Sims 4 Laptop Mode

I play on a 2015 Macbook pro, I've played with laptop mode on for a long time I know it sucks. I've tried various settings and from my experience 2 biggest reasons for lagging are reflections and lighting. When I turned reflections off the game improved A LOT. Also lighting is set to medium. Even lowest settings without laptop mode is much better than high settings with laptop mode on.

What quality settings do you play with that causes lagging?

If your laptop requires Laptop mode, not just low visual settings, to run well, I highly recommend using it and switching to Maxis Match hair CC... unless you're looking for excuses for a new laptop purchase.

As for keeping lag down, here are some things you can do:

• Use lower visual settings. Start with turning reflections and water effects way down. Don't use high mode lighting.
  
• Only play with your power bar plugged in.
  
• Always use a laptop cooling pad when playing.
  
• Play in windowed mode, not fullscreen.
  
• Leave Sims' culling and population settings on their defaults.
  
• Play in smaller lots.
  
• Don't pack your lots with extra interactable objects.
  
• Play in smaller households.
  
• Use lower-poly (not HQ/alpha) CC.
  

I have the same problem. I love to take screenshots and laptop mode looses a lot of details. I haven't tried the low settings though. I will try this tips and see how it goes.
@luthienrising i have culling and population altered with mccc. Do you think it may be better to leave it and work my story progression manually using the household manager?

@telmarina Letting MCCC manage your population ideally shouldn't be an issue if you keep EA's culling system, including relationship culling, and population limits. Both are designed to default to what your computer can probably handle. Overriding those default limits is where you get more problems. The more interations/relationships/Sims/objects the game has to calculate, the more lag you can get. Similarly with visuals: the more detail the game has to calculate, the more potential lag.

Thank you @luthienrising . I will have a look at my settings (i don't remember well but i know i have tweaked it).

Hi guys, does anyone know how to switch to cinematic mode on MAC? My TAB button doesn't do anything!!!

Avoid laptop mod like a plague. It is super glitchy even without CC. Turn everything else to lowest setting.

I've had laptop mode on for the entire time I've had TS4 and I don't realise how bad it was until I switched off of it. It was like switching to a new game everything looked so much nicer.
Low graphics on regular mode looks waaaay nicer than high graphics on laptop mode and runs smoother, so yeah just turn off laptop mode and set all the graphics settings to low other than the sims (I have them on extra high), thats the best option :)

I play in medium-low settings and it's way better than laptop mod.

Back when I only had my laptop, laptop mode was a nightmare except for the visuals being terrible the game would get very buggy especially when a lot of sims were around and talking or doing stuff as a group. the game would fully quit.