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JJJxiii's avatar
2 years ago
Solved

Sims game takes forever to load on external hard drive

Hello!

I moved my Sims 4 folder to an external hard drive so that I would have more space for other stuff on my computer. The transfer was successful and I am able to load up and play my game, but it is extremely slow. It takes about 30-45 minutes for my game to even launch to the title screen, 30 minutes to get to the main menu, and usually like 5-15 minutes to actually load into the game. When I'm CAS and/or build/buy mode, it takes forever to scroll down, place an item, undo something, or even just move the screen. For reference, the SSD I'm using is the SanDisk 1TB Ultra Dual Drive Luxe and my computer is a Macbook air M2, running on macOs Sonoma. I also do play with mods in my game. Is there any way I could get my game to run faster and smoother?  Should I buy a different external hard drive? Any help is appreciated!

  • @JJJxiii

    Did you reverse the symlink for the Electronic Arts folder from the previous drive before attempting the new one?

    If the game recreates an Electronic Arts folder in Documents it means there is no symlink to the external drive.

    The game library location for the game installation can be changed in Origin/EA App but this is a completely separate to the Electronic Arts/Sims 4 folder (which is where the symlink is applicable).

7 Replies

  • JJJxiii's avatar
    JJJxiii
    12 months ago

    Hello!

    So I renamed the mods folder and the game still ran extremely slow. Thus, I've gotten a new SSD and have tried moving my Electronic Arts folder with no luck. I followed all of the terminal commands like last time, but instead of completely moving the Electronic Arts folder to my hard drive it just copied. I deleted the Electronic Arts folder from my documents folder on my mac to remedify this issue, but every time I launched the game it just created a new Electronic Arts folder in my documents. Is there a way to change the game library location using the new EA app? If I move my Sims game onto my SSD how would I go about moving the electronic arts folder to my SSD as well?

  • @JJJxiii

    Did you reverse the symlink for the Electronic Arts folder from the previous drive before attempting the new one?

    If the game recreates an Electronic Arts folder in Documents it means there is no symlink to the external drive.

    The game library location for the game installation can be changed in Origin/EA App but this is a completely separate to the Electronic Arts/Sims 4 folder (which is where the symlink is applicable).
  • JJJxiii's avatar
    JJJxiii
    12 months ago

    I reversed the symlink for the Electronic Arts folder before attempting the new one. Seeing that the EA app doesn't really have a directory to change the game library folder I just ended up installing the game on my external hard drive and the Electronic Arts folder was loaded there after launching the game on the external hard drive. Thanks so much for your help!

  • santilu31's avatar
    santilu31
    Rising Novice
    30 days ago

    Hello, I’m having the same issue. I followed your instructions on how to move the folder to an external drive and create a symlink but it takes forever to load. Can you explain what you mean by reverse the symlink? When I created the symlink it created the linked folder in the Documents. Mind you my Documents folder is attached to my iCloud, which was originally working okay but the files were taking up to much space in my System Data on my computer. 

  • hextrees's avatar
    hextrees
    Seasoned Newcomer
    23 days ago

    Im having the same issue after installing to a ssd. I also don't know what they mean by symlink reverse so when they reply lmk