Hi,a few years ago many people helped me get my current gaming laptop which I love, to play Sims again. It was recommended to me and I was told the 8GB of RAM should suffice but now I know the stem of issues I’ve been having for my game for a while as now when I use a lot of recommended fixes it’s not stopping the extreme lag I’m now facing. it turns out the game is using up the entirety of my RAM so at this time once again it means I am stuck unable to play and that makes me sad. I’ve had a lot going on in my life lately so to relax and play sims is all I’ve been wanting to do and once again it’s being taken from me. Apparently I’m now reading that 16GB is recommended but why when I purchased it, was it 8GB? How do I go about getting more RAM and I’m not comfortable with opening up my PC and how do I also trust someone else to open it and not mess anything up? I’m kinda annoyed that this appears to be my only option.

@smilelikemiles 8GB RAM is enough for the Sims 4. 16GB RAM is recommended for new computers as it is cheap and can help with other things.By "fixes" do you mean Mods and CC? Having a lot of CC especially high poly CC will cause lag. It may not be possible to upgrade RAM. We need to know the exact model of your laptop to answer that.

But you’re not understanding that I don’t have anyone else. It’s just me here so idk what you expect me to do. Every time I come here it’s always “your computer is the problem.” But maybe it’s just this game. This game is so poorly executed and always has issues. Everything seems to always be a me problem or my computer. My computer isn’t old and I hardly have anything on it. I just use it to play sims so I don’t know why everything’s always breaking? This is the computer that was recommended to me on here and I spent a lot of money on this laptop, money I hardly have on my salary. I know you’re trying to help and I appreciate it but either of the two options didn’t work for me. It tells me I need to save to a dvd and I don’t have a dvd rom I told you my laptop doesn’t come with that. So I can’t proceed. And because you’re not here you can’t tell me that “it shouldn’t be this difficult for you.” Well for you it’s not but for someone like me who doesn’t get computers it is! and I understand you need a break, I do. I’m not expecting you to be here but if this only takes ten minutes you couldn’t be around for ten minutes till I attempted to complete the process? I waited with the options open for a few hours waiting for someone here to respond and for windows support to help but at that point I had thinks to do as I’m a caregiver to a family member and can’t waste hours sitting in front of the computer. I have reached out to so many people and no one sticks around to help. When you have nobody in real life then how do you get the help you need? but it’s fine I’m just going to say I wasted my money and give up on this game bc this doesn’t seem worth it anymore. I simply don’t have the time to commit when things break and it seems like such a hastle just to play the game for barely an hour in my little free time. Every time I fix my game and then don’t play for just a short while I let my computer and my game update and after a few times of playing something always happens again. I have all the requirements to play and yet it doesn’t work. I’m just tired of this. It makes the game not even fun. None of these processes seem to permanently fix anything or allow things to work nicely for a while.

Hi @smilelikemiles I'd recommend getting in contact with our live support team for more specific one-to-one help on your time- here on the forums, our volunteers are not available 24/7 and may not reply immediately when you need help. If you'd like to continue to troubleshoot this issue, please reach out to live support from the help site here so they can work with you when you are available.

I know my laptop can be upgraded to have more RAM I’m just confused why my game is suddenly using all my RAM. I do have CC but it’s not high poly. I don’t use any mods and none of my cc is realistic - it’s just maxis match but like I said I haven’t downloaded any cc in a while and don’t have that much of it. so not really sure why it’s using all of my RAM up suddenly.

And by fixes I meant just basic fixes like clearing EA cache, starting the game and letting a new fresh sims 4 folder generate, and slowly adding my content back- making sure my game is updated, that my PC is updated, etc. but now none of these things are fixing my game.

Sims 4 Using Up all my RAM | EA Forums

35 Replies

jpkarlsen
Hero (Retired)
2 years ago
@smilelikemiles
8GB RAM is enough for the Sims 4. 16GB RAM is recommended for new computers as it is cheap and can help with other things.
By "fixes" do you mean Mods and CC? Having a lot of CC especially high poly CC will cause lag. It may not be possible to upgrade RAM. We need to know the exact model of your laptop to answer that.
smilelikemiles
2 years ago
I know my laptop can be upgraded to have more RAM I’m just confused why my game is suddenly using all my RAM.

