Forum Discussion

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
13 years ago
Solved

The Sims 3 Keeps Minimizing!

I installed The Sims 3, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, and Pets onto my Asus laptop last night. I went to play it and after a couple minutes it minimized into my task bar. So I clicked on the icon and it reopened where I left off, well it wont stop doing this making it almost impossible to play the game and is extremely annoying! Before I installed the games I made sure my laptop had all the right requirements. I was able to see in the create a sim  that my pets aren't distorted like they are on my desktop computer! I don't have any other games downloaded on my laptop. I just really want to play! Can someone please help!!!???

pc
technical issues
  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    12 years ago

    I've been having this issue and killing myself trying to fix it!

    I FINALLY FIXED IT!

    I noticed that the full screen resolution that it was setting my game to was way off. When I changed the resolution in the game it stopped minimizing itself. Here is how to fix it and keep it fixed!

    Right click on your desktop-> Screen Resolution -> write down recommended (mine is 1920x1200)

    Then go to My Documents/Electronic Arts/ The Sims 3
    Open the Options.ini file
    search for Resolution
    (it should have 3 numbers after it separated by spaces)

    change the first number to the first number of your recommended resolution
    and the second number to the second recommended resolution and leave the third number alone

    EX: resolution = 1920 1200 60 (that's mine)

    Save it, restart the sims

    Hopefully you will be playing in no time!

36 Replies

  • crinrict's avatar
    crinrict
    Hero+
    13 years ago

    What happens if you play in windowed mode (for troubleshooting purposes). Does it also minimize ?

  • zombie0000's avatar
    zombie0000
    13 years ago

    I am having this problem too. The game runs fine in windowed mode, but when I go into options and switch to fullscreen, it minimizes again. I don't know why this is happening. It wasn't that long ago when the game ran fine in fullscreen mode. I'd like to know why it's doing this so I can fix it. I really don't want to have to uninstall and reinstall everything.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    12 years ago

    Hi there,

    same problem.

    How can i run windowed mode if i cant open the game.

    Its downloaded version.

    Rom

  • crinrict's avatar
    crinrict
    Hero+
    12 years ago

    You can change that in the options file.

    Go to documents\electronicarts\thesims3 and find called options(.ini). Open that with a text editor and search for windowed mode. If there's a 1 now, change it to 0 or the other way round.

  • XheavendustX's avatar
    XheavendustX
    Rising Novice
    12 years ago
    @zombie0000 wrote:

    I am having this problem too. The game runs fine in windowed mode, but when I go into options and switch to fullscreen, it minimizes again. I don't know why this is happening. It wasn't that long ago when the game ran fine in fullscreen mode. I'd like to know why it's doing this so I can fix it. I really don't want to have to uninstall and reinstall everything.

    I have the exact same problem. I had no problem until about a week ago. Is there something to do to fix it?

  • crinrict's avatar
    crinrict
    Hero+
    12 years ago

    Did you change anything a week ago ? Could there be a program interfering in the back ground ?

  • XheavendustX's avatar
    XheavendustX
    Rising Novice
    12 years ago

    nope. i don't like running anything when i'm on sims. it's a pet peeve. lol

  • XheavendustX's avatar
    XheavendustX
    Rising Novice
    12 years ago

    my system is windows 8. i bought this computer brand new. this minimizing thing didn't start happening until i updated the game to the newest version. 

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    12 years ago

    I've been having this issue and killing myself trying to fix it!

    I FINALLY FIXED IT!

    I noticed that the full screen resolution that it was setting my game to was way off. When I changed the resolution in the game it stopped minimizing itself. Here is how to fix it and keep it fixed!

    Right click on your desktop-> Screen Resolution -> write down recommended (mine is 1920x1200)

    Then go to My Documents/Electronic Arts/ The Sims 3
    Open the Options.ini file
    search for Resolution
    (it should have 3 numbers after it separated by spaces)

    change the first number to the first number of your recommended resolution
    and the second number to the second recommended resolution and leave the third number alone

    EX: resolution = 1920 1200 60 (that's mine)

    Save it, restart the sims

    Hopefully you will be playing in no time!

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