The 'Is this computer good enough to run The Sims 3?' thread

[Rohannnn]

Originally Posted by jolle4213

now i highly doubt mine will run it buy hey ho!
its a sony vaio vgn-nr21j/s

can anyone help?
thanks

I think you might have to wait and see. As far as I can tell, your laptop has a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, Intel X3100 graphics card.

With the X3100 the updated requirements are higher. You need a 1.8GHz Core 2 processor, so yours is 0.2GHz too slow. So officially, I don't think your laptop meets the requirements unfortunately.

However 0.2GHz isn't much, so it might still work, just slowly.

Originally Posted by Amgel

I'm gunna have to buy a new laptop. My dads gunna bloody kill me ive only had this 13 months! Can anyone recommend one? (please! i no nothing about computers) but it has to be a laptop because there's no room in my bedroom for a computer.

Are you ok with buying online? How much can you spend? I don't think you'll find one for less than £400, and obviously, the more you spend the better the laptop will be.

Until yesterday, cdiscount were advertising an Acer laptop for £400 that had the 8600M GT graphics card. It was an excellent deal, but now it's been changed to the ATI HD 3470 which isn't as good. However it's still a fairly good deal and you probably won't find better at that price. The link is here.

Argos have the Samsung R505, which is a very similar spec, for the same price. Although you'll be lucky to find it in stock anywhere.

[Amgel]

Originally Posted by Rohannnn

Are you ok with buying online? How much can you spend? I don't think you'll find one for less than £400, and obviously, the more you spend the better the laptop will be.

Until yesterday, cdiscount were advertising an Acer laptop for £400 that had the 8600M GT graphics card. It was an excellent deal, but now it's been changed to the ATI HD 3470 which isn't as good. However it's still a fairly good deal and you probably won't find better at that price. The link is here.

Argos have the Samsung R505, which is a very similar spec, for the same price. Although you'll be lucky to find it in stock anywhere.

Thank You SO Much!

My mum works at argos so i can get futher discount, so thats brilliant!

Again thankyou!

[Amgel]

Oh but are you sure the sims 3 will run well on the samsung r505 because it has 2.1GHz processor speed and the minimum requirement is 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent?

[Rohannnn]

Originally Posted by Amgel

Oh but are you sure the sims 3 will run well on the samsung r505 because it has 2.1GHz processor speed and the minimum requirement is 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent?

Yeah it will be fine. P4 processors are slower, so the 2.1GHz in the samsung is "equivalent" to at least a 3.0GHz P4 and meets the requirements easily

[Amgel]

Oh okay thanks very much, like i said i no nothing about computers. You said the more you spend the better the laptop you get, so the more expensive samsung r610 would be better? because they have that in stock.

[Rohannnn]

Originally Posted by Amgel

Oh okay thanks very much, like i said i no nothing about computers. You said the more you spend the better the laptop you get, so the more expensive samsung r610 would be better? because they have that in stock.

The R610 actually looks slightly worse to me, I think its Blu-ray drive is putting the price up.

The next ones up I can see with equivalent performance are probably the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pa3553 and the Acer Aspire lalala920G. Both £500 from Argos.

The Acer looks like it's almost the same as the one I posted from cdiscount though, they are selling it for £400. You miss out on the Blu-ray drive you get in the argos version but that's only useful if you are going to watch Blu-ray films on it.

[mevidek]

Yes that Computer should run it well.

I have the newer and better PC version and my Sister has the newer and better LapTop version.

Dell Inspiron rocks!

[babycakes9]

i would be very grateful if someone could tell me if my latop:

Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop Product Details


will run the Sims 3? i really really hope so.

[babycakes9]

would someone be kind enough to tell me if my laptop:

http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs

will be able to run the sims 3?

it would be muchhh appreciated

[SARMO]

my computer exceeds all the requirement but its graphic card is:
intel(R) 82915/GV/910GL Express Chipset
so will the game still run on my computer? it says it needs Radeon or geforce but i remember sims 2 needed that graphic card too but it worked perfectly on that computer

[mevidek]

Yes, definatly.
My sister has the LapTop version and I have the PC version. Dell Inspiron 1525 is a brilliant computer, with extremely good graphics.

[Minitruffle]

Hi I own the Dell Studio 1535, the standard issue. No customisation except Green colour. lol. I think it has an inbuilt HD ATI Radeon 3400, will this run the The Sims 3 okay?

