Witcher 3 runs well but Sims 4 stutters?

[AngelicCore]

Hi all,

I have a weird case on my hands so i thought I could find help here.

My desktop has good specifications yet it is unable to run Sims IV for some reason.

I run the witcher 3 on 1920x1080 on ultra/very high in the range of 45ish fps yet Sims runs at around 11 fps.

What's even more curious is that I had it running at 200+ fps on ultra the first time i installed it.
But while playing I alt-tabbed as you always do and when i got back to the game it stuttered very much.
So i used Geforce experience to find out the fps and was shocked that it is running at around 10 fps.

I thought my GPU got damaged somehow and started up Witcher and ..everything was alright.

Tried full screen / maximized windows - no change
So I restarted windows thinking it was some kind of bug..nothing
uninstalled and removed my user files from my documents\ea...nothing still
tried minimizing the game settings to very low..nothing .. my fps didn't change

I started gpu-z to check out the clocks and utilization..lo and behold.
Clocks are ok but gpu utilization was about 5%.

Now I am stuck and don't know how to deal with it. Is there anything else that I am missing?

PC specs:
i5 4670k @4 gigs
Gigabyte 770 GTX - factory OC
16 gigs of Ram @ 1800 mhz
Windows/Games on 840 evo SSD

Windows 8.1 latest updates
latest nvidia drivers 353.06
latest Sims 4 patch 1.7ish

Thanks

 

[photonboy]

I don't have Sims 4, but I gave up on Sims 3 because it stuttered and I tried on many PC's for a long, long time and it was unfixable.

In fact out of 200+ games (sigh) the only two I can't play due to stutter or other issues is:

The Sims 3, and
GTA 4

 

[AngelicCore]

Hi photonboy,

What's irritating me is that Sim 4 is running perfectly well on my laptop - on ultra quality.

The laptop has good specs but definitely lower than my PC (i7 2.2 ghz, 8 gigs of RAM, AMD 6770m) so it should be running as smoothly on my PC if not better, which it isn't.

 

[photonboy]

There's probably some helpful sites out there. I don't have the game so I can only suggest a couple things to try:

1. VERIFY the game code (can be done in STEAM or Origin easily... just Google for how if you need to).

2. Add to NVidia Control Panel (Manage 3D settings->...), select game and force VSYNC OFF. Try that, then try forcing VSYNC ON. This replaces any option.

3. Reinstall NVidia drivers but choose "Custom->Clean" install or similar wording. I had a weird glitch this fixed when removing and reinstalling didn't work.

4. If you can't verify then uninstall and reinstall.

Frankly your problem is baffling to me and I've got a lot of experience in gaming. It's almost like there's a glitch in the game code.

Other:
a) run MEMTEST www.memtest.org for a full pass
b) run Intel CPU diagnostic if you have Intel: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool-64-bit-
c) I'd personally cap using VSYNC but that's me. I hate screen tearing and don't find lag an issue for a game like this.
d) For Witcher 3 your FPS is right if you don't use VSYNC. If you do however that's not good as you should never drop below the target (i.e 60FPS for 60Hz monitor) with VSYNC ON as it causes stutter.

*Adaptive VSYNC was created to solve the issue of synch mismatch stutter. I tweak settings so I stay at target at least 95% of the time and tweak later in game if screen tearing becomes too common (meaning frame rate is dropping below 60FPS more regularly).

For example, in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood I got a LOT of screen tearing with VSYNC OFF. I tried to tweak to maintain 60FPS but it still dropped regularly causing STUTTERING (like panning right to left and seeing the jerk-jerk-jerk motion really fast).

Finally, I forced on Adaptive VSYNC. When I could output at least 60FPS it was identical to VSYNC ON. When I couldn't (59FPS or below) I got screen tearing like VSYNC OFF. It was far better, because sometimes I'd be all running around SMOOTH then STUTTER, then SMOOTH.

 

[Kentuckytech]

The Sims 3 and Sims 4 both are badly unoptimized. Stuttering is an extremely common problem in both of them with seemingly no fix in sight.

