Need help for laptop specs
Im thinking about buying a laptop only for playing Sims 4. My MacBook runs it okay with low settings, but I wanna be able to put the graphics high, and still be able to have packs and cc without lag....
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@amessysimmer None of those are ideal, to be honest, even for a used laptop. The 950M is the fastest graphics card by a wide margin, and in this category, that could mean the difference between high and medium settings. But a single 111 GB hard drive isn't really enough space for even just Sims 4 (and Windows), unless you plan on never adding much custom content and storing all other data, even screenshots, elsewhere. Even then, it would be cutting things close, especially as more packs are added. And while you could run the game from an external drive, that would slow it down considerably.
If you'd like me to look for other options, just let me know your budget and country, and the site(s) where you're comfortable buying. If you'd prefer to keep looking yourself, the best place to start is with the graphics card:
1050 ti > 1050 > 960M > 950M
Hopefully you won't have to go lower than a 950M though. Another thing to keep in mind is the age of the laptop. You can get a good sense of it by the processor—Intel names its models based on the year they were released, so for example an i5-4xxx was released between the end of 2013 and the end of 2014. Newer is better in that laptops wear out eventually, but it's still not as important as the speed of the graphics card.
After the graphics card, you just need to make sure you have enough storage and RAM (8 GB is fine, less could be a problem). A solid state drive (SSD) will run the game faster than a mechanical drive (HDD), but it's not critical to have one. The more important thing is that you're not going to run out of space with just Windows and Sims 4.
Thank you for your explanation! So are you saying the 950M would be able to run the game on high settings? Cause then I could upgrade the storage if it’s not too expensive..
I don’t know if it’s too complicated for you to search, as it looks like all new laptops are way than my budget..I was also wondering, does more packs installed, need better graphic card? Or will it be able to run the same quality no matter number of packs?
I just found another which may sound better, let me know what you think
Hp 15.6”
I5-8300TH 2.3GHz
NVIDIA gtx 1050
8GB DDR4 RAM
1TB Hard drive
Windows 10
@amessysimmer This last one should run the game on a mix of high and ultra graphics settings. An Nvidia 1050 is significantly faster than a 950M, and until recently, it could run all packs together on ultra settings. So if you don't have all the packs, you may still be able to play on ultra. The only drawback of this laptop is its mechanical hard drive, but that just means slower loading; the game would run fine once loaded, and so would other apps.
In general, the more expansion packs you add, the more demanding Sims 4 becomes. It's not linear though: the oldest three EPs are less demanding than the newer ones, and the load isn't always even. For example, the effect of the Seasons pack depends in large part on the weather in-game. Stuff packs are not demanding, and neither are most game packs, with the exception of Realm of Magic. (I don't know about the Star Wars pack.) Overall though, you can expect the EPs starting with Cats & Dogs to add a significant load, and everything else to have a smaller effect.
If you can get a laptop wtih an i5-8300H and an Nvidia 1050 though, you really don't have to worry too much, provided the laptop itself is in good condition. This is the kind of laptop we'd been recommending to people on a budget until recently, when new models became hard to find as they were phased out in favor of the newer generation.
Thank you so much for your help! I’m gonna buy the last one then, but gonna let the thread be open in case its gonna be sold to another.
In case I wanna have better loading time, would it then make sense to upgrade the hard drive to ssd?
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