Sims 3 game will not load!

• What's your operating system ?
• Does anything happen when you press play (like start loading the game and then nothing) or is nothing happening at all ?

Hello,

I thought I'd tag onto this message rather than create a new one.

I don't have Norton but I do have avast!.  However I've tried to run the game with avast! turned off and no joy.

Here's a run-down of my situation:

OS: Windows 8.1 64bit

CPU: i7-3770 @3.40GHz (not overclocked)

RAM: 8Gb

Graphics card: NVidia GeForce GTS450

Installed game content: Base game, all Stuff packs, all Expansions, some Store worlds, a few assorted custom content characters and objects.

I bought Into the Future yesterday and installed it (the game had me update to the most recent patch to allow this, which it did slowly but without apparent error).  ItF installed smoothly; I then left it overnight as other issues called me away from my PC.  This morning I sat down and started the launcher.

The launcher responded slowly but it did respond.  After a sluggish load it showed all Expansions and Stuff Packs are recognised, the game is patched and up to date (showing game version: 1.63.4.024017).  It connects to my Origin account, shows my profile picture, shows my current Sims Store points.  It correctly detects and displays all custom content (both user-created and store content; all incentive items, for example).  I was not asked to uninstall anything prior to ItF installing; I merely had to patch the game and the Launcher was satisfied.

Pressing the Play button causes the launcher to quit (as it usually does) but after that nothing happens - at all.  No loading screen, no screen flickers, no splash video.  No frozen or otherwise 'borked' programs show up in Task Manager.

I have tried: removing mods; removing the entire Mods folder; running without custom content; running with custom content; shaking my fist at the screen threateningly; turning off avast!; running a full virus scan over the system; restarting the system; prowling the forums for some indication of what I might be doing wrong; checking dxDiag despite not really knowing what I'm looking for (the text file from dxDiag can be found here).

I have not tried: uninstalling anything (because I'd really rather not if it's not necessary).

Hoping the above detail helps, and any advice is appreciated.

I am having the same problem as the above person, same OS, all the games and EPs and all but the last two worlds. It just started doing this two days ago. I do have cc, but I have not added anything in the past two days, so I do not understand why it stopped loading. In fact, I haven't even been able to download anything in about a week. My luancher quit dowloading anything into my game. I thought I might need to remove something, but I haven't figured out what that might be. As stated above my launcher also opens, but I only get a black screen. Does anyone know whats going on and what the solution may be?

Thanks,

Beth

Do you have bitDefender installed ?

Try the factory reset described in this post: http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-3/FAQ-Troubleshooting-Steps/td-p/714/

What is bitDefender and do I need it? And if I do where can I get it? And if I don't need it, how do I find out if I accidently downloaded it?

It's an security software that conflicts with the game. You don't need if it, no worries. Just making sure that this isn't your issue.

You can't download it accidently. It costs quite a lot of money.

Did you try the factory reset suggested above ?

Well, my problem turned out to be in my Mods folder. I just have to find out what it is. I have not downloaded any new core Mods, or even CAS mods, which is what I mostly use, in awhile, so I don't know what the problem is. Everything worked fine until about 3 days ago. I guess I will do groups at a time until I can figure out what it is. Whatever the problem is, it also won't let me download cc from the store or exchange. Is there anyway to narrow it down, or is there something that can clean it up?  I can't mark this as solved, because I am not the originator, but thanks for the help.

crinrict, thanks for your attention on this matter. I don't have bitDefender installed (actually until you mentioned it I wasn't aware it existed).  If it causes more issues I'll keep that in mind and let others know.

I have managed to get my game working.  It's been a haphazard trial but it's done.  While I know how to make my copy work I don't know what's causing it.

I tried the steps outlined in the page you linked. No joy.  I checked for outdated drivers.  All up to date.  In a fit of pique I even tried uninstalling ItF. Nope.

Then I tried uninstalling NVIDIA GeForce Experience 1.7 (which wasn't updating to 1.8 properly). Then I installed GeForce Experience 1.8 - the updated and most recent version of the program - as found here. It installed flawlessly and I scanned for games, noticed a 'game-ready driver' wasn't at its most recent version, started it downloading. Then I went to the Games panel in that program, selected The Sims 3 and hit 'Optimise'.

On a whim I started the launcher - ItF was not installed and neither was the updated version of the game-ready driver. But the game started. It ran without a problem. I restored my user data and tried again - still no problem, though it did drop my resolution back to 1024x768 (but that was easily changed back in-game).

So.  Fixed, right?  Not quite.

It won't run when I load the Launcher via Origin or via a Start Menu link.  The Launcher loads without a problem but not the game itself.  When I run it through the 'launch game' button in GeForce Experience it works every time.  Which to me seemed really weird.  So I bypassed the Launcher entirely and ran it via TS3W.exe - nothing.  Not a blip.

And then I right-clicked it and chose 'Run as administrator'.

Bam.  Worked perfectly.  And it also works perfectly when I run the Launcher file 'as administrator'.  I assume that GeForce Experience is forcing the Launcher to load with administrator privileges, but the Origin client isn't.  Either way it works.  I'm not sure why it requires admin privileges now when it never did in the past but if that's the only issue I can work around it.

Note to self: the moral of the story is to try running with admin privileges first.

Great to hear you got it fixed and thanks for the detailed report. There's so many different causes to this.

Question to rathowyn: I assume it still doesn't work if you start through Origin, right ? Does it work if you start Origin as administrator ? Reason I ask is since the newer base game version can't bypass Origin and people need to launch from Origin.

No problem on the detailed report; I figured it might help someone if they run into the same thing.

I just checked.  My system has been running sluggishly so I restarted but it made no difference to Origin.  Launcher works, nothing else.  However, taking your advice and running Origin as an administrator worked beautifully!  I'm no expert but I assume the launcher and game are inheriting Origin's admin rights.  So that works nicely.  I suppose an easy fix for the particular issue I encountered would be to set Origin to always run with admin privileges.

Quitting Origin and restarting without admin privileges also replicates the problem so it's definitely an admin rights issue.  Setting the .exe itself to start as an admin each time fixes it.

If anyone isn't sure how to do that here's how on Windows 8.x (though it's the same in 7 and Vista as far as I recall):

• Navigate to the Origin install directory (mine is D:/Games/Origin but yours will depend on where you installed the client)
• Find the file titled Origin.exe 
• Right-click it and select 'Properties'
• Go to the 'Compatibility' tab up the top.
• Under 'Settings' you'll likely see a few things about Reduced colour mode, 640x480 resolution and so on.  Ignore those.  You're looking for a check box labelled 'Run this program as an administrator'.
• Check that box and hit OK (or Apply).

Now every time you start the Origin client it'll ask for admin privileges - some people find that pretty annoying but I consider it a small price to pay for a working game.

Wow.  The base game only runs through Origin now? If I was in that position I'm not sure if I'd have worked this fix out...  :manfrustrated: