Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

@bellalala93  The fan modes are so you can select the profile that works best for you.  Silent is the quietest (slowest) they can run, performance means maximum cooling power but also more noise, and I think Windows may mean "let Windows decide," although I'd need to look to be sure.  I'd always go with "performance" while gaming, but then I always use headphones and wouldn't mind the noise.  If your CPU and GPU aren't overheating while you play, whatever mode you're using is working fine.

For Sims 4 at least, I'd start by disabling all the special graphics settings, then add one or two at a time if I wanted some specific feature that wasn't there.  These modes were made for newer games and don't always play well with older ones, even ones like Sims 4 that are still in development—the game engine is the same as it was in 2014, and it uses the same older runtimes and other resources.

Actually, I personally would probably uninstall the software entirely, or at least kill it in the Task Manager and see whether my games ran better without it.  Most laptops come with additional unnecessary software pre-installed; whether you view it as "bloatware" or not depends on whether you can make use of the features.  Regardless, it's best to judge game performance first with nothing else running in the background, then add back features you might want and see whether there's a difference.

It might also be worth trying to play with Windows's Game Mode and Game Bar disabled.  You can find them both under Settings > Gaming.

@bellalala93  By special graphics settings, I meant the ones that you referred to when you said "Then game visual theres so many graphics modes too."  I don't have an Asus laptop, so I don't really know what options its software offers.  Even if you want to use ArmouryCrate in general, it's still better ot test the game without it running, and then with it running and on all default settings for Sims 3, to get a baseline.  That just means if there's a profile within the app for Sims 3 (or TS3.exe), go through that profile and disable all the settings that Asus suggests you might want to use.  If you've already done that, you don't need to do anything else.

Your laptop is capable of running Sims 4 on ultra settings, so feel free to max out all the options and see how it runs.  For COD, I don't really know, but if the game feels choppy at the settings you pick, turn them down and see how it goes.

As far as temperatures go, your CPU can and may reach 90º C without being a problem.  Above that, and it's time to think about better cooling, e.g. a cooling pad or a fan pointed at the laptop while you play.  Above 80º, the graphics card will throttle performance to protect itself, so while a temperature that high isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself (unless it's much higher, like 90º), performance will suffer significantly over 80º.  If your GPU is constantly running that hot, better cooling is definitely a good idea.

The other thing that can help a lot with less demanding games is enabling vertical sync in game settings.  That will limit in-game framerates to the refresh rate of your screen, so the graphics card isn't working harder than necessary.  (The screen won't display more frames per second than its refresh rate, so anything over that is just noise.)

If an older game doesn't have an fps limiter or an option for vertical sync, or it doesn't work (e.g. Sims 3), you can get around this by setting a max frame rate in the Nvidia Control Panel.  Right-click on the desktop, select the CP, then Manage 3D Settings, and under Global Settings, there will be a Max Frame Rate you can enable and set to whatever you want, but again it should be no higher than the refresh rate of your screen.

A lower workload means less heat and less stress on your GPU, although it can certainly handle a high load.  But the combination of a high load and very high framerates is not good for a GPU, so if you're playing a game where fps is well into the hundreds, you'll want to limit it somehow.  There are plenty of ways to do so; how to see in-game fps depends on the game and the game launcher that you're using.  For example, the cheat fps on works in both Sims 3 and Sims 4, and Origin can be set to display fps in whatever corner you want, though the Origin in-game interface.

@ellehcim1  Sure, I can help.  What country are you shopping in though?  Prices can vary a bit even within the Eurozone, and stock can vary a lot.  And let me know if you have any other plans for this laptop in addition to playing Sims 4, for example other games or other demanding apps.

@ellehcim1  Sorry for the slightly late reply.  There are plenty of laptops in your budget that fit your preferences.  An Nvidia 1650 should run all current Sims 4 packs together on ultra settings with some room to spare, although if you have a lot of high poly (high resolution) custom content on-on screen at once, that raises the demands of the game to some extent.  Still, a 1650 should be fine.  And you can get a laptop with one for under €800.

As an example, this laptop is €730 and would be perfectly fine.  In addition to the 1650, it has enough storage and memory, and a processor that's more than strong enough for Sims 4.

https://www.paradigit.nl/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Gaming-3-15IMH05-81Y400DWMH/80056638/product

This one is €780 and is quite highly rated in its price category.  It has the same specs as the one above but tends to run quieter and cooler than similar models, at the expense of a little speed in gaming.

https://www.alternate.nl/html/product/1634644

This is an example of a laptop that runs faster but also hotter and a bit louder, although not extremely loud:

https://www.bol.com/nl/p/asus-tuf-gaming-fx505gt-bq166t-gaming-laptop-15-6-inch/9300000001201091/

In this category, there are so many different laptops for similar prices that it's usually easy to find what you want, so if you don't like these, just let me know what details you'd want to see, and I'll have another look.

An Nvidia 1650 ti is a few percentage points faster in gaming, maybe 5% (but it varies a bit depending on the game), and laptops with a 1650 ti are also a bit more expensive.  These two would work well though.  The first one is the equivalent of the Lenovo I linked above; the second one isn't exactly the same as the HP above, but the build quality should be similar.

https://azerty.nl/product/lenovo/4218033/ideapad-gaming-3-15imh05-laptop-intel-core-i5-10300h--2-5-ghz

https://www.bol.com/nl/p/hp-pavilion-gaming-15-dk1705nd-gaming-laptop-15-6-inch/9300000002091603/

All of these laptops have only 8 GB memory, but that's not an issue for Sims 4.  If you want more memory for other tasks, upgrading to 16 GB is cheap and quite simple to do on your own, or you could pay a little more to have a computer shop do it for you.  Gaming laptops generally make this very easy.

As a comparison, laptops with the much faster 1660 ti are also much more expensive; I didn't see a good one for under €1,100.  There's no reason you'd really need such a fast graphics card just for Sims 4 unless you want to run the game at higher framerates or use a giant pile of high poly custom content at all times.  Still, for comparison's sake, here are two highly rated laptops with a 1660 ti.  They both have 16 GB memory as well, and they're both €1,100.  The only difference in hardware is that the HP's graphics card is tweaked to run cooler and so loses a few percentage points in performance, but given how fast the card is, that shouldn't affect how it runs Sims 4.

https://www.paradigit.nl/ASUS-TUF-Gaming-A15-FX506IU-BQ290T/80056621/product

https://www.paradigit.nl/HP-Pavilion-Gaming-15-ec1575nd/80056952/product

If you want to see other options, or have more questions in general, please feel free to ask.

@bellalala93  There's no reason to be sorry.  You're still using the Zephyrus from earlier in this thread?  If so, yes, it should handle Sims 2 just fine; it doesn't matter that Sims 4 is installed.  It's a good idea to manually limit your in-game fps for Sims 2, which you can do through the Nvidia Control Panel or by using any number of other tools.  I think we talked about this before, but let me know if you need help in figuring out how to do it.

Sims 2 isn't demanding at all, at least not for your hardware, so you shouldn't have any issues.