2 users, 2 accounts, 1 PC - bad idea

[Elidakatt]

In our family we have two accounts, who separately bought their own license to play Sims4. 

As long as these were on separate PC's we had no conflicts, but when we got a new and more powerful PC in the house the problem starts...

Even though the two users are separated with different user profiles in Windows, one user can't play unless the other is explicitly logged out from the other account. 

It seems Origin relates to Origin instance and not account. 

- One user can start the game from two different PC's. So in theory two persons can play the game at the same time based on one purchase/license

- One user can NOT start the game from the same PC, even though logged in with separate Windows profile, separate Origin account and separate purchase/license. So a user can NOT use a full price purchase if a separate user is logged in on the same PC. 

Is there a workaround for this, or a fix planned in the near future?

[GENERALZOOL]

@Elidakatt
Short version, only if your Hardware can take it.

You can use Virtual Machines if you intend for both users to run games at the same time.

Recommended Specs
RAM = 32GB Minimum
CPU = 8-Core
GPU = Something that can support Virtualisation

Note: You will need multiple Operating System Licences to do this properly. Also note that system performance of each Virtual system will not be as great as the real thing.

Please Note: I'm not an expert, I'm just providing information based on what I've used for this sort of thing.

[puzzlezaddict]

@Elidakatt  Can you not just have each person log out of Origin when they're done playing?  It only takes a couple seconds, and this should fix the problem.  It's also a good idea to leave the "keep me signed in" box unchecked, so Origin doesn't try to sign into the same profile on both user accoutns.

If this doesn't work, please let me know exactly what happens when the second user tries to play: whether you get an error message, and if so, what it says, and when in the process of launching the game this happens.

There is an Origin replacement called the EA Desktop App currently in beta testing, and it might work better.  But I haven't heard whether it supports your particular setup either way.

@GENERALZOOL  The free virtual machines available run Sims 4 horribly, as in, around 1 fps even at a very low resolution.  I've tried, just to see what happened.  The issue is that the VM doesn't have direct-enough access to the hardware and is forced to render in software mode only.  So it's not a good solution for someone who wants to play games that are even minimally demanding.  The better approach, if someone needed to have two OSs walled off from each other, would be a dual-boot system, with each partition able to utilize the hardware as normal.

[Elidakatt]

Thanks. 

Your answer matches my assumptions, but only strenghtens my opinion that this is really poor usability that should be fixed. Let's hope this is fixed in the current beta EA Desktop App. 

Logging out is of course an option, however still mitigating actions to what I think is wrong. One license doesn't have full access if you have to locate another user, bring it to the computer, have it log in to a different profile to log out from Origin. Remember that ending a game is rarely an explicit decision. You play a bit, go for a bite, play a bit, get a call, play a bit, someone at the door, a friend you end up joining for a trip to a nearby cafe. And the other person is suddenly blocked from the rightful access to his own game, which he paid full license for, because the platform is locked to a login you can't get out of until another person returns home for the process. 

We chose to run Sims through Origin because it seemed like a good idea to virtualize it, but ended up disappointed because we have a double downside at the moment. If we had one game, one license, I assume the game could be played by both, but now we risk blocking each other. Also what has been done on another computer is also lost when moving to the next computer and logging into Origin there. So contrary to our belief Origin isn't adding flexibility, it narrows it. 

I appreciate your intentions to give us workarounds, and that's highly appreciated. But the root cause for confusion still remains and I sincerely hope EA improves this for their next platform. 

[GENERALZOOL]

@puzzlezaddict
I did say that VM's don't work as well as the real thing.
I also said I wasn't an expert.

[puzzlezaddict]

@Elidakatt  If you don't use the option to stay signed into Origin, then merely quitting Origin, from either user, should be enough to log out the first user so the second one can login.  If it doesn't help, clearing Origin's cache should do it.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/

As for transferring your progress from one computer to another, saves and other Sims 4 content can be copied over manually, either from an external drive or USB stick or uploaded to and and downloaded from cloud storage.  There are also services that let you sync certain user folders automatically, so your saves would be waiting for you on either computer.  In case it helps, this is a complete list of everything in your user data folder, so you'd know what to transfer:

https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2014/09/user-files-explained/

And yes, I'm aware that it would be a lot more convenient if EA added this functionality itself.  But since that may never happen, at least not for Sims 4 (other games have cloud saving built in), workarounds become necessary.