Someone please explain this to me, and hear me out. What is the god awful reasoning of the developers behind there being loading screens for literally every lot in the game, even when crossing the street which isn't even 20 meters away.

What's worse is that the entire neighborhood is already loaded, even the lots themselves. It's just that anything happening on the other lots isn't rendered until you switch to it (load screen commence)
I know that this has been bitched about too many times already, but I'm trying to look at this from a rational and realistic point of view. Not just OMG LOADING SCREENS SO STUPID!?!?!1337!!

I don't see how it's not possible to have all the lots in your current neighborhood (not the world) be in reach without a loading screen, and maintaining a similar system as the Sims 3 had, only in this case that everything on the inside is dumbed down and hidden until you visit the lot, rather than the entire lot looking like molten pudding.
Obviously there would be a performance loss. But honestly, I can deal with that. The game runs great so far, and I doubt that would ruin it, even when thinking ahead with +12 EPs and SPs, provided they won't break the game.

Now, I'm not much of a programmer or developer, but I do know a bit about how games in general handle (or are supposed to handle) these kind of things.
If they made proper use of LOD models, as well as textures, to decrease CPU and GPU stress, I'm pretty sure it would work.

What do you guys think?

i think it is all economics. rather than improve the game and graphics engines, they just used the same old engine with modern game tools. the engine can't handle it so that is how they compensate. a little old fashioned i think. games today are anywhere from thirty to fifty gigs and this "brand new game" is still about the size of the sims 3. maxis and ea are too cheap to develope a new engine, and there are plenty of new tools out there to do it.

sims 3 has its annoying flaws but still better than this joke.

Look at it this way, Loading Screens = Better performance, improved FPS and less rendering, it's a small price to pay and the loading screens are so quick anyway, it's a fantastic investment!

what the? the sims 4 uses a very different engine from sims 3. it's called glass box, the same engine they used for sim city 5. i'm not sure where you're getting your information.

Actually, according to the gurus they developed a whole new engine especially for Sims 4. They never gave it a name. I suspect it is the remnants of the discarded Olympus game.

There is an Olympus library in the user interface code, so you are probably right about that. I wondered what Olympus was!

Just look on the bright side. The sims 4 could have been like Skyrim. - where you get a load screen when you go in your house and
when you go out of your house.

that makes sense too. i was only remembering the thread posted here that said they were gonna use the glass box engine.

I don't see how it even improves the frame rate much when the loaded map size is already cut down to less than a tenth (maybe a 20th) the size of a Sims 3 map. If the neighborhood is already so small, and Create-A-Style is chopped, how do you save any considerable amount of frames by not loading 5 lots? Chop the neighborhood size down to 5% to 10% the size of Sims 3, chop Create-A-Style, chop the simulation of each and every sims schedule in the world, but loading 5 more residential lots is too much? I don't get it either. But maybe an expansion pack will add it as a feature?

people are so use to the sims 3 set up now they forget that even Sims 2 had loading screens until there was an expansion that added a section of town you could explore and this game reminds me of when I played Sims 3 for consoles its play style was very similar to this and annoyed me at times which is why i switched back to the PC version but if you go on the Sims 4 page its says no plans for a console version so we are stuck with loading screens and a console style game on PC is it an improvement that's yet to be seen but its pretty common in console games to have load screens all the time plus everyones getting tablets these days and they cant handle most games unless theres a smart device compatible version and there again lots of load screens

You don't get a loading screen to cross the street... unless you mean cross the street and enter a neighbor's lot? There is quite a bit of free space around the houses.

I can see where MarcyRoars is coming from, I've played the sims 3 and the sims 3 pets on console and each neighborhood was split by a load screen but each lots for that neighborhood was loaded and you could go to your neighbor's house with just a few seconds of rendering. So i do find it annoying when each lot looks loaded but you have to go through a load screen to get to it.

