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EA silence on gameplay slowdown, input delay, and time distortion

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  • ZaszZasz Posts: 806 Member
    cherpar wrote: »
    When I first loaded up after parenthood, I was experiencing this. I did a factory reset, clear cache and repair game. ( I clear cache after ever session anyway) That seems to stop the delayed pause and reduce some lag. But however I now still have lag ( before actions register) but in one house only. It is the biggest house with 7 residents. I went through my played households on sat and removed everything from personal inventory.

    I havent been well the last few days so I don't know if it's improved. I think I was also try saving that house and evicting the sims - and moving them back in. Because one member of that household has one rock stuck on her inventory.
    I noticed that aswell. The lag increased with the amount of household members. My house with 8 sims was unplayable sometimes. Then I upgraded my hardware. The lag was less noticable but it was still there which shouldnt happen with that kind of hardware I have now. Sometimes its still a game of "who blinks the most while doing nothing" and then people claim its a hardware issue. Ive never experienced a hardware issue like this in my 20 years of gaming and I know when my hardware cant keep up with a game.

    This is not the case here. Its the action queue. It just cant keep up with that many commands from multiple sims under our control. But this problem doesnt exist when visiting other small households or the city where most sims arent under our control.
    lmusic wrote: »
    It's really annoying, surely this can be fixed!?
    We dont know. This problem is over a year old and there are zero informations coming from the devs. They asked for savegames on this but even when asked they dont give us any feedback. They are ignoring us on this.
  • NeiaNeia Posts: 4,190 Member
    edited June 2017
    Zasz wrote: »
    lmusic wrote: »
    It's really annoying, surely this can be fixed!?
    We dont know. This problem is over a year old and there are zero informations coming from the devs. They asked for savegames on this but even when asked they dont give us any feedback. They are ignoring us on this.

    SimGuruNick commented in this thread, it's on page 1. He gave a bit more details on what it is, what can cause it, and what you can do to alleviate the issue.
  • lulubadwolflulubadwolf Posts: 630 Member
    edited June 2017
    Is it just me or those bug are getting worse with the new upgrade & new GP ? Before these two my game was fine, got some time distortion but lag was pretty rare. Now i often have time distortion and lag, even the pause is bugged. I press pause and sometime time and animation keeps going on and it take 30 seconds or more to quit pause. I've started a new save and it didn't change anything.

    My game did something odd yesterday. I gave Command to the father in my current sim family to pick up his toddler after he was finished eating and the game froze on me. Not in a frozen cant do anything but a frozen the sims are still nodding and blinking, radio still playing and yet I could press pause and it wouldn't or I could try to go to build mode and it would but the sims would still be in the background moving with the radio still playing. This has never happened in my game before and I ended up having to restart my computer. :( I did repair my game and it hasn't happened since but I was like what the heck? I have noticed more lag. But I am a huge family player as well. I try not,to use the speed 3 button but sometimes I cannot help it. I really hope this is fixed

    This is exactly what i'm experiencing ! i had my vampire sims to take care of a toddler, and this had happened, they just nodded, smiled for no reason, look around but didn't move, it didn't change when i pressed pause so i had pressed the M button, nothing. I could move around the house but nothing else. It take at least 5 minutes to my game to actually reacts.
    I'll try to clear cache, delete files in my tray folder, upload some in the gallery, play without internet (mine is really slow these days, 1 minutes to load the forum --') and even lower my graphics to see if anythings helps.
    When i see that some people have laptop that are supposed to be less efficient than my laptop but that they play the game just fine, i wonder why this bug is avoiding some of us.
    Post edited by lulubadwolf on
  • ZaszZasz Posts: 806 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    Zasz wrote: »
    lmusic wrote: »
    It's really annoying, surely this can be fixed!?
    We dont know. This problem is over a year old and there are zero informations coming from the devs. They asked for savegames on this but even when asked they dont give us any feedback. They are ignoring us on this.

