Forum Discussion

1 year ago

Solved

Computer Slowed to a Crawl After Sims 4 Cheatcode

Hi everyone. I'm stumped with what's going on with my wife's computer. She was running Sims 4 just fine on her laptop (a 3 year old Asus with 16 GB ram, Nvidia GTX1660ti, and AMD Ryzen 7 4800).

Then she entered a cheat code, bb.showHiddenObjects in the game. Almost immediately after it started to lag really bad to the point where it's unplayable. But not only the game was slowed, her entire computer was now slow. She doesn't use this computer for much except Sims and a few other games.

We've tried everything we could think of:

Repaired Sims 4 in EA

Updated the EA app

Updated Steam

Window Updates

Restarting the computer

Driver updates
Nvidia updates
Cleared space on hard drive
Scanned for viruses
Tried to get back into the game to undo the cheat

Any help would be appreciated before we take more drastic measures to restore her machine.

puzzlezaddict
1 year ago
@tsmo24 Please try a clean boot:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

The one service to leave enabled is the EABackgroundService, which the EA App needs in order to run. Disable the rest as described.

When you reboot your computer, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down any service that doesn't absolutely need to be running, for example anything from MSI Afterburner to RGB software might still be enabled. If you accidentally kill a critical process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.

Don't open anything other than Sims 4 and the EA App while testing, not even a browser window. And of course use the computer normally as well to see whether it's still running slowly.

If this doesn't help, I'd suggest doing a clean install of Windows. While this is kind of the nuclear option, it doesn't take that much time and will cut through all the software-based problems at once, although you could of course reinstall something problematic afterwards. This is more efficient than the piecemeal approach, and since you don't have any data to preserve, you're not losing anything either. The reset option can be as thorough as a clean install but isn't always.

For a clean install, you'd just need a USB 3 stick you don't mind erasing and a few minutes to create your own Windows 10 ISO. You can create one using this page:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Here's how to do a clean install:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html

If at all possible, I'd suggest doing an offline installation and installing the chipset drivers yourself. If any need to be updated, Windows will take care of that once the laptop is back online, but in general it's best to use the manufacturer-provided drivers rather than more generic ones. Here's the download page for this laptop:

https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-gaming/tuf-gaming/asus-tuf-gaming-a15/helpdesk_download?model2Name=FA506IU

You can download these installers using any computer, save them to an external device, and plug it in when you're ready.

Once you've done all this, I would strongly suggest installing only the EA App and Sims 4, at least at first, to avoid any potential conflicts with other software.

8 Replies

puzzlezaddict
Hero+
1 year ago
@tsmo24 Is the computer running slowly outside of Sims 4 after a restart? If so, that's very strange, and I'd like to see a dxdiag. You can attach one to a reply here.

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

If only the game is slow now, is it slow in a new save as well? Please test, for comparison's sake, and let me know. If the new save is fine, test a different lot in the original save, preferably in one of the base game worlds. You don't need to save your progress.
tsmo24
1 year ago
Hi thank you for responding.
It's running slowly after restart and even when no other programs are running. My wife decided to go ahead and reset the computer since it isn't used for much else, but it's still running slowly now that it's done resetting. I attached a Dxdiag file.
DxDiag.txt136 KB
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
1 year ago
@tsmo24 When you say your wife reset the computer, do you mean restored to factory settings, thereby wiping all data? Or was it less drastic than that? Does it make a difference whether the laptop is plugged in and charging vs. running on battery? Does it feel like the laptop is overheating? It should be relatively cool to the touch during normal use and while on battery, although it could get warm when charging.
Kris_blurryface
Rising Rookie
1 year ago
@tsmo24 Showhiddenobjects works perfectly for me. But keep in mind that it's a huge cheat because it's adding additional things to the build mode. type showhiddenobjects in again to disable the cheat you activated. And it might just be her computer, you'll probably need a new one if you want it to work properly. Just changed out my broken one and everything runs smoothly.
tsmo24
1 year ago
@puzzlezaddict She reset to factory settings. I looked for a restore point but there wasn't one before the issues started. Her words were "I dont really care about the data, let's just reset it to factory settings" I did put her Sims 4 saves on a thumbdrive to possibly save them.

And no it's not running loud or hot from what I can tell. When she's played other games in the past I can hear the fan really humming. It's silent right now.
tsmo24
1 year ago
@Kris_blurryface Yeah we tried getting back into the game and disabling it. Then she decided to hell with it, let's reset it to factory settings. It's still running way more slowly than a machine like hers should.
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
1 year ago
@tsmo24 Please try a clean boot:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

The one service to leave enabled is the EABackgroundService, which the EA App needs in order to run. Disable the rest as described.

When you reboot your computer, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down any service that doesn't absolutely need to be running, for example anything from MSI Afterburner to RGB software might still be enabled. If you accidentally kill a critical process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.

Don't open anything other than Sims 4 and the EA App while testing, not even a browser window. And of course use the computer normally as well to see whether it's still running slowly.

If this doesn't help, I'd suggest doing a clean install of Windows. While this is kind of the nuclear option, it doesn't take that much time and will cut through all the software-based problems at once, although you could of course reinstall something problematic afterwards. This is more efficient than the piecemeal approach, and since you don't have any data to preserve, you're not losing anything either. The reset option can be as thorough as a clean install but isn't always.

For a clean install, you'd just need a USB 3 stick you don't mind erasing and a few minutes to create your own Windows 10 ISO. You can create one using this page:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Here's how to do a clean install:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html

If at all possible, I'd suggest doing an offline installation and installing the chipset drivers yourself. If any need to be updated, Windows will take care of that once the laptop is back online, but in general it's best to use the manufacturer-provided drivers rather than more generic ones. Here's the download page for this laptop:

https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-gaming/tuf-gaming/asus-tuf-gaming-a15/helpdesk_download?model2Name=FA506IU

You can download these installers using any computer, save them to an external device, and plug it in when you're ready.

Once you've done all this, I would strongly suggest installing only the EA App and Sims 4, at least at first, to avoid any potential conflicts with other software.
tsmo24
1 year ago
Thank you all so much for your help! I don't know how, but after it sat for a while when we went out of town for a wedding, she booted it up and it seemed to be working as normal. Reinstalled sims, copied her saves from the thumbdrive, and they worked just fine. It was the most bizarre thing I've seen. I asked her not to use that cheat again. Thanks again everyone.