Re: How can I lower my cpu temperature while playing?

Oh the fans definitely work - they're quite loud on this model - a known issue.

What could I do in-game to reduce cpu temps? - windowed or full screen? Origin offline? fps?

@babysquare 

The only thing in-game that will help a bit is turning the graphics down or lowering the resolution.

@babysquare  Please check Origin's CPU use in the Task Manager.  If it's close to 100%, which happens with Origin sometimes, then putting it in offline mode should help.  That will prevent you from using the Gallery though.  An alternative would be to disable the Origin Client and Web Helper Services on startup: hit Windows key-R, enter "msconfig" without quotes, click the Services tab, and uncheck the boxes next to those two entries.  But that only makes a difference if Origin is the issue.

Manually limiting your in-game framerates can also help with CPU temps: fewer frames means fewer draw calls for the processor to handle, in addition to of course lowering the GPU's workload.  Lowering settings without capping fps will actually increase the CPU's load: the GPU will be able to generate more frames per second, so more draw calls.  Anyway, if you play in fullscreen mode, you can use the vertical sync setting in the graphics options.

If you use windowed mode, you'll need a different tool.  If you'd like help capping fps, let me know what card(s) your laptop has.

Thank you so much for that info, I've capped my fps to 60 under the nvidia control panel, and disabled those origin startup programs.

I wanted to ask, which places a greater load on the cpu, full screen or windowed mode?

For reference my cpu is an i7-10875H and the gpu is an rtx 2070.

@babysquare  That's actually an interesting question.  I think that if fps is capped, and the resolutions are the same, windowed mode may be slightly more demanding.  I'm basing this on the fact that fullscreen mode gives a bit better performance in games overall, which basically means you'd see higher fps in fullscreen.  So I'd expect the same 60 fps to be therefore slightly less demanding in fullscreen.

However, the difference is small enough that it shouldn't have any meaningful effect on your system, especially with a 2070.  Even the mobile version of that card is capable of running Sims 4 at >150 fps, at least when the game itself is running optimally.  So 60 fps at 1080p shouldn't be much of a workload, or create much heat either.

What kind of CPU and GPU temperatures are you seeing now, and is Origin still using a significant amount of CPU resources?  If things are under control now, I don't think you need to worry about fullscreen vs. windowed mode or any other small adjustments.

I haven't tried playing since the problem occurred so I don't know yet. Also I don't play on 1080 resolution as it makes the UI too small to read. Do the fps and resolution have to 'synhronize'?

The make is an MSI GE66 raider and the model is 10SF-645UK

@babysquare  There's no direct tie-in between capping fps and the in-game resolution.  Whatever tool you use to cap framerates should work exactly the same (or not work at all) regardless of the resolution.

Sims 4 has a feature where you can resize the UI to your preferences:

https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2019/01/portraits-are-far-too-small-big/

@puzzlezaddict

True, but both should effect how hard it is on the system. A 2560*1440 at 60fps will be harder on the system than 1920*1080 at 60fps.

It's all a matter of lowering the graphical settings as far as you can until you reach a threshold you're not willing to cross. Like 2560*1440 is optimal, 1920*1080 is tolerable, but 1280*720 is unacceptable.... etc. (IMO)

Windowed mode is definitely harder on the system but if you have a tendency to Alt-Tab out of the game frequently, then having windowed mode OFF will tend to crash the game.  Most games have that problem.  If you're really having trouble getting a cooler system, then turn OFF windowed mode and try to refrain from Alt-TABbing out.

Setting the FPS cap will help immensely.  The rest of the settings are just up to you. The more you can turn off, the better (and cooler) it will run... but it will also LOOK worse. Just need to find that happy median you're willing to live with.

Thank you both for the info.

So far I've capped the fps to 60 and turned off the online origin features in-game and it's made a difference. The fans only kicked into their higher speeds a couple of times within the space of about 2hrs, and only briefly. Apart from that they were running more quietly while playing than I think any computer I've ever had. When I finished I checked the hardware monitor program I had running throughout and temperatures were at a max of 94, which I'm guessing is when the fans went up a gear, across the separate cpu cores temperatures maxed out at between 93 and 88, which is an improvement.

I got it wrong before - I'm on 1080p - are you saying that lowering the resolution would help?

If so I could try that next. My graphics settings are on ultra, and since I finally have an rtx I'd rather keep those graphics as they are.

@Psychotps  Did you mean to tag me or the OP?

---

@Psychotps wrote:

True, but both should effect how hard it is on the system. A 2560*1440 at 60fps will be harder on the system than 1920*1080 at 60fps.

---

Yes, but the most recent question was whether capping fps would be effective at various resolutions, which it of course would be.

---

Windowed mode is definitely harder on the system but if you have a tendency to Alt-Tab out of the game frequently, then having windowed mode OFF will tend to crash the game.  Most games have that problem.  If you're really having trouble getting a cooler system, then turn OFF windowed mode and try to refrain from Alt-TABbing out.

