If you are experiencing black screens, crashing or freezing while running The Sims 3, we recommend trying to run the game in Windowed Mode. While this fix is temporary, it might help resolve most crashing or freezing issues. To run your game in Windowed Mode, follow the steps below:

• Launch The Sims 3.
• Click on the '...' blue Options button on the lower left-hand side of the screen.
• Click on the Options menu item.
• The Graphics tab should be opened by default.
• Uncheck the Enable Fullscreen Mode button.
• Click on the blue Check Mark button on the lower right-hand corner to save changes.
• Re-start The Sims 3.

Once you're in Windowed Mode, you can adjust the game's resolution to make the Window smaller or bigger as you see fit. The resolution can be changed from the same Graphics tab location above.

If you start the game and only see a black screen (and thus can't switch to Windowed Mode from the Options menu), you can force the game to start in Windowed Mode by following the instructions below:

• Press Alt plus the Enter key on your keyboard.
• Pressing this combination of keys should toggle Windowed Mode. If pressing Alt plus Enter does not set your game to Windowed Mode, you can proceed to edit the game's settings.
• From the 'Start' menu on the Windows Taskbar, click on My Documents.
• Double-click on the Electronic Arts folder.
• Open The Sims 3 folder.
• Locate the Options.ini file.
• Right-click on the Options.ini file and select the Open with option.
• Select Notepad as the application to open the Options.ini file.
• Search for the line fullscreen=1.
• Change the value of fullscreen to the number zero: fullscreen=0.
• Save the changes you made to the Options.ini file.
  • Note: If you are prompted to overwrite the file, click OK. Make sure you save the modified Options.ini file to the same location as the original file.

Keep in mind running the game in Windowed Mode does not fix the black screen issue, but it might improve the overall performance for the game.