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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 14th Oct 2018 at 10:07 PM Last edited by adamh : 14th Oct 2018 at 10:30 PM.
Default Sims 3 black screen Windows 10
Hi all, I've recently upgraded my iMac after I borked the Windows partition. I thought it was the time to upgrade also.

So I have installed Windows 10 as it is the only Windows OS that works with the most recent versions of the Apple keyboard and mouse.
I also wanted to go kosher with my game, so I bought the base game and all expansions through Origin.

Every time I load my game, I end up with a black screen, with a blue spinning circle. I realise it could potentially be mods which I have quite a lot of, but I haven't added any since upgrading, and the game worked fine. I did however check for updates on the Twallan mods for 1.69. I did try the half and half method but I get the black screen.
The game works without the mods, but I'm not convinced they're the issue. I've even tried it with just the Nointro, same problem.

I realise mods can cause an initial slow screen, but this isn't slow, it stops responding.

I've also tried:
Running app's in compatibility mode (XP) with administrator
I've switched off Game Bar
I've activated Net Framework 3.5
I've added the game as an exception in DEP
Also the Nvidia driver is up to date.
Tried in windowed mode, no difference

I'm out of ideas, I'm hoping someone can help me as I'm at the end of my tether
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Mad Poster
#3 Old 15th Oct 2018 at 12:41 AM
Compatibility Mode is not necessary for Win 10 and in fact will typically cause more problems that it solves. Neither are DEP adjustments, EA fixed that with a patch a long time ago. I would suggest undoing those things if you could.

Things I haven't seen mentioned here yet.

-- Have you cleared the four or five cache files on the top level of your TS3 user game folder in Documents? This needs to be done whenever the contents of Mods\Packages changes in any way, many of us do so before (or after) every game session anyway.

-- From where did you get the mods Framework you are using and could Resource.cfg, if it's an outdated version, actually be the culprit? No package based content will load if this isn't set up just right.
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?tit...Setup_and_Files

-- Although from the sound of it you've just barely started, there could be something wrong with your TS3 user game folder. If you pull it out to the Desktop for safekeeping and start up the game, a new one will spawn. Can you set up the Framework on that and get things running with the two sample mods provided in the download above?
Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 15th Oct 2018 at 10:11 AM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
Compatibility Mode is not necessary for Win 10 and in fact will typically cause more problems that it solves. Neither are DEP adjustments, EA fixed that with a patch a long time ago. I would suggest undoing those things if you could.

Things I haven't seen mentioned here yet.

-- Have you cleared the four or five cache files on the top level of your TS3 user game folder in Documents? This needs to be done whenever the contents of Mods\Packages changes in any way, many of us do so before (or after) every game session anyway.

-- From where did you get the mods Framework you are using and could Resource.cfg, if it's an outdated version, actually be the culprit? No package based content will load if this isn't set up just right.
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?tit...Setup_and_Files

-- Although from the sound of it you've just barely started, there could be something wrong with your TS3 user game folder. If you pull it out to the Desktop for safekeeping and start up the game, a new one will spawn. Can you set up the Framework on that and get things running with the two sample mods provided in the download above?


I think I love you Igazor, I tried your suggestion of creating a new folder and using the new framework, and hey presto it works with my mods! Thanks ever so much!
What I did look at yesterday which I didn't post, is because I borked the Windows partition on the previous iMac, I could only backup Windows from the Mac side, in the process, Mac OS adds some hidden files called DS_store so I removed those too.

All I'm getting now, is during the interactive loading screens, whenever it's pressed, I get some flickering. I haven't yet adjusted resolution yet, so that might fix it. Apparently my graphics card is not recognised, it's a Nvidia GTX775, with 2GB of RAM so should be more than adequate and when I load a saved game, the game will get to the end of loading and unexpectedly quit, what could be causing this?
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 15th Oct 2018 at 1:50 PM
I've also installed my custom worlds, mostly in documents and the store worlds in non packaged but worlds such as Bridgeport, Appoloosa Plains and Sunlit shores are not appearing in the drop down, even though in the Origin programme files I can see them under the EP folders. I've looked at the error message and it states an access violation, DasmX86Dll.dll not found. I have reinstalled but I keep getting this.
What am I doing wrong?
Mad Poster
#6 Old 15th Oct 2018 at 8:30 PM
On the graphics card question, sounds like my iMac is similar to yours except older and I run a Bootcamp partition as well. My card is an AMD Radeon HD 6770M. My card "should" have been recognized because it is old enough to have been accounted for but its exact model was skipped over in EA's database of cards that it uses. The GTX 775 is not, no cards produced after a certain time will be recognized. We can help you fix that, but in most cases with these including mine the formal recognition doesn't really make much or any difference. It shouldn't be causing the game to crash on startup.

Much more important would be capping the frame rate on that card as TS3 has no functional built-in fps limiter. That involves setting up a TS3.exe (for Patch 1.69) or TS3w.exe (for Patch 1.67 and below) profile on the Nvidia Control Panel, setting Vertical Sync to On or Adaptive (whichever one works better), and turning on Triple Buffering. If windowed mode is required or if the Control Panel doesn't lock things in on its own, then Nvidia Inspector should be added and the Frame Rate Limit explicitly set to the refresh rate of your monitor. That would be 60 Hz, so 60 fps is the target. You can check on the actual frame rates you are getting in-game, but only if you can get the game to launch and run long enough without crashing, by using ctrl+shift+C to bring up the cheats console and type fps on (enter). As you play and move the game camera around, the fps rate display should not go over 60. To make the display go away, cheats console again and fps off (enter).

You will also want to make sure that your graphics card drivers are as up to date as they can be, but that has to be done by going through Apple. Nvidia's driver updates are not known to work well or at all on a Bootcamp install and I expect that GeForce Experience, if you are using that, would make a mess of things. The tricky part here is that I don't know if Apple has provided updated Win 10 drivers for that particular card. One would hope so, but I know mine is totally not supported on Win 10 and in fact I can't use the modern version of the Bootcamp Assistant either because my iMac is about ten minutes too old (just missed the cutoff, brilliant purchasing timing on my part) so I remain on Win 7 until this iMac reaches the end of its lifespan.

If you can I would suggest not replacing the base game and EP worlds with fixed versions until things are made stable again. Can you put the original ones back if you had saved them elsewhere first? There's too many variables in play at the same time otherwise.

If you have already uninstalled and reinstalled on this partition, then the Windows Registry should have been cleaned using Piriform's CCleaner or by an equivalent method. Subsequent installs will otherwise trip over remnants of the prior one(s) left behind.

Crash logs are mostly useless and they all complain about that dll being missing. It's a component of the crash reporting system that is missing, basically the log is reporting on its own error and that is not the reason your game is crashing.
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