Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

@bellalala93  You can get an excellent laptop for Sims games, and in general, for £1,200 or less, or even under £1,000 depending on your preferences.  In your price range, the best graphics card is an Nvidia 1660 ti.  It's overkill for both Sims games, but running Sims 4 on ultra graphics settings may require more power than the next cards down (an Nvidia 1650 or an AMD 5500M) in a year or so, depending on how demanding future expansions turn out to be.  The next card up, an Nvidia 2060, is only a bit faster, but it's usually significantly more expensive.

If you're willing to wait a month or so, this HP is a great option.  It's available for pre-order on a few different sites; the lowest I saw was £950.  In addition to a 1660 ti, it has 16 GB memory; a 512 GB solid state drive, which is more than enough for both Sims games and all the custom content you could download; and a processor that's more powerful than either game could ever possibly use.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/hp-pavillion-15-ec1009na-nvidia-gtx-1660-ti-16gb-15.6-fhd-amd-ryzen-7-4800h-gaming-laptop-lt-04y-hp.html

If you'd rather buy right now, there are still plenty of good options.  This Lenovo is also £950.  While its processor is weaker than the one in the HP, it's still more than fine for Sims games.  The laptop has only 8 GB RAM, which, while technically enough for either game, is less than ideal if you like to multitask.  But you could add another 8 GB for probably £50, and I believe without breaking the warranty.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lenovo-legion-5i-nvidia-gtx-1660-ti-8gb-15.6-fhd-ips-144hz-intel-i5-10300h-gaming-laptop-lt-013-lv.html

https://www.box.co.uk/81Y6005SUK-Lenovo-Legion-5i-15_2938435.html

Interestingly, you could get the same laptop except with an Nvidia 2060 for £1,000.  You'd never need the upgrade for Sims games, but if you're thinking of playing other very new games at some point, the 2060 may be the better choice.

https://www.box.co.uk/81Y600DLUK-Lenovo-Legion-5i-15_2953873.html

This Asus is £1,000 with the same specs as the HP you could pre-order, except for the (easily upgradable) 8 GB RAM.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-tuf-blue-a15-15-6-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-7-gtx-1660-ti-512-gb-ssd-10205355-pdt.html

Another option with a 2060 is this HP, at £1,100 for pre-order or £1,150 now.  It has 16 GB memory and otherwise the same specs as the Lenovo.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/hp-pavillion-15-dk1024na-nvidia-rtx-2060-16gb-15.6-144hz-fhd-intel-i5-10300h-gaming-laptop-lt-04z-hp.html

https://www.box.co.uk/1L6F0EAABU-HP-Pavilion-Gaming-15-dk1024na_2958257.html

There are a number of other gaming laptops in the £1,000 range, all fine but not as highly rated as the ones I listed.  The one other noteworthy model is the Acer Nitro 5, which has the best battery life of the laptops in this class.  Battery life is never going to be great with a gaming laptop, since the hardware draws a lot of power and people should always play with the laptop plugged in anyway, but if you want a model that does better than its competitors, the Nitro 5 is a good option, in either the 15" or 17" chassis.  This one also has the best gaming processor of any I've listed here, if that matters to you.

https://www.box.co.uk/NH.Q7PEK.002-Acer-Nitro-5-AN515-55-764B_2934864.html

https://www.box.co.uk/NH.Q8JEK.001-Acer-Nitro-5-AN517-52-75Z3_2934867.html

If you're curious what £1,200 would get you, this is a high quality laptop, with excellent performance for its hardware.  (You definitely don't need to spend that money on an upper-tier model; I'm just including it for comparison's sake.)  Gigabyte laptops get the most out of their components in terms of game and application performance, and they have excellent cooling too.  This particular one doesn't have a great battery life though, and you may not want a 17" screen.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/gigabyte-aorus-7-nvidia-gtx-1660-ti-16gb-17.3-ips-144hz-i7-9750h-gaming-laptop-lt-0a6-gi.html

I know this is a lot of information, but given your budget, you can get a laptop that does really well in the categories that matter to you.  If you have more questions about any of this, please feel free to ask.

@bellalala93  That's strange, all the links are working for me.  But anyway, in order:

Overclockers: HP Pavilion 15-EC1009NA (1660 ti, 16 GB, 4800H)

Overclockers: Lenovo Legion 5i 15IMH05H (1660 ti, 8 GB, 10300H)

Box: Lenovo Legion 5i 15 81Y6005SUK (same as above, now £900)

Box: Lenovo Legion 5i 15 81Y600DLUK (2060, 8 GB, 10300H)

Currys: Asus Tuf Blue A15 550340 (1660 ti, 8 GB, 4800H)

Overclockers: HP Pavilion 15-dk1024na (2060, 16 GB, 10300H)

Box: HP Pavilion 1L6F0EA#ABU (same as above)

Box: Acer Nitro 5 NH.Q7PEK.002 (1660 ti, 8 GB, 10750H)

Box: Acer Nitro 5 NH.Q8JEK.001 (same as above, 17" screen)

Overclockers: Gigabyte Aorus 7 SA-7UK1131SH (1660 ti, 16 GB, 9750H)

If you're having trouble finding the specific laptops, each of these sites allows you to search by graphics card, and then you can sort by price and look for the model that matches.

