Sims 4 Crashing/Freezing/Lag, Surface Pro 3/7
Hi, my game was working fine the last time I opened it about a week ago, but I tried to open it again and suddenly it is lagging to the point of being entirely unusable. The game completely freezes when I'm looking at it - I have to click a button, minimise the game window, and then open the window again to see the effect.
I have tried repairing the game multiple times, I have reset the file, I have taken mods out (I had the same mods/cc last week and the game was working fine then, now it is not working with or without mods/cc), restarted my device, etc. I have no clue what else to do. Please help.
edited title for visibility after merging threads. -puzzlezaddict
Edit: For others with a Surface Pro 3 or 7, you can first try changing the settings listed in this post from bibliomak:
Sims 4 Crashing/Freezing/Lag, Surface Pro 3/7 | EA Forums - 11836525
If that doesn't help,try forcing the game to launch in windowed mode. Go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4, open Options.ini, search for fullscreen , and set it to 0 (zero).
If that doesn't help either, try manually uninstalling and reinstalling the graphics driver, as described below.
@scalpho Your dxdiag shows a few serious crashes of the graphics driver, which would explain the problem all by itself. So the next step here is to clean-uninstall and reinstall the driver. Here's how:
Microsoft controls what drivers can be installed on a Surface laptop and provides them in bundles. So instead of downloading a standalone graphics driver, go here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=100419
and download the provided package. After you've removed the existing driver and while your laptop is still offline, run the installer you've downloaded. It should mostly just confirm that you have the correct software installed but reinstall the graphics driver that will now be missing. Restart your computer after installing the driver, then go back online and try to play.
If you have the same issue as before, please try playing in a clean boot:
The one service to leave enabled is the EABackgroundService, which the EA App needs in order to run. Disable the rest as described.
When you reboot your computer, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down any service that doesn't absolutely need to be running, for example something like MSI Afterburner might still be enabled. If you accidentally kill a critical process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again.
Don't open anything other than Sims 4 and the EA App while testing, not even a browser window.
