Changes to Aspect Ratio for Sims 4 causing White/Black Screen and crashes EA App

@NovaPaladin  This isn't a common error, in fact I haven't seen any other posts about it.  (That doesn't mean your the only one affected, only that the number is probably low.)  So this might be a system issue, at least in part.  Please run a dxdiag and attach it to your reply.

https://help.ea.com/en/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

The video card is up to date, but an update for the NVidia High Definition Audio is available according to the Norton Driver Update.

Should I use the DxDiag again after updating the HD Audio driver?

@NovaPaladin  Your graphics driver is not in fact up to date; its version is from August.  (This is about the driver, not the video card, which generally does not get firmware updates.)  The Nvidia audio driver is part of the graphics driver package.  So it's best to install the newest graphics driver, which you can get here:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/

Choose GeForce, RTX 40 series, RTX 4070, Windows 11, and download the Game Ready Driver.  Run it as an admin: right-click the download and select "Run as administrator."  Choose the Custom (not Express) install method, and check the box to perform a clean install.  Restart when you're done and before trying to play.

This is important not so much for the update itself—it's okay to be a few months behind if you don't need the new features of a newer driver—but because most of the errors in your dxdiag are crashes of the graphics driver.  Updating will hopefully clear those up.

As a side note, you talked about the aspect ratio in Sims 4, but you're actually referencing the resolution.  The aspect ratio is the ratio of length to width, for example 1920x1080 has a 16:9 aspect ratio, and 1920x1200 is 16:10.  When playing in fullscreen or windowed fullscreen mode, you should always match the aspect ratio of your monitor, but you don't need to match the resolution.  Your monitor is 3840x2160, which is also 16:9, so any other 16:9 aspect ratio is fine, including 1920x1080 and below, but 1920x1200 could be a problem.

Thank you for helping me, I was having problems with trying to update the NVIDIA updater/game optimizer (it really needed a clean install).

The screen went white when I first loaded the family in the start up menu, but after repairing EA App, I also repaired the game. Just in case, I started a new game and it worked. I'm not sure if it just needed to be repaired after I updated the driver, or it was the fresh start. I was able to go back the previous family and it loaded up fine.

@NovaPaladin  Great, let me know if you need any more help.  Hopefully everything has sorted itself out now though.

I've tried it again, and it's acting up again, even crashing to desktop. How do I report this to EA (all they seem to have is more of a FAQ/ AI prompt helper)?

@NovaPaladin  There's no good way to submit a bug report to EA support.  They're not really equipped to deal with that kind of thing.  Sims 4 bugs are handled in the Bug Reports section of this forum, or soon in the Bug Reports section of the new EA Forums.

However, those sections are only for bugs, not system issues, and what you're seeing is clearly a system issue at least in large part.  Otherwise, we'd be seeing a lot more reports.  As such, your post would probably be kicked back to PC tech (here) or closed down as not a bug (the new forums).

I'm happy to keep troubleshooting here if you want.  In that case, please post a new dxdiag.

The problems have become sporadic.

I was able to play for a while on a new save (while I couldn't use older saves) for a while, but then it had the same problem. So I deleted a number of my saves, and started a new game (when the game was able to run). Mind you there was a lot of whitescreening, repairs to the EA App and Sims4, and restarting the computer.

When the game immediately goes to the whitescreen, the progress bar for the game in the EA App stops soon after it starts. When the game starts up properly and the game itself works, the progress bar goes almost to the end.

Today the progress bar went about halfway and the start screen comes up for Sims 4. I was going to delete more loads, just in case, but the game then went to black screen then white and stayed that way.

When the game was working, I switched back Windowed Fullscreen, so even when the game goes whitescreen, I'm able to go to the Windows desktop without the crashing that was happening while I was in Fullscreen. This made it easier to use the Task Manager to stop the frozen Sims4.

It looks like it's fixed now, I'm able to load up the game and switch to windows and back to the game without freezing/crashing.

Thank you for helping me with the Display Driver Uninstaller. 🙂