 

[AngelicCore]

There's probably some helpful sites out there. I don't have the game so I can only suggest a couple things to try:

1. VERIFY the game code (can be done in STEAM or Origin easily... just Google for how if you need to).

2. Add to NVidia Control Panel (Manage 3D settings->...), select game and force VSYNC OFF. Try that, then try forcing VSYNC ON. This replaces any option.

3. Reinstall NVidia drivers but choose "Custom->Clean" install or similar wording. I had a weird glitch this fixed when removing and reinstalling didn't work.

4. If you can't verify then uninstall and reinstall.

Frankly your problem is baffling to me and I've got a lot of experience in gaming. It's almost like there's a glitch in the game code.

Other:
a) run MEMTEST www.memtest.org for a full pass
b) run Intel CPU diagnostic if you have Intel: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool-64-bit-
c) I'd personally cap using VSYNC but that's me. I hate screen tearing and don't find lag an issue for a game like this.
d) For Witcher 3 your FPS is right if you don't use VSYNC. If you do however that's not good as you should never drop below the target (i.e 60FPS for 60Hz monitor) with VSYNC ON as it causes stutter.

*Adaptive VSYNC was created to solve the issue of synch mismatch stutter. I tweak settings so I stay at target at least 95% of the time and tweak later in game if screen tearing becomes too common (meaning frame rate is dropping below 60FPS more regularly).

For example, in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood I got a LOT of screen tearing with VSYNC OFF. I tried to tweak to maintain 60FPS but it still dropped regularly causing STUTTERING (like panning right to left and seeing the jerk-jerk-jerk motion really fast).

Finally, I forced on Adaptive VSYNC. When I could output at least 60FPS it was identical to VSYNC ON. When I couldn't (59FPS or below) I got screen tearing like VSYNC OFF. It was far better, because sometimes I'd be all running around SMOOTH then STUTTER, then SMOOTH.

I'll try the suggestions you gave and report back, fingers crossed.

 

[AngelicCore]

There's probably some helpful sites out there. I don't have the game so I can only suggest a couple things to try:

1. VERIFY the game code (can be done in STEAM or Origin easily... just Google for how if you need to).

2. Add to NVidia Control Panel (Manage 3D settings->...), select game and force VSYNC OFF. Try that, then try forcing VSYNC ON. This replaces any option.

3. Reinstall NVidia drivers but choose "Custom->Clean" install or similar wording. I had a weird glitch this fixed when removing and reinstalling didn't work.

4. If you can't verify then uninstall and reinstall.

Frankly your problem is baffling to me and I've got a lot of experience in gaming. It's almost like there's a glitch in the game code.

Other:
a) run MEMTEST www.memtest.org for a full pass
b) run Intel CPU diagnostic if you have Intel: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool-64-bit-
c) I'd personally cap using VSYNC but that's me. I hate screen tearing and don't find lag an issue for a game like this.
d) For Witcher 3 your FPS is right if you don't use VSYNC. If you do however that's not good as you should never drop below the target (i.e 60FPS for 60Hz monitor) with VSYNC ON as it causes stutter.

*Adaptive VSYNC was created to solve the issue of synch mismatch stutter. I tweak settings so I stay at target at least 95% of the time and tweak later in game if screen tearing becomes too common (meaning frame rate is dropping below 60FPS more regularly).

For example, in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood I got a LOT of screen tearing with VSYNC OFF. I tried to tweak to maintain 60FPS but it still dropped regularly causing STUTTERING (like panning right to left and seeing the jerk-jerk-jerk motion really fast).

Finally, I forced on Adaptive VSYNC. When I could output at least 60FPS it was identical to VSYNC ON. When I couldn't (59FPS or below) I got screen tearing like VSYNC OFF. It was far better, because sometimes I'd be all running around SMOOTH then STUTTER, then SMOOTH.

I reinstalled nvidia's drivers and selected the clean installation option.

Loaded the game and amazingly it is running very smoothly at ultra.

The reason better be good but in the end I am happy

Thanks a lot photonboy