Hi @puzzlezaddict , unfortunately I found nothing in the advanced launch options and deleted the Options.ini, restarted, and still the same issue occurs. Attached is my dxdiag, and I assume I'm using the Realtek High Definition Audio, as it's the only speakers in my Device Manager.
I just checked reddit and it looks like I'm not the only one experiencing this mysterious new problem.
@SoakAToa I meant what kind of sound device is supposed to produce the sound itself, e.g. Bluetooth speakers, headphones connected via jack, etc. Sometimes the "active" device, at least as far as Sims 4 is concerned, is one you've unplugged or disabled.
Anyway, the more obvious issue is that Nahimic has been crashing. Try disabling it in the Task Manager (under Background processes) before you open Sims 4. It will restart the next time you reboot your computer.
It may be unrelated, but your graphics driver is also crashing. Since you already have the newest Nvidia driver, it's a good idea to do a clean uninstall and reinstall. Download Display Driver Uninstaller from here:
https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3403
Get a fresh copy of the newest driver here:
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/170313/en-us
Next, take your computer completely offline—disable wifi and/or pull the ethernet cord—and double-click the DDU.exe. Take note of where the file will land, and click Extract. If it's easier, you can copy the path and then paste it into the address bar in a File Explorer window. Open the folder and then launch Display Driver Uninstaller.exe, and you'll get a message that you're not in Safe Mode. Click OK, then go to Options and enable Safe Mode dialog. Here's a screenshot of what your options should look like; make sure the box in red is checked:
Close options, and the DDU, and then open the DDU.exe again. For launch options, choose "Safe Mode (Recommended)," and then click Reboot to Safe Mode (you'll need your password, so find it before rebooting). Once you login, you'll see this:
In the blue box, choose GPU, then Nvidia if it's not already showing. Then click Clean and Restart (red box).
Once your computer has rebooted, now back in normal mode, run the driver install .exe in custom mode. Select "perform a clean installation" and install ONLY the GPU driver and the PHYSX software.
Reboot again, go back online, and test the game.
Ah, right on the money! It was Nahimic, disabling it fixed the issue. I've restarted Sims 4 several times now to check and it works reliably. Thank you very much @puzzlezaddict
Hello i am having this same problem but i dont think i have the same drivers or information as OP. I have attached my dxdiag if theres any insight you could provide. thank you in advance @puzzlezaddict
@Rumplestiltsim You're right, there's no sign Nahimic on your computer, and it usually doesn't come pre-installed on Asus laptops.
The immediate concern is that your dxdiag is full of errors that suggest an issue with the hard drive (or possibly RAM). The first thing to do is to clear more space on your C drive—7 GB isn't really enough for Windows to maneuver, especially while you're trying to play a game. 20 GB free is a good goal, but 15 should at least eliminate free storage as a cause of this issue. Your Downloads folder might have some files you can trash.
Next, please run chkdsk on both drives:
Hello thanks for the speedy response but I am having trouble following the instructions every time i run the command chkdsk /f /r c: it says something about the drive being locked but that it can run next time i restart the system and i clicked yes as requested and then restarted it. the first time it took like an hour and then when i followed the instructions on how to see the results of the scan it shows the picture below which shows nothing. I did this process like 2 or 3 times it took less time the more I did it. I dont know if this means there was no scan or im clicking the wrong thing but I am following the instructions on the website to the T so i am confused here. I will try for the second drive but I am not hopeful.
i attempted to run the command for the d drive and the message it shows is below. I am unsure what dismounting the d drive means exactly but my game is installed on the d drive so i dont know if thats useful information or what I am supposed to click here. Thanks
@Rumplestiltsim You can try not filtering the logs in Application instead. Look for anything that was written around when chkdsk finished. There will probably be a pile of trivial reports from the reboot, but if you scan the Source column, you should be able to pick out the wininit and chkdsk logs, if they're there. If you see an error from when the log should have been written, please post that info instead.
You can also try running the command listed in the guide to create a chkdsk.txt file on your desktop.
Edit: I just saw your new edit. The error happens when you have something running from the drive in question. When the drive is C, you need to reboot to let chkdsk do its thing; otherwise, it should be enough to close all programs (including File Explorer) that might be using data from the other drive. If you can't figure out what that might be, try rebooting your computer and not opening anything at all except for Powershell.
Okay thanks for the help ive got the files. @puzzlezaddict
@Rumplestiltsim Sorry to be blunt, but your C drive is in danger of failing. Chkdsk added 13k bad clusters to its master list, which is an alarmingly high number. (In theory, anything over zero isn't good, but in practice, the warning sign is more than about ten bad sectors; a cluster is a group of sectors.) In your position, I'd replace the C drive now, as in, back up your data and order a new drive today. I know I sound alarmist, but this is a critically serious issue.
I can't tell you how long you have before the drive fails entirely because these things are impossible to predict—it could happen anywhere from the next time you restart your computer or a year from now. But when it does happen, you could lose everything on the drive unless you want to pay someone to try to recover it, and of course your computer wouldn't work until you replaced the drive and reinstalled Windows.
If it's any consolation, NVMe solid state drives are cheap right now, and the most complicated part of physically installing one is taking apart the laptop. This is what you have now:
https://www.amazon.com/hynix-SC308-128GB-Solid-HFS128G39TND-N210A/dp/B07BGGDT9T
But any M.2 2280 drive should work just fine. So you could get a 256 or 512 GB drive and give yourself some extra room on C, maybe one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086BKGSC1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KZ4TFRS
https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-sn550-nvme-ssd#WDS250G2B0C
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YFF3JCN
Samsung is the gold standard in SSDs, and this slightly older model is quite cheap relative to normal as well:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN4NJ2J
You'd of course need to reinstall Windows, but you could do that on your own: download the Media Creation tool, create an install medium on a USB stick, then install from that once you've replaced the drive. If you're not comfortable installing a new drive yourself, a computer shop could do it for you; it shouldn't be too expensive, or if it is, try somewhere else instead.
i cant get the sound on my sims game back without doing all of that ?
@Rumplestiltsim I don't know the cause of the sound issue at this point. When you posted your dxdiag, I looked at the Windows errors list hoping to see something that would explain the lack of sound, for example the sound driver crashing. Instead, I saw only the errors that pointed to a serious hard drive issue. It's possible the lack of sound is caused by the hard drive problem, and more likely that it's not, but either way, the hard drive problem is the kind of thing that really does need to be addressed.
If you don't want to deal with it yet, there are other places to look for errors that would explain the sound issue, if in fact it has a different cause. But I would feel like I was doing you a disservice if I didn't emphasize the urgency of replacing your hard drive.
