Forum Discussion

yammeryakyam's avatar
yammeryakyam
New Novice
2 months ago

sims 4 not loading

please help!

 last night (7/26/2025) i was playing the sims as usual and then i got out the game and went on with my life, just to come back an hour later for my EA app not to load the game. It attempts to, then goes back to the library page. I cannot play my game anymore?? I dont know what to do anymore!!

I cleared cache, repaired the game, restarted my laptop multiple times, restarted EA app, and waited, hoping maybe it was a small bug

I want to keep my save and sims for the most part too!

i don't know how to do any of this tech stuff either

I do use mods and cc but i dont think this was the problem because it worked just fine with the same downloads the hour before

6 Replies

  • yammeryakyam​  As a test, 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 you still can't play, 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.

    If you get an error message when trying to play, please post a screenshot.

  • yammeryakyam's avatar
    yammeryakyam
    New Novice
    2 months ago

    puzzlezaddict​ 

    I just ran the game

     

    It looks like it works well! 

    I also got an "unrecognized video card" pop up

    What do i do from now on? 

  • williamabo's avatar
    williamabo
    Seasoned Rookie
    2 months ago

    Can you try to Ignore the Unrecognized video Card Popup and try to play the game normally ?

  • yammeryakyam​  The "unrecognized video card" message showed up because the game created a new Options.ini file inside the user folder.  You're only supposed to see this message once, but the flag that you've already seen it is stored in Options.ini, which is why you saw it again.  But you can ignore it.

    If you'd like to use your mods and custom content going forward, test those in the new Sims 4 folder first, and remove or replace anything that causes the game to stop working.  If you have a lot of files to sort through, the 50/50 method can help:

    https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Finding_Problem_Custom_Content#The_50.25_Method

    Once you've finished that, you can transfer the contents of the saves and Tray (saved households and builds) folders, plus Screenshots and Recorded Videos if you care about those.  The rest can be discarded.

  • yammeryakyam's avatar
    yammeryakyam
    New Novice
    2 months ago

    hello, puzzlezaddict​ 

    I put in my mods and the problem happened again? Then i removed them all (leaving resource file in) and it still didn't launch my game. I will try out another clean slate folder but i might have to clean out my mods folder (unfortunately its 7 gb big with overrides, animations, and a lot of objects) . I'll update on the matter.

  • yammeryakyam​  Some mods leave a file inside the saves folder as well, so check there for anything mod-related and try removing it first.

    If that doesn't help, it's possible (uncommon, but possible) your antivirus is blocking Sims 4 due to some mod-related change.  So check the AV for recent actions that might be related.