Heya,

As all of you unfortunate enough to be forced onto game version 1.69 know, there is no way to bypass the launcher like you could in 1.67; starting the game requires you to wait approximately fifteen years for the launcher to load before you can even begin loading the game proper. As a workaround, I was planning on modifying the launcher to automatically launch the game without displaying the UI, but I recently discovered an even better (and, more importantly, faster) method that bypasses the launcher entirely!

1. Navigate to your game installation folder (Typically C:/Program Files (x86)/Origin Games/The Sims 3/Game/Bin)
2. Make a copy/backup of Sims3Launcher.exe
3. Remove Sims3Launcher.exe from the folder
4. Make a copy of TS3.exe
5. Rename the newly-copied executable to Sims3Launcher.exe
6. Ensure all shortcuts to the game target Sims3Launcher.exe, if they don't already (you can also launch the game directly from Origin)

Don't ask me how it works, I honestly have no idea.

If you need to open the launcher again for whatever reason, simply delete the modified Sims3Launcher.exe and restore your original copy/backup. Repairing the game through Origin should also hypothetically restore everything to original functionality, although I have not tested it.

I've noticed that with this change, you may occasionally get the "You have an unofficial modification" message, even if all of your core mods are up-to-date. It appears that quitting the game and restarting Origin resolves this issue.

An interesting side-effect of this is that, because Origin is launching the game executable directly rather than using the launcher or the TS3W wrapper, you can use the "Advanced Launch Options" in Origin to set normally-inaccessible program flags intended for debugging. For example, the launch option "-soaknsave:300" will enable a built-in autosaving feature that will save the current game to "soaktest0" through "soaktest9" every five minutes! It's obviously incredibly rudimentary compared to NRaas Saver, but still an interesting artifact nonetheless. I won't spoil the rest of the available flags right now; you'll have to find them yourself in the code.

Obviously, this tweak does not allow the game to run without Origin. Even if I had the technical skills to make such a modification, to do so would effectively be facilitating piracy, which is not allowed on this site.

For whatever it may be worth, despite all of the flaws inherent in the Mac version of TS3 this isn't one of them. There is no Patch 1.69 for Mac, so players on that platform have never been tied to Origin (for Mac) or the Launcher and their game can still be started up with a shortcut/alias to TS3w.exe (with the "w" since these players would still be on 1.67).

This may all change if/when EA ever finishes up with the 64-bit and Metal update they have been working on for coming up on a year now. According to an EA staff member on that team, who isn't allowed to reveal any details yet, as of a week ago or so the work on that project is still in progress.

It should also be noted, for those not familiar with it, that NRaas Saver does not intentionally do autosaves. It's really just a nag mechanism, a fancy alarm clock, with the rotations of save file name suggestions thrown in. An in-your-face autosave every few minutes would drive players crazy if it takes their game longer than a few seconds or minutes to save, unless it's been your experience that this runs in the background somehow and doesn't really interfere with gameplay.

Awesome Mod has a true autosave but you can set it so it only saves when you pause the game. Of course, most people can't use Awesome anymore since it was never updated for the Steam (1.67) or Origin version versions of the game. Only those who play the disc version (1.67) can use it safely. Honestly, other than the pop-ups telling you about FATAL ERROR or something dramatic like that, I don't think it makes much of a difference, since as far as we know neither the Steam version nor the Origin version alter the game files at all.

Is it sad that I completely forgot about "64-bit and Metal"? I never realized MacOS doesn't use 1.69; I've updated the post accordingly.

Yes, the "soaknsave" does not happen in the background and will stop gameflow to save without a prompt, which is why I said it's a pretty rudimentary system and obviously never intended to see the light of day. Asynchronous autosaving without gameflow interruption would be awesome (no pun intended), but I highly doubt it would be feasible when saving can take upwards of a minute.

Sorry, but that is not quite correct. AwesomeMod was updated for Origin/1.69 a year or two ago. Pescado kept asking for the internal build numbers or whatever other file he needed for that version since he didn't have an Origin install himself but no one would supply them until then finally someone did. It's now supposed to auto-detect the patch level and react accordingly. The effect of using it on a Steam install is not the Fatal Error, it's the core version mismatch warning because of the internal build number being different. If players can just click though that, it's harmless. If the error minimizes the game down to the taskbar and allows it to get stuck there instead of displaying properly, which does happen for some players at least sometimes, then indeed the player can't use the mod.

I wouldn't shed too many tears over it. Most players and developers who do not work with Macs probably kind of forgot about the whole thing by now since so much time has passed and many of the rest of us deep down are still surprised that EA would even lift a finger to do anything for TS3 at this point, let alone fix things that are actually broken. It still remains to be seen if they are actually making the game natively 64-bit or just tricking it into running somehow in some fashion in a 64-bit only environment, as are macOS Catalina and its soon to be released successor Big Sur (also known as macOS 11).

Back on-topic though, hopefully we will hear from players on Origin (Windows) who are trying out your bypass trick because it does sound pretty promising. I'm on Steam/1.67 myself having given up the Origin structure out of sheer annoyance a couple of years ago, so I can't really try this out very conveniently.

Oh, I didn't know he had updated it recently. I stopped using it some years ago when I started using the Steam version. I don't remember what it said exactly, but I do remember a pop-up giving me the choice to exit the game or ignore the error and continue. I also had problems exiting the game. The game would get stuck on a black screen and I'd have to force close the process from the Task Manager. It was really annoying, that's why I decided to stop using it. But I had to use it not too long ago to load one of my old save games as I had marked a bunch of Sims as "Sacred" and the game wouldn't load without AwesomeMod. I removed the Sacred status and I reloaded the game and it worked fine.

What a revelation!
Thanks so much for this. I'm probably one of the few people who actively uses 1.69's disable/enable EP feature, but even still, it was awful how much longer it took the load the game because of the launcher. This will shave a good two or three minutes off of my startup time.

Hi! Does this method allow you to run EIG in Sims 3 CAW?

Sims 3 Patch 1.69
CAW Patch 1.22.10