How to Make Sims 4 Run Faster for a More Enjoyable Experience!

With The Sims 4 revival becoming free to play, some players might have lag issues or are playing on older computers. This guide will cover how to make the game run smoother and tips to avoid lagging the game further. This guide is mostly focused on computer players, however, there are some tips to help console players too!

Changing the graphic settings in-game.

Firstly, change the graphic settings to a lower option. This is the more noticeable difference, with the graphics set lower it takes less time and resources to render the game.

Does Custom Content cause the game to lag?

Another thing that might not be as known is that Custom Content can slow down the game, depending on how much CC and if you’re using script-heavy mods. Of course, this is based on the mod or cc, and how much Custom Content is in your active mods folder.

The best way to see if the game is lagging because of CC is to rename your “Mods” folder in The Sims 4 director to something random or move the folder outside the game files. Next, launch the game without mods now, and see if the loading has improved in-game. If there’s a noticeable difference, it could be worth decreasing the amount of CC you’re using at a time.

Learn How To Find Broken CC In Sims 4 And Remove It!

Is it a bug/glitch?

It’s possible the game stutters at times – even on higher-end computers. Sadly this is because The Sims 4 can be buggy occasionally, whether it’s something in the base game or an additional DLC causing it. If you’re able to notice the issue, see if others in the community are having the same issue and report bugs to Maxis/EA, and hopefully the game patches soon after.

Does using fewer objects help?

Use fewer Wallpaper and Floor variants per house lot. This is lesser known but very helpful with loading into the lot in-game. If you are using a bunch of different walls and floors, it can cause the loading time to increase and affects performance. Generally using a few at a time is good practice to see if that helps loading time. 

Similar to above, using less furniture can help improve the game’s performance too! The less stuff placed is less stuff that has to load, unfortunately. As we would all love the infinite objects in-game, it sadly does slow things down eventually.

External programs running slow the game down substantially.

Close any extra programs running in the background. If you have a browser open or are running another program, this can affect how your computer is running at the moment. On Pc to check how resource-heavy something is, check your task manager and see if anything is in the higher numbers in “Memory” and “CPU”, if anything is in the orange or is a high percentage – it’s taking up your machine’s focus.

Is it something wrong with the game’s save?

If you go through a lot of CC and Mods, and delete it often, it’s likely that your save game is ‘bloated’, meaning it’s running a lot of corrupted code or resources that weren’t properly removed.

Usually, the best way to fix this issue is to start a new world save to refresh the game. But before that, you can test if this is a cause of load issues, simply start a new game and get into Live Mode to see if there’s a noticeable difference compared to your main save game.

If so, you should save your lots, sims, etc. from your main save and bring them into a new game. This is time-consuming but it might be worth the effort if it means the game runs smoother.

Restart your game or computer if you know the game ran smoother before.

Sometimes it’s the simplest solution to things not working, now it might be a shot in the dark, but if you know your game was running smoother before now, then it’s best to see if it’s just a computer thing, rather than the game itself.

Anti-virus programs running a scan?

Speaking from personal experience, whenever my anti-virus software was starting a scan, it would tank my computer and games during it. It’s a necessary evil sometimes, but nevertheless, it’s an annoyance. So make sure you check if you use anti-virus software and if it’s running a scan, it might just be the cause of your grievances.

Play on Consoles and experiencing lag?

Unfortunately, console versions of The Sims 4 are their own can of worms, and it’s often harder to solve issues on the console side. However, there are a few possible things that slow the game down. Firstly, check if your console has a software update, these are important and can affect its performance occasionally.

Secondly, check the game is properly updated and that you haven’t left the game open for a long time in rest mode. If you’re running Spotify or something in the background that also can cause it to slow as well.

Check the community to see if others are experiencing issues, especially with new DLCs.

Word of mouth does a lot, and other simmers might have noticed something wrong in their game too. This is most often when new Expansion DLCs drop, typically day one is near unplayable these days, unfortunately. 

One of the latest issues was with the High School Years Expansion launch, which had notorious issues and glitches that most simmers had problems with before the patches.

In Conclusion

Hopefully, these solutions helped your game in some way! If the issue persists, it could be your hardware is struggling to run the game properly, and it might be time to look for an upgrade. Possibly an out-of-date graphics card or storage space, or the computer/console itself has worn out with time. But hopefully, that’s not the case!

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