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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 30th Oct 2016 at 1:59 AM Last edited by OnikaAndSimsAreMyLife : 27th Jan 2017 at 3:57 PM.
First costum built laptop, what graphic card and proccessor can run TS2, TS3 and TS4? RESOLVED!
Hello everyone.

I decided to have a costum built laptop, because the new laptops have Windows 10 pre-installed and/or have Integrated graphic card, i'm just now trying to find which graphic card and proccessor can run TS2, TS3, TS4 and maybe the Create-a-World tool (if that counts lol). I also want to play other video games on it like Tomb Raider Legend.

And im also wondering how much ram its gonna need for them? And i think windows 7 or 8 is good.

Any suggestion will be apreciated! Cheers!

PS. I'm not getting the laptop now, probably later or sooner.
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Scholar
#2 Old 4th Nov 2016 at 5:47 AM
You don't necessarily need a custom built laptop. If your games can run on Windows 10 then you should probably get that. The period where you could transfer the license from 7 to 10 for free is over and in the long run 10 will probably be better for you.

Get a 6th gen i5 but not the Ultrabook variants, 8gb of ram and if you have the budget for it a 250gb+ ssd.

There are quite a few gaming laptops out there so it's probably best to read the reviews on each and see what pros and cons each of them have.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 6th Nov 2016 at 12:59 PM Last edited by OnikaAndSimsAreMyLife : 6th Nov 2016 at 3:49 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by ajaxsirius
You don't necessarily need a custom built laptop. If your games can run on Windows 10 then you should probably get that. The period where you could transfer the license from 7 to 10 for free is over and in the long run 10 will probably be better for you.

Get a 6th gen i5 but not the Ultrabook variants, 8gb of ram and if you have the budget for it a 250gb+ ssd.

There are quite a few gaming laptops out there so it's probably best to read the reviews on each and see what pros and cons each of them have.


Thanks for the suggestions that you said! I don't like Windows 10 because when the only computer (that's not a laptop) in my house that upgraded to windows 10 had problems with TS2 and TS3 like crashing after i opened a played household just for some seconds or the black rugs under the sims feet ( i know there's a mod but im confused about it).

I also want to know what is bad about the Ultrabook Variants, and i don't know if there are good ones like the 6th gen i5. And i when i was buyng my second laptop, as i know, there wasn't any gaming laptop nor at other places where i live ( i don't live in the US).
Scholar
#4 Old 6th Nov 2016 at 10:36 PM
The Ultrabook variants tend to be low power. They throttle more easily and they have a cap on how much performance they can deliver.

If you can't get 6th gen i5s then maybe wait a bit. Or just buy the custom built ones. If none are available in your country, some custom laptop websites will ship internationally. They charge you for it, but they'll do it.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 8th Nov 2016 at 8:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by ajaxsirius
The Ultrabook variants tend to be low power. They throttle more easily and they have a cap on how much performance they can deliver.

If you can't get 6th gen i5s then maybe wait a bit. Or just buy the custom built ones. If none are available in your country, some custom laptop websites will ship internationally. They charge you for it, but they'll do it.


Hmmm, i can see. Anyway i think i wont be able to buy from other countries because of waiting and stuff, and i also hate the alienware stuff and that myth is true and those sites like iBuyPower or the site i won't mention.

But which graphic card is the best for all those games???
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#6 Old 22nd Nov 2016 at 11:20 PM
TS3 is the most demanding of the three games, so use the TS3 graphics card chart to set your expectations for the graphics card (the chart is out of date but you can compare the cards listed there with current models on a benchmarking site, such as notebookcheck). If you find something that can run TS3 with EPs, then it will also be fine for TS2 or TS4.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 23rd Nov 2016 at 8:57 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
TS3 is the most demanding of the three games, so use the TS3 graphics card chart to set your expectations for the graphics card (the chart is out of date but you can compare the cards listed there with current models on a benchmarking site, such as notebookcheck). If you find something that can run TS3 with EPs, then it will also be fine for TS2 or TS4.


