@GouchoMarx There are plenty of reasons lag can show up seemingly overnight, but it's usually that something updates (Windows, a graphics driver, the game, a different app you use all the time) and is no longer compatible with whatever else it needs to work with. It's also possible for some necessary resource to become corrupted, or for the system drive to effectively run out of storage, or a bunch of other things that aren't worth listing.
In your case, your dxdiag shows that the Nvidia graphics driver is from 2020, and it might have been reasonably compatible with Sims 4 before the patch but not now. You can simply install the newest available driver:
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/216663/en-us/
Run the installer as an admin: right-click the download and select "Run as administrator." Choose the Custom (not Express) option, and check the box to perform a clean install. Restart afterwards and before trying to play.
Your dxdiag also shows that some Acer registration service is crashing pretty much all the time. So it's worth shutting that down, which might be as simple as disabling it in the Task Manager's Startup tab. If not, you can also disable the associated service in msconfig; let me know if you need help with this.
And the dxdiag would have been my next request, so thanks for providing it.
@puzzlezaddict I downloaded the driver in the way you outlined and it's saved to my C: drive (the only drive on my laptop). When I restarted and tried to launch the Sims 4, the issue is the same but it looks like the game is still using the 2020 driver. In Device Manager under "display adapters" I only see the same 2x graphics driver listed (Intel and Nvidia MX450) which is the one you said is from 2020. I tried adding it to display adapters manually by using the path the installation saved the download files to and it says drivers were successfully added, but it still only shows Intel and MX450. When I had the game running, I looked at Processes on Task Manager and it had data for MX450 saying it was in use, but it doesn't list the new driver I downloaded anywhere.
Is it as simple as downloading the driver data, saving it to your computer and that's it? Or do I have to connect it/set it up/configure it somehow once I have downloaded it? Or should downloading the data to my C: drive be sufficient, i.e. no further steps? How can I make the sims use it instead of the 2020 driver? Should I uninstall MX450?
I have looked all through my laptop for any program called Acer Registration Service and there's nothing on my laptop like this. I looked at what Acer apps were listed in the Task Manager's Startup Apps tab and there's nothing by this name or anything Acer-related. I also checked the Services tab and there's no service called this either. Anything Acer-related in this tab is already set to "Stopped".
Any ideas on how to activate the driver data I just downloaded? P.S. I've included some screenshots of the points mentioned above.
@GouchoMarx When you download a new driver, you download an executable file, ending in .exe. (Sometimes it's a .zip that you need to extract first.) This is the installer for the driver. You double-click the .exe to run it, and the installer is what actually installs the driver. The install location is within protected Windows space, so no, you can't simply extract the data and place it in the correct location.
Installing the driver won't change what you see in Display adapters. That lists the graphics processing unit(s), not the driver(s). Your GPUs are the Intel integrated chip and the Nvidia MX450; the drivers are software that tells the OS how to use the hardware.
I don't know where the Acer Registration software is hiding, but it has to be somewhere if it's throwing that error. If you want to look more closely, try installing Everything, from VoidTools, which is a much better search tool than the one built into Windows. Search for Acer and see what you find; you can list the file path for me if you want.
@puzzlezaddict then it seems I've done the download + install correctly and as per your instructions. I tried redownloading it and taking the GeForce App this time - it also tells me that I have the latest Nvidia Game Ready driver installed.
Since then I've repeated many steps, such as getting the game to regenerate a new "The Sims 4" folder, I played in a newly created save, I tried online and offline, I put the graphics in-game all the way to Low... I still have the same lagging and game-clock issue ☹️
I'm very grateful for you taking the time to help me while being very clear and concise. I'm currently downloading an update to the Intel Iris Xe Graphics driver which - I think - is the driver my laptop uses to display documents/programs etc. Could this have an impact once it's downloaded? What else could I possibly try at this stage?
EDIT: I downloaded the Everything tool and... there were LOADS of files called Acer Registration so I simply got rid of them all. Unfortunately I still have lag and out-of-sync clock in the sims
@GouchoMarx Sims 4 should be using the MX450 at all times, although the data does pass through the Intel iGPU on the way to the screen in most laptops like yours. Still, the Intel driver is probably not the issue, and I would suggest not updating it if you haven't yet. These drivers are often tuned for the specific laptop, so an older driver provided by the manufacturer may be more compatible for general use than the newest generic Intel driver. This doesn't necessarily apply for games, but as said, Sims 4 should use the MX450.
For the lag itself, it's worth finding out whether this is an overheating issue. Please download hwinfo (it's free) from here:
https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
You don't need to install anything; just choose the Portable version, unzip it, and launch it from Downloads or wherever you like. If you do want the full installer, be sure to click the button for hwinfo itself, not for lansweeper.
Restart your computer, open hwinfo, choose Sensors Only, and click the button that's a sheet of paper with a + to start logging. Save the log file to your desktop for easy access. Wait five minutes, then open Sims 4 and play for at least 20 minutes. Don't alt-tab out of the game or run any other programs, aside from the EA App of course, while you're testing. When you're done, click the same button to stop the logging.
Please upload the log to the third-party filesharing site of your choice (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) and link it for me. Either leave it in .csv format or, if you're going to use OneDrive, create a .zip file, and don't open the log before uploading it, or else my log reader might not be able to interpret it.
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