Which pack took more tech resources?

Simmerville · June 2023

So, did any of your installed packs make you think - ouch, my game feels slower and different?

Which pack grabbed the more resources, or what pack occupied more tech resources than you expected?

I'm impressed with how small effect each pack actually has even on a pre-historical computer. Still, with some lag building, I need to be more picky when choosing the next pack.

Atreya33 · June 2023

There are only a few packs where I noticed a difference.
seasons: my old pc had more lag when it snowed. Turning off snow in the options could be a solution to keep the rest of the EP functional
Eco lifestyle : the lighting for the green eco footprint seemed to slow down my pc. Again the solution is to turn it off in the options. I was never interested in this particular feature so I still have it turned off on my new pc.
Cottage living slowed down the cooking menu because it comes with the Simple Living lot challenge. Not sure if this is the pack or the patch

I think in general it is many small that make a big effect. Singling out one particular pack is difficult. But everything together is a lot.

What causes most lag to be honest is lots with a lot of items and many items in a sims' inventory. There are a lot of pretty builds out there that look great but are so overdone with clutter that they are unplayable. Having such a lot in the neighbourhood without it being an active lot could already slow down things. According to some youtubers, I think deligracy mentioned it, even the amount of different wallpapers in a single build can even make a difference in performance.

LiELF · June 2023

I think I remember people having some choppiness with City Living and Cats and Dogs as well.

But Atreya gave some good advice; keep both your Sim and household inventories as clear as possible, use smaller lots and don't clutter them. I know that people moan and groan about Maxis lots, but they are purposely designed to be minimalistic, from what I can tell, in order to preserve game performance.

Another thing that helps with lag is minimizing what's in your Library, or Tray folder. Before I got my new system, I used to remove my Tray folder and put it on my desktop before loading the game, only swapping it back in when I needed to access something from it. (The game will generate a new one with some base game things in there and you can delete those to clear it out.) It's a little bit of a pain, but can help lighten the load.

Also, go offline in the settings when you aren't using the Gallery. This can make a big difference for some people, as your game won't be chugging to stay connected.

I'd also recommend clearing your cache files now and then so they don't get too cluttered, and refresh your localthumbcache file after each new pack and update. (You can just delete it, the game will generate a new one.) The first time you reload after deleting it, it will take a moment to generate, but after that, should be smoother.

Finally, I recommend refreshing your save file by using "save as" every now and then, and playing from the new file each time. Delete the old one once you know that your new file works. You don't want to leave a lot of old saves cluttering up your folders.

But first and foremost before you do any of these things, back up your Sims 4 folder. If anything goes wrong, you can just revert everything back by swapping your old folder back in.

Simmingal · June 2023

My Wedding Stories hands down

until that one it was running ultra so smooth 0 issues

then i had the complete crash lag fest with mws and changed some options on my computer somehow mostly solved it

and until now it has been running okayish and has not gotten any worse even though i added 2 eps, 1gp, 2sp after mws

I'm thinking I just am starting to run out of RAM though and adding mws on top of the million packs I already had maybe just went over some specific percentage of ram use

also yeah i think seasons is very heavy on performance but i love it too much to not have it in my game

CoL i think it greatly helps if you don't give everyone animals or delete animals when not playing the household

definitely limit the use of bunny holes and fox lot trait and such too

and overall more sims = more lag
this is why randomized townies are so upsetting to me because i have to keep constantly deleting them unless i want them bloating my save

FreddyFox1234 · June 2023

I can't say I noticed a drop in performance with a specific pack, but I've got all the EPs and recently added a few stuff packs and my game has definitely been struggling more than it was. I'd already given up playing full screen a while back - playing in window mode really helps game performance for me. And if I make my window a bit smaller, that helps too. So I'm now playing with high graphics settings but in a smaller window. I miss the full screen effect, but it's worth it for much better graphics and a smoother game.

Gordy · June 2023

My game tends to run smoothly - as well as Sims 4 can run smoothly, at least; it's a lowkey mess even on a good computer and with few packs. I even bought a top-of-the-line computer, and every game but Sims 4 runs like a dream.

But something about the open spaces in the Cottage Living world makes my game run like a slug. I'm not sure it's necessarily the size of the space, since I can run worlds like Moonwood Mill just fine.

Isharell · June 2023

I saw a real difference when I got Seasons, otherwise I don't know. At this point, my computer can't handle more than 6 people on a lot (5 is better), and the biggest lots start giving me trouble after playing on them for a while. The worst house for me is the Watson house in Cottage Living. I no sooner load that house than everything starts skipping and freezing. Too many people, waaay too much clutter, and I include the exterior in that evaluation. That house is ridiculously packed with stuff. I don't even try to play that one anymore, not without deleting half the contents of the house, or deleting it altogether.

