I have the Sims 4 on my laptop and for the past few months the game has been flickering. In CAS, build/buy mode, and in live mode. I keep my driver up to date and I've repaired my game multiple times,...
@bpeddle321 It is possible the Dell drivers may be older then the drivers you have but there may be a problem with the newer drivers and your computer. While it is unusual to have to reinstall older drovers it does happen. It could be issues with newer drivers or the wrong drivers.
EDIT: I updated it after doing more research on why it didn't work, but it still flashes. I also figured I'd add that it's been doing this since January 2017. My game kept booting me to the map screen so I did this trick I found on one of these forums of copying and pasting the Sims file to create a new one. I can't really explain it but that's basically what you do. Anyway after I did it one time it just started flickering when I clicked on the screen.
I do not really understand your problem? The other people in this post did not have a problem with installation but a flickering screen.. Did you find a fix that worked for you or are you still having a problem? 🙂
Nope, I did not find a solution yet. I explained my issue a little more here:
EDIT: I updated it after doing more research on why it didn't work, but it still flashes. I also figured I'd add that it's been doing this since January 2017. My game kept booting me to the map screen so I did this trick I found on one of these forums of copying and pasting the Sims file to create a new one. I can't really explain it but that's basically what you do. Anyway after I did it one time it just started flickering when I clicked on the screen.
Oh I'm sorry! Now I also understand your previous post. I got confused as other people with similar issues have been using your thread, and you were gone for a while so I didn't get you were the same person lol! Now I'm with you!
Well, it's still strange that the dxdiag cannot find your nvidia card. The problem could be that if a tool like dxdiag cannot find your graphics card, how can the game do it. But you checked that the game ran on the nvidia card, can you post a screenshot of you Nvidia control panel and the sims?
When you mean copying and pasting the Sims files, is this what you mean?
Make a backup; copy your The Sims 4-folder from C:\Users\Username\Documents\Electronic Arts to an external drive or somewhere else on your computer, for example your desktop.
Rename the The Sims 4-folder in C:\Users\Username\Documents\Electronic Arts to The Sims 4_backup
Start the game, make a new save, and see if the error is gone. (The game will have created a new The Sims 4-folder in your documents, this is supposed to happen)
If yes, continue
If no, post a reply telling us the error is still there
Start putting folders back in the new The Sims 4-folder. Observe! After every file/folder, start the game and make sure it still works, before putting in the next one.
Options.ini - your game settings
Saves - your old saves. The sub-folders are not needed. If putting these back causes problem, try putting one back at a time.
Screenshots
Custom music - if you have any
Tray - your library objects; like lots, rooms and sims
Mods - your mods and cc, might cause problems when putting back
If putting back one of the folders was problematic and you did not work it out, please post a reply and we'll see if we can find what your problem is!
Maybe you should try this again if you have not done it since a year ago. Also try changing graphics settings are set to low quality. You can change your settings a bit and see if it works, like enabling/disabling vsync/fullscreen mode.
I have my card running for The Sims (I went in and made sure of that. Yeah that's exactly what I did, and I've done it a few more times after the timeast year with no change.
I know your game should be able to play on your nvidia-card with those settings, but just to make sure, can you just try for a minute to change to low settings and laptop mode, so that we can know more about the cause of the problem?
Your dxdiag states that you have something called irstrtsv.exe that crashes sometimes. If you open your task manager and look at processes, can you find it there? End the process and see if that makes a difference in your game.
That is Intel Rapid start technology. It is unlikely to have any influence on The Sims 4. @bpeddle321 You can get the latest version of this from Intel Hopefully that will solve the crashing of this.
@bpeddle321 I looked at both your dxdiag posts and neither have drivers for the Nvidia chip installed. To make sure you have the drivers that work with that laptop I recommend you go to Dell's support site and download Dell drivers. You can try other drivers later but use the Dell driver's if you have issues.
I went to the DELL driver website and it says I have an update but when I try to download it the installer says I already have updates newer than what I'm trying to install.
@bpeddle321 Laptops sometimes (most of the times) have complex drivers. Laptop manufacturers take the reference drivers and sometimes change them to use special features such as switchable video chips. This software was most likely developed by Nvidia and the reference drivers from Nvidia may not work correctly. What you need to do is get drivers that are known to work and if the manufacturer's drivers don't work you may have a hardware issue. Tearing of the image is usually (but not always) due to issues creating or reading the frame buffers. Do you have a flat screen monitor connected to your laptop? The laptop may be having issues playing the 1080p resolution. Did you try to lower the resolution? Have you tried running a benchmark program like 3dmark (there is a free version)? It is possible you dl'd newer drivers then Dell has but your looking for stable drivers so you may have to roll back drivers. Again I didn't see any Nvidia drivers in either of your dxdiag. The Intel 4400 HD Graphics (the graphics chip that is integrated into the cpu) should work with the base game. You need to get the laptop Nvidia chip working and that should be done by downloading and installing the Nvidia driver from Dell. There should be a section in the dxdiag near the top describing the Nvidia driver probably right below the Intel driver section. Running a program like 3dmark will show if the issue is related to just TS3 or a system issue. According to the dxdiag I don't think the Nvidia chip is not working correctly if at all. You need to check to see if the Nvidia chip is being used for 3D games. The driver can be set to switch video chips when certain programs start. If this is not working correctly you are probably using the Intel integrated video chip which is not desirable for 3D games.
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