Re: delay between clicking and interaction menu appearing

@MSLsiblings  Your dxdiag shows a number of generic Windows errors, among other things, so please start with 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.

Try playing Sims 4 with nothing else running other than Origin or the EA App, and put that app into offline mode before launching the game.  Please test both your existing save and a new one again.

If the interaction menu is still not showing up right away, please put Sims 4 into windowed mode (but don't minimize it), bring up the Task Manager, put it into detailed mode (as in, you see a full list of running processes) if it's not already, and post a screenshot of what you see.  You can use Windows key-shift-S to capture that portion of the screen.

Please also post a new dxdiag run after you've tested this second time.

 i forgot to send the message of the sfc scannow process thing before restarting my laptop. If you want me to do that again and tell you what it says i will do. I followed all your steps and it still takes 10+ seconds for the interaction menu and more to happen.
Here is the ss of the task manager and my dxdiag.

task manager ss and dx diag. 

@MSLsiblings  You could run sfc again, but the only reason you'd need to care about the message it outputs is if it said "Windows found corrupt files and was unable to repair some of them," or words to that effect.  Otherwise, it doesn't matter.

The immediate cause of your current issue is clear from your Task Manager screenshot: your processor is maxed out while you're playing.  Lag when opening menus is one common symptom of this.  But Sims 4 is only using 56% of the CPU resources, which is high but not a problem by itself.  So the next question is what else on your computer is using a significant amount of the processor.  The Task Manager can be ignored since you're not normally going to have it open while playing.  For the rest, click on the CPU header to sort the list by how much of the processor it's using, and list any task that's using more than 5% CPU.

Please also click the Startup tab and post a screenshot of that; there may be applications set to start with Windows that really don't need to be running all the time.

I listed both, a screenshot of my cpu and startup from task manager. Desktop windows manager,feedback hub,microsoft one drive and system have more than 5% cpu .

@MSLsiblings  The short version of this is, your computer has a lot of what some of us might call bloatware running, and collectively it's eating enough CPU resources that Sims 4 doesn't have what it needs to run properly.  This is a problem on many computers, but particularly older ones with relatively weaker processors that can still handle any one or two significant tasks but not 20 at the same time.

Personally, I would disable everything that shows as Enabled in the Startup list, with the exception of Windows security notifications, plus OneDrive if you're actually using it.  For the rest, you'll free up computer resources if you don't let them open with Windows, and it's trivial to open each app yourself when you have use for it.  Even though none of these apps takes up much in the way of resources on its own, together they add up, as you can see from the fact that non-Sims 4 processes are using more than half your CPU.

If you really want one or two of them to start with Windows, that's probably fine; just be selective.  For some of these, telling the app not to start with Windows is enough to remove it from the list entirely.  For others, you can disable them from starting with Windows from this same screen.

Definitely also disable the Windows Feedback Hub, or at least set the frequency of feedback as low as possible.  The setting should be under Windows Settings > Privacy & Security.  If you don't use OneDrive, get rid of it; it's also using a lot of resources.  If you do use it, disable syncing while you play.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-to-cancel-or-stop-sync-in-onedrive-4885c27e-3d89-4d69-be75-2646c71367d3

If none of this helps enough, 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 only service to leave running is the EABackgroundService, which the EA App needs in order to run.  Disable everything else, as the article describes.  When you reboot your computer, go through the Task Manager's background processes list again looking for any service that might still be running.  If you accidentally kill the wrong process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer.

If this helps, you can start adding back processes until you get to the point where you notice lag again, and then you'll know where the line is, more or less, and can adjust from there.

I did the steps and i reset my laptop but now my laptop pin isnt available and it doesnt say sign in option under. just reset pin and when i press on it it doesnt work. So i tried to shift and reset and then i went into troubleshoot advanced command but my outlook account says my password is wrong even though i tried logging in on my phone and it worked.

So because of that i cant access the advanced things and now i cant go inside my laptop

Should i reboot my laptop? And if yes how do i since i cant get inside my laptop. 

@MSLsiblings  You should be able to use your password, not your PIN, to sign in when in a clean boot.  Every Windows account has a password, whether you use it or not.

Hi! I have been having this same issue for a few days now. When I click on other interactable items, such as a table, the menu pops up quickly with no problem. On the contrary, selecting a sim, other sims, or a computer takes a significantly longer time to load. Clicking on a non-selected sim being the longest. I have followed your steps in the thread, as well as attached the messages received once I completed them. I attached the DxDiag file as well as my view from the Task Manager. As you can observe, the CPU is very high. I'm not quite sure how to reduce it from here. I also ran the scan on sfc, and the first time I received a message that it found corrupt files. After following the rest of the instructions and running sfc again, this was fixed, and I did not receive the error message again. I also repaired the Sims 4 game through the EA app. I disabled nearly everything in the Startup menu except for Windows Security. Despite these efforts, my game still has the same delay as described. Earlier, I had a bug where the menu would not appear completely upon clicking on another sim or any sim for that matter. It had appeared another mod was messing with the UI. This was reported to me by the BetterExceptions mod. I fixed the issue and have not encountered it again. Though the problems are similar, I do not think they are the same. I believe it may be the high percentage of the CPU, although I don't know how to fix this. If you have some suggestions, they would be extremely appreciated. Thank you!

