CPU max usage and system crashing on IMac Pro

[seeebeets]

I'm on similar hardware with similar issue. Issue seems to correspond with last update ( a few weeks back.) 2017 Imac Pro 32GB RAM, 8GB Vega graphics. 

I've spend the last few weeks troubleshooting. Issue only occurs when playing sims 4. 

I've uninstalled and reinstalled both origin and the game as well as the Mac OS. 

Camera rotations seem to be fairly consistent at reproducing the freeze. As the other user mentioned, it's a total system freeze. Whole OS is completely unresponsive and requires a power button restart. 

[Bluebellflora]

@seeebeets

Please can you provide saves and last crash reports as SimsQARobo has requested above.

[twice_twotimes]

I'm having an issue identical to what has been described above. I have 2019 27" iMac - not a mac pro but it does have Pro Vega 48 graphics card. Until this past week or so (maybe since the most recent patch?) I've been able to play on Ultra graphics settings without issue. Now camera pan/rotate in build mode will crash the GPU, even on the lowest graphics settings. Running the game with iStats and/or activity monitor up, it's clear that it's a GPU crash. Things start up normally, splitting load between GPU and CPU, then when it freezes, %GPU drops to 0.0, GPU time jumps to some massive and impossible number (see screenshot) and %CPU jumps to near or above 100%. 

The only new information I can add is that mine doesn't crash the whole computer 100% of the time. Very occasionally I'll be able to tab out of the game and force quit. When I do, the graphic card is totally out. That 0% GPU sticks around for any other apps/games I open that normally would have double digits GPU load. I have to hard reboot my system to reset the card.

Like others, no standard troubleshooting stuff helped, including reinstalling Origin and the Sims. I did have some luck by turning off Origin In-Game. I was able to play about 20 minutes on medium graphics. Not great, but better than 30 seconds, and it's the only thing that has helped at all.

[aftksims]

Exact same issue here since the Sept update.

I made another thread about it that was merged. A partial workaround I found was using Sims 3 camera, this has caused much less freezes for me but they still happen on occasion. Something is definitely up and EA needs to fix this! 

[aftksims]

So are there any updates on this? I was having some luck using Sims 3 camera but alas, it's freezing up again. No rhyme or reason to it either. Yesterday I played for a few hours with no issues, today, within the first hour.

This is incredibly frustrating and it seems many people on Mac are reporting similar issues. 

[Bluebellflora]

@aftksims @twice_twotimes 

There are currently three separate threads for the Vega issues:

2018 and 2019 15" MacBook Pros (Vega 16 or 20)

2017 iMac Pros (Vega 56 or Vega 64)

2019 iMacs (Vega 20 or Vega 48)

This is the iMac one. The reason they are split at the moment is because they are three separate model Macs. We may merge them all into one but it's good to have them separated for clarification currently. Not all of these model Macs have Vega GPUs either as it was a point of sale upgrade.

The most helpful thing people can do is provide their full system info and upload their Config.log file and and lastCrash reports.

Some users have reported that lowering their in-game graphics options to rock bottom helps stop the freezing and crashing.

[twice_twotimes]

FWIW I only use Sims 3 camera and am experiencing this problem consistently, so I don't think the camera is the culprit.

[aftksims]

Thanks, I provided my system specs on this thread. I unfortunately don’t have any crash reports because it never actually crashes I have to force shut down or quit.

Will get my config file when I’m able to later. What will that show?

[Bluebellflora]

@aftksims

The Config.log file shows your graphics setup in-game, your Mac hardware and how the game rates it and game version number, amongst other things. You can open it and have a look

[aftksims]

Thanks. Attaching the file here.

Just to recap for my specs:

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019)

3 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5

16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4

Radeon Pro Vega 20 4 GB

And to recap, I repaired game (no change), reinstalled (no change), took all mods out (no change). 

Config.log