Re: Weird lag in build/buy mode and sometimes in Live Mode too

This problem returned severely for me. It's now no longer sometimes, it's all the time. This is getting frustrating for me. I have a PC that exceeds the requirements, I am baffled that the Sims team hasn't mentioned it or has done anything to fix this, but instead is knocking out expansions that only add to the workload.

Kinda disgusting to see that it's just a cash cow. I can't be the only one experiencing this problem.

@JeanVW  I think this is one of the many problems that the Sims team "is aware of" but hasn't prioritized.  The issues are that not everyone experiences the problem and that there don't seem to be any similarities among those that do.  That strongly suggests that the cause is at least largely something on the user end, not within Sims 4, even though an element of the game may be conflicting with something on your computer.

The point is not that the issue shouldn't be investigated, just that it's more complicated to do so.  It's simple to reproduce an in-game bug: if feature X isn't working as intended, or using feature Y in certain circumstances causes a crash, it's easy to see and troubleshoot.  Short of shipping your computer to headquarters, I'm not sure how you could help the QA team reproduce your issue.  Even another system with the same components might not display the same lag.

Anyway, if you'd like, I can flag your posts and see what happens.  Please provide a fresh dxdiag and summarize what you're seeing right now: where and when the lag happens, what it looks like, what kind of framerates you get, etc.

Hi again! 

so about a month agao i went and updated my graphics card to nvida instead of amd, and  so far eveything was great! No more lag issues at all. Untill today. The first time ive played with the new update.

every time i swap from build mode to live mode, im at 20fps. AGAIN.

im so frustrated at this point because i have no idea whats causing the issue. 

@MadPeachyTV  That's an interesting development.  Could you post a new dxdiag as well?  Even if there's nothing obvious, it would be useful information that the problem was gone and came back with the current update.

By the way, have you at any point uninstalled and reinstalled the game?  I know it's quite the project for a lot of people, especially those with slow internet.  But I'd be curious to know whether it helped anyone.

@puzzlezaddict 

I have my dxdiag attached below 🙂

And yes, I had the game un-installed since June, then I re-installed everything around the end of December and since then everything was running perfect, like better than perfect! 

Now the bug is back as of the latest update.

I was wondering if there was anything common among all of us and our dxdiags that u have noticed. Like are we all running Razer Software or have one of the same apps running in the background that could be causing the issue? Something like wallpaper engine, or anything else? 

@MadPeachyTV  I looked through the dxdiags originally and didn't find anything in common among the affected players, at least not anything that I thought could reasonably explain the issue.  For example, a lot of people use Razer accessories and the accompanying software, many more than have posted in this thread or reported a similar issue.  Plus, if the issue was some application like that, the clean boot recommended all the way back towards the beginning of the thread should have worked.

Having said that, in your case at least, it might be worth disabling your Razer software.  Of the ten Windows errors in your dxdiag, nine are from Game Manager Service.  While I can't tell from the dxdiag when exactly those errors happened, if they're occurring while you play Sims 4, they could well be contributing to the problem.

As for why the game behaved itself for a month and then started acting up again, perhaps the process of patching didn't go well, or the game is no longer playing nice with the rest of your system.  The fact that you uninstalled and reinstalled and got a few weeks of smooth play as a result is exactly why I wondered if anyone having the issue had tried a reinstall as troubleshooting.  It would be extremely interesting if reinstalling fixed the issue right up until the next patch.

Finally, it's worth asking about your antivirus program, that is if you have one.  The game's .exe has changed enough recently that a few antivirus programs now block it outright, and some are preventing it from writing to the Documents directory.  So another program might interfere enough to slow things down but not so much that the game can't open in the first place.  This is just my speculation; I don't have anything to back it up.  But it's easy to test by disabling the antivirus and a lot quicker than reinstalling.

Were the 10 game manager errors as of today? Or the last few days? And i think for sure i might try without my razer software running. I will also try the antivirus thing too. Is there anyway to add the sims into the files so my antivirus knows its allowed?  I know last time i tried the clean boot aswell, nothing changed! This is so strange that it just resurfaced out of nowhere!  

@MadPeachyTV  Like I said, I can't tell when the errors happened; the dxdiag doesn't contain that information.  If you want to find out, check 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.  The timestamps on the chart aren't always completely accurate, so click "View technical details" for a given error to double-check.