@emilyffaye  Thanks for covering the basic troubleshooting steps and providing all this info.  It makes my job a lot easier.  You're correct that the CPU use is the most likely culprit, but unfortunately, your laptop's hardware makes addressing that difficult.  First of all, the processor is quite weak for Sims 4 even if it's technically over the minimum requirement.  So the CPU use will probably always be high, and the question is how much you can bring it down.

The easiest step is of course to run no other apps while you play.  The best practice is to restart your computer before launching the game to free up as much RAM as possible (more on that later), and make sure that no apps are set to start with Windows.  For that, check the Startup tab, and disable anything you don't absolutely need.  You can always run these programs manually.

It can help to put the EA App in offline mode as well.  This will probably prevent you from using the Gallery, but you could browse the Gallery in a separate play session, then quit, restart, and play in offline mode when you're ready.

Another issue contributing to the CPU load, perhaps in a major way, is the fact that your laptop has only 4 GB RAM and a very small page file.  The low RAM means the processor has to send excess data that would normally be in RAM to the page file, which is a space reserved on the C drive for this purpose.  Swapping files back and forth takes CPU resources, and the more memory apps want to use, the more swapping has to happen.  This is why I suggested not running anything alongside Sims 4.

On your laptop, this is further complicated by the somewhat small and almost entirely used page file.  Normally, I'd show you how to increase its size and leave it at that.  But your C drive has only 11 GB free, which is technically enough to prevent storage-related issues, but decreasing that to more like 5 GB could have other significant consequences.  So before increasing the page file, please try to free up more space on C, and let me know how much progress you make.

Hi again! I really appreciate your quick and detailed response! And yes, the biggest deal is that my laptop's hard drive is significantly small. Unfortunately, over half of it is taken up by window's required files. I have very little downloaded onto my laptop besides the EA app. I did manage to free up a little bit of space. I will still try and free some more space in the meantime. I also have another question. Since the hard drive that my laptop was made with is so teeny tiny, I did purchase an external hard drive to help with storage. Is it possible I can utilize this external storage in increasing said page file, or is it necessary it be my systems built-in hard drive? All of this is new to me, so I thank you again!

@emilyffaye  It's worth looking through Apps & Features and Other, in your first screenshot, to see whether anything else could be deleted or reinstalled on the secondary drive.  While you're never going to have a lot of space on C, even a few gigabytes can help.

To answer your question, yes, technically you can move the entire page file to your external drive.  However, if it's an mechanical drive (HDD), which appears to be the case from your second screenshot, that would only make things worse.  Your laptop's internal drive is much faster than the fastest HDDs, and the swapping back and forth between RAM and the page file needs to be fast so as not to impact performance even more than you're seeing already.

At any rate, you can add another few GB to the page file to get back to where you were, with 11 GB free.  Here's how (option one):

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/77692-manage-virtual-memory-pagefile-windows-10-a.html#option1

I would set the minimum size to 8000 and the max to 12288, which should put you back at 11 GB free, but double-check the free storage after restarting your computer anyway.

Aside from this, disabling any other apps from starting with Windows, running nothing alongside Sims 4, and playing with the EA App in offline mode, there really isn't anything else you can do.  I guess you could experiment with in-game options, for example avoiding San Myshuno or the eco footprint effects or the lot traits that involve wild animals, but I'm not sure how much those would help or if they're even contributing to the problem.  There is, unfortunately, only so much you can do with your laptop's hardware.

Hi! So, I followed the instructions concerning the page file, it seems like the changes applied but I really didn't notice much difference in the game? My computer is also telling me the C drive has 14.9GB of storage left. Do I need to do anything else?

@emilyffaye  You can run the EA App in ofline mode and experiment with the in-game changes I mentioned; perhaps you'll find some combination of settings and playstyle that makes the game run well enough for you.  But like I said before, this laptop is always going to be limited in how well it can run Sims 4, and you may be running up against that limit right now.  I'm sorry, I don't really see a way to solve this, just work around it to whatever extent it's possible.

Hi! Yes I completely understand that! I was honestly surprised that it would run a game like The Sims at all, so I am fine with a little lag for now. I really appreciate all of your help! That's awesome you do this for people. I have noticed a little bit of a difference in my game upon playing with it a little more. It runs smoother without so much freezing and lag, but I think the delay is just gonna have to stay lol. Once again thank you so much and I will make sure to follow your other advice!