Re: Laptop recommendations for Sims 3 and Sims 4
@FrancescaFrancoe Sims 3 is a bit more complicated than Sims 4, to be honest. On the one hand, there are a couple of small issues running it on an M1 Mac, including a purple border around the sim portrait on the UI that doesn't go away. And there are many issues with the 64-bit version of Sims 3 that are independent of hardware; we still don't know whether these will ever be fixed. The game itself runs well though, much better than you'd have seen on your older Macs.
On the other hand, Windows laptops without a dedicated graphics card have traditionally struggled with the most demanding packs, Pets in particular. I have one confirmed report of someone being able to play most packs, I believe everything through University, on a Windows laptop with an Xe (96 EUs) graphics chip. This is just one report though, on one specific laptop with its own particular built-in settings, not enough for me to feel confident saying you'd get the performance you'd want out of a similar model.
Furthermore, I checked half a dozen sites and didn't find any laptops with an i7-1165G7, the processor with that same graphics chip, for under $800. I did find plenty of i5-1135G7 options: those have a similar Xe chip but with 80 EUs, as in, 5/6 the graphics cores. For example:
https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=710_1925_1912_1911&item_id=183641
This AMD processor's graphics chip is equivalent overall to the one above, but not necessarily equal in every game. I haven't heard from anyone who's run Sims 3 on one.
https://www.hp.com/ca-en/shop/product.aspx?id=2L7Q7UA&opt=ABL&sel=NTB
The next-lower tier of laptops is the one with the older AMD 3500U, which I do know is not always capable of running Sims 3 Pets or Seasons. (I once had someone who was determined to make it work and tried everything possible, but the game kept crashing no matter what we tried, that is until they uninstalled Seasons, and Pets is worse.) So even though you can find those laptops for $600 or less, I wouldn't buy one for Sims 3.
If you don't need a sleek white or silver laptop, you can actually find old cheap-ish gaming laptops if you know where to look. This is the best of the bunch I saw:
I wouldn't count on ultra graphics settings in either game, but mostly high settings with a couple on ultra should be fine. On the more expensive end, if you can find this one in a local Walmart (it's not available to ship), it should handle ultra settings in both games, at least with the way Sims 4 currently runs:
Or if you're willing to shop open-box, this one is basically the same except with a solid state drive:
On a more personal note, I had a 2010 15" MacBook Pro for seven years before replacing it. sFor 6.5 of those years, it ran Sims 3 quite well, although I didn't have most of the packs; it was only in the spring of 2017 that I started to notice some performance issues. And I played Sims 3 a lot, and I wasn't always careful about cooling. Had I not wanted a new Mac for the better hardware, I'd have paid for a thorough cleaning and a new battery, and perhaps some new thermal paste, and continued with that one.
Quality laptops, not just Macs but most of the good ones, are designed to hold together for many years even when consistently handling high workloads. The components themselves only lose minimal performance off the top with time, maybe a few percentage points but nothing alarming, again unless they consistently overheat. And if you're not running demanding tasks, you wouldn't ever see peak performance and wouldn't notice it dropping a bit anyway. These laptops usually need replacing because they've become obsolete, not because they stop working. And if they do stop working, it's usually because they ship slightly defective and you find out within the warranty period, or in Macs' case, within AppleCare's window.
All this is to say, I don't think there's a good argument to avoid running Sims games on a MacBook Pro just to squeeze a bit of extra life out of it at the end. If you want a Windows laptop so you don't need to worry, and the money is worth it to you, then it's a reasonable decision. But it really is only going to be about peace of mind, not about running down your shiny new Mac before its time.
