Laptop help

So I can tell you my personal specs if you are just interested, but they are higher than you need and will run you more otherwise. Considering the shortages and scalping on electronic stuff lately, you generally want to go for something with widely available parts to not fool with all that. Unless of course you have a reason otherwise.

Maxis posted these system requirements on their Steam pages for 3 and 4:

For 3
OS: Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
Processor: (XP) 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent; (Vista) 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
Memory: (XP) 1 GB; (Vista) 1.5 GB
Graphics: 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
DirectX®:
Hard Drive: At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
Sound:
Built-in Graphics:
Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA X3000 or above.
2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
0.5 GB additional RAM
Supported Video Cards:Nvidia GeForce series: FX5900 or greater, G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150, GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 275, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295; ATI Radeon™ series: ATI Radeon 9500 series of greater, X300, X600, X700, X800, X850, X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950, 2400, 2600, 2900, 3450, 3650, 3850, 3870, 4850, 4870 series or greater; Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA): GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series
*Please note that the GeForce 6100 and 7100 cards are not supported

And for 4 (Minimum first and then recommended)
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: 64 Bit Required. Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10
Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent)
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better
DirectX: Version 9.0
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 17 GB available space

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: 64 Bit Windows 7 (SP1), 8, 8.1, or 10
Processor: Intel core i5 or faster, AMD Athlon X4
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 650 or better
DirectX: Version 9.0
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 18 GB available space

I also personally recommend everyone have at least 1TB of space. That is where I spent most of my money when I upgraded in January, on a 4 TB SSD. You can get away with less, but you will not want to if you do anything other than play the Sims (and the more packs, mods, and store content the less wiggle room).

How much you go above this depends on you. It is all pretty old, so most things should at least run the games, but it is really a question of how well. Mine runs them perfectly well, but I have seen some others struggle. It wouldn't hurt to browse a few of these similar threads. It also does not hurt to consider future proofing by getting a machine with better specs in the hopes of it running Sims 5 when it eventually drops. All up to you.

Like most gaming and software manufacturers provide, the minimum specs are dated and do not take the Expansion Packs into account (nor Win 10 in the case of TS3 which itself uses a lot more resources than XP and Vista ever did).

I am by no means a master of computer shopping, but when it comes to specs I would strongly advise something that has at least the following:

-- 2.4 GHz or higher processor (avoid the U- and Y-series Intels as they are meant to conserve power, not deliver graphics intensive games even by 2009 standards); quad core or better.

-- At least 6 GB of RAM, 8 GB or higher would be better. TS3 is 32-bit and can only use up to just under 4 GB of that (TS4 can call for more), but you need enough to service Windows and perhaps open a web browser or some other app comfortably alongside of the game even if only occasionally. If you start out with 8 GB and feel you need more, it's usually simple enough to later upgrade to 16 GB but many systems do ship with 16+ GB already these days.

-- Graphics card should be dedicated, not integrated, and "strong enough," going by Nivida's historical numbering systems that means a "5" or higher in the middle digits -- e.g., GTX 950/960+, 1050/1060+, 1660...etc. Which series are actually available now in off the shelf laptops (and desktops) will of course limit one's choices, but examples of "not strong enough" would be MX 130s (roughly equivalent to the 1030, middle digit "3"). AMD has their own numbering systems, of course, so sometimes we have dig a little deeper into the GPU specs to find what they are equivalent to. Yet stronger graphics cards than that will of course also be okay even if they are overkill, but while those would future-proof the system for other games and those not yet released, they will also tend to drive the price tags way up.

-- The need for huge hard drives will vary by user; some will get by just fine for years on a 512 GB SSD, others will require more space or a second drive to manage things other than the two games ongoing. And many of us never use our laptops to hold onto much data anyway as we keep it all on desktops or shared external file servers (or the cloud), but anything 256 GB or smaller can lead to stressful "not enough space" types of situations a lot of the time again depending on user expectations.

Thank you both so much! This is exactly what I needed! I will study everything in depth tomorrow when my brain can understand it better ?

@Calico45 what are your personal specs?

I currently have a custom Sager with Intel i7-10700K CPU 3.80 GHz, Nvidia 2060 graphics card, 32 GB RAM, and a 4 TB Sabrent Rocket SSD.

My specs are: AMD Ryzen 5 4600H, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and 512 GB SSD drive. TS3 with all EPs runs really smoothly