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Sims 3 won't start at all

virtual desktop pops up, then disappears

Author Replies
Erik765 Friday 26 June 2009 at 5:05
Erik765Anonymous

Hello all ;)

I was excited to hear that Sims 3 works well with POL, so I quickly went out and purchased it after not playing any sims for the last few years (from back in my windows days).

My configuration:
Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) 32 bit
Using the patched (recommended) wine version on installing the game
I have an AMD64x2 6400+, 4gb ram, Nvidia 8600 gts 256mb

First thing I did after installing was configure wine for the app and select emulate a virtual desktop from the graphics tab, and I actually got a different result from trying different resolutions on the virtual environment. 800x600 is what I ended with.

When I try to run the game, I see the virtual window pop up for about 5 seconds then it disappears.

When I try and run the game from the built-in debugger, playonlinux --run "The Sims 3" it doesn't report anything at all. (besides that it found python or something) (sorry, not in front of my desktop at the moment)

If I run from a konsole, playonlinux --run "The Sims 3"
it reports something about a segmentation fault with a different number each time.

I tried uninstalling it and making sure the wineprefix for the game was not there and re-installing it, but I get the same result.

I've been using wine successfully on many other games for quite a while, but can't figure this one out.

Can anyone help?
Is there more information you need from me?
Any ideas, or anything you suggest I try? :^^:

Thanks for your help ;)

E
Erik765 Friday 26 June 2009 at 5:13
Erik765Anonymous

I forgot to add-
When I am in the wine configurator (from clicking on configure wine for this app) and click the about tab, it does not show the version that I chose for the game when installing it, (1.1.23 or something, I think), it shows the version I have installed on my system. 1.0.1

Is this normal?
NSLW Friday 26 June 2009 at 7:42
NSLW

Could you try with plain Wine-1.1.23? I'm just curious

it shows the version I have installed on my system. 1.0.1
Is this normal?

Quote from Erik765

It's not normal but with POL it's normal.
Erik765 Friday 26 June 2009 at 8:07
Erik765Anonymous

Thank you for your response.

Is there an easy way to do that without having to reinstall the game?
NSLW Friday 26 June 2009 at 8:13
NSLW

Yes, See this. Point 2b
Erik765 Friday 26 June 2009 at 9:23
Erik765Anonymous

Very cool ;) It worked and seems to run just fine. haven't noticed any glitches graphically really at all.

Thank you ;)

The only somewhat annoying thing is that, upon exit, it seems to have lightened my display up a lot and am not sure how to change it back, short of restarting X. Is there any way to fix or prevent this from happening? ;)

Thank you again for your help.

E
NSLW Friday 26 June 2009 at 11:56
NSLW

It's very strange. In my case with unpatched wine i get crash very shortly playing Sims. In your case it's otherwise. Could you tell me how long can you play without crash?


The only somewhat annoying thing is that, upon exit, it seems to have lightened my display up a lot and am not sure how to change it back, short of restarting X. Is there any way to fix or prevent this from happening? ;)

Quote from Erik765

I do start nvidia-settings and everything is as it should be.
Erik765 Saturday 27 June 2009 at 9:01
Erik765Anonymous

yeah, it definitely crashes after about 10 minutes of play, but it's the only way it will even start. The sims3 patched version won't even start the game.

Also, sometimes the music won't play.

Any ideas on how I can get the patched version to work?
Erik765 Saturday 27 June 2009 at 9:10
Erik765Anonymous

The only version it will start on is 1.1.23
1.1.23-TheSims3 won't start the game,
1.1.9 (the latest version) won't start the game,
only 1.1.23 will start it , but it crashes after about 10 minutes.
NSLW Saturday 27 June 2009 at 9:20
NSLW

yeah, it definitely crashes after about 10 minutes of play

Quote from Erik765

That's what i feared of. Try 1.1.24-TheSims3. To do so just start installing script again without removing The Sims 3. But i fear it also may not help you a lot, but i haven't got any other ideas.
Erik765 Saturday 27 June 2009 at 9:33
Erik765Anonymous

Thank you for your quick reply.
1.1.24-TheSims3 had the same result as 1.1.23-TheSims3 -- it won't sart it.

What if I followed the manual instructions on appdb.winehq.org and patched it manually?

Would that make any difference you suppose?
NSLW Saturday 27 June 2009 at 9:37
NSLW


What if I followed the manual instructions on appdb.winehq.org and patched it manually?

Quote from Erik765

If you wish and know how to do it right then you can do it. It shouldn't take much time on your CPU for compilation max 5 mins. You could use POL Helper so your Wine Version will be available on POL
Erik765 Saturday 27 June 2009 at 19:21
Erik765Anonymous

okey dokey, I'll try it later today. I've patched wine before ;) no worries. I'll keep you posted.
Erik765 Monday 29 June 2009 at 1:16
Erik765Anonymous

Alrighty then.
Since I'm the type who never really gives up on something til I get it... I got it to work ;)

My findings:

Originally I had wine version 1.0.1 installed on my system and was trying to run Sims 3 with POL with wine 1.1.23-TheSims3 (Patched version), and the game would not start or return anything when trying to run it from a console.

It would run under POL 1.1.23, but not the patched version and would therefor crash after 5-10 min of play.

At this point, I attempted to uninstall my wine on my system and patch wine 1.1.23 and re-install it. I followed the directions found here. http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=16664

The patch files referenced here would not work for me (you can see my results on that site with what happened when I tried to apply the patches.)

So, I just installed wine 1.1.24 unpatched and figured it was a wash since wine wouldn't patch.

After upgrading my wine, I then reinstalled POL and Sims3 and then chose 1.1.24-TheSims3 (Patched version) again to see if it would run... my last ditch effort.

and... voila, it started and now runs flawlessly.

For some reason, by matter of deduction, it seemed like my older wine 1.0.1 did not like POL trying to run Sims3 with 1.1.23-TheSims3

I now run it under POL 1.1.24-TheSims3 by the way

After getting it to run, I also noticed that sometimes the background music would work only occasionally, so I created a script file that does two this:

Stops compiz
starts the game with padsp (to resolve music issues)
once the game is exited, it starts compiz back up automatically.

here is the file http://www.eriksplace.com/shared/sims3start

feel free to customize it as needed, etc... don't forget to make it executable.

Anyway, I hope all this information can help someone somehow.

E
missouri2006 Thursday 28 October 2010 at 21:08
missouri2006Anonymous

Hey you guys,

thanks for the explanations so far. I have tried everything but still have the same problem you had, Erik.

So I installed Sims 3 on my Ubuntu 10.04 with POL under Wine 1.2.1. I installed d3dx9 via winetricks (on WineHQ it says to do so) and patched the game. After the clean install of all components (d3dx9, Sims3) nothing happened, the game didnt start.
I then updated to Wine 1.3.4 and Sims to 1.15, patched it again and: nothing...

Any advice?
Thanks in advance,
Dominik