Every time I start my game, it loads with a black screen before the actual loading starts. I don't remember when exactly this started, but I do know it's been happening for quite a while now. It used to show the black screen for just a few seconds, so I never really bothered fixing it, as I didn't feel like it was a problem. But lately, it seems like it's taking longer and longer to load. Sometimes it takes a good five minutes before the actual loading starts. It's not a huge problem, because I don't have any problems besides this, and my game runs smoothly. But it would still be nice to see if anyone knows a solution.

I've removed my Mods/Downloads temporarily, deleted the files in the DCCache, cleared the cache files, bypassing the launcher, but this all didn't work. I noticed that it loaded a teeny tiny bit better after removing the CC (because, I know I can't expect my game to load extremely fast with a load of CC), but the black screen still shows up.

Does anyone know something that might help me to get rid of it?

Here's my DeviceConfig:

I get the black screen as well, only for a couple seconds though. I don't think it has too much to do with if you have/how much cc you have in your game. I also have cc and mods, but like yourself, even when running the game w/o that stuff I notice the black screen still shows up. I would be interested to know if anyone has a solution or knows what causes this. Does everyone get that black screen? As far as I can remember there has always been a black screen right before the game starts loading. I haven't noticed whether the black screen lasts longer than it used to.

Check please if the "downloadedsims.index" file exists in ./[DOcuments]/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/SavedSims folder.
If it is there. Delete it. This file causes long nonsense reading loop.

IF won't help (because such file don't exists for example) you may have problem with some of your configuration files. Try a clean start (Rename/Delete a whole ./[DOcuments]/Electronic Arts/ folder and force a game to create a fresh one.

A "Black Screen" is normal, it shall be "longer" or "shorter" depending of your content and speed of HDD - the game switches resolution and try to access to its resources (basegame, each expansion/addon, and CC; this includes saved sims and library).

Thank you all for your replies!

I do not keep my system on all the time, but I did have it on for several hours that particular time (and I used photoshop and several open sites at the same time - I think that must be the RAM thing?). I took a look at the background processes and cleaned a few, and it now has 4620MB! So that's a lot better. There was no downloadedsims.index in my SavedSims folder, but I did fix the graphics card issue and CPU setting(so glad you pointed that out!) and I defragged my harddisk.
I tried my game, and the loading went so much faster! So I'm really happy!

Thanks a lot for your help, guys

(Oh, btw: I had no idea that having the black screen was normal. I heard from a few people they didn't have it, so I just assumed it was a bad thing )

Good to see that MariTom.
This particular file shows itself when you install a sim from sim3pack. It's kind of "database" file and wasreported numerous times to be damaged in one way or another causing very long or even infinite loading loop.
And ouh.. Photoshop (depends of loaded extensions and images) is able to eat nearly infinite amount of memory Just like each program of this kind.
Happy simming