Hmm, i see, i checked the TS3 graphics card chart one day and noted some graphics card on notepad, leaving it in my laptop in a folder, but when i checked the ones for TS2 and TS4 nothing was matched for some of them ( i wanna play the games on high graphics because when i got this laptop that i have and the first laptop that i had didn't run TS3 completely and on this one that i have it shuts down after some hours of playing, same as TS4, but TS2 dosen't do those, which is strange, i also have all EPs and SPs to TS2 and TS3 and TS4 but i don't have two packs for TS4.)
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#8 Old 23rd Nov 2016 at 11:23 AM
That's fine; anything which is strong enough to run TS3 with all EPs will have no problem running TS2 or TS4 with all EPs. The reason why the models listed are different is simply because the lists were made at different times, when EA was still releasing EPs for each of the respective games.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 24th Nov 2016 at 5:53 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
That's fine; anything which is strong enough to run TS3 with all EPs will have no problem running TS2 or TS4 with all EPs. The reason why the models listed are different is simply because the lists were made at different times, when EA was still releasing EPs for each of the respective games.


I know that it was made back when the EPs where released for they're respective games, but i'm not sure if an AMD Radeon HD 5800 and an i5 processor will work together because of what i saw it works for TS2 and TS3 fully, but when i was searching for those gaming laptops, all of them came with a GeForce ones (i forgot which types they were) and an i7 processor and i'm not that kind of sure if installing a new graphic card on it will work (just saying) and all the prices are were i live are too ridiculous (i don't live in the US or UK)
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#10 Old 24th Nov 2016 at 11:33 AM
Okay so generally speaking any combination of CPU brand and GPU brand will work when put together, but you're correct that most laptop manufacturers have exclusivity deals with either AMD or Intel and nVidia, so it's difficult to find certain combinations on the market.

If you get a company to custom build the laptop for you then they can mix brands, but I wouldn't recommend buying a laptop with a nVidia graphics card and then replacing that with an AMD graphics card yourself. It's expensive, it requires extensive research because things like power specs for laptop components are difficult to find, it requires a certain amount of expertise that you may not have, and it voids your warranty. Either an AMD card or a nVidia one will work fine for sims, so it's not worth the effort of replacing one with another.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#11 Old 26th Nov 2016 at 8:31 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
Okay so generally speaking any combination of CPU brand and GPU brand will work when put together, but you're correct that most laptop manufacturers have exclusivity deals with either AMD or Intel and nVidia, so it's difficult to find certain combinations on the market.

If you get a company to custom build the laptop for you then they can mix brands, but I wouldn't recommend buying a laptop with a nVidia graphics card and then replacing that with an AMD graphics card yourself. It's expensive, it requires extensive research because things like power specs for laptop components are difficult to find, it requires a certain amount of expertise that you may not have, and it voids your warranty. Either an AMD card or a nVidia one will work fine for sims, so it's not worth the effort of replacing one with another.


I see, but i don't find any company to costum build a laptop (but i'm still trying to find), but one time i was at online searching for a gaming laptop (if i don't have enough money to pay it lol) and all of them were including the nVidia cards, i also tried to see if any of them are almost the same cards as the ones on the TS3 graphics card board (i'll call it like that lol), and some of them were other not, but i don't know if any of them work fot TS4, TS2 and TS3, and i'm also terrified that all of them come with windows 10, i have it on my only desktop in my house, but was crap, it was reseting TS3, crashing, changing resolution and black rugs under sims feet in TS2, and now after TS3 got reseted random, it changed my graphics levels (didn't do nothing at it) and all of them were random, but before windows 10, TS3 was on high graphic level, and all of this didn't happend to them. (sorry if this all of this is confusing).
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#12 Old 26th Nov 2016 at 11:51 PM
nVidia cards are more common in gaming laptops, yeah, and that's fine. Just look the card up on notebookcheck, see which older cards it's close to in performance, and check the equivalent older card in the graphics card chart above.

If you don't like Windows 10 that's fair enough. All the problems you've described are either easy to fix (black boxes in TS2, messed up resolution in TS2) or not Windows 10's fault (Origin recently did something which reset a lot of people's TS3 graphics settings. If it keeps happening, you can just set up a .bat file to restore them every time you play). But, it is your decision if you want to get Windows 7 instead.

If you're in the UK, I would suggest Novatech or PCSpecialist for custom laptops.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#13 Old 27th Nov 2016 at 1:09 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
nVidia cards are more common in gaming laptops, yeah, and that's fine. Just look the card up on notebookcheck, see which older cards it's close to in performance, and check the equivalent older card in the graphics card chart above.

