February 2019
Okay perfect! Thank you for talking me through that part.
I only download content for me personally so I guess I can finally delete all 4000 of them! Woohoo!
I have just uninstalled the 2005 service pack and on the website It says there are 3 downloads to choose from- do I just pick the smallest one?
Dont want to get anything wrong so ill double double check for I do anything
February 2019
@gypsygeee It's always good to check before trying anything, especially when dealing with Windows. You want the third option, the _x64.exe. The x86 version is for 32-bit systems, and yours is 64-bit; the IA64 is for server systems.
February 2019
oh thank god for that. Once its downloaded and installed what do i do next? Restart and open the sims to see if its working or do i try something else?
Or do you want me to do another dxdiag test?
February 2019
@gypsygeee Yes, after you've installed and restarted, try launching TS3. Keep your old game folder out of the picture for now; there shouldn't be any TS3 folder in Documents\EA. If the game runs, start a new save and look around, i.e. use CAS and Edit Town for long enough to make sure everything works.
If the game crashes at any point, then please do run another dxdiag. But there's no point, and probably no new information, until you've tried to launch the game.
February 2019 - last edited February 2019
Okay so I did what you said and my game actually started working like normal! Opened, loaded and got to the build and buy part then I realised all my houses (built and downloaded) are missing, same with everything else, is this because I moved TS3 folder out of EA? Since I still have all the actual files for downloaded content and my saved sims/ games, I thought everything would be still there.
Is there a way to fix this? Will I have to re- upload all content again?
Thank you so so much, was over the moon when it actually started to load properly!
Also this message came up - do you know what it means? I’ve never seen it before
February 2019 - last edited February 2019
@gypsygeee I'm so glad to hear that your game loaded properly. Fixing that was the hard part; everything else is easily addressed. The unrecognized video card message just means that yoru graphics card isn't in TS3's database, which hasn't been updated since 2013. You can "fix" it by editing the game's graphicscards.sgr and graphicsrules.sgr, but it's not strictly necessary as long as the game runs properly. But if you do want to try, now or later, I can help with that. (Also, you won't get the message again unless you delete options.ini from your new game folder.)
The files for your builds, saves, downloads, and anything else you've created or added to the game yourself are all located in your TS3 game folder, in this case the one you pulled out of Documents when you started troubleshooting. It's easy enough to copy everything over into the new folder, although you might want to handle one bundle of files at a time. Then you can launch your game and test to make sure everything works.
These are the files and folders you'll want to preserve. It's better to copy them, rather than just move them, so if you need to start with another clean folder for whatever reason, you can just trash the new folder you've been building and copy everything over again. I'd recommend adding back your content more or less in this order, although it mostly doesn't matter all that much.
If anything doesn't work, just let me know and we can troubleshoot that specific content. But like I said, that should be simpler than everything else you've done so far.
February 2019
Well firstly, I went into Electronic Arts folder, and saw there was a new TS3 folder there even though I moved it to my desktop yesterday.
I noticed there wasn’t a MODS folder once I opened it so I copied the original folder from the desktop to the new TS3 folder that appared.
Once I copied it I tried to play the sims but it went back to not loading once I pressed the play button. So I took out the MODS folder and started it again and it loaded fine.
I also noticed that most folders in the new TS3 folder in my documents were empty but when I checked the downloads folder it had files in it.
I have attached a photo for you. I have deleted them and opened the sims again and checked the folder to find them back again.
Is this a bad thing? Since we have moved everything and content has disappeared from my sims app I thought it was a little weird that new things that I have not downloaded are in the new folder?
It seems though if I make a MODS folder it makes the game not load?
February 2019
So now I have tried copying everything I had in the original DCCache folder on my desktop to the new TS3 folder and when I opened the sims app up I was looking through my installed content and some hinge were there but it then very quickly crashed and closed itself.
What am I doing wrong?
I had things copied to ubs before this problem started happened just in case it ever did and I needed to easily copy thins back over but it doesn’t seem to work when I do and I’m not even trying with the files from the USB.
From the ones we moved yesterday that were the most up to date
February 2019
Do I delete all the DDCache files I just moved over? And leave the folder empty. It did have 2 files in there before I did the move but now I can’t tell which were the first 2 already in there.
Thanks again for your patience
February 2019
@gypsygeee Alright, let's deal with one of these issues at a time. First, the files in Downloads are supposed to be there—they mostly have to do with the in-game badge challenges. But you can trash them, or the whole folder, and they'll regenerate. (Also, you might want to delete the attachments, since one file shows the email address associated with your account.)
When you copy over Mods, you also need to delete your cache files. To keep things simple, it's probably best to just trash the new game folder you've been building and spawn a new one, then move over Mods, clear your caches, and try to load again. If the game still doesn't launch, please post a photo of your File Explorer window that shows the contents of Mods\Packages, where all your actual .package files should be. There are a couple of simple reasons that a mod would crash the game.
By the way, if it's easier, you can take a screenshot directly by hitting Windows key-shift-S and dragging your cursor over the part of the screen you want to capture. Then you can open Paint or another photo editing app (just type Paint into the search box) and paste the image (crtl-V) into a new file.