Slowness and Lagging

Hi there,

First time user and posting and hope I'm posting in the right section. I've downloaded the sims 3 collection and installed correctly. My game is working BUT its so slow.. as in takes 3-4 hours (in sim time) for my sims to respond to what I've told it to do. 
I've tried to follow some of the other suggestions in other posts but I'm coming across a problem. I cannot find a DDcache folder in my sims 3 files..
i'm using windows 10 
Please help I would love to play my game properly.

Other than your OS being Windows 10, what are your system specs? CPU? RAM? GPU?

The DCCache folder is in your Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 folder. If your not seeing it then you can try forcing the game to recreate the entire Sims 3 folder by renaming the base folder to something like The Sims 3 Old and relaunching the game.

Also make sure to turn off any unnecessary background apps/programs as the full install of the Sims 3 needs as much free memory and CPU space as it can get to run smoothly.

I am running a AMD Athlon II P320 Dual- core processor, 4.00gb of ram and 64-bit operating system. 

I have the 4gb patch attached to the game as well.

I tried renaming the base folder but it comes back as " Unable to start the game, Your The Sims 3 base Game is incompatible with the current sims 3 expansion pack. please update your game via the game launcher.
I go to the Launcher and it tells me to reinstall the game  

I've got to be doing something wrong

In your case, since you only have 4GB of RAM total, the 4GB patch is causing more harm than good.  I've never tried it but you may be able to uninstall the 4gb patch and then try loading the game. If this doesn't work then you will need to uninstall and reinstall the game.

The 4GB patch should only be used if you have more than 4GB of RAM installed as the OS needs a portion of that memory to operate. With Windows 10 the 4GB patch causes the game to crash if you don't have at least 6GB of RAM installed.