    SimGuruNick commented in this thread, it's on page 1. He gave a bit more details on what it is, what can cause it, and what you can do to alleviate the issue.
    The issue is nearly 2 years old. Ive seen topics on the ea support page from 2015 about this. Lets look at what he wrote:
    - large amount of items in Sim's Inventories
    This comes up often and nowhere is there a number that qualifies as "large" here. People speculated about it so I have no clue at what point the issue can occur. Is it ten? 100? 1.000? I had one sim with a stack of common repair items and two half stacks of the other. Is that "large"?
    If this is a problem then maybe limit the amount of total items a sim can carry. Yet the lag happens in a new game with a fresh imported household which doesnt have items stored too.
    So scratch that.
    - large amount of files in the Tray folder
    Again, how large is large? And how is the library an issue when accessing only a single region at a time that requires the game to access a specific part of those files? Or maybe stop the game from creating unnecessary files like from lots we looked at in the public library. Is the argument that the game is accessing everything in the folder during the game? That would make sense but its a case of crappy programming to leave such a mechanic in the game.
    - large amount of Sims/relationships in the save file
    Again, how large is large? If relationships create a problem, maybe stop forcing relationships on people all the time? Let us decide when to have them. Or make it easier for us to delete unwanted relationships? But no, we have to rely on mods to do that. Even after deleting all relationships with sims outside the household it does not fix the lag issue and it doesnt explain why the issue exists for a household with a no relationships outside the household.
    - using speed 3 for an extended period of time
    I rarely use it and even when I use it, its bugged most of the time which is the reason I rarely use it. So appealing to a bugged feature to explain a bug is kinda silly. Maybe fix it?
    - when a child goes to school
    In my games less active sims actually reduced the lag rather than increase the lag. And even going to school is bugged because the sims dont cancel their current action to go to school. So the problem occurs before the child goes to school. Getting sims to work or school is a real pain in the butt most of the time. So again, appealing to a bugged mechanic to explain another issue doesnt work out.
    - when interacting with a toddler
    I dont even have toddlers, didnt have for weeks yet the issue remains.
    - when children autonomously do homework
    Which happens when? Once a sim year?
    - on San Myshuno apartment lots
    I hear this often but I had this issue before I purchased city living. My lag was happening in newcrest which is part of the base game. Actually the issue came to my attention after purchasing vampires which was the only pack I had for a long time.

    This is all they came up in two years? Im not impressed.

    After I upgraded my hardware I had to import the lot and household fresh from the library so
    - they had no items in any inventory
    - there were no pictures in the tray filder except the few default items and a handfull of my own creations
    - they had no relationships with sims outside the household
    - there was no need to use speed 3
    - there were two teens present that went to school
    - there were no toddlers present
    - they rarely autonomously did their homework
    - all san myshuno apartment lots were assigned to premade sims and I rarely visit the region because I mostly play in newcrest

    Im left with one case that might cause issues but not regularly which doesnt explain the times when all the sims are present for a longer period of time like weekends and have the issues. Unless simgurunick forgot to mention that any of those cases could screw up the savegame in total and not just for a short time when it happens. But that wouldnt make much sense because that would mean the game saves not just the current action of a sim when exiting the game but former actions, even long past actions that can cause issues, too. And we are back at "why isnt the action queue not finishing actions or accepting new commands" or "why isnt there a time limit on actions?" or "is the mechanic to finish actions bugged?".

    None of the suggested workarounds helped for more than a couple of hours.

    So instead of explaining why the mentioned issues havent been fixed, Im left with more questions. But here, have more gamepacks that bring their own bugs with them that might contribute to the lag. I was looking for more than just one comment with claims. We need to have an actual conversation. Maybe Im too spoiled by devs of other games that dont behave like this and do more than release new bugged content to blur the old issues.
  • cherparcherpar Posts: 2,092 Member
    Well I went back to my game, and moving the sims out and replacing the house didn't work. Completely emptying the inventories of all played sims had no impact. I aged up the toddler in the affected house, no difference. While I have culling turned off, I delete sims myself and keep it under 300 ( which I believe is just below the EA cap for culling). On the topic of hardware, my computer is a gaming one with a Titan graphics card. The lag is no different when child sims go to the school and otherwise. I had also reset the folder so there weren't large number in the tray folder. @SimGuruNick - are you still looking for affected saves?

