Random Freezing/Lagging when playing

When I play my saves, after playing for roughly 20 mins to an hour, my game will freeze. I can still hear things happening as if nothing froze in Live mode, but the visual I'm getting is like a frozen still. When the freeze happens in Build mode, I can still hear the music and see the arrow for Build but I can't click on anything. The only way "around" this issues is pressing the Windows key to minimize the game, and then clicking on the game again to force it to stop freezing. When I employ this method after a Build mode freeze, the screen first pops up white before showing Build mode properly. It seems to freeze more frequently when my sims live in apartments of any sort. 

This is annoying. I would like to be able to play as long as possible, without having to worry about this intermittent freezing/visual lag issue. Things I have already tried: uninstalling/reinstalling graphics drivers with Display Driver Uninstall, updating graphics drivers, playing clean saves, playing a new save, taking out my mods and repairing the game.

My computer is over 10 years old now, and I'm working on getting a new one for the next 10 years but the cost for the specs I want is currently prohibitive. If anyone can help me solve this issue so that I can still play in the meantime, it would be much appreciated.