Indeed. Often the Sims is compared to those videogames (like saints Row) that don't require loading screen when you enter in a lot. But in video games like saints row and many other, you have to care for just one character, in the Sims you care for hundred and hundred of characters, all with different needs, different personalities, different emotions and different age. Is more difficult for computers.

Thing is, it doesn't make sense to me. I mean, the game can render the entire neighborhood, plus they've "saved performance" by scrapping some things, yet they can't make 4 more lots active?
Seems really illogical to me.

I'm not sure this is about frame rate, but about the sims themselves and their timelines. It's to allow the fudgery and fakery that maintains the illusion of a life simulator.
For instance, to stop sims being in two places at once, or having two contradictory timelines.

Yeah, I would think if they take away the load screens, TS4 would just be another TS3, horrible performance.

Just be glad we don't get loading screens for going from one room to another Seriously now, I think it's got to do with trying to compensate.

Unlikely. The game is already more optimized than The Sims 3, and the currently active area you play in has been drastically reduced in size.
Those 4 lots aren't going to hurt the game very much.

As for errors in the game where Sims would be at two places at the same time, and the whole timeline issue: I really feel that that isn't part of the issue. The way story progression works in The Sims 4 can be maintained even if those lots were rendered active, or at least reachable with loading screens.

/me shuffles past.

When I read the thread title I was a bit "eyeroll" - then I read the original post and the replies; it does look like you guys are staying on topic and it is a valid topic.

It isn't that we don't allow threads where people don't like TS4; it's that they have to have a topic BEYOND "TS4 sucks and EA took my money and I hate you EA because you SUCCCCK etc". We have lots of those threads .

This one is specific (loading screens) and a general callout as to "why is this so" (threads that ask a question get a reply).

Carry on

Thanks. I (and I'm sure the rest of our fellow Simmers ) don't intend to bash the developers and publishers, as well as just scream at everything because there's plenty of people doing that already.
I always try to look at these things from a proper angle. Hell, I love the game so far after the latest updates. It's just these things that make me go "Huh.".

MTS Staff does their job right. Can't say that of staff on some other websites I visit.

I almost forgot to give my opinion on this regarding the framerate. I don't think this matters at all, because as with every Sims game, the FPS rate for me goes from 25 to 300 and everything in between, unless I limit it to 60, or enable Vsync. :p

Their reason was, from what I understand, simulating what those sims do while you're not seeing them (fall in love, gets married, have kids, going to job/school aka story progression) took out some of the processing powers, and while being simulated for those purpose, those sims can't be used as random NPC townie that shows up on the lot you are visiting, thus making the lot you visit look empty./

When they dont have to simulate those sims, whenever you load a random lot, let say, a gym, they just randomly teleport some of the sims with traits that would be logical for them to be in a gym (athletic, confident etc) disregarding what they were supposed to do at that time, since those sims were not under any existing simulation processes. And while you are there, then only they run some sort of simulation to generate passersby and joggers etc.

Wait, do you mean enabling vsync in game, or in your graphics driver? Because vsync option in game didn't work in TS3, and I though they fixed that for TS4.

My next point would be routing, which I imagine is a prime candidate for inducing lag.
Couple down the road can't agree about who goes into the bathroom first ...is that something we would want to slow down what was happening on our screens?
Third point, story progression, or the lack of. What would be happening in the other houses? If the homes were in stasis when we weren't visiting, then that would presumably need a bit of a pause before they could be restarted?
Fourth point, non linear expansion of need for resources with the addition of extra sims. So if an extra sim doubles the amount of calculating, another sim might double-double, another double-double-double etc etc until you get significant wait times in processors which would show up in game, the level at which this would happen depending on your system.
All guesswork of course.

I don't mind loading screens as such, I'm not gonna lie though, I hardly ever leave my active lot because I don't like being hit by a loading screen every single time I want to go to a lot next to me- or switch to a different Sim in my household.

One thing that would greatly improve this for me is if the public spaces were actually interesting and more interactive. Maybe allow people to be able to actually customize them to their personal liking too.