Will This Computer Play The Sims 3?

Will a lenovo ideapad 130-15AST be able to play the sims 3? If so, why on the laptop does it not let me start a new game or load a saved game?

Also, what type of DirectX does the Sims 3 need

@540jmh12 - You may be able to run the TS3 base game (only, no EPs) on the lowest of graphics settings in Game Options for a while, but it won't be expected to run well and the game will tend to overwhelm laptops in that series. Not enough RAM, no dedicated graphics card, insufficient cooling. If you force such a laptop to run too hard, it can very well overheat on you and become permanently damaged. Price is not a good determining factor, but for the sake of comparison laptops that can run TS3 with all EPs start at $900 USD and go up from there. For base game and the early EPs we can cut some corners but the Ideapad is several classes below that and not designed for graphics intensive games.

TS3 runs on DX9. All installations of Win 10 have DX12, but the system is supposed to be backwards compatible.

@igazor Hello, I really need your help... Would this laptop run The Sims 3 with all expansion packs/stuff packs/store content (I only use all worlds and premium content sets/objects/venues) + Mods, CC and Custom Worlds at Ultra Settings properly? Thanks in advance

https://m.eprice.it/Portatili-ASUS-GL703GS-17-I7-16-1512-1070-WIN10-GL703GS-E5012T/d-11658641

"riccardouga;c-17078090" wrote:
@igazor Hello, I really need your help... Would this laptop run The Sims 3 with all expansion packs/stuff packs/store content (I only use all worlds and premium content sets/objects/venues) + Mods, CC and Custom Worlds at Ultra Settings properly? Thanks in advance

https://m.eprice.it/Portatili-ASUS-GL703GS-17-I7-16-1512-1070-WIN10-GL703GS-E5012T/d-11658641

It would be expected to run the entire game as well or better than any other laptop in its high-end class possibly can. Once we get past certain hardware barriers, what holds things back are the game's programming and how far we can realistically take a 32-bit application on any system.

The only thing that is making me twitch is the price. It's nice that it's "marked down" from €5070 to €2023 and while it's far more powerful than would ever be needed or useful for TS3 alone, that just seems like a really strange pricing strategy. I wouldn't have any way of knowing if this is really a reputable place to shop for computers in Italy. You had a thread going with @puzzlezaddict a few weeks ago where she was finding you some very suitable laptops that were just slightly more than half of that "discounted" price. Those suggestions did not end up being useful as starting points?

Sorry if that isn't entirely helpful, some stores here in the US do this as well. My pharmacy/drug store is reputable but they are always telling me that I am saving 40-50% on things that I buy there by comparing them to an inflated price that no one would ever pay unless their life depended on that exact brand of shampoo, cotton balls, or whatever. The difference is that they waste my time and make themselves look silly over a couple of dollars here and there, while when we talk about purchases like this the difference is in the thousands of dollars/euros. :/

"igazor;c-17078105" wrote:

"riccardouga;c-17078090" wrote:
@igazor Hello, I really need your help... Would this laptop run The Sims 3 with all expansion packs/stuff packs/store content (I only use all worlds and premium content sets/objects/venues) + Mods, CC and Custom Worlds at Ultra Settings properly? Thanks in advance

https://m.eprice.it/Portatili-ASUS-GL703GS-17-I7-16-1512-1070-WIN10-GL703GS-E5012T/d-11658641

It would be expected to run the entire game as well or better than any other laptop in its high-end class possibly can. Once we get past certain hardware barriers, what holds things back is the game's programming and how far we can realistically take a 32-bit application on any system.

The only thing that is making me twitch is the price. It's nice that it's "marked down" from €5070 to €2023 and while it's far more powerful than would ever be needed or useful for TS3 alone, that just seems like a really strange pricing strategy. I wouldn't have any way of knowing if this is really a reputable place to shop for computers in Italy. You had a thread going with @puzzlezaddict a few weeks ago where she was finding you some very suitable laptops that were just slightly more than half of that "discounted" price. Those suggestions did not end up being useful as starting points?

