I know guys that this is too much but I want to see if the TS4 is jut like this pictures in GTA V... what do you think if this is the graphics of TS4 in the final thread not in the BETA test game that all of us seen in the Game test video of TS4?

Never going to happen. Too many sims players with 5-10 year old machines won't be able to run it. That equals lost revenue to EA

TS4 is expected to have quite high specs as it is, even cheaper 2 year old machines won't run it too well.

I'll believe that when I see it. History says otherwise

I think that I would buy it and remake my Sims 2 megahood in The Sims 4 if the graphics were that good and things were as moddable as they are in GTA IV (GTA IV because I know almost nothing about V or whether it's moddable at all). That is if I could run it on one of my PCs, which I probably couldn't.

On a side note, GTA IV is so moddable, you should see some of the cool stuff I've seen made for it. Mods of the entire map, fan made scenarios (one, for example, where you play as a cop rather than a criminal), vehicle mods, building mods, character mods, etc. I've actually considered learning some more intense modding aspects of that game and making a Sims parody, GTA IV: Episodes from Sim City where you play as Mortimer Goth, or, since it is GTA, Dustin Broke the street hawker.

I predict it will not look anything like that.

I predict it will be cartooney with unrealistically bright lighting, over-saturated colors, and low-poly objects. Not necessarily because they'll want it to run on low-end machines, but more so because cartooney has always been the style of The Sims franchise.

I agree. And as awesome as The Sims would look with GTA graphics, the franchise would seem so foreign to many players. Would it still have the same charm?

I still don't understand why EA can't just make a totally new Sims spin-off game with a more gritty, mature feel. At the very least, it would be an interesting failure.

I assume they're worried about it changing the Sims image, but it's not like they've been super careful about what sort of crap they slap the "Sims" brand onto anyway.

Perhaps not as realistic as this but definitely as detailed as some of these environments are. I agree they need to strike a balance between realistic and cartoon stylistically and I think it is the details and overall refinement which was lacking in The Sims 3.

I really hope for a big improvement. I just HATE The Sims 3 lighting system...I mean come on...

Maybe that'll be the sims 5....wait never. I wish another studio would pick up the concept of a more adult oriented(mature) Sims game. I think its time for a competitor within this niche.

It would be nice to have some other options even if it wasn't totally adult related. I would love to see a more sandboxy Sims type game for example.

Anyway on topic, that may be a Sims 6 or 7 in the future perhaps depending on which way it goes but it doesn't seem to fit the image of the franchise. I think the most realistic we will see will be along the lines of Sims Medieval (which I actually didn't mind).

I never played GTA. Is the game is more PC spec-demanding than TS3?

If TS4 can look like your pics it would be AWESOME!


PS. For lighting in TS3, I switched to dFinder's lighting mod right away and stick with it.
Can't stand EA lighting.

Most games are more PC spec demanding than TS3

TS3 demands more of your CPU. Every other game demands more of your GPU. My CPU utilization monitors show TS3 uses more CPU than my newer games and it also runs my CPU hotter than any other game does, according to HW Monitor. TS3 also runs a lower average FPS than my other games, but upgrading the video card resulted in no improvement.

TS3 runs on my single core Sempron file server, I wouldn't dare try to run Crysis or GTAIV on that thing

One must bear in mind the audience that EA targets for The Sims; most PC games are designed to target serious gamers with Alienwares whereas EA targets middle school girls that think running the game with the graphics set to high on a $1,000 Macbook with some P.O.S. Intel GMA chip is a good idea, and grandmothers/grandfathers with older or low end computers. So despite the fact that such people are not the only ones that play The Sims, that not all middle school girls are stupid, and that not all old people have low-performance PCs, that's whom EA has in mind when they design The Sims, not serious gamers/modders/simmers like us.

Yes, my main complaint with TS3 is how poorly optimized it is. The machine I play the game on, I bought shortly after TS3 came out, and it struggled to run it even then. I've also seen posts on the other gaming forum I read from people saying that they can run games like Skyrim with the graphic settings maxed out with no problem, but TS3 on max specs makes their computer lose it.

Heck I can run Skyrim on highest settings, with my rig, wont even dare try it with TS3, it gets hot so fast I feel my pc's gonna implode.

Hell yes! I love the new GTA graphics. I hope TS4 is similar.

Yeah, but check CPU utilization, it's probably pretty high. TS3 runs all 4 cores of my AMD 965 oc'd to 4.0GHz at almost full blast. I've found it's almost as good as OCCT at stability/temperature testing my overclocks.

I don't doubt that, but that must be the engine programming. As I said I have it running on a single core machine so the actual "system requirements" are low. I expect TS4 to follow suit

Hope not. My computer finds it hard enough to play Sims 3 with the graphics high.

Yep. The engine has low system requirements, but as Legislacerator pointed out, it's poorly optimized. It doesn't seem to really take advantage of better hardware. When I went from an AMD X2 250 dual core @ 3.0GHz to the AMD 965 4-core @ 4.0GHz and from Geforce 9600GT 512MB to GTX460 1GB (5-tier improvement on Tom's Hardware Graphics Card Hierarchy), I couldn't hardly tell any difference. It was a night and day difference for my other games though.

I really hope the TS4 game engine has significantly improved performance. Waiting for the outfits list to build up when changing clothing categories in CAS is downright painful.

This. While the graphics won't be as realistic as GTA, the level of detail and lighting will no doubt be improved. Lighting was a big issue for me in TS3. As long as they improve the lighting, I'll be happy with the graphics, although I do hope they are slightly less cartoonish than the pudding faces we got in the last game.