Re: sims 4 stuttering camera during events and parties

@puzzlezaddict I always get around 7-30 fps when playing. It flactuates a lot, like one second im at 30 then the next second its 10, and so on. I've tried changing the number of sims on lot from 20 (default) to 10, but when I throw an event not everyone invited came though I only invite 7 sims. I'm a rotational household player btw, I have 20 sims.  

So is it because my laptop is incompatible? Do you think there's something I can do beside getting a new part? Or if its imposible, do you think I should upgrade my ram, or my vga? Thanks in advance!

Edit: oh I forgot to mention that when my sims visit a community lot it doesnt really stutter like an event does.

@kixxinghae  I wouldn't call your laptop incompatible.  It's not a bad model, just not really a gaming computer, and its performance reflects that.  Its graphics chip is always going to be slower than the dedicated cards that can run the game on high or ultra settings.  The graphics chip is the limiting factor; the other components are better, relatively speaking, at least as long as they're performing as expected.

You can't really upgrade it either, other than adding more RAM.  But before you go that route, check the Task Manager while playing and see whether you're running out of memory.  The graphics chip will borrow some to do its processing, but even then, 8 GB total may be enough for Sims 4.  If you are low on free memory though, it might be worth adding more.

Your model has one module soldered in, and one slot for a removable stick.  I don't know whether your particular laptop has 8 GB RAM soldered and an empty slot, or 4 GB soldered and a 4 GB stick in the slot; you'd have to open it up to look.  But either way, you could put an 8 GB stick in the accessible slot and have either 12 or 16 GB total.  Like I said though, make sure memory is a factor before spending money on this.

Ther other thing you could do is try lowering some of the graphics settings.  You may want sim detail on very high, but it's possible lowering it to high or medium will improve things enough on its own.  It's at least worth trying, to find out whether this setting makes a difference.  You can also try quitting and reloading before an event.

If neither of these makes a difference, you can try some hardware monitoring, to make sure the components in your laptop are performing as they should.  Let me know if you're interested, and I'll post instructions.

@puzzlezaddict does that mean I cant replace my vga? Is mine irremovable? I just take a quick look at the task manager:

Right after start up

CPU: 12%

Memory: 25%

Disk: 69%

Starting the game:

CPU: 64%

Memory: 61%

Disk: 41%

During events:

CPU: 59%

Memory: 83%

Disk: 22 %

Idk which one indicates the RAM percentage. I have no other program opened. There're 33 background processes that only takes like 0 point something percent, I guess it doesnt matter. Do you think just adding more RAM alone will eliminate the lag though? I would like to try the hardware monitoring you mentioned earlier.

@kixxinghae  Memory is RAM, as in random access memory, the place where data is held by your computer for immediate use.  It does look like you're not completely running out, although hardware monitoring would give a more complete picture.  Since you're interested, 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.

I'm not sure what you mean by vga, but you can't replace the processor or its integrated graphics chip, and your laptop doesn't have room for a dedicated graphics card.  So you're limited to what you can do with the components already built into the laptop.

@puzzlezaddict @ We refer graphic card as VGA here in my country 😅  whoa I thought i could replace my graphic card but oh well.. I guess adding more RAM wont help either? Here's the file you're asking : https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ti2t4cisu3no0k/sims4.CSV?dl=0

@kixxinghae  Sorry for the late reply; I've been a bit occupied with other things.  (And I should have known about VGA, but I saw it and thought of the type of connector and not the card itself.)

While your laptop does run low on memory while you play, it's not critical: the lowest reading for the available physical memory was about 1600 MB.  The real slowdown happens when a computer is forced to swap data back and forth from RAM to the page file, but page file usage didn't jump until the last 2 minutes of the hwinfo log.  So unless Sims 4 was running great until that point and then suddenly slowed down, I doubt that's the issue.

The more obvious detail is that your processor and graphics card are running hot.  This isn't critical either, in that both components easily throttle performance to get back to a reasonable temperature.  But that throttling could and probably does account for lower performance at least to some extent.  It's possible that the throttling on and off is a constant while you play, and you only notice the symptoms while in a demanding in-game situation like an event.  It's also possible that those events are the only time the throttling is significant enough to cause a noticeable drop in performance.

It's hard to be sure about cause and effect without knowing what you were doing during the log, and when, but it doesn't really matter.  The underlying point is that your laptop wold run the game a little better if it could cool itself more effectively.  Elevating it while you play can help, whether you use a laptop tray or put something under the corners.  So could pointing a fan at it, or even getting a cooling pad.

Adding more memory may help too, but again, it's not clear from the hwinfo log that this is the issue.  Before you spend any money on RAM, try cooling your laptop as much as possible.  A little extra cold air on the bottom of the case can make a big difference, and of course it's cheaper to use a fan you already have than to get the laptop upgraded.

@puzzlezaddict so i just reseted bios setting to default and defraged my C drive (its said 15% fragmented) even tho the game is located on E drive (it's 0% fragmented so i didnt defrag it). I also lifted my laptop and put a fan under it. The lag during events seems kinda reduces a very tiny bit. It still lags like crazy but now it's more playable. I dont know which one of my action did it. I'm thinking of getting more fan to put under my laptop to see if it'll make any better.

Do you have any suggestion of what can I improve next? I can't change sims graphic to any lower than very high and lighting setting to lower than medium since it'll make sims' hair glitchy. I've tried lowering the other settings but still the same outcome.

Edit: I notice that my teen sims seem to cause lag the most.

Edit 2: I forgot to mention that everytime I turn my laptop on or off, I hear a crackling sound twice as if the CD player is being opened. Idk what that is.

@kixxinghae  It sounds like you might be using a teen cc hair that's causing at least part of the trouble.  Find a teen that seems to cause lag, and try reassigning the hair; or just temporarily remove all teen cc hair and see whether it makes a difference.  You can use "save as" and rename the save, so your original remains intact while you experiment on the new copy.

Having a fan blowing against the bottom of the laptop case can help a lot, although I don't know whether you want to invest in a laptop cooling fan or cooling pad at this point.  On the other hand, you could use it on a new laptop if and when you get one.  But if you have a friend that uses one, maybe borrow it and try it out to see how much difference it makes.

Ultimately though, this is probably more about managing the lag, keeping it to a minimum, than any surefire fix.  It will help if the laptop can cool itself better; removing some high poly (high resolution) or broken custom content will improve things too.  But this laptop is always going to struggle somewhat when running Sims 4; the question is how much.

I don't know what the crackling sound is and couldn't begin to guess.  Do you use standalone speakers?  Is the crackling sound coming from those speakers, or from the laptop speakers; or is it a mechanical sound from the laptop components?

@puzzlezaddict I've removed some CC hair from teen sims that I suspected messing with my game. The lag slightly improve but its still there. I guess my main issues are bad CC hair and overheat CPU. Thank you so much for helping me, now the lag is more bearable I wont complain so much about it 🙂