You can certainly add TS4_x64.exe and Origin.exe to the exceptions list in your antivirus.  Some programs have additional settings that need to be changed as well, and increasingly they're using new terms and new layouts, so I can't really tell you where to look.  But there's something to be said for just opening each category and seeing what's there.

As for the clean boot, not all programs shut down these days, for various reasons.  Some make sense, like your antivirus should still be running unless you manually disable it.  Others are kind of ridiculous, for example an RGB program might still be running, and that's absolutely not necessary, plus those apps can definitely interfere with games.

One thing I should have thought to mention last night is that this patch introduced a feature where players with Razer Chroma can coordinate their RGB with their sims' moods, if they want.  Whether you've enabled this or not, it does mean that the relationship between Sims 4 and certain Razer services has changed, and perhaps that's causing some extra issues.  It wouldn't explain why you had this problem before, but this wouldn't be the first time seemingly the same issue had two discrete causes, even for the same player.

@puzzlezaddictThank you for the response. I'll, of course provide a dxdiag from the time of writing. See the attachment.

I've also reinstalled my complete Windows system at a certain point, so I'm fairly certain it's not my system.

Ah well, as for summarizing what the issues are;

- What am I seeing?

I'm seeing frame drops, varying from 20 frames to as low as 10, when my game usually plays at 60 fps, stable (I've put V sync on in game and in NVCP).  Have had this for a while now.

The whole screen moves so slow, it's unreal. When I click the three dots in the right hand, it goes away, but it returns just as fast. You can describe it as going from 100 to 1. It goes from buttery smooth gameplay to stuttery, slow, unresponsive.

The framerates fluctuate from 60 to 12 at it's lowest. It doesn't really matter where I am ingame, it just happens. I've seen people write about the 3x speed and that having a possible effect, I can't say that for myself to be honest.

My most important computer specs are atm (also in Dxdiag);

-Videocard: Nvidia RTX 2060, 6GB

-CPU: i5 7600K, 3.8ghz (up to 4.2 turbo)

-RAM: 32GB

I am seeing a lot of Event Name: RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64, don't know what that means?

Anyway, thanks for your concern and I hope someone can fix this, because at this state, the game is unplayable, which is a shame, because I enjoy playing it.

Kind regards,

Jean

@JeanVW  Thanks for the summary and dxdiag; I'll flag this now and see if anyone has other ideas.

The RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64 error is Windows detecting a memory leak, or the beginnings of one; 64 means 64-bit.  It's not an uncommon error with Sims 4, and nothing to worry about under normal circumstances.  I guess it could be related to the fps issue, but we see those errors all the time, so unless you're seeing one every time you get an fps drop, you can probably ignore the errors.

Please also try disabling your antivirus program, at least long enough to test.  Although antivirus issues usually look different, it's worth experimenting.

@JeanVW and @MadPeachyTV  Going over your dxdiags again, the only thing that stands out is that you both have an Acer 75 Hz monitor connected via HDMI cable.  This shouldn't be a problem, and I'd expect more reports if this kind of setup caused any issues, since Acer is a popular manufacturer.  But @MadPeachyTV if you're interested in testing, you could unplug your second monitor (restart your computer afterwards) and see how the game runs with just the Asus.

@JeanVW  There's a way to disable it, but it's so common and normally so unintrusive that I wouldn't expect it to be causing the issue.  It's worth disabling Controlled Folder Access though, if it's on.

https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/03/windows-10-defender-controlled-folder-access.html

This wasn't a reported issue back in the summer, but these days, Origin sometimes uses excessive CPU resources for no apparent reason.  It's easy to see this happening in the Task Manager, if you alt-tab to it during gameplay; putting Origin in offline mode fixes the problem.  This is kind of grasping at straws, but since nothing else so far has worked....

By the way, did I ever suggest playing in a new Windows user account?  It's a long shot, but creating a new account takes so little time, and you wouldn't need to redownload the game.

Hey everyone, 

So I tried something. I went and completely uninstalled my razer software. Game Manager, and Synapse. (I hope I don't jinx this lol) but so far I've been ok! No lag since I went and did this! When I first experienced the issue back in June, I never tried uninstalling it, and I'm pretty sure even in my clean boot, Razer would still be running. So back then that might have been why it never made a difference.   

@puzzlezaddict Is anyone else willing to try this too? See if it helps at all??

