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Sudden performance drop
ravamaile
Posts: 168 Member
Hi all,
I have a problem with TS4. Before the latest updates, right after City Living release, my computer was able to run TS4 on high settings and everything was ok. Then (I don't remember exactly after which update), I ran my game as usual and it was horrible - FPS was really low (10-11). The game ran better with the laptop mode on, but I don't like how it looks like that and the FPS rate is still low, but playable. How come? It ran well and then just stopped... Any thoughts?
iMac 27 mid 2011
RAM 4GB
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB
macOS Sierra with the latest updates
I have a problem with TS4. Before the latest updates, right after City Living release, my computer was able to run TS4 on high settings and everything was ok. Then (I don't remember exactly after which update), I ran my game as usual and it was horrible - FPS was really low (10-11). The game ran better with the laptop mode on, but I don't like how it looks like that and the FPS rate is still low, but playable. How come? It ran well and then just stopped... Any thoughts?
iMac 27 mid 2011
RAM 4GB
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB
macOS Sierra with the latest updates
If people were not interested in what we were making we wouldn't continue what we are making. Our data shows us differently. (c) - @SimGuruDrake (LINK)
Complexity is our enemy when building The Sims, so we look for any opportunity to keep it down. (c) - @SimGuruMax (LINK)
Complexity is our enemy when building The Sims, so we look for any opportunity to keep it down. (c) - @SimGuruMax (LINK)
0
Comments
Then how do you explain that it worked before?
Complexity is our enemy when building The Sims, so we look for any opportunity to keep it down. (c) - @SimGuruMax (LINK)
I already wrote that right after City Living my game was fine. Nothing was added/changed. I don't have CC, mods. It just happened don't know why.
Complexity is our enemy when building The Sims, so we look for any opportunity to keep it down. (c) - @SimGuruMax (LINK)
Go into your user Documents folder, find your "The Sims 4" folder, and rename it. (To anything else, doesn't matter) Then try to start the game. It will not recognize the renamed folder, and it will create a brand new "The Sims 4" folder, clean as if you had just installed the game. (Don't worry, all of your saves etc are still there, just in the other folder. You swap the names of the folders to change back to the old one - whichever one is named "The Sims 4" is the one the game will load from.)
If the new game runs fine, there is something wrong with the older set of folders. It could be something is corrupted, or just general bloat from playing the game - too many items in sim inventories, the world is too full, etc. The more you play one save, the slower it's going to get.
If the new game is still running slow, then there is something wrong with the computer itself - the two most common causes could low RAM, or potentially a conflict with the graphics driver that needs to be updated. (Or if recently updated at the same time the slow down started, rolled back to an older driver.)
Also, was there anything recently installed or updated on the computer as far as other programs, or anti-virus? Could it be an external program that is slowing things down?
Alienware R4 17: i7 6700HQ, 16GB RAM, 8GB NVidia GTX 1070
I have already tried:
1. Removing the folder.
2. Updating OS. As I am a mac user and my GPU is made by AMD, I cannot just download or downgrade video drivers. We receive driver updates with OS updates.
3. Clean-installing OS.
4. Installing the base game without any dlc.
I remember the game running beautifully after City Living release, then I stopped playing for a while, then there were some updates, then I started the game and was surprised, and I hadn't installed anything new.
Complexity is our enemy when building The Sims, so we look for any opportunity to keep it down. (c) - @SimGuruMax (LINK)
If you've gone all the way though reinstalling the OS and starting over completely, and it's still performing poorly, then it would appear that is how it's going to be - at least for now. As I said, this is a common occurrence to open your game after an update and it play horribly. The next update might optimize it a bit more, or it may make it worse yet again - I've seen it go both ways. If history is anything to go by, early TS3 updates made the game progressive worse, and later updates improved things a bit. Perhaps TS4 will take the same path as EA adds features, and then figures out better ways to implement and optimize them later on.
Also keep in mind that your mid-2011 iMac is running a laptop-class graphics chip that will be going on 5-6 years old, nothing is going to last forever. Six years is a long time for a computer, especially by comparison that Apple like to tweak and poke at their lineup every 6-7 months on average. Your problem sounds typical for an aging computer, but perhaps someone else will know of some specific aspect or recent change that has caused your problem.
Alienware R4 17: i7 6700HQ, 16GB RAM, 8GB NVidia GTX 1070
What I meant was what other Expansion Packs, Game Packs and Stuff Packs do you have? You only said in your original post you had City Living which to me means that you previously only owned the Base Game which will run fine on 4GB of RAM. However as others have stated, the longer you play a certain save or as you add on more EPs, GPs and SPs the slower your game will run. If you owned everything before and the game ran fine, I'd say specifically it was something in City Life that is slowing your game down. And again I will say that you will probably need more RAM to run the game as good as before.
Since your Mac does not have the Nvidia card, you do not need to update any graphic drivers and highly recommend against anyone downloading the drivers without them being incorporated into the OS updates. I believe the latest update to Sierra addresses this issue, so make sure you are running the latest version of Sierra and posting any issues you are having in the appropriate topic.
It's not recommended because Apple release all drivers through OS updates but in the case of Sims 4 and certain NVIDIA GPUs the game is unplayable unless the user updates manually from NVIDIA's site. Unfortunately the drivers are permanently in beta for all supported Macs apart from the Mac Pro and in Sierra the driver is buggy as hell and causes kernel panics for some, myself included. Updating through a 3rd party, which is what NVIDIA is classed as, is always a risk.
I know. We have had the same problem on PC. TS4 won't play sometimes if the drivers are not updated. There were also a few plum video drivers for PC recently. Especially effecting the new 1000 series cards. I dont know if this effects Mac too. I don't know if you had see this http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-latest-drivers-are-adversely-affecting-video-memory-speed/
I know, but it still performs well when I do other things besides The Sims 4. Upgrading just for TS4 - nooo
I said that "right after City Living my game was fine", this means that with CL everything was fine. It's not City Living that causes the problem. Also, I do not think the problem is with RAM, more like with GPU, or its drivers. In my first post, I stated that I have the latest Sierra updates.
UPDATE:
I installed TS4 on the bootcamp partition and it runs well again. I wonder why it doesn't like my macOS anymore. Issues for certain GPUs?
Complexity is our enemy when building The Sims, so we look for any opportunity to keep it down. (c) - @SimGuruMax (LINK)