    Interestingly one of the elders died in the affected house, and the lag did seem to improve a little. So maybe it is affecting larger households, as some one suggested above. I might spilt the house is for a test and see what happens.

    Shame because parenthood is a great pack.
  • ZaszZasz Posts: 806 Member
    Backup your files before this. Save your sims and houses to your library, make a seperate savegame, start a completely new game and import the lot and household from your library. Observe the lag. In my case this helped for awhile.
  • tiffrenee07tiffrenee07 Posts: 682 Member
    Zasz wrote: »
    Backup your files before this. Save your sims and houses to your library, make a seperate savegame, start a completely new game and import the lot and household from your library. Observe the lag. In my case this helped for awhile.

    I will definitely have to try this.
  • TubbieHeadTubbieHead Posts: 48 Member
    Ugh, had this issue last time I played. I was so happy raising my 3rd generation and now it's pretty much unplayable with all the brain freezing that's going on. My family was living in an apartment and moved to another. Got everything settled and now it's ruined. So frustrating. I don't want to loose all my families friends and genealogy tree (does it not happen when I put them in a new save?) I have 5 sims in my household, and I notice that when 3 of them are in school/work, the gameplay gets better/lags much less.
  • lulubadwolflulubadwolf Posts: 630 Member
    edited June 2017
    @TubbieHead Yep, you lose your family tree when you put the sims in a new save. :/

    Edit: Don't know if this can help you, but i was tired of the bug, so i end up deleting my entire sims 4 folder, except tray and save. I had let the game create a new one and put my save and tray folder in it and miracle, the lag reduce.
    Don't know if this is going to last long, but for now i can play my family without banging my head against the wall ^^
    Post edited by lulubadwolf on
  • TubbieHeadTubbieHead Posts: 48 Member
    [quote="lulubadwolf;c-15815115"]@TubbieHead Yep, you lose your family tree when you put the sims in a new save. :/

    Edit: Don't know if this can help you, but i was tired of the bug, so i end up deleting my entire sims 4 folder, except tray and save. I had let the game create a new one and put my save and tray folder in it and miracle, the lag reduce.
    Don't know if this is going to last long, but for now i can play my family without banging my head against the wall ^^[/quote]

    Will try that. Thanks!
  • ceinwynieceinwynie Posts: 162 Member
    - large amount of items in Sim's Inventories
    - large amount of files in the Tray folder
    - large amount of Sims/relationships in the save file
    - using speed 3 for an extended period of time
    - when a child goes to school
    - when interacting with a toddler
    - when children autonomously do homework
    - on San Myshuno apartment lots

    My game has all these problems, especially when my kids are going to school or I have a big file, I find this really boring because I'm a legacy player, how can I make a legacy without a large amount of relationships in the save file?
  • ceinwynieceinwynie Posts: 162 Member
    lmusic wrote: »
    The 8am schoolbus lag is driving me insane.

    Me too, I think I will download a no school mod, because when my clock hits 8 am, I get so upset.

