From Loading the game to the title screen takes forever!

[Seabody]

First - a bit of an explanation of the title (it's the best I could describe it in a sentence).
When you load the Launcher and then press the "Play Game" button, you get a black screen, before the screen with a symbol comes on, followed by the video that starts with a Sim flipping a pancake.
The black screen, for me, takes ages to load. I can't remember the last time I cleaned my game but it happened after I cleaned it as well. I am running a few mods, but it started happening way before I installed them.

Is there anything, at all, I can do to speed it up? It seems to drag on and on when I load the game.

[Figwit]

Have you tried bypassing the Launcher to see if it loads any faster?

You just need to make a shortcut to the TS3w.exe which is in your program files/game bin.  I can give you the exact path if you need it.  If you are on a Mac it is a bit more complicated.

[wednesday21]

I'm having this issue too. It's getting stuck periodically at that black screen for about 5 minutes. The other parts of the loading process take less than three minutes altogether and my game is super-fast. I likewise have a bulk of game modifications and store custom content. Could this be the case?

And yes, I always bypass the launcher. It takes ages to load so I tend to avoid it whenever possible.

[sdhoey]

I'm having the black screen problem to after the patch is when mine started.

[Ricalynn]

For me the more stuff I have installed the longer the black screen takes.   This includes store items, CC, patterns, everything.   If you do a factory reset and don't download anything, you should notice that it takes a lot less time than it does now.   Showtime did just install a lot more items so that's part of it taking longer. 

Try a factory reset, don't download anything, load it up and see how long it takes to load.  If it still takes a really long time then something may need to be reported.

[wednesday21]

For me the more stuff I have installed the longer the black screen takes.   This includes store items, CC, patterns, everything.   If you do a factory reset and don't download anything, you should notice that it takes a lot less time than it does now.   Showtime did just install a lot more items so that's part of it taking longer. 

Try a factory reset, don't download anything, load it up and see how long it takes to load.  If it still takes a really long time then something may need to be reported.

Oh, that might be the precise reason why it takes long to load for me. I've purchased and installed a lot of items from the store in 2012 alone (the African sets, the Magic set, Rock Wall, etc.), and there's still my stuff from the past years. So, will the loading time of the black screen just go up and up as I continue to install custom content into my game?

[Ricalynn]

Probably.   That moment between the play  button the sims 3 icon is the game beginning to load and that loading includes all the items from the launcher. 

Like I said, you can always test it by the factory reset.  I would also suggest moving all the items out of your download folder to see if that makes any difference. 

[wednesday21]

I would also suggest moving all the items out of your download folder to see if that makes any difference.

Did that just a few hours ago; still haven't played though. I'm unsure about doing a factory reset but I guess I could test it just to be sure.

[Ricalynn]

Factory reset doesn't get rid of anything of yours.  You're basically just making a new folder and all you have to do is rename the old folder back to The Sims 3 to get everything back.   

[wednesday21]

Factory reset doesn't get rid of anything of yours.  You're basically just making a new folder and all you have to do is rename the old folder back to The Sims 3 to get everything back.

Yes I know that. The case is I'm currently running out of hard drive space in my C: drive where this My Documents/Electronic Arts folder is located so I try to avoid occupying the space left (in the range of 5-7 gigabytes). I'm not too fussed by this black screen loading problem either, it's just annoying and doesn't really hurt my overall gameplay.