I was able to play Sims 3 on my new Surface Laptop with the Snapdragon® X Elite (12 Core) processor. It is running windows 11. Suddenly when I try to launch it, it just pulls up the EA app again and nothing ever pops up from the Sims Launcher. Attached are the error log file and the DxDiag file. Anyone know how to fix this or what the issue could be?
If it helps, Sims 4 still works.
It looks like the graphics driver is crashing when you try to run Sims 3 and taking the game down with it. But reinstalling the GPU driver is not as simple on a Surface as on other computers, so it's best to look elsewhere first.
Please move the entire Sims 3 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop. If you get an error when trying to move it, or it copies rather than moving, pause OneDrive syncing and try again. Click the cloud icon in the lower-right corner of the screen to see the option.
Otherwise, launch Sims 3, and when the launcher opens, if it opens, a clean folder will spawn with no content. Don't add anything to this folder; just see whether you can get far enough to start a new save.
If that doesn't help, run the EA App recovery tool:
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/
and repair the game: open your App library, click Sims 3, and select Manage > Repair. Then try again to play.
Please let me know if you've changed anything about the game's program files, for example adding the Smooth Patch or a graphics tweak. It's important to try to play without any changes, at least until the game is working properly again.
And please clarify whether the Sims 3 launcher opens and loads as normal. It sounds from your post like it doesn't, but the crashes in your dxdiag are from the game itself, and with an EA App install, you couldn't get that far without opening the launcher first.
Thank for your reply! I have no mods or tweaks for my game at all though I do have expansion packs. The launcher does open just fine. When I click play is when everything crashes and the EA app comes back open. I cleared the cache, uninstalled and reinistalled the game, tried the EA app game repair, and moved the Sims 3 folder out of the documents folder to allow a new one to generate. Unfortunately none of that worked.
Please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:
Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates. If any install, restart again afterwards.
Please also uninstall the EA App itself with Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine), which is more thorough than the standard uninstall process. Restart your computer before reinstalling.
What you're running into is a bug with the launcher and Windows 11. There's a workaround for it; it's a bit of a PITA (you have to do this EVERY time you want to launch the game), but it's doable.
After you launch the Launcher, and you see the big PLAY button, do NOT click it; go to Task Manager (Control-Alt-Delete => Task Manager), and click the Details tab on the left. Then scroll down to Sims3Launcher, right-click it, and select "Set affinities". Now turn off ALL CPUs except for one (I usually turn off all of them, and then turn on CPU 0) for the launcher. Do not close Task Manager; you will need it again in a moment.
Now go to the Launcher, and click Play. Wait until you see the game start up (for me, it's seeing the green plumbob icon on my taskbar, even if the splash screen hasn't appeared yet), then switch back to Task Manager. Now scroll down to the TS3.exe (it may be called something different if you run Sims 3 from Steam), right-click it, select "Set affinities", and turn all of the CPUs on again.
I had this problem when I bought my really powerful gaming rig about a year ago, which happened to come with Windows 11. I tried for months to get the game to work, and finally gave up and resigned myself to playing Sims 4. Then the Sims YouTuber Pixelade came out with a video on this a couple of months ago, which was very enlightening. I haven't gone back to Sims 4 since, and I don't know that I ever will.
MiaSkywalker1 The issue you're referring to is not a bug with Windows 11. It is entirely contained to certain newer Intel processors, and it happens in Windows 10 in exactly the same contexts as 11. This OP does not have an affected Intel CPU, in fact does not have an Intel CPU at all. They also don't have the very distinct error associated with this particular problem, as seen in their crash log.
The fix for this issue has been known for about 2.5 years now. There's a very long master thread for it, and a patch that does the work for the user (rather than needing the Task Manager method) was released over 2 years ago. Not sure if that made it into the video, but it would be a shame if not.
You didn't notice that the OP mentions having a NEW 12 Core Processor machine? Maybe that info has been out for a while, but if the OP has a multi-core processor, then the OP may be unaware of the information.
MiaSkywalker1 It's a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, not Intel. The problem has never been with multi-core processors, which have existed since before Sims 3 was released; only with certain Intel CPUs starting with the 12th generation, and not all of those either. For example, the i5-12400 is unaffected, but the i5-12600K and i5-13400 are. As far as I've seen, no AMD CPUs are affected, or anything using ARM architecture.
This particular problem also comes with a very specific NT status error (divide by zero) that isn't present in the OP's dxdiag or crash log.
I have this exact same issue.
