Re: delay between clicking and interaction menu appearing

@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!