[EAUK_Aurora]

[Threads merged]

[Rohannnn]

Originally Posted by babycakes9

would someone be kind enough to tell me if my laptop:

Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop Product Details

will be able to run the sims 3?

it would be muchhh appreciated

Possibly, it depends on the exact specifications though.

As far as I can tell, all Inspiron 1525's come with an Intel X3100 graphics card. That's supported for running Sims 3, but only if you have 2GB RAM and a 1.8GHz Dual-core processor. Not all of the Inspiron 1525's meet these requirements, only some do.

You will have to find out the exact specs of your computer yourself, to do that:
Go to Start -> type dxdiag in the search box.
In the program that appears, look at "Memory" and "Processor" to find out your RAM and the processor you have. Then click "display" at the top and look at "card name" to find out your graphics card.

If you post all of those details here, someone will be able to tell you if your laptop meets the requirements.

Originally Posted by SARMO

my computer exceeds all the requirement but its graphic card is:
intel(R) 82915/GV/910GL Express Chipset
so will the game still run on my computer? it says it needs Radeon or geforce but i remember sims 2 needed that graphic card too but it worked perfectly on that computer

Unfortunately, the Intel 82915 isn't on the supported list. The requirements state that you will need at least the X3000-series (82965) if you're using an Intel card.

Originally Posted by Minitruffle

Hi I own the Dell Studio 1535, the standard issue. No customisation except Green colour. lol. I think it has an inbuilt HD ATI Radeon 3400, will this run the The Sims 3 okay?

As far as I can tell, all of Dell's Studio 15 range should be fine.

[babycakes9]

thank you veryy much mevidek

[babycakes9]

memory: 2038MB Ram
processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU @ 1.60Ghz(2CPUs)
display: mobile intel(R) 965 express chipset family


no?

[Nicospoon]

I seem to exceed requirements except for the fact its a laptop:

2ghz duo core processor
4gb ram
256mb dedicated memory on graphics card which is a NVIDIA GeForce 9300m gx

Is that going to be enough?

[Lady_Loo12]

So since I'm going to uni next year (finally :P) I am going to be buying a laptop soon.. And it MUST be able to play the sims 3, and be "student able" . I will get dell, as I always have, any suggestions? I want the game to run ultra well, but I'm not going to get one of those dell gaming comps...

AND... Until I get my lap top, I will be using my current desktop. Will it play the sims 3 well? I know nothing about computers.
---

[Rohannnn]

Originally Posted by babycakes9

memory: 2038MB Ram
processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU @ 1.60Ghz(2CPUs)
display: mobile intel(R) 965 express chipset family


no?

Unfortunately, you need 1.8GHz to meet the official requirements. I would wait and see though because 0.2GHz too slow isn't much, the game might still work.

Originally Posted by Nicospoon

I seem to exceed requirements except for the fact its a laptop:

2ghz duo core processor
4gb ram
256mb dedicated memory on graphics card which is a NVIDIA GeForce 9300m gx

Is that going to be enough?

Yeah that should be absolutely fine.

Originally Posted by Lady_Loo12

So since I'm going to uni next year (finally :P) I am going to be buying a laptop soon.. And it MUST be able to play the sims 3, and be "student able" . I will get dell, as I always have, any suggestions? I want the game to run ultra well, but I'm not going to get one of those dell gaming comps...

AND... Until I get my lap top, I will be using my current desktop. Will it play the sims 3 well? I know nothing about computers.
---

For your desktop, you'll have to check the "display" tab in dxdiag and find out your graphics card name.

Out of Dell's laptops (ignoring the XPS ones) the Studio 15 and Studio 17 are the only ones that come with graphics cards on the supported list. The Studio 17 would probably run the game better, it has a ATI HD 3650 card, but it's £550 (to get the spec with the 3650 card anyway). It's also quite big for a laptop, I think a lot of people wouldn't want to carry a 17" laptop around all the time.

All models of the Studio 15 come with the slower ATI HD 3450, but the cheapest one is only £430 so you'd save a lot of money. It should still run the game without a problem. You might not be able to use max. settings though and still have it run smoothly.

[Lady_Loo12]

My graphics card name is 256 MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO

My budget is about/around 1,500 (including graphics card) canadian dollars. (I've been saving for a while)
It says on Dell Canada the 17" is $749 CDN. But ya, I'd be using it in lectures and that, so I wouldn't want something too big. I would probably buy a good graphics card to go with it or something. I need this to last forever XD So I want to go for the best I can afford.

