Re: Game freezing since latest update

Hey, thanks for replying!

No custom content. Base game save was just as bad (the problem started on a save in Windenberg and continued in base game worlds), however the freezing does mostly seem to be in build/buy mode and wasn't as frequent when I dropped the graphics down to high.

I can just run the game on high graphics settings, with occasional freezes, but I've run TS4 on ultra high graphics ever since I installed it, so I'm concerned that this issue might get worse without a fix. The PC runs new releases like Baldur's Gate 3 on ultra high graphics without issue, and isn't freezing or experiencing issues with any other game, so I know the problem is definitely with TS4's latest update.

The dxdiag is attached.

Thanks once again, I appreciate your time!

@ThisMicrophone  With your hardware, you should definitely be able to play on ultra graphics settings, and the fact that you can't is itself an indicator of a problem.  And your dxdiag points to a couple potential causes that do need to be addressed.  The first is that your C drive has only 3.7 GB free, which is not even enough space for Windows to maneuver properly.  Please try to clear at least another 20 GB, but if that's not possible, try to get to 15 GB free to eliminate this as a potential source of error.

Once you've done that, please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files.  This is good maintenance in general, plus in your case, it may help with the crashes of a component of the Windows audio driver.

• 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.

The next step is doing a clean uninstall and reinstall of the Nvidia graphics driver, which is crashing a lot.  Here's how:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/02/clean-re-install-of-graphics-drivers-with-display-driver-uninstaller-ddu.html

Restart again when you're done and before trying to play, and let me know how it goes.  If you run into more trouble, please post a new dxdiag, one run after you've tested Sims 4 after doing all of the above.

Hi there,

Firstly- thanks for your help!

I freed up 43gb on my C drive (thank you for that- totally forgot to clean it out), ran the DISM.exe and sfc /scannow and restarted the PC. The DISM didn't find any errors but scannow did. The only step I haven't carried out is a clean reinstallation of my graphics driver. I'd want to back the entire PC up before I did that, I spent weeks troubleshooting the DXDIAG error Baldur's Gate 3 was throwing up every time I launched it, and I don't want to fix one game only to break another if it's not the graphics driver causing the problem.

Still freezing in ultra graphics mode, it usually starts in build/buy and then continues in live mode. Taking it down to high graphics = no freezing. I put my GPU through a stress test (from the PC manufacturer) and it didn't return any errors, so can I just clarify: does the DXDIAG show that my graphics driver is crashing, or are you saying that this NVidia driver crashes a lot? I only ask because the freezing isn't happening on any other games, including BG3 and WoW raiding in ultra high graphics which is significantly more work for the PC than TS4.

I'll attach a fresh DXDIAG, if you reckon it's the graphics driver, I'll backup the PC when I have time (what's free time?) and follow Crinrict's guide.

Thanks so much once again- I appreciate your help enormously!

@ThisMicrophone  Your old and new dxdiags both show that the graphics driver is crashing.  I'm talking about these errors, at the end of the dxdiags:

Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: 141
P2: ffffc505b29ef210
P3: fffff8061efb9050
P4: 0
P5: 41e4
P6: 10_0_19045
P7: 0_0
P8: 768_1
P9: 
P10: 

More precisely, LiveKernelEvent 141 means that the video driver failed to respond in what Windows deems is an appropriate interval (2 seconds by default), so Windows resets the driver.  The process is a bit more complicated, of course, but the point here is that the driver isn't bahaving appropriately when running some task.

If that task is a game known to work properly on the vast majority of systems and with the currently-installed driver version, then the problem is almost always on the user's system.  That, in turn, doesn't necessarily mean that the graphics driver itself is the problem.  But you've stress-tested the graphics card and verified the integrity of Windows, so the driver is the only good suepect left.

As for why this only happens in Sims 4, I couldn't tell you for sure, but I will point out that it's an older game that may use different runtimes and other resources than all the other games you play.  So if the problem is with part of the driver that deals with DirectX 9 functions, and all your other games use DX11 or 12, you'd only see the problem in Sims 4.

Clean-uninstalling and reinstalling a driver is a very safe process and doesn't require any extra backup procedure.  You'd of course want to have your essential files backed up anyway; I'm just saying that this isn't a special circumstance.  DDU is widely used and extensively tested and is actually more reliable than the built-in Nvidia and AMD processes for cleanly removing a driver.  You could of course uninstall the driver through Device Manager and reinstall the latest version, but if that doesn't help, and it might not, you'd end up needing DDU anyway.

Hey there,

Firstly- thanks again for your help!

I followed Crinrict's guide to the letter and did a clean reinstall of the graphics driver, another sfc /scannow for good measure (nothing), and started playing. Unfortunately the freezing came back and now it is in both modes, live and build/buy. I can only assume that the issue is with the latest update of TS4, given the freezing started then and continues on every household and lot, the GPU's stress test came back normal, the clean reinstallation of the graphics driver hasn't fixed it, and the PC is running every other game and piece of software normally on ultra-high graphics.

A quick theory: the driver reset issue shown in the DxDiag is what was causing Baldur's Gate 3 to crash after its first hotfix. To work around having to edit the registry and potentially make the system unstable, I turned anti-aliasing off and NVidia DLSS on in BG3 and this fixed the problem. I'll explore in TS4's settings as well, but I suspect this problem comes from EA.

Thanks enormously again for your help! Regardless of the TS4 issue, you've given me tons of useful PC knowledge.

@ThisMicrophone  It's certainly worth reseting the Nvidia Control Panel's options, either globally for for Sims 4, if you've changed anything there.  And if you've overclocked any component of your computer, please rest that to default as well, at least for now.  Other than that, Sims 4 really shouldn't be freezing, and it doesn't on most systems.

Are you getting new errors related to the freezes?  You can check in the Reliability Monitor.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day.  Today is on the right.

Look for any errors that happened at exactly the time of a freeze, specifically after you reinstalled the graphics driver.  If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here.  If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.  And if you don't see any errors with the correct timestamp, please check the technical details of the ones you do find.  I've noticed that some errors show the wrong time in the overview but the correct one in their details.