Sorry if that isn't entirely helpful, some stores here in the US do this as well. My pharmacy/drug store is reputable but they are always telling me that I am saving 40-50% on things that I buy there by comparing them to an inflated price that no one would ever pay unless their life depended on that exact brand of shampoo, cotton balls, or whatever. The difference is that they waste my time and make themselves look silly over a couple of dollars here and there, while when we talk about purchases like this the difference is in the thousands of dollars/euros. :/

@igazor In fact with a better Google research, the real price on the official Asus's website is € 2699:

https://www.asustore.it/notebook-asus/3034-notebook-asus-gaming-rog-strix-gl703gs-e5012t-notebook-asus-store-4712900973617.html

but there's also another price on the e-shop (even if it's Sold out there anyway) for € 1799...:

https://eshop.asus.com/it-IT/asus-notebook-rog-gl703gs-e5012t-windows-10-home-17-3-fhd-ips-144-hz-processore-intelr-coretm-i7-8750h-16gb-ram-1tb-hdd-512-ssd.html

My point is to buy this laptop either on Amazon or elsewhere for the cheapest price possible available here in Italy. @puzzlezaddict was very helpful and kind, but last month I had several financial problems in my family and I ending up to delay this purchase. Also she had suggest to me to buy a custom laptop but I really don't like that solution (for warranty/longevity reasons). I really don't know what to do... the prices are very discontinued and inconsistent at the same time and I have fear about this situation.?

Could you please tell me if it's worth for this price(cheapest in Italy)?

https://www.market2go.it/it/notebook/958491-gl703gs-e5012t-ci7-8750h-4712900973617.html

I was not aware that there are warranty and longevity issues with custom builds. To clarify, this is where we select the components/parts we want and the company we are purchasing from assembles the system for us prior to shipping it out, after checking to make sure what we selected will actually work well together. Companies like CyberPowerPC and iBuyPower offer the same or similar warranties and extended warranty for purchase programs that the major manufacturers do (well, Apple's extended warranty system may be better than the others but that's not really relevant here). If they didn't, then no one would order computers this way and they would have gone out of business. If we are talking about many, many years down the road, there isn't generally much or any support available for older machines once they begin to pass into what will by then be obsolescence.

Again to clarify this is not the scenario where one purchases boxes full of parts and tries to assemble a computer on their own. In that case, of course there is generally no warranty program or customer support unless the components arrived broken upon shipment because there is no company to stand behind the build.

But anyway, that last one you linked to looks fine and the price is a couple of hundred euros under the same model showing (for me) at Amazon.it. I don't know if I am seeing the same prices you are across the board because I am not actually in Italy, so comparison shopping from this end is difficult. And again I was put off by the supposed original price on that eprice site because it made me lose confidence in anything else the vendor might have had to say.


Edit: I also don't understand why you are insisting on a GTX 1070 for a graphics card. I mean, that's fine too but it has more GPU power than TS3 can possibly use and the 1070 must be driving the final price up higher than a 1060 or some of the newer 1600 series cards would. The game cannot make use of more than 800 MB of vram (video ram), which by today's standards isn't really all that much. But if you might have other uses in mind for this computer in the future, then that would explain the preference.

"igazor;c-17078791" wrote:
I was not aware that there are warranty and longevity issues with custom builds. To clarify, this is where we select the components/parts we want and the company we are purchasing from assembles the system for us prior to shipping it out, after checking to make sure what we selected will actually work well together. Companies like CyberPowerPC and iBuyPower offer the same or similar warranties and extended warranty for purchase programs that the major manufacturers do (well, Apple's extended warranty system may be better than the others but that's not really relevant here). If they didn't, then no one would order computers this way and they would have gone out of business. If we are talking about many, many years down the road, there isn't generally much or any support available for older machines once they begin to pass into what will by then be obsolescence.

Again to clarify this is not the scenario where one purchases boxes full of parts and tries to assemble a computer on their own. In that case, of course there is generally no warranty program or customer support unless the components arrived broken upon shipment because there is no company to stand behind the build.

