Poor performance

[MrsFlynn]

No, Sims 4 doesn't require those steps. - All Sims 4 requires is to edit the GraphicsCards.sgr file to get it to recognize the card.

[Mrwaylay]

I'm relieved. That looked....complicated! Many thanks for all your help. Like I said, it might not have made much difference, but worth a go. I really bought the game to play with my kids, but found myself getting frustrated by the little slow-downs and stutters.

Thanks again. 

[MrsFlynn]

You're welcome. Thank you for allowing us to help and get to digging into the graphics files.

Question, did you turn off Origin In-game? -- Open Origin, Select Origin > Application Settings > Origin In Game and deselect to disable Origin In Game. This also helps the game not stutter and lag so much.

[Mrwaylay]

No, havet tried that but I will 😀

[MrsFlynn]

Origin In-game is known to cause performance issues. So it's recommended to turn it off.

[MrsFlynn]

I can't remember if you've said how long you've been playing, but if you've been playing long a few more tips to try are:

1. Delete Game Cache and localthumbcache.package file in the main folder.
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,21899.msg401662.html#msg401662

2. Emptying the personal inventories of sims in game that is freezing, stuttering etc. Often too many items can cause issues.

3. Move the Tray folder to your desktop or back up media of choice and try the game again.

Your Tray folder should be found using the path below:
C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Tray

4. Remove some of your old save games. (How to Save a Saved Game)
C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves

--- Having a lot of older game saves and a lot of files in your Tray folder will cause lag and freezing in-game.

[Mrwaylay]

Ok, problems again now. I turned off in-game Origin, deleted localthumbcache.package, moved the Tray file to desktop,!and deleted quite a few old save files. I then fired the game up and this time...no saved games! Weirder still, when I went to exit the game, I got an error message saying 'The Sims is in a state where it cannot save'. I've tried restarting Windows, but get the same issues. I've also tried turning in-game Origin back on, but no luck.

Any ideas?

[Mrwaylay]

I *think* I've resolved it. I copied and pasted all my save files to the desktop, before uninstalling the game altogether. I then turned off cloud saving and in-game Origin in Origin itself, before re-installing the game. Next, I made sure that OneDrive was only set to save documents locally, and added my GPU to the GraphicsCard.sgr file (again). Finally, i booted up the game, exited, and moved all my copies save files back in to the games 'saves' folder which had been created locally this time.

And it seems to have worked! I surprise myself.

Whether performance will be any better as a result remains to be seen; I haven't had a chance to test it yet. No more tinkering now though....!

[MrsFlynn]

If the game tells you you don't have any saved games, that may mean you need to rename your auto save file so your game can recognize it.

How-To: Rename the Auto-Save File
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=26496.msg442098#msg442098

You want to be careful in removing save games. As the saves may have many files that go along with it. If you delete the main save file, the game can't recognize the save any longer and will need to be renamed to be recognized by the game.

How does the saves work?
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=21519.msg387147#post_HDSW

I got the Cannot Save message the other day while in CAS. I exited the game and went back in and everything was fine. I'll need to look more into that error to learn more about it.

I am happy to hear you were able to work things out yourself.

[Mrwaylay]

I think the message is essentially saying if you quit during the CAS screen, nothing will be saved. I did a couple of dummy runs, and found that as soon as you get past that screen, it saves as per normal.

Unfortunately, after all the tweaking, performance overall is not any better than when I started. I can only conclude that this is just how the game runs on my setup, and I won't be able to get continuously smooth frame rates regardless of what I do. However, it is by no means unplayable, and as said previously, I'm probably just being a perfectionist...!

[MrsFlynn]

There have been others that have been reporting poor performance on good/great gaming rigs. So it's not just you. It's most likely the game is poorly optimized. The more patches/packs they offer for the game the worse it gets unfortunately.

Thank you for the confirmation on the cannot save message.