  • LizziguinLizziguin Posts: 1,126 Member
    Thank you for making this thread and bringing these major issues to light. The whole time distortions, the gameplay slow down, and the input lag is getting really frustrating. I've noticed it too when you have a newer save the game runs fine for a while but my longer running save files I'm starting to notice these issues occur more often. I'm guessing eventually they won't even be playable at all overtime the longer I play them which is sad because I actually want to keep these files going.
  • princess_kaguyaprincess_kaguya Posts: 508 Member
    edited June 2017
    im having issues with gameplay slowdown, even if its a brand new save with no mods.
    for anyone who is not experiencing this, try having 7 toddlers and one adult sim in a household, if you have the city pack try spicing things up by putting this 8 sims household in an apartment, eventually your neighbors will stand in the hallway dying of hunger :#
    Post edited by princess_kaguya on
  • SimLarkSimLark Posts: 143 Member
    I am having same issues. I also noticed that after sims whohoo, they get out of bed, stand near it and the game goes on x 3 speed by itself. Like when they are sleeping. Just that they don't sleep, they stand. Anyone else having this?
    I am not an English native speaker, so excuse my French :)
  • rosemowrosemow Posts: 163,521 Member
    I am having same issues. I also noticed that after sims whohoo, they get out of bed, stand near it and the game goes on x 3 speed by itself. Like when they are sleeping. Just that they don't sleep, they stand. Anyone else having this?

    Hello
    This thread on the AHQ EA site refers to the issue. You may like to,post feedback on the issue there
    http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4-Bug-Reports/OPEN-Time-speeds-up-after-woohoo-Sim-gets-teleported-from-bed/m-p/5760671#M31396
  • SimLarkSimLark Posts: 143 Member
    Thanks, rosemow, will do it.
    I am not an English native speaker, so excuse my French :)
  • knazzerknazzer Posts: 3,382 Member
    Here's something interesting I wanna add.

    Now I've played the same save since release, I have all content and used no CC or mods etc. I've had no issue with lag, the game runs very smoothy with the odd occasion of time distortion since the 64bit patch which is very rare. BUT! I started a brand new save a week ago and from the offset noticed issues with lag, crashing and time distortion happening very often. This is very odd since i've never had issues before and nothing as changed except starting a new save.
  • cherparcherpar Posts: 2,092 Member
    @knazzer so it was the exact same sims in the same house? Just curious.
  • knazzerknazzer Posts: 3,382 Member
    cherpar wrote: »
    @knazzer so it was the exact same sims in the same house? Just curious.

    I've been playing the same households since release of the Sims 4, I started all over again with fresh Sims in a new save that's when the issues with lag began.
  • lulubadwolflulubadwolf Posts: 630 Member
    Okay, because of what @knazzer said, i had tried to play a old save (create right after GTW). I didn't play with that save because it's an old save and with all the bug we have i thought it would be awful. So it's a legacy, 16 generations, there is lots of sims, the legacy i currently play has a Huge house: everything that is supposed to make the game unplayable because of the bug. And i have no lag (except a very small time distortion when i use 3 speed, and it's small jump like 10 minutes or less), no problem with pause and when i make them do something they do it instantly. But in a save i've just create, there was lag, pause problem, and so ... What the plum ?
  • cherparcherpar Posts: 2,092 Member
    It's not universal. I'm having problems with my old save and lag but only in the largest household. But yes it's super strange that a new game is lagger than existing one. I started a new game to play test a house and that worked fine. So strange ...
  • ZaszZasz Posts: 806 Member
    - large amount of items in Sim's Inventories
    I moved a family of 8 from lot1 to lot2 and harvested all plants before doing so to replant them all on lot3 once I build it on lot1. Yes, this is how its done to save items you can access normally in build mode. Crazy, hu? So I had one sim with 40 stacks, 10 of each fruit, vegetable and other plant. THAT did cause some lag. But usually my sims have something between 6-10 stacks in their inventory. Mostly from repairing items and about 10 plasma fruits.
    It still doesnt make any sense why this would cause lag in the first place. Its like some mechanic is actively accessing the inventory all the time and the more items the more active this mechanic is.
  • knazzerknazzer Posts: 3,382 Member
    edited June 2017
    @SimGuruNick

    Hi, can you look into why a brand new fresh save/game is causing me severe lag? Whereas the same save I've used from the beginning on The Sims 4 until a few weeks ago had no issues at all?
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