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sw33tpinkbabi's avatar
sw33tpinkbabi
Rising Traveler
10 months ago

Weird visual glitching

  • Platform: Windows 11
  • Which language are you playing the game in? English
  • How often does the bug occur? Very often
  • What is your current game version number? 1.109.185.1030 DX11
  • What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? All Expansions, All GPs except Journey to Batuu, All SPs except Crystal Creations
  • Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? I have only noticed this in Willow Creek
  • What happens when the bug occurs? Depending on the season and time of day, Sims and certain objects flicker when the camera is positioned away from the sun. My Sim was living in a base game house in Willow Creek. During the in game hours of 1:30pm - 4:00pm with the camera is facing a certain direction, sims flicker and the fridge also flickers in and out of existence. Like you can see the inside of the fridge but the item is missing. I can zoom out and other sims walking around in the world are also flickering. It occurs even when the game is paused. It only occurs during specific times of the day. It also occurs at night between 10pm-12am when the moon light is moving. once again, I only see this if the camera is positioned a certain direction. I visited another lot in Willow Creek during the same time period, the sims didn't glitch in the house, but those walking outdoors in the light did. I went to a few other worlds and this didn't occur. I believe it started on Friday after the EA app updated because I didn't notice this on Thursday. However, this is just a new save I was using to do the event. In my normal save, I live in the Love Struck world and I have never noticed this flickering glitch. It appears to be related to how the sun or moon light shadows move over sims or objects. The only item I've seen glitching so far is the fridge, but it was up against the wall that the light was passing. I have now moved the sim to Oasis Springs and the glitching does not occur. 
  • What do you expect to see? No flickering and glitching
  • Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Yes. I tested without them and it still occurs. 

13 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    10 months ago

    @sw33tpinkbabi  I don't know what to tell you, unfortunately.  You could try an older driver; the Nvidia download page has drivers going back to March.  You'd need to DDU the current driver in order to install an older one, but you can install a newer one than whatever is already present over the top without DDU.  So if you want to try a few different versions, start with the oldest that would work for you and go forward from there.

    You can also try a clean boot if you're interested:

    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, selectively reenable services until the problem returns, and you'll know what's interfering.

  • Hello,

    I updated to the latest game version yesterday. There was an update to one of my graphic cards, so I ran that as well. This morning I was playing the game for the first time since the update and I'm having terrible lag again since the previous update to dx11. Uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers helped previously, but has returned since this newest update. After the last update, I've uninstalled and reinstalled the graphic drivers 4 times. I even took it to have the hardware tested and they clean uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers as well. Now with this latest update, the issue has returned. 

    So far I have updated the BIOS and the Firmware and scanned for errors. Since updating the Bios and Firmware, I ran a dxdiag and it's showing a memory leak with The Sims 4. 

    Here's the results of my DISM and SFC: 

    PS C:\Users\*> DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Checkhealth

    Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
    Version: 10.0.22621.2792

    Image Version: 10.0.22631.4391

    No component store corruption detected.
    The operation completed successfully.
    PS C:\Users\*> sfc /scannow

    Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

    Beginning verification phase of system scan.
    Verification 100% complete.

    Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

    I've also attached my dxdiag. I just wanted to add that I ran Windows Memory Diagnostics and it came back with no issues. 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    9 months ago

    @sw33tpinkbabi  The memory leak error is not uncommon in Sims 4 and doesn't typically cause the kinds of problems you've been seeing.  I wouldn't worry about it.

    Does switching back to DirectX 9 currently help?  The option is with the other graphics settings.

    Separately, as a test, try running Sims 4 on the Intel graphics chip.  Performance will be significantly worse than it would be on the Nvidia GPU if the game were working properly, but it should still run fine on medium-high to high settings at 1080p, so you can get a sense of whether the problem is limited to when the game is using the Nvidia chip.  Open Windows Settings > System > Display > Graphics settings, click Browse, choose TS4_Launcher_x64, and select the power-saving option.  Do the same for TS4_DX9_x64 and TS4_x64.

    You can see whether this worked by opening Config.log, inside Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4, and scrolling down to Graphics device info.  (Launch the game once after making any changes so that the file updates.)  Whichever GPU is listed is the one the game was using when it loaded, at least.  If you're still seeing the Nvidia card, right-click the desktop, select the Nvidia Control Panel, choose Manage 3D Settings > Global settings, and choose the Intel iGPU.  This will affect all programs, so you'll want to undo the setting later, but it's a quick and easy way to test.

    Running on the Intel chip, Sims 4 should default to DirectX 9 mode, which may not work well on the Intel chip for completely separate reasons.  To force DX11 mode, open your EA App game library, click Sims 4 > Manage > View properties, and add -dx11 in the command line box.