JustinB113 · June 2023

On the PlayStation 4 San Myshuno was quite bad. The lag in the apartments was frequent and the loading was so long it wasn’t worth going to festivals most times.

The game got a lot better with PS5 but if I’m gonna get lag anywhere it’s probably going to be in a San Myshuno apartment.

plumboy23 · June 2023

City Living, Cats and Dogs, Seasons, Eco Lifestyle, Cottage Living and Get Together (I think this pack really makes the simulation lag worse)

WildIrishBanshee · June 2023

I don't have too many issues, thankfully - the odd hiccup now and again when the game has been running for days (RL days), but that's about it.

Lenny_Ogg · June 2023

Do you think this has something to do with mods/cc?
I play on a windows 7 pc with all expansions minus one kit but without mods/cc and the game runs smooth and without lags.
And all settings on high.

SimplyJen · June 2023

Lenny_Ogg wrote: »

Do you think this has something to do with mods/cc?
I play on a windows 7 pc with all expansions minus one kit but without mods/cc and the game runs smooth and without lags.
And all settings on high.

The game requirements go beyond just the operating system. Graphics card, Processor, and RAM must also be considered... but if a players system is already lagging behind then CC & mods on top of that won't help. Adding packs changes base game requirements as well.

logion · June 2023

Seasons used a lot of resources, I did not notice it in the beginning but I noticed how the larger neighborhoods during fall did not run well.

We also have the build mode lag, which is not a pack issue, I think it was introduced around the platforms update.

Old New Henford from Cottage Living is running terribly during fall. Then you have the many different recipes that they introduced which require a lot of different ingredients which makes the game take a long time to load the recipes from the fridge, especially if you have a lot of ingredients in your sims inventory and if your sims are cooking level 10.

I have a gaming desktop PC with a i9-12900K, 3080 (10GB), 64GB RAM, and the game is installed on an NVME M.2 and the game is still not running particularly well. The game has a lot of framedrops and bad performance on the old DirectX9 engine so I can keep throwing power at the problem but the game is not going to make use of it very effectively.

I probably need to start a new save but I don't really want to. The save matters a lot too because it will get larger and larger over time which will cause lag depending on how many sims with relationships, lots and household inventories, cc and mods you have.

MoonlightGraham · July 2023

My game was starting to run slowly, so I first culled a lot of CC. Some of the things Z and I found soon after we bought the game aren't necessary now, because we've added packs, kits, etc. that include similar clothing and hairstyles. Getting rid of the excess CC made a noticeable difference. So did deleting old save files.

I hadn't thought of household inventories being a power drag, but once I cleaned out the inventory of our lead Sim's household, we got another boost. We're Simming on a decent laptop; it's far from a potato, but it's not a gaming rig either.

JestTru · July 2023

I noticed a difference in loading speed after Cottage Living.

SheriSim57 · July 2023

My loading doesn’t take long, sometimes I have lag in the game, but probably background Apps running. I don’t use mods or CC, but I do have all packs and kits. I have a decent gaming computer, but it is 5 to 6 years old now.

Simmerville · July 2023

Thanks for all input! I was expecting (or hoping for, even) a more clear answer like the majority noticing a change with a certain pack added. But of course, our rigs are different, and the combination of different packs might also play a role, I guess.

Yes, cc and mods do affect these things, but I wanted to know if a few packs were heavier than others, in the sense of perhaps avoiding the very heaviest one, if I don't already have it on board, that is

For lag in general, I score quite badly on all accounts: 6 trillion cc items, 7 years old save with 100+ actively played houses, and tons of history and relations that the game needs to keep track on. At times I feel sorry for my game, LOL. I'm aware that old saves might cause lag (I get rid of most, but keep some for time saving re specific video productions etc. Also the library (in my case mostly households) and screenshots folder might impact. Inventories I'm aware of, but not very good at keeping clean, so I added a new tradition "Attic Cleaning Day" which was meant for cleaning all inventories, but it's practically impossible to stop by 100+ households during that one simday, LOL. It's still acting as an annual reminder in my calendar, though...

Re CoL taking more tech recourses, I think it helps turning off the sparkling hood effect from ECO Lifestyle, as farming often trigger this positive environment, at least in my game it seems to do that, and especially in H-on-B.

musteni · July 2023

I also have trouble with CoL and EL combined. I'm considering turning the environmental effects off. I like it when I manage to make a bad neighbourhood and the sims are coughing, but I also want my game to run smoothly so...

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Which pack took more tech resources?

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