But anyway, that last one you linked to looks fine and the price is a couple of hundred euros under the same model showing (for me) at Amazon.it. I don't know if I am seeing the same prices you are across the board because I am not actually in Italy, so comparison shopping from this end is difficult. And again I was put off by the supposed original price on that eprice site because it made me lose confidence in anything else the vendor might have had to say.


Edit: I also don't understand why you are insisting on a GTX 1070 for a graphics card. I mean, that's fine too but it has more GPU power than TS3 can possibly use and the 1070 must be driving the final price up higher than a 1060 or some of the newer 1600 series cards would. The game cannot make use of more than 800 MB of vram (video ram), which by today's standards isn't really all that much. But if you might have other uses in mind for this computer in the future, then that would explain the preference.

@igazor I want to make this sacrifice because I really love this game and the entire franchise. Also someone in the forums says that The Sims 4 will need a much more stronger graphic card in the near future (the upcoming update that will stop to support 32 bit systems is an important sign). I want to install every itineration of the series on this laptop on the 512gb SSD, from The Sims 1 onwards... I don't want to be silly, but I'm really confident about a possible Sims 5 and all the requirements that might came in a game of the new decade (2020-2030). I know that is a very expensive laptop but until now I always had wrong and inappropriate mid-range laptops to gaming on (risking to broking them and frying) so... What do you think about my concerns? I am too much exagerating, or is this a smart move?

Not that you need my approval (or anyone else's), but yes it sounds like you have thought this over properly and you are able to justify the added expense of a stronger GPU than TS3 in particular can really take advantage of. At the very least you won't have to keep asking yourself if something you are running might be running better on a 1070 if only you had one.

I will add though that future-proofing a laptop at the time of purchase only makes sense in a limited way. The average expected lifespan of a laptop, depending on usage patterns and whether it is mostly stationary or gets moved/carried around a lot, is 3-5 years. Some will of course get longer usage out of theirs, but we can't really plan for further ahead than that. Hardware does not improve with age, actually it begins to degrade (albeit so slowly in the beginning that we can't see it) from the first time we switch the thing on. So while TS3 is a known constant we can plan for now, and we can guess more or less what TS4 is going to do over the next 2-3 years, we can't really say with any degree of certainty that a device we acquire now will still be running let alone suitable for a game/product that won't be released until five or more years down the road.

Desktops generally last longer than laptops, but the potential for future obsolescence if not mechanical failure is still there and pretty much the same.

"igazor;c-17078955" wrote:
Not that you need my approval (or anyone else's), but yes it sounds like you have thought this over properly and you are able to justify the added expense of a stronger GPU than TS3 in particular can really take advantage of. At the very least you won't have to keep asking yourself if something you are running might be running better on a 1070 if only you had one.

I will add though that future-proofing a laptop at the time of purchase only makes sense in a limited way. The average expected lifespan of a laptop, depending on usage patterns and whether it is mostly stationary or gets moved/carried around a lot, is 3-5 years. Some will of course get longer usage out of theirs, but we can't really plan for further ahead than that. Hardware does not improve with age, actually it begins to degrade (albeit so slowly in the beginning that we can't see it) from the first time we switch the thing on. So while TS3 is a known constant we can plan for now, and we can guess more or less what TS4 is going to do over the next 2-3 years, we can't really say with any degree of certainty that a device we acquire now will still be running let alone suitable for a game/product that won't be released until five or more years down the road.

Desktops generally last longer than laptops, but the potential for future obsolescence if not mechanical failure is still there and pretty much the same.

@igazor It's not the need of approval (in general), if I'm talking specifically with you is because I admire your intelligence, knowledge and experience about computers. Unfortunately obsolescene is something that everyone will suffer over the time and I'm perfectly aware of the risks. If anything goes wrong in these years (after the expired warranty) I will defintely stop buying laptos and start to use a desktop instead (at least I can change a particular component if something would stop working proplerly)... I'm obsessed with laptops because I find them more versatile and comfortable ?