@smilelikemiles Just checking, but you don't happen to have Sims 4 installed on an external drive, do you? There's no external drive listed in your dxdiag, but you could have unplugged it, and an issue with the external or its connection could explain the issue.
Otherwise, please try playing in a clean boot:
When you reboot, go through the Task Manager's background tasks list shutting down everything that doesn't absolutely need to be running, so basically anything that isn't from Microsoft, Intel, or Nvidia. If you accidentally kill the wrong process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer. And if you shut something down that isn't critical and it does restart, please make a note of it. As an example, this has been an issue with Razer software recently, and while this may or may not be contributing to your issue, it's useful to know that you may need to account for this.
While testing in the clean boot, please also disable your antivirus, if you have one. And use a(nother) clean Sims 4 folder as well.
Finally, while the game is loading, please open the Task Manager and look at CPU use and temperature in the Performance category. Let me know what you see for both. If Sims 4 isn't already set to launch in windowed mode, you can force it to do so (so you can easily switch to the Task Manager): open your Origin game library, right-click on the Sims 4 icon, select Game Properties > Advanced Launch Options, enter -w in the command line box, and save.
When testing, you can shut down Sims 4 in the Task Manager any time it's been loading without making any progress for more than about five minutes. Since you'll be using a clean folder with no mods or custom content, it really should only take a minute or two to load, so after five minutes, you'll know that the issue hasn't been fixed.
@roberta591 I'm not sure what you're looking at in the dxdiag. The page file is large enough—less than half of it is in use—and is probably dynamic. And the Nvidia driver is definitely WHQL, as you can see by comparing the version with the one listed on the Nvidia driver download page:
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/190553/en-us/
This is really overwhelming to me as I’m not computer smart so I’m not sure of how to do any of this safely. All this for a game seems like so much and very discouraging for me and just makes me more uninterested to play ☹️ I’ve done so much for this game and it breaks every single time. I’m exhausted and don’t have the energy for any of this as it just stresses me more.
I only saved a backup to an external drive but I don’t have the game “installed” on the external drive. This is the only option I have to backup my files in the event my computer was to crash for any reason. I would do a clean install of the game if that were to happen and just put my saved game files and such back. I only used it weeks ago to have a newer backup but I removed the device safely (ejected safely before removing) but I haven’t had to use that backup yet. I don’t play with the external drive plugged in. I just use it to save my data and I safely eject it and store it away until I do another backup of important things.
also back to disabling my antivirus…. Doesn’t that make my computer prone to viruses? I disabled in the past and wound up getting a virus in my old computer and had to start over with everything. and do I have to turn it on and off after every game? That seems tedious and annoying to remember. I just want to be able to play and just shut down when I’m finished. I thought maybe my antivirus was the issue but again idk how to do that safely without exposing my computer to potential threats since I play for hours at a time.
@smilelikemiles You don't need to worry about your graphics driver or the computer's page file usage. Neither of these looks like a current issue.
For the antivirus, the point is to test playing with it disabled, not to get rid of it. As long as you only open Origin and Sims 4 while it's disabled, your computer should be safe. (And you can quit the game and reenable the antivirus as soon as you see the results.) If you see signs of a virus with the antivirus disabled, the virus was already there—neither Origin nor Sims 4 is going to allow malware to download. If this doesn't help, we move on to other possible causes. If this does help, the question then becomes which settings you need to change to keep it from interfering with Sims 4.
The clean boot may look intimidating, but all it really involves is clicking a few boxes, then restarting your computer. Going through the Task Manager's background processes list should only take a minute or two. It only takes a few seconds to set Origin to launch Sims 4 in windowed mode, and another few seconds to check the Task Manager while the game is loading.
I understand this process can feel quite involved, but the thing is, you've already tried the simple fixes and they haven't helped long-term. The goal here is still to identify a problem that can be addressed once and then never again, or at least not again for a long time. It's the process of finding that problem that can take some work.
Idk how to disable it as I haven’t done it in a while. It’s also intimidating bc I don’t even know what some of the stuff on task manager is so how do I know what to check and what to leave unchecked? I’m not computer smart so it looks confusing to me.
