So every time I try to launch the game, whether from steam or the app itself, it wont launch. It says preparing game, closes itself, and just reopens the EA app. I have no idea what to do at this point. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, app recovery, and letting it sit for a while and still nothing. Please help
Otherson If you haven't already, please try playing in a clean user folder. Move the entire Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop. When you launch the game, if it launches, a clean folder will spawn with no content. (Your saves and other content will be intact in the folder you've moved but temporarily unread by the game.) Don't add anything to the new folder yet; just start a new save and see how it runs.
If this doesn't or didn't help, please provide a dxdiag. Click Windows key-R, enter dxdiag in the run box, wait for the scan to finish, click "Save all information," and save the file to your desktop. From there, you can attach it to a reply using the paper clip (Attachment) icon included with the other formatting buttons.
Ok so I put the folder onto my desktop and ran the game, it worked! What should I do next in order to regain my saves?
Otherson You can simply transfer your saves to the new Sims 4 folder. They go inside the saves folder, naturally. But if you have mods or custom content you want to use, I would test those files first, to see what (if anything) makes the game stop working. If you have a lot of files to go through, the 50/50 method can make the process much more efficient:
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content#The_50.25_Method
Aside from saves and mods/cc, you can transfer the contents of Tray, which contains saved households and builds, plus Screenshots and Recorded Videos if you care about those. The rest can be discarded.
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