Sims 4 suddenly lagging when it wasn't before

[Bloozal]

I've had the Sims 4 for a couple years now and have played over 1500 hours on it, and not once, since the day I bought it up to about a month or two ago did I ever have problems with how it was run on my laptop. Even as I collected expansion packs, game packs, stuff packs, cc and mods over my time playing it, I didn't have any trouble with my game, but one day I booted up my game and it was incredibly slow, from the very loading screen down to the actual game play. Confused, I updated my game, and my computer, but nothing seemed to help.

At a loss, I uninstalled and then reinstalled origins and sims 4 entirely, but that didn't help either. I've tried booting up the game from basically the factory settings, with no save files or cc or mods, but still, the game lags, so it can't be the mods that are causing the problem. And again, it's on the same computer I've been using for years, so I can't imagine why that would suddenly be a problem.

And even though I suspect that something else is the problem, I've tried playing the game from low graphic settings, and in window mode as I've seen recommended somewhere online, but from my understanding, those are tricks for helping sims 4 run on a less than ideal pc. As expected, it unfortunately didn't help.

I haven't played the game for a while because I was hoping that perhaps it would just be a problem that could be patched or sort itself out but I'm anxious to get back to my game and I just don't know how to fix it. Has anyone else been having similar problems? Was it a patch that caused it or something pc related?

[kreatora · Accepted solution]

@Bloozal

According to your dxdiag, your Intel graphics card is not working. A driver has reported a device failure. It seems that for now, this computer works thanks to the Microsoft Basic Display Driver. 
Go to https://downloadcenter.intel.com/ and install a new driver for your card. 

Hope it is only driver problem, not your card 

After installing the new driver, do the dxdiag again to add here. Need to check if the installation was running correctly and the card is working again.
I don't work for EA

[kreatora]

@Bloozal

Probable reasons:
1.Cause - outdated mods

If you have any mods
Move the mods folder to the desktop.
Delete localthumbcache.package file in the game folder
Fix the game in Origin.
Origin/Library -right click on TS4 - option "Repair game"
You have to wait until Origin will fix all packs, not only the base game.
Turn on the game to create a new, empty mods folder. Check if a game is working now without mods.
Then copy from desktop your mods and CC and paste it in the new mods folder. First, paste script mods every time checking if the game is OK. Do the same with CC but if you have a lot of this, try the 50/50 method

2. Cause - connection with internet
Disconnect your internet completely and try without this.

3. Cause - problems with the computer (The computer does not meet the requirements of the game, failure Windows updates. week graphic card, outdated graphics card drivers, software failures, the ventilation system is dirty and the computer overheats when it is working hard)
Could you post your Computer's DxDiag?
To gather a DxDiag on your computer, please follow the steps here: https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
You can attach the txt file to your post directly in option "Reply" - not Quick Reply

I don't work for EA

[Bloozal]

I have tried the repair option and I have tried opening the game without any mods as said in the post above. 

[kreatora · Accepted solution]

@Bloozal

According to your dxdiag, your Intel graphics card is not working. A driver has reported a device failure. It seems that for now, this computer works thanks to the Microsoft Basic Display Driver. 
Go to https://downloadcenter.intel.com/ and install a new driver for your card. 

Hope it is only driver problem, not your card 

After installing the new driver, do the dxdiag again to add here. Need to check if the installation was running correctly and the card is working again.
I don't work for EA

[NoraCat2]

Do you have any programs open in the background?

Can you try empty your %AppData% folder?

On windows tap the Windows button and type %AppData% then press enter, remove everything in there.

Does this help?

[kreatora]

@NoraCat2
Sorry, but it is definitely not a good idea to delete the entire contents of AppData. This can affect many programs.

[burin077]

Hi there @Bloozal ;

This is sounding similar to an issue I had back in the day where Sims who were using old clothing mods were lagging up my game because it couldn't find the .package file; have you swapped around mods in the last few months, by chance? Old mods may have rooted themselves into some of the non-active households, and cleaning out those auto-generated households may help clean up lag issues/crashes. You could also edit each of the households, but that will take a long time.

The steps above are more specific to one neighborhood; I'd recommend before you start deleting households or anything, to start by backing up your neighborhood and saves (Carl's Sims 4 Guide has a very clear method of doing this; you can read it here.) and attempting to run the game on a fresh neighborhood, to see if you have the same performance issues. If you do, it may be something more related to the system than the application.

Make sure you try @kreatora 's steps first though, as they are less invasive and require less manual backup/restore than my method.

- B

[Bloozal]

It took me a couple tries to figure it out but it was definitely my graphics driver. I didn't even realize my computer had been sending me alerts about it until I knew where to look. I downloaded the graphics driver off of the manufacture website and my game is working way smoother now. I can actually play it! I'm so relieved, thank you so much.

[kreatora]

@Bloozal

I'm very happy that it worked for you. Everything is fine now with your computer There are of course minor blunders of the Win10 system but I haven't seen dxdiag that would not show them. Win10 is still a long way from perfection.
Enjoy your game.

[NoraCat2]

Well ofcourse i meant the programs that aren't open, but this has helped with troubleshooting problems i had before. So it was just a suggestion