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praisethebastii's avatar
praisethebastii
New Novice
13 hours ago

Trees and Bushes Displayed as 2D Billboards in Almost Every World

Product and Version: The Sims 4 (latest patch)
Platform: Windows 11 PC (tested with NVIDIA and AMD GPUs)
Mods/CC: Happens both with and without mods/CC

Issue:
Almost all trees and bushes in the worlds are displayed as flat 2D billboards that rotate when moving the camera. This happens in nearly every world, but it is especially noticeable and severe in Chestnut Ridge. Happens in every save file and with all seasons. When saving the game, there is a brief second where the trees look correct, then they switch back to 2D billboards.

Troubleshooting Tried:

  • Tested with and without mods/CC.
  • Game repaired multiple times.
  • Had the same problem on two different PCs (previously with NVIDIA GPU, now AMD GPU). So reinstalling the game had no effect. 
  • Graphics settings are on Ultra, but I also tried lower settings.
  • Deleted options.ini to reset all settings — no effect.
  • Tested different AMD software profiles (performance, quality, default, reset to factory) — no effect.
  • Moved my entire Documents/ElectronicArts/The Sims 4 folder and let the game create a new one - still the same
  • Set Sims 4 to “High Performance” in Windows graphics settings — no effect.

 

cc or mods removed
graphics

2 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 hours ago

    praisethebastii​  I've seen this a couple times before, but at least one of the affected players said that a repair worked, so I'm not sure what the issue is here.  I would suggest a more targeted repair though, just as an experiment—we know that sometimes it's necessary to reinstall a single pack.

    Please close the EA App and kill the EABackgroundService in the Task Manager.  Open [install location]\The Sims 4 and delete the EP14 folder inside.  Open the Delta folder and delete the EP14 folder there too.  Then clear the EA App's cache, repair the game, and reinstall Horse Ranch.

    Please test in both fullscreen and windowed modes, quitting and reloading after changing the setting and before testing.

    If this doesn't help, please try playing in a clean boot.  I realize that this happened on two different systems, but it's certainly possible that they have software in common.

    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.

  • praisethebastii's avatar
    praisethebastii
    New Novice
    3 hours ago

    Unfortunately neither of your suggested solutions worked. I did everything just the way you described. I tried the clean boot several times.
    puzzlezaddict​ Thank you tho!

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