Good new laptop for The Sims 4?

[HolidayNowPlease]

I've had issues with my Windows 10 pretty much since I bought it back in 2015.  I've finally had enough and want to buy a new one.

The Sims 4 plays awfully on my laptop. By which I mean it took 24 minutes from pressing the on button to resuming the game today. When it did play, I failed a date and also my restaurant wouldn't make a profit.  This is because Sims kept idling until I ran out of time.

So what would be a decent reasonably priced laptop for playing The Sims 4?  One where the game actually runs the way it's supposed to?

Thanks.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@HolidayNowPlease  There's a big difference between the kind of laptop you can get for £500 and what you can get for £600.  The biggest distinction is that you can get a dedicated graphics card, usually a decently strong one that would run all Sims 4 packs on ultra settings now, although maybe not for the entire run of the game.  I did find a couple of reasonable options below £600 though.

This is the lowest I'd go, at £550.  It has a good graphics card and enough RAM and storage, although its mechanical hard drive (HDD) will be slow.  Its processor is okay, not great but fine for TS4 if it doesn't have to do much else while you play.  (A browser would be fine; photo editing should wait until you quit the game.)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Nitro-AN515-42-Gaming-Notebook/dp/B07FLZ8NRG

This one, at £600, is better.  It has the same graphics card and RAM, but its processor is stronger.  Its hard drive is also a hybrid (SSHD), meaning it will be significantly faster than an HDD.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-tuf-fx505dy-amd-vega-rx-560-4gb-8gb-15.6-fhd-freesync-r5-3550h-g...

I checked four different sites, and these are the best I could find in your price range.  If you don't like the options, you could wait a few weeks and see if anything better goes on sale.  But this is pretty much what you'd expect to find these days; while sales change, the hardware in this price range is pretty much always the same.

[puzzlezaddict]

@HolidayNowPlease  There are plenty of good laptops out there that will run TS4 very well. Game performance will depend on the hardware, software, and how well it's maintained.  On that note, if you want to get an opinion about your current computer, you can run a dxdiag and attach it to a post here.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

If you do want a new computer, just list your budget and country, as well as anything else you want the computer to be able to do (run other games or apps, store a lot of data, that kind of thing), I can look around for good options for you.  Or, if you prefer, I can list the specs you should look for, and when you find a laptop you like, you can post a link here for a second opinion.  There's a sizeable price gap between a computer that will technically run all packs and one that will manage them on the highest graphics settings though, so it would still be useful to know your price range.

[HolidayNowPlease]

Thank you very much for this!  I live in England.  I also like to edit photos and upload photos onto Flickr.  

My price range would be around £500, but I would go up to £600 if one was really good (no higher though).

Thanks again.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@HolidayNowPlease  There's a big difference between the kind of laptop you can get for £500 and what you can get for £600.  The biggest distinction is that you can get a dedicated graphics card, usually a decently strong one that would run all Sims 4 packs on ultra settings now, although maybe not for the entire run of the game.  I did find a couple of reasonable options below £600 though.

This is the lowest I'd go, at £550.  It has a good graphics card and enough RAM and storage, although its mechanical hard drive (HDD) will be slow.  Its processor is okay, not great but fine for TS4 if it doesn't have to do much else while you play.  (A browser would be fine; photo editing should wait until you quit the game.)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Nitro-AN515-42-Gaming-Notebook/dp/B07FLZ8NRG

This one, at £600, is better.  It has the same graphics card and RAM, but its processor is stronger.  Its hard drive is also a hybrid (SSHD), meaning it will be significantly faster than an HDD.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-tuf-fx505dy-amd-vega-rx-560-4gb-8gb-15.6-fhd-freesync-r5-3550h-g...

I checked four different sites, and these are the best I could find in your price range.  If you don't like the options, you could wait a few weeks and see if anything better goes on sale.  But this is pretty much what you'd expect to find these days; while sales change, the hardware in this price range is pretty much always the same.

[HolidayNowPlease]

@puzzlezaddictThank you very much for this. 

Oh, snap!  I love the second laptop, but just realised it doesn't have a card reader (SD cards).  I use then a lot with photography.  Apologies.  I didn't realise that not all laptops have them.

Is there another option, that works as well as the second one, but has an SD card reader?  I appreciate this might increase the cost.

Thanks for your help.

[puzzlezaddict]

@HolidayNowPlease  That's a difficult thing to search for, but I didn't find any other equal computers in that price range (up to or just above £600).  However, SD card readers are extremely cheap.  This is one of the first ones that popped up on Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beikell-High-speed-Adapter-Supports-MMC-Compatible-Windows/dp/B07L9VT8YY

I did look again, going up to £700 this time, and I only found two computers with similarly strong graphics cards.  They're actually old and new versions of the same computer, by Median.  The older one's processor is weaker than either of the ones in the other laptops I linked, whereas the newer processor is slightly stronger than the one in the Asus.  They're £630 and £680, respectively.

https://www.box.co.uk/30022555-Medion-Erazer-X6603-Gaming-Laptop_2140741.html

https://www.box.co.uk/30026164-Medion-Erazer-P6705_2647957.html

I haven't heard great things about Median Erazers, but then again I haven't read as much about them.  (It's not a brand you can get in the U.S.)  The one in-depth review I did read mentioned heating issues beyond what you'd expect for the hardware and workload, plus a kind of cheap-looking screen and shell.  But you can always check out reviews of these particular models.

[HolidayNowPlease]

@puzzlezaddict Thank you so much for your help! I've ordered the second laptop you mentioned and bought an SD card adapter.

One last question: do I need to uninstall the sims, sign out of origin or anything like that before I can install The Sims on the new laptop? I've backed up all the save files onto a hard drive.

[puzzlezaddict]

@HolidayNowPlease  There's no need to uninstall Sims 4 from your current computer.  Owning the game in Origin means you have the right to install it on as many systems as you like.  You can only play on one computer at a time, but when you sign into Origin on your new laptop, that should supercede your login on the old one.  If you have any trouble, just sign out of Origin on the old one first.

Once you have Sims 4 installed, launch the game once to make sure everything is working correctly, and then you can copy your Saves and Tray folders from your external drive into the new game folder.  Everything should appear in your new install just as it was on your old computer.

And I hope you enjoy the new laptop.  It's always so exciting to get something new and improved.