Weird FPS Dropping Constantly

@PatrickAlves301  As a test, please try playing in a clean user folder.  Move the entire Sims 4 folder out of Documents > Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, and when you launch the game, a clean folder will spawn with no content.  (Your saves and other content will be intact in the folder you moved but temporarily not read by the game.)  Don't add anything to the new folder yet; just start a new save and let me know how it runs.

Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

Finally, just to be thorough, go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4, open Config.log, scroll down about 30 lines, and make sure your RTX 2070 Super is listed.  Sometimes Sims 4 ends up using the Microsoft basic driver instead of the proper one, which would definitely cause this kind of fps drop.

Thanks for the reply. @puzzlezaddict 

Yeah, I tried. All mods, saves, screenshots...everything has been moved from the Documents. However, the game's still dropping down to 4-5 FPS at the very beginning of the main menu. The 2070S is working, it is alright.

It feels weird, looks like my Sims 4 has a "protocol" against the system, locking the frame under 5 per-second. No matter how I turn up the V-Sync (in-game and NVIDIA Control Panel), downgrading the image qualities, or update my GPU Drives. 

And under the attachment, it's my DxDiag. 🤒

@puzzlezaddict And my Config Log, for the record.

@PatrickAlves301  Your dxdiag shows one obvious issue: your C drive is critically low on space.  D is too, but that might not matter if Sims 4 is on a different drive.  However, C is where temp files get stored (as well as the Sims 4 user folder by default), so it really needs more free space.  1.3 GB isn't even enough for Windows to maneuver properly, let alone run a game like Sims 4.  Other games may not create significant temp files or may store them within the games' program files, which would explain why only Sims 4 is affected.

This isn't just a theory, at least as far as Sims 4 goes.  I've seen low space on C affect a number of other users in the past, with an increase in free storage either resolving or significantly improving the performance issues.

Ideally, you'd clear another 20-25 GB of space on C, and another 10 on D if you've installed Sims 4 there.  That might be difficult considering how full your other drives are, but at the very least, please free up at least 10 GB on C, then restart your computer and see how Sims 4 runs.

@puzzlezaddict Thanks a lot. That makes sense.

But another problem is, I moved Documents folders of The Sims to D drive very long ago. And there's no massive files have been created by The Sims in the Roaming or AppData located in C drive which is, indeed, difficult to squeeze for more space though.

Still, it may have effects. The D drive might too. But all my games and software runs okay. And some of the applications, if I haven't got enough place in my drive (D or C) for something, their warning will pops out. Or obviously, some downloading and loading programmes would be shut down. However, The Sims has been only districted the frames into no more 5 per-second, which is really weird.

I'll try to clean the drives up first. And also, I'll be looking for other solutions. Something tells me it's simple, it's just I don't know where's wrong.

@puzzlezaddict Mate, I've managed to keep the game into a, at least, playable FPS by launching it from EA App's off-line mode. But the CPU and GPU usages are still extremely low.

Also, my C Drive and D Drive has been cleaned up to 10Gb space left, but the game is still being weird. Anyway, there's a way to make it playable. 

@PatrickAlves301  What's a playable state, and what's extremely low CPU and GPU usage?  I have a 9700K and an RTX 2070, and usage is on the lower side with no fps cap even at 1440p, but the load on the GPU is something like 30-50% with fps around 170.

@puzzlezaddict Hi. My CPU & GPU usages are unstable during the game. Sometimes the usages are slightly lower than yours, but sometimes it goes around or even under 10%.

And the FPS for now is between 30-40, which is barely playable, even though it's still below what it should be.

@PatrickAlves301  Does it help more to take your computer offline as well?  Running the EA App in offline mode may not be thorough enough.

If that doesn't make a difference, please try playing in 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.  And please continue to test with your computer offline.  If this helps, you can selectively reenable services until you find the problem.  The 50/50 method is useful here.

If the clean boot doesn't help either, please post a new dxdiag.

@puzzlezaddict Hello, mate. It's been a while, how you doing?

I tried multiple methods afterwards, including the ones you mentioned, and a couple of other ways. It all came down to nothing. Doesn't help at all. I still don't know what's going wrong.

However, the good news is, the game went suddenly well after an update took place at the beginning of 2024. FPS could usually reaches the limit I set easily. Like the problem has never happened.

So I could only assume it was a stupid bug. Now the game is running perfectly, again. But still, thank you so much for the help. It did came useful in several other games. As for The Sims 4, we just couldn't do anything with a bug, could we?