Sims 4 starts to load then crashes to origin

[vikinggirl26]

so today when I went to start my sims which ran perfectly fine two days ago, the game went to start and then crashed to origins.  I uninstalled origins and downloaded again still happened so I uninstalled everything and then downloaded again and it's still happening.  I just don't know what to do.  please help  I have a gaming laptop that is two months old, I run windows ten.  Any Ideas please.  

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@vikinggirl26  All of the Sims 4 crashes in your dxdiag (there are a lot of them) reference Nahimic, a component of your audio software.  Interestingly, it looks like the audio driver for your laptop isn't properly installed at all.  So it's possible that it's the interaction between Nahimic and the missing or otherwise nonworking audio driver that's causing the crashes.

If you'd like, you can try updating the audio driver and the Nahimic software to see whether it makes a difference.  The drivers for your laptop are here:

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GS75-STEALTH-9SF#down-driver&Win10%2064

The driver for your Nvidia 2070 is also out of date, although there's usually no reason to update if you're not having issues specifically with that driver, and there's no evidence in your dxdiag that the GPU driver is a problem.  So you can skip this step for now, if you'd prefer.

If updating the audio software doesn't help, or you don't want to bother, bring up the Task Manager, find any entries with Nahimic in them (there may be more than one), and End Task.  Don't restart your computer before trying to play, or the software will restart.  This is much simpler than trying to uninstall Nahimic—even if you succeed, Windows may redownload it for you.

[puzzlezaddict]

@vikinggirl26  When you uninstalled the game, did you also remove the Sims 4 user data folder from Documents\Electronic Arts?  If you haven't yet, or you put the old one back, please move the entire folder to your desktop and see whether the game will load.  Let me know either way.  If it does load, a clean folder will spawn with no content, and you can start adding your existing content to that folder and testing.

If Sims 4 won't load even after you've removed your user data folder, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

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

[vikinggirl26]

still just acts like it's going to start and then goes to the origin app

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@vikinggirl26  All of the Sims 4 crashes in your dxdiag (there are a lot of them) reference Nahimic, a component of your audio software.  Interestingly, it looks like the audio driver for your laptop isn't properly installed at all.  So it's possible that it's the interaction between Nahimic and the missing or otherwise nonworking audio driver that's causing the crashes.

If you'd like, you can try updating the audio driver and the Nahimic software to see whether it makes a difference.  The drivers for your laptop are here:

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GS75-STEALTH-9SF#down-driver&Win10%2064

The driver for your Nvidia 2070 is also out of date, although there's usually no reason to update if you're not having issues specifically with that driver, and there's no evidence in your dxdiag that the GPU driver is a problem.  So you can skip this step for now, if you'd prefer.

If updating the audio software doesn't help, or you don't want to bother, bring up the Task Manager, find any entries with Nahimic in them (there may be more than one), and End Task.  Don't restart your computer before trying to play, or the software will restart.  This is much simpler than trying to uninstall Nahimic—even if you succeed, Windows may redownload it for you.

[vikinggirl26]

thank you so much you have no idea!  so I did update the audio driver but that did not solve the problem,  I then went into task manager and did as you said I clicked on Nahimic and ended task then turned on the sims and low and behold it worked.  I don't know what changed between today and two days ago but thank you.  So I have a new question for you, is there a way to get rid of Nahimic and replace it with different software, or is this just something i'm going to have to deal with long term?  thank you again for everything.  

[puzzlezaddict]

@vikinggirl26  You can try uninstalling Nahimic from the Control Panel (type Control Panel in the search box) or through the Device Manager (Windows key-X, choose Device Manager).  But you might need to uninstall the Realtek audio driver to get rid of Nahimic; I'm not sure what the options are on your laptop.  Either way, Windows may redownload what it thinks is perfectly suitable software.

You could certainly try uninstalling either Nahimic or the audio driver and see what happens.  At worst, you get a generic driver that doesn't work well, and you can reinstall the one from MSI.

The other option is to disable Nahimic from running.  One approach is through services: hit Windows key-R, enter "services.msc" without quotes, find Nahimic on the list, double-click, choose Disabled, click Stop, then Apply to save the changes.  I think this would survive a restart, and that Nahimic wouldn't change its settings (or that the Realtek driver wouldn't call it anyway).  But again, you may have to experiment a bit.  This setting is easily reversed with no harm done.

Another similar approach, but one that might be more effective, is to use the clean boot approach to selectively disable Nahimic.  This is also easily reversed, although you do have to reboot for the change to take effect.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-boot-windows-10

Judging by the thousands of pages of rage all over the internet, Nahimic can be difficult to eliminate entirely, but if it's not running, you should be fine.