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magz_4_life's avatar
magz_4_life
3 years ago
Solved

Sims 4 Extremely Bad Lag

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.96.397.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Every expansion, game pack, stuff pack, and kits.
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Play any save.
What happens when the bug occurs? Extreme lag, average 22-17 fps.
What do you expect to see? Game running smoothly as usual at 60 fps.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Yes
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure 

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My game has randomly started to have extremely bad lag from what I can tell out of no where. I average around 22-17 fps and my game until now used to run at 60 fps with no problems whatsoever. I have MCComand Centre and have had it for ages with no problems at all and I have my game set to high performance in my graphics settings. My game did have lag problems not long after I installed the Growing Together update but I managed to fix it by optimizing my game through GeForce Experience, which did not work when I tried to use it again. I've noticed as well that my CPU has high usage but my GPU has 0-2% usage, even though it says that it's using the RTX GPU.

pc
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    3 years ago

    @magz_4_life  Your computer is certainly more than powerful enough for Sims 4, and the game shouldn't use too much of your CPU in a new save.  It should definitely be using more of your GPU; more on that later.  For the CPU use and given the size of the save, I would suspect that some corruption happened that the game engine can't handle.  Sure, 6 isn't a large save by any means, but it's on the large size for a new save, and even putting that aside, it sounds like that save might be borked in some way.  If you're not particularly interested in fixing it, that's understandable, but if you'd like to try, let me know.

    For the GPU use, one simple explanation would be if you're minimizing the game when checking the Task Manager.  Alt-tabbing while in fullscreen mode would amount to the same thing; the question is whether you can still see the game window as you're checking.  Another explanation would be if you're playing while the laptop is running on battery.  It could be throttling quite severely, including giving the GPU only minimal power, to conserve its charge.

    Otherwise, try telling Windows to run Sims 4 in high-performance mode.  This should stop any graphics switching that might be happening.  Hit Windows key-i, select System > Display > Graphics settings, click Browse, choose TS4_x64.exe, click Options, choose the high-performance option, and click Save.

    In case you're curious, the CPU and GPU frequencies are exactly what I'd expect from the components' respective use.  CPUs will turbo at the slightest provocation even with a very light load, and the GPU isn't working hard enough to bother ramping up at all.

6 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    3 years ago

    @magz_4_life  Does this happen in all saves?  Please start a new one, for comparison's sake, and let me know both about the lag and the CPU and GPU usage.  I'm curious about RAM use too, both in your current save and a new one.  I'm not suggesting you need to abandon your current save, only that this is a useful test.

    And how big is your current save file?  You can see it in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > saves.

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

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

  • magz_4_life's avatar
    magz_4_life
    3 years ago

    I tried a new save game and there were no problems whatsoever, the one with problems was around 6,285 KB, not as big as other ones I've had which were around 7,118 KB. My CPU usage is between 22-30% on the new save, and the GPU usage was the exact same, going down at some points to zero. What I also noticed is that the frequency for my CPU was around 4230 mhz, and my GPU was around 210 mhz. My RAM usage for the original save is between 77-78% and for the new save it was steady at 73%. I'm not bothered about abandoning my save file, I started it just last week or the week before and I have my families saved to the Gallery.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    3 years ago

    @magz_4_life  Your computer is certainly more than powerful enough for Sims 4, and the game shouldn't use too much of your CPU in a new save.  It should definitely be using more of your GPU; more on that later.  For the CPU use and given the size of the save, I would suspect that some corruption happened that the game engine can't handle.  Sure, 6 isn't a large save by any means, but it's on the large size for a new save, and even putting that aside, it sounds like that save might be borked in some way.  If you're not particularly interested in fixing it, that's understandable, but if you'd like to try, let me know.

    For the GPU use, one simple explanation would be if you're minimizing the game when checking the Task Manager.  Alt-tabbing while in fullscreen mode would amount to the same thing; the question is whether you can still see the game window as you're checking.  Another explanation would be if you're playing while the laptop is running on battery.  It could be throttling quite severely, including giving the GPU only minimal power, to conserve its charge.

    Otherwise, try telling Windows to run Sims 4 in high-performance mode.  This should stop any graphics switching that might be happening.  Hit Windows key-i, select System > Display > Graphics settings, click Browse, choose TS4_x64.exe, click Options, choose the high-performance option, and click Save.

    In case you're curious, the CPU and GPU frequencies are exactly what I'd expect from the components' respective use.  CPUs will turbo at the slightest provocation even with a very light load, and the GPU isn't working hard enough to bother ramping up at all.

  • magz_4_life's avatar
    magz_4_life
    3 years ago
    @puzzlezaddict I've deleted the save now, i'm not bothered about it because I can just start again considering I didn't do much. If there was corruption with any of my future saves however, how would I fix them?

    I was minimizing the game when I was looking at Task Manager, though next time I can use an app to check my usage while playing. I'm not running on battery, though I do have a battery percentage limiter at 80% on.

    I already have the Sims 4 in high performance mode, but i'll make sure that it is using the RTX graphics card and not the Intel CPU one.

    Thanks for your help!
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    3 years ago

    @magz_4_life  The best way to avoid corruption is to have lots of backups.  So back up your saves folder regularly, or use "save as" and create new save slots regularly, whatever works for you.

    If a save is starting to get corrupted, how to fix it really depends on the source of the problem.  The first step is figuring that out, which means separating out the different possibilities.  So you try playing a different household within the save, and then your own sims on a different lot, then save/bulldoze/replace the lot.  Sometimes it's an object on the lot, sometimes it's a single sim, and sometimes it's some wierdness in the background that you'd never notice.

    For example, I've recently seen a couple of saves with 10k sims in them, which I only know because another helper used Frankk's Show Sim Info to "search all sims" and found the list.  The saves were using over 10 GB RAM and crashing the PC, but there weren't any obvious on-screen reasons.  So it can take some testing to figure things out.

    In those cases, the sims couldn't be deleted either, at least not all at once—the game would crash before finishing.  And deleting them a few at a time would have been maddening.  That alone is an excellent case for backups.

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