Re: Best All-in-1 computer for Sims 4

@DenisevdWoude92  Both systems I linked can run all current Sims 4 content, plus mods, custom content, Reshade, or anything else you care to add, on ultra graphics settings.  The minimum for ultra settings with a vanilla game (no mods or cc or other added content) right now is around a desktop 1050 ti, more or less, and these GPUs are significantly faster than that.  The 1650 replaced the 1050, and the 1660 (all flavors) was the next-faster card in that same generation.  The 3050 replaced the 1650.

I do want to note that the desktop versions of graphics cards are faster than the laptop versions with the same names.  So you might see me saying a laptop 3050 is enough for ultra settings, but not by a large margin, which is true.  A desktop 3050 is over 50% faster in games than its laptop equivalent, with some variation depending on the game in question.

512 GB is more than enough for Sims 4 and your added content.  The game itself is currently around 60 GB with all packs installed.  And while I've heard of cc collections in the 300 GB range, that's extremely unusual and also slows down the game to a significant degree, so it's more for creating model sims or homes than for playing.  Still, if you decide you need more storage at some point, it's extremely simple to add another drive to a desktop—you just need to hook up two cables and initialize the drive in Windows—and quite cheap too.

For the monitor, AOC is fine in terms of manufacturer.  It makes panels for other more well-known brands (I don't remember which ones off the top of my head) and also sells a few itself, so you get a discount for the lack of name brand without sacrificing the quality of the panel.

This particular monitor is fine, but I would suggest going for an IPS monitor rather than VA, as this one is.  IPS is the category with the best colors and viewing angles, and while it's a bit more expensive than VA, it's usually worth the price to make the game look prettier.  You also don't need a 240 Hz monitor, and for Sims games at least, there's really no benefit to going above 120 or 144.  With the graphics cards in the systems I linked, you probably wouldn't get a consistent 144 fps anyway, more like in the range of 100, with occasional drops.  I would say that the upgrade to an 100+ Hz monitor is worth it: everything from gaming to using the desktop will feel smoother.

Something like one of these cheaper models would work fine:

https://www.coolblue.nl/product/941575/lg-24mr400-b.html

https://www.coolblue.nl/product/941578/lg-27mr400-b.html

But I think it's worth checking other sites—the selection on this one is pretty limited.  I have no idea what "iiyama" is and wouldn't trust the brand without some research, and there aren't many options outside of that.

@puzzlezaddict Again, thanks a lot for helping me out and for the extra background information about the different graphics cards, because I didn’t know that.

When I was looking for a monitor earlier today I came across the terms FreeSync and G-Sync Compatible.
I also read something about Adaptive Sync on Coolblue. According to them, FreeSync is only suitable for AMD video cards, while G-Sync Compatible is also suitable for NVIDIA video cards…

Sorry if I'm making things unnecessarily complicated now, but I just want to make sure I choose the right things.

The LG monitors you linked and the one from AOC all look fine, but they all have FreeSync and according to Coolblue this doesn’t go together with that Lenovo desktop we talked about earlier.

Ugh I find it all quite confusing, Coolblue naturally mainly wants to sell things, so in that sense I don't know to what extent I can trust them. 🙄

About the memory, if you say that 512GB is more than enough for what I want with it, then I trust you.

I looked at some other webshops, maybe they have more options, because you’re right about Coolblue, their selection is quit limited.

I place a link to another trustworthy website below, maybe they’ve got something suitable for a reasonable price.

https://www.alternate.nl/Monitoren

@DenisevdWoude92  G-sync is Nvidia's proprietary technology.  FreeSync was created by AMD and does the same thing, for practical purposes, but it works with any graphics card.  You don't actually need either one.  Adaptive sync is a vertical sync setting within the Nvidia Control Panel; I'm not sure whether AMD GPU drivers have a similar feature.

All of these technologies attempt to remove the possibility of screen tearing due to the monitor displaying parts of two different frames at the same time, usually the current one and the previous one.  This can happen because as the monitor refreshes, it loads the most current data available at that exact moment, and not all portions of the screen refresh at exactly the same time.  So if a new frame comes in from the GPU in the middle of the refresh, the already-refreshed pixels will be showing the old frame, and the ones still refreshing will show the new frame.

Imagine you're moving the camera around, and the top half of your monitor displays what you were looking at 10 milliseconds ago while the bottom displays what you were looking at 5 ms ago.  Now imagine your game looks just a tiny bit broken like that all the time, except when you're not moving the camera.  It's not pleasant.

