Sims 3 on Surface Pro?
I am in the market for a new laptop for digital art before going to college and I am DONE with all the grief playing sims on a mac has put me through. Currently I’m looking at some surface pro models...
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@AnxietyCat220 When you say drawing and digital art, do you need a touchpad laptop or one with a screen on which you can use a stylus? That would narrow things down significantly, but there are still probably some decent options. (I haven't looked in that category in a while.) The software you'd want to install should run fine on any laptop capable of running Sims 3.
One with a nice stylus, touchscreen would just get in the way. I also have a drawing tablet that can connect to a computer via usb, but it’s less preferable to using a stylus directly on the screen. Anyways, I know sims 3 is not the best running of games so it’s not a dealbreaker if I can’t find a computer that can run it well, I’d be fine with low graphics XD
@AnxietyCat220 There aren't a lot of pen/stylus enabled laptops that also have a dedicated graphics card, and most are a bit more expensive than what you want to pay. I did find two that would work nicely though. They do both have touchscreens, which I think is pretty much a given for a laptop with stylus support, but you don't have to use the touchscreen itself.
The first option I found is this Acer, for $1,463:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0891RM7DM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
Its graphics card is capable of running all Sims 3 packs together on ultra settings, it has 16 GB memory, and its processor is quite powerful and should have no trouble handling whatever programs you'd like to use for digital art. It also has more than enough storage for most people, although if you have a number of large projects, you may end up needing to offload some of them to an external drive. Unlike most convertible laptops, it does have decent cooling, although perhaps not as effective as a true gaming laptop. This is an in-depth review, if you'd like more information:
https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/acer-conceptd-3-ezel
If you don't like that particular model, the Lenovo Yoga C940 is another good option. It has a 4k screen, although you wouldn't get good performance running Sims 3 in 4k, but it's easy enough to switch the in-game resolution to something more reasonable. (Besides, at 4k, everything in-game would probably be too tiny.) Best Buy offers a configuration that's the same as the one in the Acer except it has last year's version of the processor; while a little weaker than this year's version, you probably wouldn't notice a difference unless you were doing graphics rendering and timing the process.
This configuration is $1,300 from several third-party sellers on Amazon. It has an Nvidia 1050, which is significantly slower than a 1650 but still capable of running all Sims 3 packs together on ultra or a combination of high and ultra settings. Its processor is significantly weaker than the other two but should still handle your digital art software; where you'd notice slower performance would be in rendering and other processor-heavy tasks, not drawing or everyday use.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MQDPPM5/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3QR4864ATM9Z9&psc=1
There are other laptops with stylus support and an Nvidia MX-series graphics card, and they might be fine for Sims 3. But they only might be—some people play fine on medium-high settings, and some get frequent crashes and/or struggle to keep the laptop cool. This partly depends on which packs you install, for example rendering pets or inclement weather is demanding but not a problem if you don't install Pets or Seasons.
These laptops look to still cost around $1,100 and up, although I didn't do as thorough a search. If you'd like to see some of those options, let me know. But since your budget can accommodate a better graphics card, that's where I started.
And of course feel free to ask more questions.
wow, you really are a hero 😭😭 thank you so much!! I was not expecting such an in-depth response but you have been super helpful!!
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