What laptop would run The Sims 3 and expansions on high?

[lbell]

I have been searching for a decent priced laptop that will run The Sims 3 and all expansions (no Stuff Packs) and future expansions on all high settings while still running smoothly without any lags or crashes.


1. What is your budget?
Max £500.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15.6" but it doesn't bother me as long as it isn't below 11 or extremely smaller than the average laptop

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1366 x 768 but it doesn't bother me

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
I need a laptop for work and gaming so desktop replacement I think

5. How much battery life do you need?
4 or more hours would be enough but I would probably have it plugged in most of the time anyway

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Yes. The Sims 3 and all expansions (apart from Stuff Packs) on the highest settings

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Music, films, internet and work

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I'm not sure but it needs to be enough to play The Sims 3 and store documents/music

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

http/www.pcworld.co.uk
www.dell.co.uk
http/www.argos.co.uk
http/www.staples.co.uk

They are the only places I have looked at so far.



10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
For the next 4 or 5 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD ROM I would imagine, I'm not a fan of Bluray

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

Dell is my favourite brand because I have had a Dell computer for the past 6 years and it has managed to live through my love of The Sims 1, 2 and 3 but now I think its time to move on plus I need a laptop for Uni.

HP is one I'm not sure about because I have read bad reviews about it saying it overheats and then breaks etc.

My sister has an MSI (I think it is called) and she had trouble with the webcam but I wouldn't use it for the webcam only for gaming and work.

13. What country do you live in?
Wales, UK

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
-

 

[WR2]

Acer Aspire 5755G 15" Notebook £489
http/www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5755G_1201803.html

Core i5-2450M 2.5Ghz CPU, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 15.6" 1366x768 LCD w/ GT 630M graphics.

 

[lbell]

Acer Aspire 5755G 15" Notebook £489
http/www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5755G_1201803.html

Core i5-2450M 2.5Ghz CPU, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 15.6" 1366x768 LCD w/ GT 630M graphics.

Thank you Would that run The Sims 3 and all expansions on high settings and still run smoothly? Sorry I'm not very good with computers.

 

[WR2]

Thanks to the GT 630M graphics card and a speedy Core i5 CPU - yes it would.
More important, its about the best option in your budget range.

 

[lbell]

Thanks to the GT 630M graphics card and a speedy Core i5 CPU - yes it would.
More important, its about the best option in your budget range.

Thank you very much! My mother said she would be happy to borrow me £100 so I guess my new budget range would be around £600 or more now.

 

[djscribbles]

A word of warning about the sims 3, especially regarding laptops:

There is a pretty severe design oversight by Maxis/EA in the game engine which, if your computer is able to run it smoothly, it will not slow down the hardware inside of your computer and ends up doing tons of extra work that amounts to nothing (similar to spinning your wheels in a care, sorta ).

The problem is that, if you have a powerful computer, rather than having it jog along at the speed neccessary to run the game smoothly, it will run full throttle and your laptop can get hot enough to cause damage over time. (This is especially problematic for laptops, and it gets worse the more powerful your hardware is).

There is a program called "3booter" that provides a solution to this. While I don't want to make any guarantees that this program is safe, I used it for my wife's computer to keep it under control. I would strongly recommend using this program, or another program like it, to ensure your laptop isn't damaged.

Here is a link, you have to setup both "3booter-win.zip" and "fpslimit.zip" in order to keep the FPS under wraps:
http/www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=15585.0

Once you put sims on your new laptop, and get your fps limiter setup, run the sims, press CTRL+SHIFT+C, then type "fps" without the quotes, then press enter. Somewhere on your screen a small number will show up telling you how many times a new picture is drawn on the screen. If your FPS limiter is working, that number should be 60 or less, if it's over 100 then the limiter isn't working correctly.

 

[MissLady6]

I currently have a Compaq Presario CQ57 and it worked great when I only had the Sims 3. But when I bought Ambitions and Latenight it started to run slow but still playable. Then, I bought Generations and it's ridiculously slow. I just bought Seasons but I'm definitely not interested in installing it on this laptop because it's obvious it can't handle the games. I looked up the specs and found out that my laptop has 1.4 GHZ (No wonder it was so slow ! ) So basically I'm looking for a laptop that can perform well with the expansions I have ( Sims 3, Ambitions, Latenight, Generations, Seasons & Im planning on buying Pets soon) while staying relatively in my budget ( $400). I've looked on various posts and I just thought I'll post my info up to get some assistance because I really miss playing my games its been way to long lol I also want to be about to video chat because I also use Oovoo.

Does anybody have any suggestions on which laptop I should get? I'm willing to up the price to $500 but it'll have to be worth it.