G-sync and FreeSync allow the monitor to wait until it receives the entire frame from the GPU to display it.  The monitor also has a totally flexible refresh rate rather than a few presets, e.g. 30, 60, 100, and 144 Hz on a 144 Hz monitor.  So if the GPU is providing 53 frames per second, the monitor can display each of those 53 frames right as they come in, with an effective refresh rate of 53 Hz, rather than refreshing at a constant rate and trying to fit the frames into that rhythm.

This is great for fast-paced games where you want the data to be as fresh as possible, for example competitive shooters, but matters much less for Sims games.  So while it's a nice feature to have, it's not worth spending a lot of extra money.  You can avoid screen tearing with only a bit more delay in the frames appearing by applying vertical sync, or adaptive sync if it works better, alone or in combination with an fps cap.

If you like AOC monitors, this one would work well.  It's an IPS panel with good-enough brightness and a 165 Hz refresh rate, which is more than you'll get in Sims 4 anyway.  (That will be less about the graphics card being maxed out than the game engine being what it is, but either way, no point in paying for a higher refresh rate than you can use.)

https://www.alternate.nl/AOC/24G2SPAE-BK-23-8-inch-gaming-monitor/html/product/1862248

This is brighter than the LG monitors I linked before, and equal in theory to the first one you linked, but as mentioned, IPS has better color range than VA, so the effect is not equal.  In a dark room, the dimmer screens would be fine, but if you play with the lights on or sun coming through a window, you'll probably want a brighter screen.

Another helper mentioned to me that iiyama is a Japanese brand with very good but not top-quality products.  I hadn't heard of the company and would still do some reading if I were considering buying one of its monitors myself, but let me know if you'd like me to look at these options as well.

Please don't apologize for asking so many questions.  I answer here because I enjoy it, both helping players pick out the right system for them and talking about hardware in general.  And this is a significant purchase for most people, so it's important to provide the best information I reasonably can.

@puzzlezaddict Okay, please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand correctly, it basically doesn't matter which monitor I buy in terms of FreeSync and G-Sync, right?
I see that the AOC monitor you linked has Adaptive Sync, so hopefully that works just fine.

I really don't think it would be pleasant if screen tearing occurs so I would like to prevent that.

What exactly is an fps cap? I've never heard of that, is it built in as standard or do you have to buy it extra if necessary?

The AOC monitors all look good, but they are cheap, of course that doesn't have to mean anything bad, but sometimes cheap ends up being expensive, but I think it’s a trustworthy brand, so I think that if I buy a monitor from there I’ll be fine, a higher brightness is certainly my preference, so I think this monitor is perfect.

I've actually never heard of Iiyama, so I don't think I would quickly consider purchasing anything from it, but it's good to know, because as I said before, I saw the brand on the Coolblue website, but had never heard of it before, so I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.

It's so kind of you to say that I don't have to apologize for asking so many questions, but sometimes I just feel so stupid, but the last time I played Sims on a PC, it was Sims 2, and that’s quite a long time ago.
Anyway, I think it’s really nice of you to want to help others in making the right choices in terms of what system works best for them.

Until now I have always played Sims 4 on a PS4, but because it is getting slower and slower with longer loading screens and because I can’t download Mods and cc with it, I wanted to buy a PS5, but then I realized that there is still no option to download mods and cc, so after a long time of thinking and consideration, I decided to switch to Sims 4 for PC and that I have to accept the fact that I have to buy all the expansion packs again.

@DenisevdWoude92  It doesn't matter, for practical purposes, whether your monitor has G-sync, FreeSync, or neither.  Adaptive sync isn't a monitor setting, regardless of what the product page says; it's a setting within Nvidia's graphics control panel, and you can apply it independent of the monitor(s) you're using.

An fps cap is a cap on the frames per second the graphics card generates.  The idea here is that there's no point in generating more frames than the monitor can display.  Doing so can cause screen tearing and also make your GPU work harder than necessary, which isn't necessarily a problem but also doesn't accomplish anything.  The Nvidia Control Panel has a Max Frame Rate setting, which is a hard fps cap, so you wouldn't need to install anything else.  I was just saying that you can prevent screen tearing with existing built-in tools rather than needing the monitor to do it for you.

@puzzlezaddict That's good to know, thank you for the additional explanation. I will think about it and take it into account in my considerations.