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New Problem with my Sims 3 game. I try to play and it's just a black screen.

I didn't have this problem before. I play my game on Windows 10 just fine. But now if I try to play, I get a black screen instead of the game. I also get the wait animation that you see in the game and the click pointer that you see when you play but no game. I also need to close the black screen with task manager, I can't close the black screen normally. I contacted EA and tried running the game in compatibility mode, I uninstalled it and reinstalled it, I removed my mods and cc and uninstalled-reinstalled the game. It's still a black screen. Can someone please help me?

Comments

  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    Have you posted your computer specs somewhere on the forum? If not can you please post your computer specs


    To gather a DXDIAG on your computer, do this :
    Press and hold the Windows key and the letter R on your keyboard
    You will see a Run box in the lower-left corner of your screen
    Type dxdiag in the text field
    Click OK
    Click the Save All Information button, found on the bottom of the DXDIAG report
    Then copy and paste the information from where you saved it, to pastebin https://pastebin.com
    and post the link to the file here
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited August 2017
    I will also ask, if you could please at the same time as the request for specs above, tell us how where and long you are waiting for the black screen to pass. If this is in the very beginning of startup, before the Launcher appears and you even get a chance to select a world or saved game to play, it could be that the game is still loading up even though it looks like things have stalled. If we're talking about over 15 minutes here, then forget this but more than a few minutes is not uncommon.

    Also, as the game worked before but isn't now, I would suggest clearing your five cache files in the top level of the user game folder before starting up, if you don't already do this.

    CasPartCache.package
    compositorCache.package
    scriptCache.package
    simCompositorCache.package
    socialCache.package (this one is optional)

    And if that doesn't help, try pulling out your entire TS3 user game folder from Documents to the Desktop for safekeeping. The game should spawn a new one on its next startup with no content at all, and tell us if you can get a new game started up using that. Sometimes game folders themselves or something we just can't reach within them go "bad" as content is removed or added to them over time.

    But the dxdiag as @phoebebebe13 requested will help us see more of the complete picture.
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  • ShadowSwan355ShadowSwan355 Posts: 71 Member
    @igazor
    I pulled out my Sims 3 folder and the game works again. The only thing I noticed is that if I want to use windowed mode I can't use '1680 x 1050' or '1920 x 1080'. If I try to do that, I can't see the countdown that says I have 13 seconds and it switches back after the 13 seconds pass. I can only use those 2 resolutions in full-screen. The last time I played I remember switching the resolution to a high number and using windowed mode. After I left the game and wanted to go back- that's when the problems started. But I don't understand why. Do you know?
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited August 2017
    Possibly you need to change your computer's overall (desktop) resolution to get to these in windowed mode? Either that or perhaps your graphics card drivers need updating -- or, to confuse matters a bit further, perhaps they were recently updated and should be rolled back if you recently got an update that you shouldn't have.

    The dxdiag report would tell us which card you have and which drivers it's using. Not that I would be able to spot an inappropriate driver just from it's version number, but at least we could see when it was last updated and from where, then perhaps others here could help better.
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  • ShadowSwan355ShadowSwan355 Posts: 71 Member
    @igazor @phoebebebe13

    This is my DxDiag on pastebin.com:
    https://pastebin.com/r8GvUPpM
  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    @ShadowSwan355 You have a laptop that has two video cards. You have to tell the game to use Nvidia not intel. The game will latch onto intel first. I believe this might be your problem . You have a different video card but same rules apply http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/906947/limit-fps-on-1070#latest
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited August 2017
    Yes, that is how the Intel would behave if the game were running on that instead of the Nvidia card. We do see this all the time on those who have dual graphics.

    @phoebebebe13 - Just a small thing, but you may want to link to your instructions on this portion of the thread directly instead of the bottom ("latest") part of it when using it for reference so the player knows where to start reading.
    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15393868/#Comment_15393868

    I still usually give out @Simasaurus09's though because what she shows in that screenshot is perfect and I think some find it maybe a little easier to follow. You're both of course saying the same things, though.
    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/14991412/#Comment_14991412
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  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    @igazor I just bookmarked that other thread. I was using the chelljo's because that's the thread I had bookmarked
  • ShadowSwan355ShadowSwan355 Posts: 71 Member
    @phoebebebe13
    I went to Nvidia control settings and looked for 'Sims 3 ts3.exe' (I'm on patch 1.69) and selected "high-performance Nvidia processor" as the preferred graphics processor to run the Sims 3. It was on "use global" before. I also turned "vertical sync" on. I performed another dxdiag too. This is the link to the new dxdiag: https://pastebin.com/2kq18HAS
    Can you see anything?
  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    @ShadowSwan355 The game using Nvdia would not show in a DxDiag

    You can run a test in game to see if your fps caps at 60 with your monitor refresh rate.

    Go into your game. Open the cheat box Control + shift +C keys . Your cheat box will be at the top of your screen. type testingcheatsenabled true . Hit enter. Open the cheat box again type fps on hit enter. Your fps should read in the upper right hand corner of your game. If it's over 60 let us know
  • ShadowSwan355ShadowSwan355 Posts: 71 Member
    @phoebebebe13
    I misread it and type just fps. I looked on google and saw it was "fps on". I can see you had it right- I misread it. I did it and the fps was 136. That's far too high.
  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    @ShadowSwan355 LOL ok yes that is too high. @igazor we need help capping the fps thanks
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited September 2017
    One thing I'm not seeing mentioned here. The Nvidia Control Panel method only works in full screen mode, not in windowed. If windowed mode is required or the Control Panel's vsnyc is just not locking things in, we move on to Nvidia Inspector. This works for most who use or need to use it.

    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15940743/#Comment_15940743
    (under the second spoiler)
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  • ShadowSwan355ShadowSwan355 Posts: 71 Member
    @igazor @phoebebebe13

    I got the Nvidia profile inspector and all I need to do was put the "frame rate limiter" at "60.7 fps". It seems to be working to cap the FPS. It is at 60 now. Thanks for all your help. :):smiley:
  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    @ShadowSwan355 Your very welcome. Glad you got it working . Enjoy your game :)
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