Weird visual glitching

@sw33tpinkbabi  Your dxdiag lists a couple of serious crashes of one of the graphics drivers.  It doesn't say which one, but I would suggest doing a clean uninstall and reinstall of the Nvidia driver, as described here:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/02/clean-re-install-of-graphics-drivers-with-display-driver-uninstaller-ddu.html

You can get a fresh copy of the newest driver here:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/

This is important regardless of anything else, but I don't know whether it'll help with the Sims 4 issue.  If it doesn't, is it possible that the problem only happens in worlds or neighborhoods with a certain Eco footprint?  There are ways to cheat the footprint to another state if you want to test quickly.

Hello @puzzlezaddict I had just installed the latest Nvidia driver version from the Nvidia app before running the dxdiag. One of the things I noticed after the update to switch to dx11, is that the screen would blank out for a quick second and the audio would stop until you closed out the pop up for the Grim Event. None of this previously happened in dx9. It did this for a few days so I updated Nvidia's driver. This stopped happening, but I started a new save to try out the event. I don't use the Eco Footprint so I have it disabled. I'm honestly not sure what is causing it since so far I've only seen it in Willow Creek. I ran a new report and now I see different errors in the diagnostics. Do you mind taking a look and letting me know where you see the driver crash? I'm wondering if it is the Intel driver. It's the main gpu and it seems like it's being used dramatically with dx 11, and the Nvidia gpu is not showing utilization. 

@sw33tpinkbabi  In your old dxdiag, I saw two of these:

Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: 141
P2: ffffae87d700f050
P3: fffff8038d903170
P4: 0
P5: 1550
P6: 10_0_22631
P7: 0_0
P8: 768_1
P9: 
P10: 

This is a video driver timeout: the driver fails to respond in what Windows defines as a timely manner (two seconds by default), so Windows ends the process.  This should never happen outside of certain testing environments and typically means there's something wrong with the driver or the GPU.  But there isn't a way to figure out which graphics driver stopped responding just from the info in the dxdiag; you'd need to open a crash dump.

Your new dxdiag doesn't show any of the errors in the old one because newer errors have crowded out everything else.  And these newer errors are all Windows-related.  They're not necessarily serious, but that's not obvious either.  Anyway, please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:

• Hit Windows key-X
• Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
• Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
• The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
• After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
• Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
• Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
• Post the message you receive here

Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates.  If any install, restart again afterwards.

For the GPU utilization issue, right-click the desktop, select the Nvidia Control Panel, then Manage 3D Settings > Global settings, and choose the high-performance Nvidia processor.  If this helps, you can revert the global setting and apply it in Program settings for TS4_x64 and TS4_Launcher_x64.  But please use global settings first because I've seen mixed reports about the program settings, as in, it works for some people but not others.

@puzzlezaddictI ran the DISM and SFC and both completed successfully. Here's the sfc /scanow message "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them". NVIDIA had a new driver for my system so I ran a custom install and did a clean uninstall and reinstalled it again. The system froze after it completed and I had to hardboot it. When everything came back up, I launched the game and played this week's event. Then ran dxdiag again. I have new errors and the NVIDIA graphics driver has been replaced by the Windows one again. 

@sw33tpinkbabi  The clean uninstall with Display Driver Uninstaller is more thorough than the clean install option when installing a new Nvidia driver, which is why we often recommend DDU in cases like this.  So please try it if you haven't already.  While the problem may be elsewhere, it's important to remove the driver completely, as only DDU can do, and install a fresh copy, if for no other reason than to eliminate this as a source of error.

@puzzlezaddict Using DDU didn’t have any change on the issue I am seeing with the glitch. It only occurs with DX11. I do now have a white screen with an hourglass after launching from the EA app and before the game’s splash screen. It last about 3-4 secs. This was not happening previously. I don’t have any issues with the game outside of this, like with crashing. As of yet anyway. If you have any suggestions on what to try for this issue, please let me know. 
Also, I’ve been having animation lagging since the change to dx11. It was the first thing I noticed. This has not improved even after the 3 changes to my graphic drivers. It’s not smooth to rotate the camera and sims movements are laggy. It’s very fatiguing to the eyes and I can’t play as long as usual. Changing to dx9 stops the lagging. Is this a current issue with dx11? 

@sw33tpinkbabi  It's not a reported issue, as far as I've seen, but that doesn't mean you're the only one affected.  If you'd like to post this as DX11-related feedback, please do so here:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/PC/DirectX-11-Technical-Issues-and-Feedback-Thread/td-p/14022619

EA is actively monitoring that thread, so someone should see your post whether you get a direct reply or not.

Aside from a dxdiag, I'd suggest posting any current (post-DDU) error you see in the Reliability Monitor that you can confirm happened when you were running Sims 4.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day.  Today is on the right.  You can right-click an error name (at the bottom of the screen) and select "View technical details" to get more information.  Everything is timestamped, although be sure to double-check the time in the technical details in case the one on the chart is incorrect, as happens sometimes.

For the white screen, does it happen if you launch the game in windowed mode?  The option is with the other graphics settings.

If that doesn't help, try shutting down any other apps you normally use before launching Sims 4.  Disable the EA App in-game overlay as well; the option is under Settings > Application.

@puzzlezaddict I checked the Reliability Monitor and there are no errors that occur during the times I’ve played The Sims. I’ve only seen 1 or 2 over the past two days that are related to a Windows Update item but they occur when the device is sleeping. 
I’m at a loss here, because I’m still noticing lighting glitches. They’re a little different than the ones in the video I posted previously, but they still only occur at specific in game camera angles and even while the game is paused. 
I have checked every event in Event Viewer and there is nothing to indicate anything wrong with hardware or drivers. The issue remained throughout all the driver updates, uninstalls and reinstalls.  
Thanks for your help.