Buying a gaming laptop ?

Hi everyone, sorry again. In the end I bought the laptop with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 video card, but as soon as I installed the base game and started the game, on the home screen (the one where you can choose the cities to start the game or families, to understand each other) a message appeared to me: “Your video card was not found in our database. Your graphics settings have been set to the highest possible level, but you can reduce them if the game's performance is unsatisfactory. "
How can I make sure that my video card is recognized?

@Kylieb191 That laptop would run Sims 3 on a mix of high and ultra graphics settings. I'm not sure you could do better for the price—I've looked recently for laptops in the U.K., and I haven't seen anything with an Nvidia 1650 for under £750 in the last few weeks, other than a couple of models that are now sold out. I did just see one with a 1050 ti for £700:

https://www.box.co.uk/8PL55EAABU-HP-Pavilion-Gaming-15-cx0019na_2891397.html

The 1050 ti averages about 20% faster in games, although it varies a lot depending on the game. But you'd certainly be able to play with all packs installed with the non-ti card, and I don't know whether it's worth the extra £50 to you to go from high/ultra to ultra settings (minus the two settings, water and high-detail lots, that should be turned down regardless for the sake of not overworking the game engine).

If you'd like more options, I'd be happy to do a more thorough search. Just let me know how much you're willing to spend, and what other details matter to you, e.g. storage, screen size, that kind of thing.

Edit: I just saw this one for £700. It has an Nvidia 1650, which is significantly faster than a 1050 ti, plus a much larger solid state drive.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-tuf-fx505dt-15-6-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-gtx-1650-512-gb-ssd-10200640-pdt.html

@martinaaa998 The message about your card not being recognized is normal. The game's database hasn't been updated since 2013, so any newer card won't have an entry. It's not even really necessary to add yours to the database if you'd rather not mess around with the files—you can manually change your graphics settings to whatever you want.

If you would like to get your card recognized though, please go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3, open the file labeled deviceconfig.log, copy the lines between "Graphics device info" (about 25 lines down) and "Options" (about 40 lines down), and paste it into a post here.

It's much more important to manually limit your in-game framerates though. Have you checked fps yet? If you're having trouble capping it through the Nvidia Control Panel, there are other approaches you can use instead. Unlike the unrecognized graphics card, uncapped fps is an issue that needs to be addressed, preferably sooner rather than later.

Also, don't ever be sorry for asking questions. That's why there are forums, so people can ask rather than having to work everything out for themselves. And most of us who answer enjoy it very much.

@

"puzzlezaddict;c-17502643" wrote:
@Kylieb191 That laptop would run Sims 3 on a mix of high and ultra graphics settings. I'm not sure you could do better for the price—I've looked recently for laptops in the U.K., and I haven't seen anything with an Nvidia 1650 for under £750 in the last few weeks, other than a couple of models that are now sold out. I did just see one with a 1050 ti for £700:

https://www.box.co.uk/8PL55EAABU-HP-Pavilion-Gaming-15-cx0019na_2891397.html

The 1050 ti averages about 20% faster in games, although it varies a lot depending on the game. But you'd certainly be able to play with all packs installed with the non-ti card, and I don't know whether it's worth the extra £50 to you to go from high/ultra to ultra settings (minus the two settings, water and high-detail lots, that should be turned down regardless for the sake of not overworking the game engine).

If you'd like more options, I'd be happy to do a more thorough search. Just let me know how much you're willing to spend, and what other details matter to you, e.g. storage, screen size, that kind of thing.

Edit: I just saw this one for £700. It has an Nvidia 1650, which is significantly faster than a 1050 ti, plus a much larger solid state drive.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-tuf-fx505dt-15-6-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-gtx-1650-512-gb-ssd-10200640-pdt.html

@puzzlezaddict thank you for that, the one you edited looks really good, i've bought asus before but a cheaper one and had no ends of problems but might be willing to try it out again.

Hello everyone, sorry to jump in but I need some help/advice! I have a 7yr old macbook that means I can now only play legacy edition- I really want to be able to get Discover Uni and Eco Lifestyle so am looking at new laptops but don't have a clue where to start! I'm not a "gamer", I only play sims and I'm a student but want one that will be able to play all the packs and last a long while. Any recommendations would be amazing, so many seem to be out of stock atm too which doesn't help (I'm in UK) thank you in advance

@beilidh - I'm afraid this is the TS3 area of the forum. The packs you mention indicate that you wish to play TS4 and the requirements of the two games are not exactly the same. The TS4 tech forum boards here were locked down to read-only last year and it is suggested that players post there questions on AHQ instead. There are no member vs. non-member requirements for posting there as it is strictly a help forum.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4/ct-p/the-sims-4-en