@puzzlezaddictSorry again I've found this one too https://www.ebuyer.com/960410-asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-ryzen-5-8gb-512gb-ssd-gtx-1650-14-ga401ih-bm057t?wgu=267255_162949_15987086232804_37acd338ff&wgexpiry=1606484623&utm_source=webgains&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=60869&utm_campaign=Future%20Publishing%20Ltd_162949 how would this be? Should I be looking specifically for a GTX or is rtx good also? I'm specifically wanting to be able to do work on it too which I failed to mention before and someone listed this as good at multitasking. I don't play Sims all the time like most I'll go a day playing a few hours then might not play for a few days but when I do play I use all expansions and packs 

@bellalala93  The one you linked has an Nvidia 1650, as opposed to the 1660 ti in most of the laptops I linked.  A 1660 ti is 40-50% faster for gaming than a 1650, and your budget can accomodate one easily, so why not go for the extra power?  So I'd skip the one you linked and go with something else.

For multitasking in general, all you really need is 16 GB memory, since the processor in any new gaming laptop will be strong enough to handle a number of tasks simultaneously.  And you can upgrade the RAM in any gaming laptop easily enough, so it's not a big deal to get a model with 8 GB, especially if it has everything else you want and is a lot cheaper than the alternatives.  If you're planning on doing graphic design or something else demanding though, the equation changes.

Do you get discounts for anything from PC World, or just Dells and Acers?  I did look at Currys too, but the options I saw weren't as good for the price as on other sites.  On the other hand, a big discount makes it worth a second look, and there are definitely some laptops worth considering there.  Please let me know whether it has to be a Dell or Acer though.

Acers are generally fine but not as highly rated as other gaming laptops, although there are exceptions, and some Acers have benefits like excellent battery life that may matter to you.  Dell makes quality products but is not as highly rated on application and gaming performance when you consider the strength of the internal components.  On the other hand, if you're getting a 1660 ti, you won't need its power to be maxed out, or even close, so shaving a couple percentage points of performance off the top may not matter at all to you.

And what do you want to know about desktops?  What I said about laptops and multitasking applies to them too, although there are also non-gaming desktops where other hardware needs to be considered.

@bellalala93  You don't "definitely" need a 1660 ti, it just might be nice to have, especially if future Sims 4 expansions are more demanding than current ones.  £900 could still probably get you a 1660 ti, especially if you factor in a discount.  Let me know what you're looking for, and whether you'd like any help picking something out, laptop or desktop.

@bellalala93  That's an excellent laptop, and highly rated for its hardware.  It's also one of the only gaming laptops that's small and lightweight enough to not feel like a gaming laptop when you're carrying it around.  I'm glad you found it, especially with a discount; it's usually £1,000-1,100 without one.

I doubt you'll be unhappy with it unless there's something mechanically wrong with it (always a possibility, but not common), but if you have any issues playing, you know where to find us.  Otherwise, enjoy your game.

@bellalala93  The difference is a few percentage points of performance, on average, although it does depend somewhat on the game.  I've seen the gap reported as between 5% and 10% overall, but for individual games, the readings can vary widely, probably due to other factors and some random noise.  So in general, if someone is looking for a laptop for Sims 4 and can pay an extra £50 or so, it's probably worth getting the ti version.  It's probably not worth £150, as the price gap sometimes seems to be.

It's also worth mentioning that a laptop with a regular 1650 that gets the most out of its hardware (as measured in the benchmarking section of reviews) can close most of that performance gap.  And overheating will throttle any hardware.  So it's not necessarily worth getting the cheapest model with a 1650 ti over a better one with a 1650.

@bellalala93  Putting aside mechanical issues that you can't control (and this is what a warranty is for), the factors that wear down a laptop are excess heat, (possibly) a graphics card throwing excessively high framerates, physical damage from dropping or banging the laptop, and time.  You can't do anything about the time factor, but without any other problems, you'll likely be ready for a new laptop before this one stops working.  And of course you're going to be careful not to drop it.

Your graphics card can handle a high workload in terms of the overall load on the card, but high framerates (the number of frames generated per second) aren't great for any card.  The simplest way to prevent this, although I'm not sure you need to in Sims 4, is to enable vertical sync in the in-game graphics settings.  This limits fps to the refresh rate of your monitor.  If that setting doesn't work, or you'd prefer to play in windowed mode, there are other approaches as well.

