Sims 3 won't start

[fazzybtw]

Hello everyone.
The launcher opens just fine but after pressing the play button it says: "The instruction at 0x0125c17a referenced memory at 0x000000b8. The Memory could not be read.

How to fix it? Thanks in advance.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@fazzybtw  I'm sorry to say this, but I don't see how you could play TS3 on this computer.  With only 2 GB RAM total, there just isn't enough memory for both the game and Windows 7.  Players with 4 GB RAM usually struggle to run more than the base game and some of the earlier packs.  Your system did meet requirements when TS3 was launched, but with five years of patches added on, even the base game might require more RAM than your computer can supply.  Your system is also pretty old, so it's not going to run as well as it did when you bought it.  Hardware does wear out over time, and performance can drop significantly.

The other thing I noticed is that you have hardly any free storage on your C drive.  Windows 7 needs less room to maneuver than Windows 10, for sure, but I don't think having only 5.6 GB free space is enough.  For the health of your system, it's probably best to leave at least 15 GB free at all times, if you can manage it.

[Mikimuster3]

Try to dissable Origin overlay.

Try to run the game under clean boot.

Links:

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/origin/origin/how-to-use-origin-in-game/

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/how-to-clean-boot-your-pc/

https://www.thesims3.com/game/systemreq

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1274-uohk-5653

[fazzybtw]

Any other solution?

[puzzlezaddict]

@fazzybtw  This could be an issue of conflicting software, outdated drivers, hardware problems, or something else I'm not thinking of at the moment.  Try disabling your antivirus/firewalls temporarily when you launch the game, and make sure you're not running anything else alongside it.  You can check for driver updates from the website of the manufacturer of your computer.

If these steps don't help, please run a dxdiag and attach the results here using the Browse button.

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

[fazzybtw]

Turning off the antivirus didn't help.

Here's the dxdiag:

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@fazzybtw  I'm sorry to say this, but I don't see how you could play TS3 on this computer.  With only 2 GB RAM total, there just isn't enough memory for both the game and Windows 7.  Players with 4 GB RAM usually struggle to run more than the base game and some of the earlier packs.  Your system did meet requirements when TS3 was launched, but with five years of patches added on, even the base game might require more RAM than your computer can supply.  Your system is also pretty old, so it's not going to run as well as it did when you bought it.  Hardware does wear out over time, and performance can drop significantly.

The other thing I noticed is that you have hardly any free storage on your C drive.  Windows 7 needs less room to maneuver than Windows 10, for sure, but I don't think having only 5.6 GB free space is enough.  For the health of your system, it's probably best to leave at least 15 GB free at all times, if you can manage it.

[fazzybtw]

Thanks for the information but the thing is that it was running good with just few expansions installed... But unexpectedly the the sims stopped working...

[roberta591]

@fazzybtw   The Windows operating system bloats - that is what it does. 5.6Gb free space is too on the system drive. Why do you have the drive partitioned the way you do? Get a new data drive and recover space on the 250Gb drive.

[fazzybtw]

Any other solutions??

[igazor]

Hi there. I can offer you another opinion if you want, but it's not going to be what you would like to hear.

With 2 GB of RAM total, a weak graphics card that must be 11 years old now and that could never really be expected to carry more than the base game (yours seems to have exceeded expectations at least at some point), and Windows if not the game itself not having enough space to maneuver properly, there are no solutions. This system cannot be reasonably expected to run TS3. You could try adding more RAM if the system will take it, but that only partially fixes one of the three major issues -- you really need more than even 4 GB to get the game and the operating system to run together well.

I'm pretty sure if you resolve the HD allocation and space to run Windows issue, if this system is still holding together mechanically it ought to be able to run TS2 reasonably well in case that is any consolation. I'm very sorry, but I don't think anyone familiar with the resources that TS3 realistically takes to run will be able to advise any differently.