@MadPeachyTV  That is great to hear, and an interesting development.  I do remember one person a few months ago with Razer software who had mouse lag in-game, but it was all the time, starting as soon as the game loaded, and partially responsive to other interventions, so I didn't think it was related.  Or it may just be a coincidence.

@JeanVW has a Corsair mouse and keyboard, not Razer, but it's always possible there's some Razer software left over from a previous peripheral device.  Or maybe Corsair software is interfering in the same way.  I guess the point is, another clean boot may be in order, this time with additionally disabling pretty much everything that can be force-closed in the Task Manager.

I'm experiencing the same issue, and clicking the '...' button fixes the lag for me as well until the next time I enter build mode. (Thanks @MadPeachyTV, before you pointed that out as a workaround, I thought the only way to stop it was to save the game.) Lag is as others have described, it drops from a smooth 60 fps to a juttery 1-5 fps. 

Specs:
6 core 12 thread Xeon E5-1650 v3 @ 3.5GHz

128 GB DDR4 PC 2133 Buffered ECC RAM

Nvidia GTX 1080 GB

Samsung NVME SSD

I wonder if it has something to do with the quantity of content? Some algorithm in the UI not scaling well to the number of items. I have all of the packs/expansions/etc except for paranormal.

@cruser43  One person fixed this by uninstalling their Razer software.  Another player reported a similar issue went away with a couple of tweaks to graphicsrules.sgr:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/CURRENT-ISSUE-Incredibly-Low-FPS-when-connected-to-Internet/m-p/10034152#M207335

As noted in the next post below that one, you don't need to edit your original version; simply make a copy and stick it in ConfigOverride.  The game will use that copy when it's present, but if you don't like the effects of the edits, it's easy to delete that second copy with no harm done.

Thanks @puzzlezaddict ! I'll give those a try.

My theory about it being an algorithm that doesn't scale in build mode was wrong btw. I can make the lag inside build mode go away by clicking '...' just like I can make it go away outside of build mode by clicking '...'. That suggests that a state is flipped when transitioning between the two modes causing lag, and hitting '...' unflips it so everything works well again. There is nothing in build mode or live mode that is lagging on its own.

What I can't fathom, is that it's not reproduced yet. SO many players are experiencing trouble with this. And for a good while too, to add.

I think most people aren't reporting it because it's such an OLD problem, most people have given up on it being fixed.

I've had the problem myself for years. On MULTIPLE computers.

Most of the time, hitting ESCape and going back in resolves it temporarily. When it happens, I go into build/buy mode and my framerate drops from 50+ to ~10. I had it go down to 7 (SEVEN) fps just this afternoon. I hit ESCape twice and it rocketed back up to 55. Problem is, it tends to stick in build/buy mode. Once I return to Live mode, I can hit ESC twice and it's back to almost normal temporarily.

Quick update on my situation.

Bad News:
I enabled the FPS counter in Origin, and it was showing ~7fps ☹️. Using '...' stopped working for me after the latest update.

Good News:
I was able to fix it. I removed everything inside my C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Mods folder (including Resource.cfg), then I started the game, and things ran great. Afterwards, I added all the mods back in one by one (except for the Resource.cfg file, the game had generated a new one for me). No I'm getting a steady ~90-100fps regardless of what I do. I can hop in and out of buy mode and cas with no issue. Not sure what changed, all the mods are the same. Still, worth a shot.

This could also work for people without any mods. Just delete everything in that folder (probably just Resource.cfg) and see what happens. Couldn't hurt right?

For the record. I have every pack installed and active except for Paranormal while getting 90-100fps. Hope this helps someone!

*edit* Bad News Again:
This stopped working as soon as I traveled to another neighborhood. But at least clicking '...' works again.

Eco totally drained my Mac, so had to uninstall.  Not missing it at all, as it's incompatible with some of my other packs.  How man celebs have turbines all over their cell homes?  lol

@GednaaMe too. ECO completely destroys my framerate. I want to investigate how to remove some of the more... laggy... features in a mod without losing some of the assets, furniture, clothes, power generation, etc. Might not be too easy.

ECO adds a LOT of features that makes off-the-grid viable. Without them, it's practically impossible. But it ruins the framerate. If I can turn off those features in a mod without losing the objects, that would be optimal. Otherwise, I'll have to weigh my options.

Ok I've found the problem. It's the notification panel, once you clear it, you won't have lag in the buy mode