---

Yes, but the difference is small enough that it shouldn't have any measurable effect on the performance of a 2070 mobile with fps manually capped at 60.

---

Setting the FPS cap will help immensely.  The rest of the settings are just up to you. The more you can turn off, the better (and cooler) it will run... but it will also LOOK worse. Just need to find that happy median you're willing to live with.

---

The OP has already capped framerates at 60, and a 2070 should be able to run Sims 4 on ultra settings at 1080p and 60 fps without breaking a sweat.  Even 60 fps at 1440p wouldn't come close to maxing out the card, at least in a vanilla game.

Besides, all this talk of graphics settings is mostly irrelevant.  The OP's processor was overheating, not the GPU, and most of the graphics settings in Sims 4 have a much smaller effect on CPU use, with the exception of lighting.  The way an MSI Raider is built, GPU temperatures should not have an outsize effect on CPU temps, and the GPU would throttle long before 90ºC anyway.

@babysquare  Lowering the resolution would help CPU temps a bit, but I don't think it's necessary here.  Your graphics card can clearly handle ultra settings, and your processor shouldn't be working that hard while running Sims 4.  I'm curious what its load is, specifically because if the load is fairly low and it's still running at >90º, that could indicate a fan blocked with dust, which can happen even on a new laptop and isn't always visible from the outside.

On the other hand, if the processor is running around, say, ~80% load for some reason (Sims 4 is not demanding enough on its own), then something else running in the background is the issue, and disabling that while you play should help.  For example, Discord may be using resources, or your antivirus, or any number of other programs.  The first thing to do though is to check CPU load when the temps get above 90º; then we can go from there.

@babysquare There should be an option called CoolerBoost. I recommend turning it on if it isn't already. Be sure you don't block any of the cooling vents under the laptop. And if your running any graphic demanding games I recommend having the power brick plugged in. As I said before the laptop seems to be running normally.

I'll be simming soon - I'll make a note of the cpu load and post it here later.

Also a point worth noting - my game isn't entirely vanilla. I use MC command center and about a dozen small script mods by Bienchen, but I try to keep it to a minimum. Sorry I forgot to mention it sooner. 

When I look at task manager there are a  lot of different background processes running (currently 103) and most of them are using 0% of the cpu. The others are on average using less than 1%, usually less than 0.5% The thing that sometimes uses about 5-10% is the system. 

Ok, so here are the readings from my latest play session: It was running slightly hotter, maybe because I was in a larger world and moved between lots a fair bit. Here's how it appears on my hardware monitor.

Max. temps:

cpu package - 97c,

core #0 - 88c,

core #1 - 77c,

core #2 - 94c,

core #3 - 83c,

core #4 - 97c,

core #5 - 94c,

core #6 - 94c,

core #7 - 89c

max. load:

processor - 66%

cpu #0 - 71%

cpu #1 - 63%

cpu #2 - 73%

cpu #3 - 66%

cpu #4 - 63%

cpu #5 - 63%

cpu #6 - 63%

cpu #7 - 55%

cpu #8 - 98%

cpu #9 - 98%

cpu #10 - 100%

cpu #11 - 100%

cpu #12 - 58%

cpu #13 - 59%

cpu #14 - 58%

cpu #15 - 70%

@babysquare  The max loads are what would be expected: you'll see very high spikes when a game or other heavy program is loading, and workloads do shift from core to core (to some extent) as time goes on.  The more interesting readings would be the average loads, which should be somewhat lower.

The temperatures still seem high to me, although part of that depends on the average workload.  A brief spike in load should cause only a smaller spike in temperature before both settle down to more reasonable values.

It might be easier to cut to the chase though: please play in a clean boot, run Hwinfo and log the session, and send me the file.  That way, I don't have to keep asking you, and you get an answer sooner.  Here's how to do a clean boot:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-boot-windows-10

When you reboot, you'll need to go through the Task Manager and shut down any inessential programs—quite a few don't get disabled in a clean boot.  That goes for any game performance software as well as whatever monitoring app you've been using, at least for the purposes of this test.

For hardware monitoring, download hwinfo from here:

https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

You don't need to install anything if you don't want to; just choose the Portable version, unzip it, and launch it from Downloads or wherever you want.  (If you would like to install, be sure to click the green button, not the orange one.)  Restart your computer, and don't open any other apps.  Launch hwinfo, choose "sensors only," and click the icon that's a sheet of paper with a + sign to start logging.  Save the file to your desktop for easy access later.

Wait five minutes, then launch Sims 3 and play for 20 minutes or until it crashes.  Click the same button to end logging.  Then upload the log to a third-party free filehosting site and link it here.  Please leave it in .csv format, or if you use OneDrive to share, please compress it in .zip format instead.