Sims 4 lagging after window updates

@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.