to the desktop and hit the sims 3 on the task bar, the screen also progresses, but then again freezes visually and freezes my mouse. I uninstalled windows 11 and went back to windows 10, and it still is not working. I had my dad try to load the game on his laptop, and the game works just fine. I have messed with graphic settings to see if that's the problem, and nothing seems to work. What can I do to fix this issue?

technical issues

puzzlezaddict
2 years ago
@madikristenfish6 The Sims 3 crashes in your dxdiag could easily be related to the graphics driver, but that doesn't mean the driver itself is the issue. And you can't update the driver on a Surface; you can only uninstall and reinstall the driver that Microsoft provides for your model laptop. But that may not be necessary either.

Instead, try forcing the game to open in windowed mode. Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open Options.ini, search for fullscreen , and set it to 0 (zero).

If that doesn't help, please try changing the setting in this post (17):

https://answers.ea.com/t5/PC/Sims-4-Crashing-Freezing-Lag-Surface-Pro-7/m-p/13477590#M270800

The thread covers issues with Sims 4 and a different Surface laptop, but this was a problem for a few different models for a little while, and these graphics options don't necessarily get along with older games in general.

4 Replies

puzzlezaddict
Hero+
2 years ago
@madikristenfish6 As a test, please try playing in a clean user folder. Move the entire Sims 3 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, and when you launch the game, a clean folder will spawn with no content. (Your saves and other content will be intact in the folder you moved but temporarily not read by the game.) Don't add anything to the new folder yet; just let me know whether you can get far enough to start a new save and play in live mode for a bit.

If that doesn't help, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
madikristenfish
2 years ago
I moved the folder and it still didn't work, so I ran the diagnostic and have attached it here. I did consider, after all the ways I could think of fixing this, that it may be the graphics driver, as someone on Facebook told me this same thing happened to them when they updated their graphics card, but I'm not too tech savvy to know entirely what that means.
DxDiag.txt95 KB
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
2 years ago
@madikristenfish6 The Sims 3 crashes in your dxdiag could easily be related to the graphics driver, but that doesn't mean the driver itself is the issue. And you can't update the driver on a Surface; you can only uninstall and reinstall the driver that Microsoft provides for your model laptop. But that may not be necessary either.

Instead, try forcing the game to open in windowed mode. Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open Options.ini, search for fullscreen , and set it to 0 (zero).

If that doesn't help, please try changing the setting in this post (17):

https://answers.ea.com/t5/PC/Sims-4-Crashing-Freezing-Lag-Surface-Pro-7/m-p/13477590#M270800

The thread covers issues with Sims 4 and a different Surface laptop, but this was a problem for a few different models for a little while, and these graphics options don't necessarily get along with older games in general.
madikristenfish
2 years ago
OH my gosh!! I cannot thank you enough for sharing that thread!! It was indeed such a simple fix! just that little flip of the setting! Bess you for responding and helping me!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!