Improving game performance

[DJGeoRob]

Hello! 

So recently my game experienced a crash where it just stopped working and I had to hard reset my machine just to get it back again. After the crash, when I started playing again, I noticed that any given household does not load. I tried everything - removed mods, reinstalled the game, increased space requirements (even moved it to an external hard drive that I bought specifically for gaming purposes), repaired the game twice and slowly rebuilt the folder. Everything seems to not work although now it's loading but it's taking 10 minutes to load even a one-sim household on a 20x15 lot (and mods/CC are not even back yet!)

Any ideas on how to improve my game performance here? I just want to get back to playing smoothly as before. 

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@DJGeoRob  If the same problem happened when you played forward, try patching and then reverting back to that same save point.  Today's patch is supposed to have fixed the issue for new saves, or those that newly go through Winterfest, although older saves will continue to be affected for a while.

[puzzlezaddict]

@DJGeoRob  Please move your entire Sims 4 folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop, or wherever you want, launch the game to spawn a clean folder, and don't add anything to that folder yet.  Just start a new save and check loading times.  Let me know whether they're any better.

If you still get long loading times, please see whether OneDrive is enabled and set to automatically sync the contents of Documents with cloud storage.  If so, please either disable the auto syncing or disable OneDrive entirely.

If that's not the issue, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

Please also let me know what kind of external drive you have, what kind of connection it uses, and whether the Sims 4 user folder is also on that drive or still on your internal one.

[DJGeoRob]

@puzzlezaddictHello! So I've done the first part and the loading times got back to less than a minute.

Also, would the number of played Sims be a factor? My first crash seemed to have happened after my pet cat gave birth to two kittens, bringing the household size to a max of eight and my total played sims to 320? I've also done some culling and culled my sims down to 270, which when I was at that number was very stable. 

[puzzlezaddict]

@DJGeoRob  The number of played sims will increase loading times, but unless you have a very slow system (or perhaps a lot of custom content), it shouldn't take ten minutes or more for a save to load.  How large is your current save file?  How large are the backups?  They're all in the saves folder inside the Sims 4 folder you moved; you can sort by modified date to figure out which files are which.

[DJGeoRob]

@puzzlezaddict Yeah that's what I thought too coz I was already playing with more than 300 sims since May this year and it's only now that the loading times had an issue.

My save is at 236000KB and the backups are at 237000KB.

I've just tried rebuilding the folder back again and the loading times got longer again. But this time, I did not bring the Mods/CC folder back. I would enter the household after an average of 12minutes loading time and then after one full sim hour, the time just stops. For example, the last household I loaded got in at Friday 2:01pm SimTime, then when the day got to 3:01pm, the clock just stopped. Everything else seems to move (townies are still walking, the birds and trees are still moving, and my sim is still making noises). Then after 5 human minutes, the game just crashes and the program just closes.

[DJGeoRob]

@puzzlezaddict I've also seen a reply of yours in one of the more recent posts here. My issues also started happening after Winterfest, Father Winter did not arrive... could this be connected to that issue?

[puzzlezaddict]

@DJGeoRob  Those are pretty large save files, even for someone who plays a lot of sims.  It sounds like you might have this issue:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/CURRENT-ISSUE-Game-Freeze-Extended-Loading-Times-Save-Game/m-p...

It would only apply if your sims have recently celebrated Winterfest, but if so, it would explain the large save file sizes, the extremely long loading times, and the crashing.  Since you use mods, you can try the MCCC method of removing the excess Father Winters and add the other mod that prevents the issue in the first place.

Edit:  I was just typing the same thing about Father Winter as you posted.  But yes, that's why I asked about the save file size—save bloat is a telltale sign of the Father Winter issue.

[DJGeoRob]

After reading that, I went back to my saves folder and I've seen this. I have four saves that are freakishly of the same size. 

Thanks for linking me up with the Father Winter Issue!  

[puzzlezaddict]

@DJGeoRob  Hopefully you get it sorted out.  If you can't get MCCC to delete all the Father Winters without the game crashing though, it looks like you can still revert to the .ver4 backup.  It's the oldest one, so you'd lose some progress, but that plus the mod to prevent the Father Winter issue should be enough to keep the save playable.

Regardless of what approach you take, be sure to make a backup copy of your saves folder, so you can experiment on one copy while the other remains intact.

[DJGeoRob]

Update: So I tried the Version 4 and it only took me back one day, right smack in Winterfest. Loading times got fixed, so I deleted the Father Winter tradition right away. Hopefully this fixes it! 

Funnily tho I don't have MCCC installed. My mods are all custom careers and clothes. Hehe  

Thank you so much! Really appreciate it!