Main Loading Stuck and Screen Flicker

[KingNoPants]

I've been dealing with this problem for a while and have found nothing from searching or from support. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Whenever I try to launch Sims 3, when it gets to the main loading screen where it loads the game for you (after the opening cutscenes), the screen badly flickers and the loading bar will never progress. I had waited over 30 minutes once for the bar to have no progress and the screen constantly flickering. I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times, cleared the cache, moved certain game files out of their main folders, verified game integrity, and even edited a text document to allow my Graphics card to be officially recognized (which I didn't know was a thing), and nothing worked to fix my game.

If there's any other info needed to help find a solution, I'll do my best to provide what I can. Thank you in advance

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@KingNoPants  Please try launching the game in windowed mode.  Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open options.ini, ctrl-F to search for fullscreen , and set it to 0 (zero).

Another thing you can try is disabling the Parsec app entirely, as in, go through the Task Manager's background tasks list and make sure none of its processes are running, before you play.  I don't know whether it's interfering with Sims 3, but a game this old often doesn't respond well to this kind of software.

If that doesn't help, please test the game on each monitor separately: disconnect the other one and restart your computer, then open Sims 3 and nothing else.  It sounds like you play through Steam, which means you can launch the game directly from TS3W.exe, which is here by default:

Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

By the way, your E drive is quite low on space.  I wouldn't expect this to cause performance issues with Sims 3 under normal circumstances, even if the game is installed there, but it could definitely be a problem if you've moved the Documents directory to E.  Sims 3 creates temp user files that can be somewhat large.

[puzzlezaddict]

@KingNoPants  Please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

[KingNoPants]

Sure thing, hope this helps.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@KingNoPants  Please try launching the game in windowed mode.  Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open options.ini, ctrl-F to search for fullscreen , and set it to 0 (zero).

Another thing you can try is disabling the Parsec app entirely, as in, go through the Task Manager's background tasks list and make sure none of its processes are running, before you play.  I don't know whether it's interfering with Sims 3, but a game this old often doesn't respond well to this kind of software.

If that doesn't help, please test the game on each monitor separately: disconnect the other one and restart your computer, then open Sims 3 and nothing else.  It sounds like you play through Steam, which means you can launch the game directly from TS3W.exe, which is here by default:

Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

By the way, your E drive is quite low on space.  I wouldn't expect this to cause performance issues with Sims 3 under normal circumstances, even if the game is installed there, but it could definitely be a problem if you've moved the Documents directory to E.  Sims 3 creates temp user files that can be somewhat large.

[KingNoPants]

That did it! It switched to Window Boarderless and actually loads the game! Thank you!