The Sims 3 Won't launch, even in a fresh install?

[pokeman92]

Hi, I've not played the Sims 3 for about 6 months, but today I wanted to play it again so I tried launching it from the desktop. Nothing seemed to happen. Okay, I figured it may have been botched after the W10 upgrade, so I uninstall the game and all expansion packs and just try to reinstall the base game, and still nothing happens when I try to launch. Finally I go into the task manager and what I see makes no sense to me at all. There are 3 iterations of the sims3launcher.exe process, with rapidly changing PID numbers and RAM usage varying from 400k to 600k. Additionally "system" is apparently using an entire core despite otherwise idling, so I suspect it's TS3 there as well. It seems like the processes are starting and then instantly being killed, then restarted in some sort of indefinite loop. I have no idea what would cause this, I tried every compatibility mode option I could find and I tried searching the internet for common issues, but no one seems to have had this same issue before (or it's not easily found via Google due to the sheer number of launch issues related to TS3 over the years). I've read plenty of sites that say TS3 works on Windows 10, so I'm at a loss. How do I even go about starting to try and find the solution to this problem?

My specs:

Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit
Intel i7-2600K
8GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 960 4GB
4TB HDD (D: - where Origin and default install location is)/120gb SSD (C:)

TS2 works fine, TS4's demo worked fine, and other origin games play. I tried contacting EA but they have refused to help, citing my system is not officially supported.

[MrsFlynn]

Please see these troubleshooting links below.

Game Will Not Launch/Start/Load
https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=25717.msg433695#msg433695

Origin won't launch Sims 3
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Origin-won-t-launch-Sims-3/td-p/8230554

[MrsFlynn]

I'm sorry you weren't able to get help from EA. They are correct in the video card isn't supported natively by Sims 3. As it's a newer video card. However, here's a link to a tip that can help with getting the game to recognize the video card.

Getting the Game to Recognize Your Graphics Card
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,20732.msg401819.html#msg401819

MrsFlynn

[pokeman92]

Hi, thanks for the suggestions. I'll follow them and report back when I'm done. No telling how long it'll take to download the expansions again since I have almost all of them, probably at least a few hours. And thanks for the super patch link, I had no idea such a thing existed!

[MrsFlynn]

Please Note: These instructions maybe not work in the newer version of Origin.

If you want to save the installer files, so you don't have to re-download them every time you need to reinstall. Try this:

** Do this before starting the downloading process **

Open Origin, and click on the word Origin and select Application Settings. Under the Advanced Tab > Game Installers

Checkmark Keep game installers after games have been installed. This will help from having to re-download the game and expansions/stuff packs every time you need to reinstall.

It works wonders!! Makes installing Sims SO much faster!! If you need a photo of what I am talking about look at this thread on backing up Sims 4. It's the same process of backing up the files. As they both use Origin.

How-To: Backup and Restore The Sims 4 From Origin Downloader
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,21193.0.html

Hopefully all this will help get the game up and running for you!!

MrsFlynn

[pokeman92]

Thanks, will do!