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1234joy13's avatar
1234joy13
2 years ago

Sims 4 lagging after window updates

Around this time last year, I launched Sims 4 one day and the lag was insane, and I was suck on the loading screen for 20-30+ minutes. After uploading my dxdiag, it showed that my laptop graphic driver was outdated and throwing some serious errors, however no update was fixing the problem. So, I was left with no other choice but to do a complete factory reset to restore my laptops system back to its original state. The factory reset.

which fixed the graphic card problem, and my game was back up and running as normal.

Fast forward a year, I have run into the same problem! I played the game on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday with no issue. After closing the game, I got a notification from windows saying that I needed to restart my laptop because of update, which I did.  On Thursday, I launched the game, and the loading screen is painfully slow, and the game is lagging badly. Windows notified me of some more updates on Friday and today which I have done. Before these updates, the game was running fine. I generally don’t know what has caused the game to act up this time.

I would like to mention that since the window updates this week, the disk C storage keeps fluctuating. Originally, I had 18GB free, then it changed to 13GB free and now its currently saying I have 20GB free. Something else I have noticed since the updates is the laptop battery has been stuck on 95% all day despite the charger being plugged in. Again, these problems that have only come about after the window updates.

Today I have spent the day trying to get down to what is causing my game to act up and nothing has worked so far. Please find the list below:

  1. I've deleted the sims 4 folder under Electronic Arts and launched the game so a new sims 4 folder is generated
  2. Removed all my CC and Mods and launched the game and it is still laggy and slow
  3. Made sure to update mods and CC and delete any broken CC
  4. Repaired the game in the EA app 
  5. Lowed the game graphics, changed the display type and resolution
  6. Closed down background applications using task manager 
  7. Made sure that display adapters are up to date 
  8. Deleted Screenshots and cache folder 
  9. Deleted localthumbcache.package
  10. Restart EA and app recovery 
  11. Disc cleanup 
  12. Made sure game is updated 
  13. Made sure to do Window updates

I’m really hoping someone can help me ☹️if nothing else works, I guess I will have to do another factory reset. I have attached a dxdiag.

pc

1 Reply

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    2 years ago

    @1234joy13  The installed graphics driver is still quite old, from 2020, but if you don't want to update it yet, you can hold off and try other approaches first.  Here's the newest driver for your laptop's processor, if you're interested:

    https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/95443/intel-core-i57200u-processor-3m-cache-up-to-3-10-ghz/downloads.html

    There can be multiple reasons the free storage fluctuates.  One is that Windows downloads its updates before applying them, then flushes the downloads, but perhaps not right away.  Windows will also keep some data to allow for a rollback, although I'm not sure how much.  Another contributing factor is the page file, which is where spillover data from RAM is stored.  The page file is stored on disk, and if it's dynamic, Windows could be allocating more when necessary and revoking it later given your relative lack of space on the C drive.  OneDrive syncing could also affect free storage.

    However, I think the performance issues may be due to your laptop's relatively low memory.  4 GB isn't really enough for Sims 4 these days, and every subsequent version of Windows can use more memory than the last, although it doesn't always play out that way.  Windows also likes to reenable apps on startup that you'd previously disabled, for example Edge.  An extra 300 MB RAM use from Edge or another app isn't a big deal when you have 16 GB installed but can make a big difference with only 4.

    So please go through the list of startup apps in the Task Manager and make sure absolutely nothing is active that you didn't want.  You can also try playing in a clean boot, while your computer is offline; this will free up as much memory as possible without compromising the integrity of the system.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

    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.  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, and put the App in offline mode after loading it and before launching Sims 4.  You can take your computer offline then too, just as a test.

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