[Lisette88]

Edit: Never mind, found it already
Deleted...

[Rohannnn]

Originally Posted by Lady_Loo12

My graphics card name is 256 MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO

My budget is about/around 1,500 (including graphics card) canadian dollars. (I've been saving for a while)
It says on Dell Canada the 17" is $749 CDN. But ya, I'd be using it in lectures and that, so I wouldn't want something too big. I would probably buy a good graphics card to go with it or something. I need this to last forever XD So I want to go for the best I can afford.

Your desktop should be fine. I didn't realise you were in Canada, sorry. All of the info I gave you was from the Dell UK site, it's probably different for the Canadian one, so ignore my other post.

I had a look and Dell.ca seems a lot less generous than the UK site for giving you graphics cards as standard. Neither of the Studio 15 and 17 have the cards as standard, they are $100 optional upgrades.

If you can afford $1500 then I think the best deal is the $999 XPS M1530 with the optional $100 graphics card upgrade to the 8600M GT. It may be worth spending $50 to get 3GB of RAM too. Then you'd have a very high-spec laptop that should run the game easily.

However there's one fairly serious problem I didn't know about until today - apparently all of nVidia's laptop graphics cards including the 8600M GT have a fault that causes them to break after anywhere between a few months and over a year. I can't find any information on whether the fault has been fixed yet. So unfortunately (at least buying from Dell) it looks like you can either get the cheaper, slower Studio 15 but feel safe that you shouldn't have any problems, or get the much faster XPS M1530 but risk it breaking at any time, possibly once the warranty has expired.

So I don't really know what to suggest I'm afraid. I'd peronsally avoid buying anything with the nvidia 8600 because from what I've read it looks like the fault is definitely true and affecting all 8600 cards. If Dell or nVidia announce that the fault is fixed and not affecting brand-new cards any more, then you are fine obviously, but I don't think there's been an announcement like that yet.

You could still get the Studio 15 which meets the minimum specifications (once you add the graphics card), and should run the game without a problem, but then it probably won't be as fast or use as high settings as it could on the more expensive XPS. The only other alternative would be to buy from a different company that sells laptops in your price range with good ATI graphics cards.

[tabethac]

I'm thinking of buying this computer but I'm not sure about the graphics card. Most of the lists for ones that work with the Sims are for nvidia and ati but not with Intel graphics. Does anyone know if this card would be good for the game? I'm pretty sure the rest of the computer is more than enough for the game. It's the graphics that I'm really wondering about. Thanks guys!

• Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor E5200
  Featuring an 800MHz frontside bus, 2MB shared L2 cache and 2.5GHz processor speed.
• 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM
  For multitasking power, expandable to 8GB.
• SuperMulti DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support
  Records up to 8.5GB of data or 4 hours of video using compatible media. Supports DVD-RAM; supports LightScribe direct-disc labels using compatible LightScribe media.
• 500GB Serial ATA hard drive (7200 rpm)
  Provides plenty of storage space for all of your data at fast read/write speeds.
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 graphics
  With 128MB of dedicated graphics memory and up to 287MB total available graphics memory as allocated by Windows Vista. High-definition audio for crisp, clear surround sound.

[Anna1994]

Hi what about this one? And this one?

[Rohannnn]

Originally Posted by tabethac

I'm thinking of buying this computer but I'm not sure about the graphics card. Most of the lists for ones that work with the Sims are for nvidia and ati but not with Intel graphics. Does anyone know if this card would be good for the game? I'm pretty sure the rest of the computer is more than enough for the game. It's the graphics that I'm really wondering about. Thanks guys!

Intel only make very basic cards that aren't really designed for running games. That's why mostly they aren't on the supported list.

However the X3100 in the computer is mentioned as supported, albeit with higher processor and RAM requirements because it needs their assistance. That computer does meet the higher requirements.

I would look around and see if you can find a PC with a nVidia or ATI card from the requirements list. Otherwise you may find how well the game runs is limited. A dedicated card is able to do all of the graphics rendering by itself and has its own memory, which keeps your processor and RAM free for actually doing all of the other calculations needed to load and run the game.

Originally Posted by Anna1994

Hi what about this one? And this one?

Out of those two, the second is probably better (has a much better graphics card, more RAM). It doesn't come with a monitor though - don't know if you noticed that?