sims 4 runs as background process

@CatiLicousNess  Your dxdiag shows a couple of serious crashes of the graphics driver, or one of them anyway.  Since the dxdiag also lists some Windows errors, please start with a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:

• Hit Windows key-X
• Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
• Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
• The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
• After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
• Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
• Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
• Post the message you receive here

Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates.  If any install, restart again afterwards.

Next, download and install the newest Nvidia driver:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/194381/en-us/

Choose the custom (rather than express) install, and check the box to perform a clean install.  Restart again after installing the driver and before trying to play.

These issues should be addressed regardless, but if Sims 4 still doesn't load, please confirm whether the clean folder helped and whether the game's icon shows up in the Task Manager.

@plumbohead232  What exactly is happening when you try to play?  If you get an error, please post a screenshot.  And let me know what you're seeing in general: whether the game appears to launch, and if so, what was happening when it stopped working.

Your dxdiag (and thanks for providing one) doesn't list any Sims 4 crashes or any obvious reason the game wouldn't work.  That could mean that other errors have crowded out the crashes, or that the game isn't crashing but rather refusing to start entirely.  So please try again to play and then look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day.  Today is on the right.

Look for an error that happened at exactly the time of this attempt to play Sims 4.  If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here.  If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.