To keep this going in the hopes that more information is helpful, I too have the issue where the game pauses, sorta, without actually pausing. Butterflies, trees and the environment in general, too include the plumbob continue as normal but all Sims stop for a few seconds and then continue for a few seconds and then stop again, over and over. Oddly this only happens in China, nowhere else. I believe this thread contains at least two separate issues, this one and the one in which a bunch of Sims gather in one spot, but with similar symptoms. (I haven’t played Bridgeport, so I can’t comment, but the bars I’ve created in SV have not had any problems as of yet, knock on wood)
Too give a bit of background, I've got as close to an uber computer as I can afford. I can play anything on the highest of settings. It is a PC. I have everything thing as far as EP's and Stuff Packs and a lot from the EA store but just a few CC (cars) from outside sources. Oh, and a mod that fixes an excavation site issue I have been having. But in an attempt to find the issue, I have taken everything out and ran clean but the problem still existed, and still only in China.
I will say that I was playing in China when I found this thread and was at the time experiencing the problem. One of you fine people posted the “resetsim *” and it worked like a charm. A Sim day or two later and still running fine. So yeah, I gotta say there’s a pathing issue somewhere. I have made several attempts to locate it and while I haven’t found it I have also not found any large group of Sims gathered in a single location. Or a small group for that matter. Which leads me to believe we’re talking about two separate problems. That’s my two cents, thanks for listening. Les.