If you don't like Windows 10 that's fair enough. All the problems you've described are either easy to fix (black boxes in TS2, messed up resolution in TS2) or not Windows 10's fault (Origin recently did something which reset a lot of people's TS3 graphics settings. If it keeps happening, you can just set up a .bat file to restore them every time you play). But, it is your decision if you want to get Windows 7 instead.

If you're in the UK, I would suggest Novatech or PCSpecialist for custom laptops.


Ah, i didn't know that, i thought that there weren't other cards except nVidia. I saw on notebookcheck but didn't find one that i saw on the TS3 graphics board at all which thats sucks.

About the windows 10 thingy, i know that there easy ways to fix the little problems in TS2 but i forget about them, and i didn't know that Origin was resetting TS3 graphics, which is strange...

And sadly, i don't live in the UK, i live in a country were almost everything is overpriced lol.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#14 Old 27th Nov 2016 at 2:40 PM
I'm not sure I'm explaining this process very well - lemme try an example.

Let's imagine you're considering buying this laptop. I know you're not, but let's pretend. It has a GeForce 950M graphics card.

So, you go to Notebookcheck's mobile GPU benchmark table (I've set the filters appropriately for you at that link, and I've also excluded all non GeForce/Radeon GPUs for simplicity), and you search within the page for 950M. So you'll see this:



The blue highlight is the card we're interested in. The yellow highlights are some other cards which are similar in performance, but are older models (you can tell by the first digit of the model number) which are included in the system requirements info for TS3 - GeForce cards starting in 7 or lower, all Radeon HD cards, and Radeon R9 cards starting with 2 are all there.

So we can see that in terms of general performance, the 950M is going to be a bit weaker than the 770M, and a bit stronger than the 580M, the 6990M and the M280X.

So now we look at the graphics card chart I linked above, and we search for the desktop equivalents of those cards (so, the same model number without the M). We can see that:
The 770 is a Yes for all EPs.
The 580 is a Yes for all EPs.
The HD 6990 is a Maybe for all EPs, but if you read the footnote, you'll see that that's due to the card having a flaw - in terms of raw power, it's fine.
The 280X is a Yes for all EPs.

Now, these are the desktop versions of those cards: the laptop versions are a couple of tiers weaker than the desktop versions. But since the desktop versions of those cards are all comfortably in the green, you can safely assume that the laptop versions will be fine too. (If, on the other hand, you were looking at the GeForce 560M, the desktop model is on the boundary between Yes and Maybe; so you would assume that the mobile version would be further into the Maybes or even the Nos.)

But you now know that the 770M, 580M, 6990M and M280X are all fine for TS3. So, since the 950M is stronger than all of those cards, you can also assume that it will do fine with TS3.

Does that make sense? You can follow this same process with any graphics card you're considering buying.
Screenshots

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#15 Old 29th Nov 2016 at 9:08 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
I'm not sure I'm explaining this process very well - lemme try an example.

Let's imagine you're considering buying this laptop. I know you're not, but let's pretend. It has a GeForce 950M graphics card.

So, you go to Notebookcheck's mobile GPU benchmark table (I've set the filters appropriately for you at that link, and I've also excluded all non GeForce/Radeon GPUs for simplicity), and you search within the page for 950M. So you'll see this:



The blue highlight is the card we're interested in. The yellow highlights are some other cards which are similar in performance, but are older models (you can tell by the first digit of the model number) which are included in the system requirements info for TS3 - GeForce cards starting in 7 or lower, all Radeon HD cards, and Radeon R9 cards starting with 2 are all there.

So we can see that in terms of general performance, the 950M is going to be a bit weaker than the 770M, and a bit stronger than the 580M, the 6990M and the M280X.

So now we look at the graphics card chart I linked above, and we search for the desktop equivalents of those cards (so, the same model number without the M). We can see that:
The 770 is a Yes for all EPs.
The 580 is a Yes for all EPs.
The HD 6990 is a Maybe for all EPs, but if you read the footnote, you'll see that that's due to the card having a flaw - in terms of raw power, it's fine.
The 280X is a Yes for all EPs.

Now, these are the desktop versions of those cards: the laptop versions are a couple of tiers weaker than the desktop versions. But since the desktop versions of those cards are all comfortably in the green, you can safely assume that the laptop versions will be fine too. (If, on the other hand, you were looking at the GeForce 560M, the desktop model is on the boundary between Yes and Maybe; so you would assume that the mobile version would be further into the Maybes or even the Nos.)

