Sims 3 not starting [ Edited ]

[Alejandratsky]

Hi,

I just bought and downloaded Sims 3 plus the Pets expansion on the 12th.  I ran it that night and it worked just fine.  Today, however, is a totally different story.  It'll pull up the game launcher window just fine, and everything on there will be working normally.  Once I hit play, it'll pull up a window for the game.. but it just stays black.  I'll get the cursor for the game whenever I move my cursor over the black square, but that's all I get.  The game doesn't show up.  It doesn't minimize itself.  It won't even close unless I force my laptop to shut down.  I have done absolutely nothing to the game or any files on my computer between last night and tonight.  I am using a Windows 10 server 64-bit.  My friend told me that some people have an issue with a missingdeps.idx file, and they deleted it and the game ran afterwards.  I tried that and still got no results, not even the slightest change.  I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, clearly I've tried restarting my computer, nada.  What am I missing here?

Edit:  I downloaded the game from Steam if that makes a difference or not.

[roberta591 · Accepted solution]

@Alejandratsky  make sure the game is using the GTX 860M chip when the game starts. Update the graphics driver for the GTX 860M as the dirver you have is almost a year old. There seems to be an update failure. Also the MSVCR90.dll is Microsoft Visual C Runtime Link Library. This indicates somehting in the Visual C++ installation is corrupt and this may be the update that failed. I recommend going to Microsoft and re install Visual C++ runtime 2010. If reinstall doesn't work you may have to go to control panel - programs and features - and uninstall Visual C++ and then install it. I'm guessing the missing update may be causing this issue.

[roberta591]

@Alejandratsky  The Steam version installs different from the EA version. Your operating system is Windows 10 server? Did you activate the game - not sure how Steam does it but the game needs to be activated. Check the Steam support about how to activate the game.

[Alejandratsky]

I would believe I've activated it since I was able to play it on the day I downloaded it.  But I could be wrong.

[roberta591]

@Alejandratsky  I am not sure how Steam activates the sims 3 games. I know that Steam sims 3 games are NOT activated with EA so I'm assuming Steam has its own way of activating the game but there is a code in Steam that can be used in Origin. You will have to contact Steam support. First guess is the game might be trying to verify it is authenticated or something may be corrupt but the Steam installs different then EA and I am not familiar with the Steam version.

[Alejandratsky]

I remember having to type in a code when I first started the game.  It worked fine that day.  Then it just stopped working the next day.

[roberta591]

@Alejandratsky  Please post your computer's dxdiag - link - how to post your cpmputer's dxdiag  thank you

[Alejandratsky]

Alright, I attached it.

[roberta591 · Accepted solution]

@Alejandratsky  make sure the game is using the GTX 860M chip when the game starts. Update the graphics driver for the GTX 860M as the dirver you have is almost a year old. There seems to be an update failure. Also the MSVCR90.dll is Microsoft Visual C Runtime Link Library. This indicates somehting in the Visual C++ installation is corrupt and this may be the update that failed. I recommend going to Microsoft and re install Visual C++ runtime 2010. If reinstall doesn't work you may have to go to control panel - programs and features - and uninstall Visual C++ and then install it. I'm guessing the missing update may be causing this issue.

[Alejandratsky]

Thank you!  I had to get my brother to translate for me, but it worked!