Re: I know my laptop can handle The Sims 4, but what it's estimated limit?
@xJaimerTheGamerx As long as your laptop can properly cool itself, it should be fine. At high settings, a single frame will take more resources to render, so your graphics chip will be able to render fewer frames per second; but lowering the settings will usually raise fps rather than decreasing the load on the GPU. (That is, as long as you don't manually limit your framerates to something lower than what the GPU can handle.) As long as a graphics card or chip isn't defective and isn't overheating, it should be able to run at 90-something percent core load for hours.
A fan being loud is not in itself a problem, it just means temps have increased enough that the fan needs to work harder. The fan might run at low speed when the CPU is below 50º, start revving up above that, and hit max around 80º; these settings will vary by manufacturer and can be tweaked in BIOS. You don't really need to worry about your the temperature of your processor (and by extension its graphics chip) until it gets into the 90s.
If you'd like to monitor internal temperatures and core load while you play, GPU-Z is a good tool. It's very simple to use, covers the most important stats, and doesn't take up many resources. Hwinfo captures everything, if you ever want to see all the sensor readings. Both tools show realtime stats and have a log function so you can review the data after the fact.
The base clock speed means the speed your processor runs at when under normal load (not idling), and the max boost clock is the max speed it can achieve if necessary. (The speed is really frequency, as in, how many cycles each core can complete per second.) Your CPU may run at or near its boost clock speed while you're playing, but that's normal—mine do the same, even without being anywhere near max load. This is fine, again as long as temps are controlled.
8 GB memory is fine for Sims 4. Since your graphics chip is borrowing from main memory, up to 2 GB if necessary, it's a good idea not to have much else open while you play. But the game shouldn't crash; it's just that switching between tasks takes a bit longer if your system is low on memory and is using its page file to store the overflow.
