Shadow problems

@Berj2468  I'm not seeing this in my game and haven't seen any other reports of it either.  So I have a few questions:

• Did you quit and reload the game after changing the settings to ultra?
• Are only trees affected, or other objects too?
• Does this depend on the weather, e.g. the shadows show up when it's sunny but not partly cloudy?

Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

@puzzlezaddictI've quit and reloaded the game again after changing the graphics from very high to ultra but the problem is still there.

From what I could tell from the game the main things that seem to be affected are the objects placed outside and the houses.

I don't see a problem with the inside of houses but I'm not completely certain. The inside of the houses seem to look the same to me.

Not sure about the weather.

For the dxdiag, thanks for sending me the link. First time using it. I noticed that the dxdiag file I saved seems to contain a lot about my pc. To make it easier for you which part do you need? I can remove the rest.

If so then here is the saved file.

@Berj2468  Thanks.  Your laptop's graphics driver is a bit old, not so much that I'd expect it to be incompatible but enough that it's worth looking for an update.  You'll need to use whichever one HP provides, as its software usually blocks third-party drivers.  Go here:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/laptops

Enter your serial number, choose your OS (just Windows 11 is fine) if prompted, and you'll land on the driver download page for your laptop.  Click All Drivers, then expand Driver-Graphics, and find the newest Intel driver.  Your current version is 31.0.101.4091, so anything that starts with 31 and ends with a higher number than 4091 would be newer.  If you find one, install it and restart your computer before testing the game.

If HP doesn't offer a newer driver, there is a way to install the more generic Intel version, but I wouldn't recommand it and would suggest doing everything else possible to fix this issue first.

That includes playing in a clean folder: move the existing Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts (or rename it), and when you launch the game, a new folder will spawn with no content.  Your saves and other data will be intact in the folder you moved but not read by the game.  Don't restore any of that, at least for now; just start a new save and have a look at the shadows.  Please start the save in summer, and if your sim arrives to a cloudy day (or worse), travel to a different world where it's fully sunny and have a look around.

Your dxdiag shows a number of errors from the EA App, so I'd recommend uninstalling it with Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine) and reinstalling.  The dxdiag also lists a couple of errors from what I believe is NoMachine remote desktop, so try updating or uninstalling and reinstalling it.  I doubt those errors are related to Sims 4, unless you're running the game remotely, but they should still be addressed.

@Berj2468  That's the driver you already have installed, so trying to install it again won't accomplish anything.  And I would guess that the Device Manager will tell you that you already have the newest available driver installed.

Instead, please try the other suggestions I listed earlier, and let me know what results you get.

So I tried to find a newer version of the graphics driver but I found out that I've already installed the newest version before. The reason I'm saying this is because the only graphics driver available for download on my pc is the same as the one already found in the system. For the ea app I uninstalled it but I don't think this will make a difference. I tried to rename the folder but the only thing it did was give me an error message. The NoMachine is not at all related to this.

@Berj2468  What error did you get when you tried to rename the Sims 4 folder?  Was this with the folder in Documents > Electronic Arts, or a different one?  Renaming the folder that contains the game's program files wouldn't work if the EA App was running, and if you did rename it, the App would think Sims 4 wasn't installed at all.

The error said that the file was missing. Would my ea account being connected to steam also cause an issue?