The Sims 3 and Intel 12th Gen CPU's - Workaround inside

"EA_Cade;c-18085509" wrote:
Hey yo,

I can confirm that The Sims team are aware of this issue with the Alder Lake family of processors and are currently investigating.

Thank you. Hopefully this will result in a PERMANENT fix for this problem. @EA_Cade.

I’m presuming this is, like the other games, a DRM issue with regards to “Alder Lake processor cores miscommunication with the game software”?

@Nikkei_Simmer Did you actually read what the articles you linked said? All three of them had the same info, this from Intel:

At this time, all games originally identified as having this DRM issue have been fixed through game patches or OS updates.

The issues have been fixed through game patches or OS updates. As in, the game publisher or Microsoft fixed the issues. Not Intel.

My guess is that Intel wants the information about still-broken games so that it can tell game publishers what to do about it, not so that Intel can address it directly. If it were going to implement a fix itself, it would have back in the fall when this issue first surfaced.

And I haven't been suggesting that anyone contact EA about this. EA is already aware of the issue. The reason it hasn't been addressed is probably that it's not a priority, so if people did want to make a case that fixing Sims 3 matters, the place to go would be EA, not Intel, which, again, just told software developers what to do about the Denuvo issue. But I'm not optimistic that contacting EA would make a difference either; I'm just saying EA is the entity that has to actually fix the problem.

Hey yo,

I can confirm that The Sims team are aware of this issue with the Alder Lake family of processors and are currently investigating.

~dripping sarcasm~ or the other choice is to keep banging on EA’s door…as per what others have advocated doing and hope that something comes of that.
https://en.meming.world/images/en/thumb/f/f6/Let_Me_In.jpg/300px-Let_Me_In.jpg
We all know how well that’s going to work.

And Intel is invested in how many games will work on its new Alder Lake architecture. It’s not good press to have gamers complaining that many games are being affected by how their DRM reads the new CPU having non-functioning games as a result.

But just keep doing what you’re doing. My only dog in the fight is I want a 12th gen CPU for its ability to crunch the myriad computations for MSFS2020. I just don’t particularly want to lose the capacity to play Sims 3 in order to do it.

What it is, is a proprietary driver issue affecting DRM (Digital Rights Management) in certain games affecting the bootup process causing the system to hang (crash) -

Digital Rights Management tools in software such as games would recognize Efficient cores as a separate system. This would trigger the DRM protection and it could result in the game suddenly shutting down or game launchers being prevented from starting whatsoever.

This means each game has to be patched by Intel individually in order to be considered fixed. This requires notification by gamers to Intel (informing them of the problem and Intel will work with EA to formulate a solution - EA will only move on this issue if notified by Intel that there is a problem).

But sure, @puzzlezaddict, keep banging on EA’s door. From where I can see, EA is not invested in Sims 3 anymore as one of the devs even dumped over Sims 3, calling it “not as good as Sims 4”.

It’s been stated by several sources, that the procedure in this case is to contact Intel directly and they will notify EA of the problem with the game and develop a solution.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000088261/processors/intel-core-processors.html


https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.techspot.com/amp/news/92942-all-games-impacted-alder-lakedrm-issues-have-now.html

Intel is asking people who identify any games that still have problems running on Alder Lake to contact the company.

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-fully-resolves-drm-issues-with-its-12th-gen-core-alder-lake-processors

Naturally, gamers who are still, for some reason, encountering such problems are encouraged to reach out to Intel so that those issues can quickly be patched.

So…by all means. You can keep pestering EA who doesn’t really care if Sims 3 doesn’t work for 12th gen systems, or you can notify Intel so that they can poke EA and say “hey, your game isn’t working on our 12-gen processor, let’s craft a solution”.

@Nikkei_Simmer I don't know where you're getting this from. Again, EA fixed this for another game, so clearly EA could fix it for Sims 3. And lots of other games didn't initially run on Alder Lake CPUs, and lots of other game publishers fixed those too.

Also, if this is an issue with the architecture of these processors, even Intel couldn't change it after the fact. Many of the CPUs are already out in the wild, so to speak, and can't be modified after the fact; and equally importantly, the process for manufacturing them wouldn't be changed at this late stage. Even if Intel could make some adjustments, its only goal here is to outcompete AMD CPUs in modern gaming benchmarks and therefore claw back some of its lost market share. It's not sacrificing one of its technological breakthroughs to protect compatibility with a game from 2009.

Besides, Intel doesn't care to hear from gamers at all and wouldn't even blink at a deluge of posts from TS3 players. Even Microsoft probably cares more, and Microsoft doesn't care at all either.

Folks. again, I reiterate that this is nothing to do with EA. And this is a problem that EA cannot fix. This is entirely a matter that can only be rectified if players contact Intel about solving the problem and having them develop an update to the CPU that takes into account how the game starts up. Since it involves Intel proprietary information, coding and hardware it has to be done on Intel's end. This has something to do with the CPU's code for disabling the cores during start-up of games and then re-enabling the cores once the startup process is complete. Since the Intel's CPU interactions with the motherboard are proprietary, the ball on whether that gets fixed is in Intel's court, it has nothing to do with EA's being able to do anything. Evidently certain games just do not mesh well with Intel's new CPU/motherboard structure...thus we are unable to play it without a complicated work-around another player has developed which "sometimes works; sometimes doesn't".

Unless Intel's cage is rattled, they won't know to fix the problem and get a reliable update that takes into account the startup on Sims 3...and that's where we stand at this point. Unless Sims 3 players notify Intel (EA can't do anything about this) - this matter will not get fixed. And considering EA's stance towards Sims 3 at this point, they will do nothing about informing Intel since their focus is on Sims 4.

They would rather that all Sims 3 players switch to Sims 4 which will be a cold day in hell before I do.

"puzzlezaddict;c-18079353" wrote:
EA did fix this same issue for Star Wars: The Old Republic, so there's still a good chance it'll get fixed for Sims 3 as well. If anyone's curious what that fix looks like:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/Alder-Lake-and-Ryzen-CPU-Client-Repair-Fix/td-p/11269948

Sims 3 does still sell a lot of copies, judging from the flurry of posts when something breaks. So it's not like EA would see no benefit at all from putting in the work. But it also may not be a high priority.

There is a big difference between SWTOR and the Sims 3.
SWTOR is a MMO with a large active subscription base that brings in money on a monthly basis.
Whereas the Sims 3 is a single player game that doesn't cause once people buy it they don't have to invest anymore money on it.

Did the OP ever get this to work? I have a Dell laptop with a Intel i5 EVO (powered by Core) that has only been able to run the Sims 2 UC since I purchased it almost 3 years ago. Everything is on Origin for me so I had no discs to test it with at Best Buy when I bought it.

"Nikkei_Simmer;c-18081592" wrote:
@elleskyheart

As I said in my post previously.

According to EA, because it has something to do with how the hardware (chip) reads the startup coding it hangs up the system and your game doesn’t start - so it has to be solved on Intel’s end so unless Intel is made aware of the problem with its i912 chip, Intel won’t do anything about it.

EA can’t do anything about it; the ball is in Intel’s court and it’s Intel that Sims 3 players have to bug.

I may be reading puzzlezaddict's comments wrong, but it seems that Star Wars was going through the same thing. If so and if I'm reading things correctly, then it's not true that they can't fix if. If it's something else, then I am sorry for the confusion.

Also though, if it is true that it would be a good idea to let users know on the EA help forum that this isn't something that they can fix and they need to go to the right people.