17 November patch, what a mess

EA released a patch to fix the crashing issue introduced in the 11 November patch and have managed to introduce two new issues for Mac users. We currently have three potentially game breaking issues but thankfully there do appear to be workarounds for them. Please note that whilst these seem to be problems that can affect your game at any time, these threads are very specific to the November patches. Please read the links to see if your issue is one of them:

  1. Game stuck on the loading screen
    1. Link – AHQ thread here
    2. Cause – no idea
    3. Fix – right click on the game in your Origin games library and select Repair game.
  2. World select screen is blank
    1. Link – AHQ thread here
    2. Cause – could be another problem linked to the loading screen issue above.
    3. Fix – right click on the game in your Origin games library and select Repair game.
  3. Freezing and Lag
    1. Link – AHQ thread here
    2. Cause – possibly bloated saves, look in your saves folder. If you have one or more save files that is abnormally large this could be causing the issue.
    3. Fix – no 100% fix yet but try choosing Save as… when saving your game and save as a new file. If the backup saves, ending in .ver2 or a different number, are bloated try moving them to a folder on the desktop and just load the main save file.

Problems with The Sims 4 on Macs with AMD Vega GPUs

The September patch seems to be wreaking havoc on Macs with AMD Vega GPUs. Users have reported crashing, glitched graphics and system lockups when trying to play the game. The affected Macs are:

  • 2017 iMac Pro.
  • 2018 15″ MacBook Pros. Not all these models will have Vega GPUs, it was an option at point of sale.
  • 2019 15″ MacBook Pros. This was the last model before Apple changed to 16″ screens. Not all these models will have Vega GPUs, it was an option at point of sale.
  • 2019 21″ iMac 4K. Not all these models will have Vega GPUs, it was an option at point of sale.
  • 2019 27″ iMac 5K. Not all these models will have Vega GPUs, it was an option at point of sale.

You can check to see which GPU your Mac has by clicking on the Apple in the menu bar then About This Mac. For 15″ MacBook Pros click System Report then look in Graphics/Displays you will have an integrated Intel chip and a dedicated AMD GPU.

There are currently three separate threads at Answers HQ which users are posting in:

If you are experiencing this on a Mac with Vega graphics, please head to the relevant thread and click the all important Me Too button in the first post. The more Me Toos, the more likely QA are to look at it.

No concrete workaround yet although lowering your settings to all low does seem to help. Try also switching to the Sims 3 camera if you are using the Sims 4 camera.

New day, new patch, no apparent Mac fixes on the horizon

PC: 1.60.54.1020/Mac: 1.60.54.1220 has just been released with various bug fixes, none of which seem to address the multitude of Mac specific bugs starting to pile up.

If you’re on a Mac and no longer experiencing one or more of these issues please let me know so I can feel slightly happier that we’re not seemingly being overlooked again:

  1. Cannot run the game in macOS 10.11 El Capitan
  2. Cannot run the game in macOS 10.12 Sierra with AMD GPUs
  3. Static type lines across game screen
  4. Lines appearing over UI at bottom of the screen
  5. First Person View off centre
  6. Glitchy UI (not attributed to Mods)
  7. Shadow line following your Sim indoors
  8. Black square shadow under Sim

1 & 2 – are game breakers unless you update your version of macOS through the Mac App Store.

3 – may be fixed by turning off Edge Smoothing.

4 – can be fixed by playing in windowed mode.

5 – can be fixed by disabling Retina display in the in-game graphics options

6 – can be fixed by not skipping through the loading screens when launching the game

7 – no fix

8 – can be fixed by editing the GraphicsRules.sgr file (follow link above)