In any case, you can see the in-game framerates by opening the cheats console (ctrl-shift-C) and entering "fps on" without quotes.  A number will appear in the lower left corner, and it should never go above the refresh rate of your screen, which is probably 60 Hz but might be 120.  If you're getting anything lower than that, you don't need to worry about high fps for its own sake—it's only much higher numbers that are a problem in and of themselves.

Excessive heat is the other issue, and it can take some work to manage on a laptop.  Limiting fps helps, since it reduces the load on the graphics card.  It's also best to play with the laptop resting on a hard surface (like a desk) or a laptop tray, so it can properly cool itself.  Playing while sitting in bed with the laptop resting on the covers is a recipe for disaster.

If you're interested in monitoring temperatures more closely, there are plenty of free apps out there to help.  GPU-Z and CPU-Z are lightweight and display temps and workloads for the graphics card and processor, respectively.  Hwinfo monitors everything, as in pretty much every sensor it can find.  It's easy enough to install an app or two and alt-tab to them while you're playing, so you get a sense of over all temps.  Your processor is fine up to 100º C, although anything above 90º means you should start thinking about better cooling.  Your graphics card will heavily throttle performance above 80º C, although here again it's not damaging the card, just hurting performance.

As far as COD goes, the same principles apply: don't let the laptop overheat or generate wildly high framerates.  How well the laptop would handle it depends on the version you want to play.

If you have questions about anything specific, please feel free to ask.

@bellalala93  The fan modes are so you can select the profile that works best for you.  Silent is the quietest (slowest) they can run, performance means maximum cooling power but also more noise, and I think Windows may mean "let Windows decide," although I'd need to look to be sure.  I'd always go with "performance" while gaming, but then I always use headphones and wouldn't mind the noise.  If your CPU and GPU aren't overheating while you play, whatever mode you're using is working fine.

For Sims 4 at least, I'd start by disabling all the special graphics settings, then add one or two at a time if I wanted some specific feature that wasn't there.  These modes were made for newer games and don't always play well with older ones, even ones like Sims 4 that are still in development—the game engine is the same as it was in 2014, and it uses the same older runtimes and other resources.

Actually, I personally would probably uninstall the software entirely, or at least kill it in the Task Manager and see whether my games ran better without it.  Most laptops come with additional unnecessary software pre-installed; whether you view it as "bloatware" or not depends on whether you can make use of the features.  Regardless, it's best to judge game performance first with nothing else running in the background, then add back features you might want and see whether there's a difference.

It might also be worth trying to play with Windows's Game Mode and Game Bar disabled.  You can find them both under Settings > Gaming.

@bellalala93  By special graphics settings, I meant the ones that you referred to when you said "Then game visual theres so many graphics modes too."  I don't have an Asus laptop, so I don't really know what options its software offers.  Even if you want to use ArmouryCrate in general, it's still better ot test the game without it running, and then with it running and on all default settings for Sims 3, to get a baseline.  That just means if there's a profile within the app for Sims 3 (or TS3.exe), go through that profile and disable all the settings that Asus suggests you might want to use.  If you've already done that, you don't need to do anything else.

Your laptop is capable of running Sims 4 on ultra settings, so feel free to max out all the options and see how it runs.  For COD, I don't really know, but if the game feels choppy at the settings you pick, turn them down and see how it goes.

As far as temperatures go, your CPU can and may reach 90º C without being a problem.  Above that, and it's time to think about better cooling, e.g. a cooling pad or a fan pointed at the laptop while you play.  Above 80º, the graphics card will throttle performance to protect itself, so while a temperature that high isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself (unless it's much higher, like 90º), performance will suffer significantly over 80º.  If your GPU is constantly running that hot, better cooling is definitely a good idea.

The other thing that can help a lot with less demanding games is enabling vertical sync in game settings.  That will limit in-game framerates to the refresh rate of your screen, so the graphics card isn't working harder than necessary.  (The screen won't display more frames per second than its refresh rate, so anything over that is just noise.)

If an older game doesn't have an fps limiter or an option for vertical sync, or it doesn't work (e.g. Sims 3), you can get around this by setting a max frame rate in the Nvidia Control Panel.  Right-click on the desktop, select the CP, then Manage 3D Settings, and under Global Settings, there will be a Max Frame Rate you can enable and set to whatever you want, but again it should be no higher than the refresh rate of your screen.

A lower workload means less heat and less stress on your GPU, although it can certainly handle a high load.  But the combination of a high load and very high framerates is not good for a GPU, so if you're playing a game where fps is well into the hundreds, you'll want to limit it somehow.  There are plenty of ways to do so; how to see in-game fps depends on the game and the game launcher that you're using.  For example, the cheat fps on works in both Sims 3 and Sims 4, and Origin can be set to display fps in whatever corner you want, though the Origin in-game interface.