Game lagging out of nowhere

@stickysara  Your dxdiag lists a few generic Windows errors, so it's a good idea to clean those up.  Please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:

• Hit Windows key-X
• Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
• Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
• The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
• After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
• Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
• Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
• Post the message you receive here

Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates.  If any install, restart again afterwards.

For the Sims 4 issue itself, if you have Logitech's GHub installed, try disabling it in the Task Manager or even uninstalling it, temporarily, to see whether it helps.  If you do merely disable it, make sure it doesn't start up again right away.

If this doesn't help, please let me know whether you still get lag in a new save with no mods present.  If the new save is fine, let me know how large your current saves are.  You can see their size if you view the saves folder in detail mode.

Hi! Thank you so much for responding.
I ran the first scan and received no error messages, and when I ran the second scan I received this message, "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag." 

I updated my computer, and fully uninstalled G-hub. 

I also failed to mention I had been receiving a Windows Visual C++ runtime library error (image attached below) recently when starting up my laptop, and I'm not sure if it has an effect on my sims performance. 
Also would like to mention that when I tried installing the game again, it ran fine as base game, or with a few stuff packs etc. As soon as I installed bigger packs, the lag started again. Having all the packs installed was never an issue before though. 
Unfortunately, even in a new save with no mods, I am still experiencing the same lag.  

@stickysara  I have no idea what that error message means, to be honest, but it's worth uninstalling and reinstalling the 2022 VC++ runtimes, which Sims 4 uses.  Hit Windows key-i, select Apps, scroll down to the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables, click on any version from 2015 or later, and select Uninstall.  Don't touch the older versions.  You can download the newest runtimes directly from Microsoft:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

You'll need both the x86 and x64 versions of the 2015-2022 runtimes, but you can skip the ARM version, which is for a different class of device.  Restart your computer after installing and before trying to play.

For the game issue, try putting the EA App in offline mode before launching Sims 4.  The game should work exactly the same other than not supporting access to the Gallery.

I followed steps and reinstalled the C++ redistributables, but stilled received the same error message on startup. I did some more digging and found out that my adobe programs had something to do with the message, so I uninstalled them, and the message was gone. This probably had nothing to with my game. Tried playing it in offline and still had the same problem. Back to square 1, really not sure what could be causing this as practically nothing has changed with my laptop. 

@stickysara  Try playing in 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 hte EA App needs in order to run.  Disable the rest as described.

When you reboot, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down anything that doesn't absolutely need to be running, for example GHub might have still been active had you not removed it.  If you accidentally kill the wrong process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.

Please also put the EA App in offline mode for this test as well.  If you still get lag, restart your computer, repeat the process with the Task Manager, and this time, put the EA App in offline mode and then take your computer completely offline before pressing Play.

The idea here is to remove everything else that might be interfering with Sims 4, and once the game is running well again, start adding back services until you find out which one is causing the problems.

Once again, thank you so much for the response. I'm losing hope here as this also did not work. I also tried a bunch of other things such as checking for viruses, etc. No luck on anything so far. This situation is so confusing and it genuinely started out of nowhere, and I hadn't done anything new with my laptop as I was barely using it and then decided to boot up sims after a while. 

@stickysara  How hot does your computer get while you're playing?  I'm specifically curious about CPU and GPU temperatures.  You can see the GPU temps in the Task Manager's Performance tab; make sure to leave the game open when you check.  If the MX150's temperature is below 75º or so, it's probably not the cause of the lag, but please make sure the game is actually using the MX150 and not the integrated graphics chip.  You should be able to tell from the utilization.

For the temperature of the processor, you'd need to install an outside tool.  I like hwinfo because it captures everything, but the downside is that it captures everything.  The CPU data is near the top; for these purposes, you can ignore all the other stats.  GPU data, including temperature, is near the bottom, and please check this too if you do end up installing hwinfo.  You can download it for free from here:

https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

You don't need to install anything; just choose the Portable version.  When you launch it, choose "sensors only," then leave it running while you play.  It'll show max readings as well as current, so even if the temperatures drop after you close the game, you'll be able to see the peaks.

I ended up downloading hwinfo and all the temperatures seemed to be normal, and in task manager I could that the MX150 chip was being used and remained below 75 degrees. But I did notice that recently my fans seem to be much louder when playing the sims as compared to before. Not sure if I mentioned but I don't get these problems with any other games, I only seem to be experiencing performance problems with the sims. 

@stickysara  How hot are the CPU cores?  The fans running louder usually means that the processor is running hotter (and sometimes the graphics card), although a single fan might be louder if it becomes obstructed in some way.

So sorry for late response! The cpu cores look a bit hot, as they are highlighted in red. Current temp when having games open is around 80, minimum around 40, and max around 95. It does say that there is thermal throttling present. Could that be the issue?