Lagging 4 no reason, nothing helps

[MuscleChick]

Sims 3 used to run great with all x-packs, overwatch+mastercontroller, for months. Then, two days ago, the game started lagging like crazy: every few seconds, both sims and time freeze for a minute, then they move like 2 frames, only to freeze again for up to five minutes. Happens in all towns. All other games run fine.

I've:

Moved to new towns.

Played logged out.

Deleted all cache files.

Decrapified.

Killed backg processes.

Did resetsim *

Did everything mentioned on forums here and elsewhere.

Still freezing like *. 

WTF? Anyone?

It can't be a PC issue; I can run any other 2 to 3 games at once without lagging.

PC specs:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz

32G RAM

Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M (16 GB total)

[roberta591 · Accepted solution]

@MuscleChick  Don't do the device manager - go right to the source.

[roberta591]

@MuscleChick  TS3 is a 32 bit application and having a lot of memory doesn't help. Is the GTX 980M identified by the game properly as I knew it isn't in the graphics database and has to be amnually added. It's been a known issue that sli may not work properly and I think that may (or may not) be a driver issue. Are you using triple buffering as lag is usually (but not always) a video issue. As you didn't post your computer's dxdiag there may be other issues (like insufficient free space on the system drive). Consumers are elated by small ssds for system devices - you can not run the Windows operating system on a 128Gb ssd ( the ones many builders are pushing) unless you really know what you are doing and even then off loading your applications to a data drive defeats the purpose of have a ssd. So if you would care to post your computer's dxdiag - link - how to post dxdiag it would help.  Thank You

[MuscleChick]

@roberta591

Thank you for your reply.

I have a 1.5TB SSD, so I'm okay there.

I just tried to update my video drivers though, went bad; laptop gave me a black screen, then wouldn't load, so I had to do a system restore.

Not sure about triple buffering. NVidia shows Sims3 as supported game though.

[roberta591]

@MuscleChick  The Nvidia driver is slightly old and wouldn't hurt to update. If you tried to update the driver and it didn't work you probably are downloading the wrong driver. You need to get the driver for Nvidia GTX 980M. As you have a laptop I recommend going to the manufacturer's support site (I think you have an MSI laptop) first or go right to Nvidia support site. You really need to learn how to update drivers (or at least how to check the date of the drivers) as new drivers are released asll the time. Triple buffering is a setting in the Nvidia control panel - this caused 3 frame buffers (instead of 2) to be created for extra time to correct errors. This places a higher demand on the video processor. Antialiasing - also in the Nvidia control panel - (edge smoothing) is another setting that can cause the video processor to work harder. The harder the video processor has to work. you could try to lower the resolution although 1920 x 1080(p) should be ok.  I see some Windows update failure. This could be causing issues. For some reason the error data is not displaying correctly. You have to remember Sims 3 is a 32 bit application so it will never use more then 4Gb of memory - actually with the compilers in use today a 32 bit application will only use about 2Gb before paging out segments to virtual memroy and this could cause lag. Putting in more memory will not change anything. The video chip is using 24517Mb of memory which seems high (maybe using triple buuffering). I recommend getting the operating system (Windows 10) updated. Then update the video driver and see if that helps the problem.  There has been some issues with the Samsung 850 pro firmware - before you flash an 850 check to see if anyone is having issues with the flash. If you flash the drive wrong you can make the drive inoperable.

Question - Are you installing the game using the default location? I see you also have a Passport usb drive hooked up.

[MuscleChick]

@roberta591 

I did "update drivers" through device manager. Windows 10 said it was up to date, but I will try again and post my results.

Sims 3 has been installed on default C drive for several months. The game worked great with all xp packs and NRAAS and overwatch mods until some time last week. Lags started out of nowhere; I don't recall changing anything.

[roberta591 · Accepted solution]

@MuscleChick  Don't do the device manager - go right to the source.