But you now know that the 770M, 580M, 6990M and M280X are all fine for TS3. So, since the 950M is stronger than all of those cards, you can also assume that it will do fine with TS3.

Does that make sense? You can follow this same process with any graphics card you're considering buying.


Hmm, it makes sense, but sometimes i get confused, i might try to see which one will work for TS2, TS3 and TS4, If i can find.

Buut, if all of them are green or any color thats almost to green, then it can work for them, or not? Sorry for this little confusing but just wondering.
Inventor
#16 Old 29th Nov 2016 at 1:36 PM
Quote: Originally posted by OnikaAndSimsAreMyLife
Hmm, it makes sense, but sometimes i get confused, i might try to see which one will work for TS2, TS3 and TS4, If i can find.

Buut, if all of them are green or any color thats almost to green, then it can work for them, or not? Sorry for this little confusing but just wondering.


I believe you're correct in that. Also, one other thing that I'm surprised no one else has brought up: for running TS2 on a new computer, get the UC. It fixes some crashing issues that older versions of TS2 have with Windows 8 and Windows 10.

The Darkdusk Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
The Nightmagic Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
Last of Her Kind has ended thanks to a dead computer.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#17 Old 29th Nov 2016 at 10:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by PSDuckie
I believe you're correct in that. Also, one other thing that I'm surprised no one else has brought up: for running TS2 on a new computer, get the UC. It fixes some crashing issues that older versions of TS2 have with Windows 8 and Windows 10.


Hmmm, thanks for the information!

But, does all sims games work perfectly fine on windows 7? Because i had problems with windows 10 (only desktop in my house that has), i don't know about windows 8 that much, and windows 7 has been common to me (all laptops in my house has it).

Buut, if i play TS2 on windows 8 or 10, it will have glitches too, not just the crashing? And is there a way to play TS2 on windows 8 other than UC? Just wondering.
Inventor
#18 Old 30th Nov 2016 at 4:40 AM
Quote: Originally posted by OnikaAndSimsAreMyLife
Hmmm, thanks for the information!

But, does all sims games work perfectly fine on windows 7? Because i had problems with windows 10 (only desktop in my house that has), i don't know about windows 8 that much, and windows 7 has been common to me (all laptops in my house has it).

Buut, if i play TS2 on windows 8 or 10, it will have glitches too, not just the crashing? And is there a way to play TS2 on windows 8 other than UC? Just wondering.


In my experience, all the Sims games worked fine on Windows 7. As for Windows 8 and 10 (I've had this problem on both), I personally do experience some graphical glitches (namely, the black rectangles under Sims) with Sims 2, but others on this forum have posted fixes to those. As for running various versions of Sims 2 on Windows 8 and 10, I have personally only been able to get the UC to work, although I believe others have had better luck.

I hope this helps!

The Darkdusk Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
The Nightmagic Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
Last of Her Kind has ended thanks to a dead computer.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#19 Old 30th Nov 2016 at 2:39 PM
Non-UC versions of TS2 do indeed work on Windows 8 and 10, though you may have to do some troubleshooting. The original 4-CD edition of the TS2 basegame doesn't work on 8 or 10 though.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#20 Old 30th Nov 2016 at 3:13 PM
Quote: Originally posted by PSDuckie
In my experience, all the Sims games worked fine on Windows 7. As for Windows 8 and 10 (I've had this problem on both), I personally do experience some graphical glitches (namely, the black rectangles under Sims) with Sims 2, but others on this forum have posted fixes to those. As for running various versions of Sims 2 on Windows 8 and 10, I have personally only been able to get the UC to work, although I believe others have had better luck.

I hope this helps!


I had the black rectangles under sims problem too, and on my current one with the crappy-looking neighboorhood.

So i'll just stick with windows 7 because it's better than windows 8 (never had it) and windows 10 (the worst, black rectangles, crashings, resetting graphics and all kinds of problems in TS2 and TS3).

buuut, whats, like, the best graphic card and proccessor for all of the sims games? and how much RAM should it have because i have alot of mods and cc (only for TS2, TS3 and TS4), just wondering.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#21 Old 21st Dec 2016 at 2:10 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Nysha
Non-UC versions of TS2 do indeed work on Windows 8 and 10, though you may have to do some troubleshooting. The original 4-CD edition of the TS2 basegame doesn't work on 8 or 10 though.


Huh, oh well, im just going to use windows 7 or 8, i dont know.
 
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