problems everywhere

Hi I read and followed all the steps, downloaded the ultimate fix and everything but I'm still running into problems. I have Windows 8 and I've played the Sims 3 on this computer before and everything was fine. I have The Sims 3 base game and the Town Life Stuff installed. The problems I am having are:
-- when I launch the game from the main menu or whatever it's called, i get this message "unable to start game service initialization failed (0x024e424f)
-- when i launch the game using the TS3W.exe it loads using the town life stuff menu and then on the screen where you choose your world to play, everything is blank. no matter what i click on; options, the drop down menu to choose a world all i get are empty slots
-- none of my custom content is showing up either and neither are the sims packs i installed
please help me because i am at a loss as what to do from here

Hello,

Try this first, please: https://games4theworld.forumotion.com/t1171-must-read-how-to-install-the-sims-3-correctly
DO NOT skip any steps and RE-DOWNLOAD both the manual patch and the Ultimate Fix!