Sims lagging? A bug? Or is it me? 😅

alyssablngr​  The reason I was asking about overlays is that your dxdiag listed a few GDI (graphics device interface) Object Leaks, which shouldn't happen with a properly-programmed application.  And I haven't seen other examples in Sims 4, at least not in a very long time.  So I was wondering whether some other software was conflicting.

I would still suggest testing that, since your game isn't as responsive as it should be, especially on your hardware.  The way to test is with a clean boot:

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, for example anything from MSI Afterburner to RGB software might still be enabled.  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, not even a browser window.

If this helps, you can selectively reenable services until you find the culprit, then either leave that disabled or (if it belongs to an app you want to keep using) let me know what it is so we can try to fix the underlying issue.

I did see one other report of water-related interactions showing on land, at least that's what I think the user was saying, after I responded to you.  So I'd like to know which lot(s) you were playing when you saw it.