I do have CC but it’s not high poly. I don’t use any mods and none of my cc is realistic - it’s just maxis match but like I said I haven’t downloaded any cc in a while and don’t have that much of it.

so not really sure why it’s using all of my RAM up suddenly.
smilelikemiles
2 years ago
And by fixes I meant just basic fixes like clearing EA cache, starting the game and letting a new fresh sims 4 folder generate, and slowly adding my content back- making sure my game is updated, that my PC is updated, etc. but now none of these things are fixing my game.
jpkarlsen
Hero (Retired)
2 years ago
@smilelikemiles
OK you say that the RAM on your Laptop can be upgraded so if you want to you can just take it to a shop and ask them to do it. Be warned that it will be unlikely to have any significant effect on your game.
A PC will use as much RAM as possible. This is not limited to your game but Windows and what else you have running on it.
If you post a DxDiag. https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/ I may be able to see a reason for lag but the game by itself will occasionally lag a bit. That is just the way it is programmed.
You can attach the txt file directly to your answer.
smilelikemiles
2 years ago
Ok I will send one eventually this week but it’s Christmas Day and I likely won’t be on my PC for a couple days now.

the only thing I had open was sims to test this and when I am not playing, it’s not using much RAM at all. I provided to screenshots I had taken before Sims and after.

I had nothing open with the first screenshot except the task manager and I was also downloading the new nvidia graphics card update. But when I play sims that’s all I had updated.

I purchased this PC when it was given to me in a link on here when I was looking for a PC for Sims and I spent a fortune on it - it’s a gaming laptop. So if this isn’t the cause for my game not being able to be played then I’m extremely disappointed. I don’t have the money to buy another PC so therefore this game would be a waste of money then bc I’ll never be able to play it again if that’s the case……
smilelikemiles
2 years ago
Sending my latest dxdiag. Thank you for the patience and for replying to help/
DxDiag.txt84 KB
smilelikemiles
2 years ago
Bumping this post as I still have no solution (I did not upgrade my RAM yet)
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
2 years ago
@smilelikemiles Your dxdiag crashed while running, and although this could be a fluke, the dxdiag also lists some generic Windows errors and is missing information about certain drivers. All that means it's worth doing a repair install of Windows, as described here:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/16397-repair-install-windows-10-place-upgrade.html

This should not delete any of your data, but if you get to step 13 and are NOT asked to keep personal files and apps, back out and start over.

Windows should also not be using 3.4 GB on startup, with nothing except the Task Manager running. That could also be a fluke, for example if Windows was trying to download an update, or you captured the exact moment when the Task Manager was using significant resources as it loaded all that data. So please check again after the repair install, and let me know how much RAM the system is using around five minutes after the restart.

If it's still above 3 GB, click the Task Manager's Startup tab and post a screenshot of what you see. Some apps may be starting with Windows when they shouldn't.

Please also let me know how much memory a new Sims 4 save uses, and whether this changes if you disable all the settings under Options > Game Options > Other. You'd need to restart the game to see the effect.
smilelikemiles
2 years ago
Thank you I will try my best but since I won’t have anyone that may be able to answer me during the process I get nervous about losing my data.

sometimes I understand that everyone is busy but it can take days to get a response on here so I can’t leave my PC laying around because my dog could knock it off the table when I’m not home.

as for startup- I did a clean boot a while back and windows themselves disabled all the stuff from starting at startup and I haven’t added anything new to my PC as I only ever really use it for sims these days. So not sure why any programs would be starting up.

windows may have been downloading an update in the background since I haven’t been on my PC in a few weeks. I had a lot going on and had to be a caregiver for a sick family member for a few months so I haven’t used my PC. It downloaded/installed a quick update the other day but that was the only update that showed but there could’ve been more and it was downloading in the background but sometimes the percentage takes hours to go up even 1% while downloading in the background so I’m unable to install them since it takes so much time.

I plan to upgrade my RAM later on anyhow as I’d like a faster PC, even if unrelated to sims.
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
2 years ago
@smilelikemiles A repair install doesn't take much time, maybe ten minutes or less on your computer. And you can back out up until the final steps, where you're asked whether you want to keep personal data. If you don't want to do that at the moment, that's fine, but even installing more RAM won't fix the errors in your dxdiag, although the extra memory may disguise the problems somewhat.

I would still like to try to help if you're interested, and I'm here every day, almost always multiple times a day. At the very least, it's worth finding out what else is starting with Windows, because as I said, the system shouldn't be using nearly that much RAM on startup. Mine uses a little more than 2 GB, and I haven't done anything special.

Additionally, updates to apps or even Windows can change the settings, for example Edge decided to start with Windows after a recent generic Windows update, which I didn't know until I happened to check the Task Manager and found it running.