Re: Affordable PC Options for optical gaming of Sims 4
Hey @puzzlezaddict
I am also looking for an affordable PC, laptop or PC handheld that can keep up with Sim 4 and its Mods. Would you be able to help me with that?
Forum Discussion
4 Replies
@ZoeNicole1226 Sure, just list your budget and country as well as any other details that matter to you. Please also let me know whether you'd prefer a laptop or desktop, or you truly don't care.
I wouldn't recommend a handheld gaming PC for Sims 4, at least not now. Some of them are reasonably powerful, but the screen size is inconvenient at best for a Sims game, and the ones that run versions of Linux can have problems with the EA App.
Hey Thanks!
Was thinking the OLED Steamdeck, for on the go, just cause sometimes i can't wait until i get home I don't mind the smaller screen.
Here are some links to laptops i found on sale at amazon today, and I'm in the U>S looking to stay under $500.
@ZoeNicole1226 Absolutely cross off the third (Lenovo V15), which is at least a tier below any of the others. In your price range, I'd skip the first (Vivobook Go), fourth (Ideapad 1), and last (Aspire 3), because they all have only 8 GB RAM, although the Ideapad 1 is the best among them in terms of performance in Sims 4. That leaves the one true gaming laptop (the TUF) and the $450 Vivobook.
The TUF should be able to run all current Sims 4 content on ultra graphics settings, or maybe a mix of high and ultra, depending on your play style and what type of custom content you use, if any. The Vivobook should handle medium-high to high settings. For comparison's sake, a Steam Deck would perform somewhat better than Vivobook, but not at the level of a gaming laptop, if you ran the game at the same resolution; at the Deck's lower 1280x800 resolution, you might be able to manage ultra settings.
Even though the TUF has only 8 GB RAM, it's not nearly the problem on a gaming laptop because the discrete graphics card has its own video memory. That means it doesn't need to borrow from main memory until it's exhausted its VRAM, which Sims 4 can't do at these resolutions. So the 8 GB installed is actually 8 GB available when playing, unlike the ~6 GB you'd have on an 8 GB laptop with only integrated graphics. Additionally, the RAM in most gaming laptops can be upgraded easily enough, and RAM is cheap.
If you're looking for something on the cheaper side, these would be a bit faster than the Vivobook and about equal to each other:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/5262667268
And this is a cheaper gaming laptop that's much faster than the TUF:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/5395277312
If you like the TUF in general, this model is cheaper and has a significantly faster graphics card, on par with the RTX 4050 in the Victus above; and 16 GB RAM as well. It's only on sale for another day though.
If you decide the Steam Deck is right for you, for portability or whatever other reasons, that's totally reasonable. Just understand that while its performance on its own small screen is quite good, you'd lose a lot relative to a gaming laptop if you plugged it into a standalone 1080p (or higher) monitor. That may or may not bother you; it's just something to consider when you're reading about how well the Deck runs more modern games.
THANK YOU!!! So much for this!!!
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