[CURRENT ISSUE] Incredibly Low FPS when connected to Internet

[alexpowell96]

Agreed

[PsychicParrot]

Since sometime last year after the game patched, the Sims 4 has become unplayable unless I disconnect from the internet.

Once I disconnect the PC from the internet, it runs smooth as silk. What is it doing??!! Is there any way to fix this? It's annoying having to disconnect just to play this.. and before anyone asks 'did you try clearing the cache' the answer is yes. I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game fresh. Same result.

I tried this with both WiFi and Ethernet cable and they both have the same result - if it's connected to internet in any way (either wifi or cable), it lags.

Is there a fix for this?

[puzzlezaddict]

@PsychicParrot  Unfortunately no, there's usually no fix for this particular issue.  You could try playing in a clean boot or temporarily disabling your antivirus/firewall, or both together, just to make sure there isn't some other issue.  And if you have a laptop, you could try playing at a different location, specifically one with a different ISP.  (You could also use your phone as a hotspot to test.)  But if these steps don't make a difference, then there's no other good workaround at this point.

[PsychicParrot]

Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated. I'll poke at it a bit more, but it does seem like the solution is to pull the cable out when it's time to play. At least I can play it - it would be much worse if there was no solution at all, so I'll take what I can get Cheers!

[SimGuruNick]

We're still having trouble reproducing this issue, if anyone who has seen this issue on the most recent version of the game could share a save file where the issue has occurred, along with your Config.log (located in \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4) your help would be very much appreciated! You can feel free to DM me the link to the files, thanks so much!

http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4-Bug-Reports/INFORMATION-How-to-Send-User-Files-to-The-Sims-4-Tea...

[Scrapmatt17]

I definitely would do that But I dont have the attention span to go through a 15 minute process to get into a game that I cant play because it is running at locked 5 fps when im connected to the internet. Game works FLAWLESSY and at high fps the second I disconnect my ethernet. I got the game so I can stream it to my friends and laugh but I mean, The only way to play the game is by not having contact with my friends which kind of defeats my motivation to play it in the first place. The issue doesnt take place during me playing the game, its in the startup animation, the menus. EVERY SINGLE PLACE, THE ENTIRE GAME IS LOCKED TO 5 FPS. 

[XxHoboNinja1xX]

Yup. Same issue. Purely an ethernet issue as when I disable my ethernet in windows settings it runs flawlessly instantly. I don't even need to restart my game. Something is happening in the background that is getting disabled when i disable my ethernet. EA - f you're still trying to recreate it years on, you need to be using a PC that is on windows 10 and only has a wired connection.

- Things i've tried that dont work

- Repairing the game through origin

- Flushing DNS

- Whitelisting the game in antivirus / firewall

- Blocking the connnection through firewall ( it's very weird how this doesnt stop the lag even though the game is forced offline..)

- disabling origin overlay

- origin offline mode 

 - updating drivers, windows etc.

It's absurd that this issue hasn't been fixed yet.

[DD2146]

@SimQARobo 

I am also having this issue. To answer your questions:

• Do you use a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection? 
  • I use an Ethernet connection. We have gigabit internet which runs quite well. We use a ton of bandwidth throughout our very small home but never run into issues.
• How many files are in your \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Mods folder?
  • There is 1 file in this folder. Resource.cfg. It is a 1 kb file. This is a fresh install. I have never played Sims 4 before. I have never installed mods.
• How many files are in your \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\cache folder?
  • This folder is completely empty.
• How many files are in your \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Tray folder?
  • There are 5 files in this folder. A .householdbinary file, a .trayitem file, an .sgi file, and 2 .hhi files. None of which are very large. Smallest is 2 kb and the largest is 44kb.
• Would you be willing to share your saves?  If so, instructions are here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/INFORMATION-How-to-Send-User-Files-to-The-Sims-4-Team/m-p/6065...
  • Everything in my saves folder can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZfQ-dYVBjSAzO5KnZusSDffkdQWxGfuB?usp=sharing 

I can open The Sims 4 while connected to the internet and the FPS will be locked at 10 using the Origin overlay's FPS counter. When I unplug the Ethernet cable from the computer, the FPS immediately shoots up to 141 (which is the limit that I've set on my computer for nearly all games). The game then plays perfectly fine but I cannot stream the game and I cannot access any of my online social/voice comm tools.

If I plug the Ethernet cable back into the computer then I can literally watch the FPS counter in the game fall down from 141 FPS to 10 in a matter of seconds. My significant other sitting her computer in the same room has absolutely no issues running The Sims 4 while connected to the internet. We are both on windows 10. She has none of the online features disabled and Origin is online. For me it makes no difference what features are enabled or disabled. It also doesn't matter if I'm online or offline in Origin. The only thing that fixes it is to literally pull the Ethernet cable.

This is pretty unacceptable. I wish I could get a refund but at the same time it bugs me that I simply can't stream this game or play while talking to my friends online (because I have to disconnect from the internet manually). That's just ridiculous.

[zinfector]

@SimGuruNickThe issue is that the InternetGetConnectedState (the function being used to check whether the pc is connected to the internet) is slow on some computers due to some mysterious reason. My best guess is that its due to some problems with the windows files as I successfully fixed the problem after resetting the C drive which reinstalled windows.

[nrtmv2]

I recently installed TS4 today on my main rig and tested the game out on high settings and could only reach around 40fps. 

My specs for reference:

I7-7700 

Nvidia GTX 1070

16GB RAM

When I disconnected my PC from my Wi-Fi, my FPS shot up to around 150fps which seemed a lot more reasonable considering my PC is rather powerful. Any ideas or solid fixes? 

Currently re-installing the game to see if that'll fix the issue. 

Dxdiag attached.