Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

by SerenitySims101
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Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

[ Edited ]
★★★★★ Novice

Hi Everyone!

 

So I'm finally going to be able to replace my current lower-end laptop and I plan to upgrade to a laptop (PC is not convenient for me because I live on campus for college) with specs that would be good for both the Sims 2 UC and Sims 4 w/ majority of the EPs, and some of the SPs and GPs, and a lot (thousands) of CC and mods for both games.

 

I specifically posted in the Sims 4 section because I know that the Sims 2 shouldn't be a problem since it doesn't require the newer cards (and I know I'm probably going to have to utilize the Graphics Rules Maker to get it to work). However, I am hoping to play the Sims 4 with high or ultra settings. I found these laptops so far and my budget is max $800:

 

1.  https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Laptop-10300H-GeForce-Obsidian/dp/B08CGMGTSM/ref=sr_1_25?crid=2FUI4UGZ3K...

 

2. https://www.amazon.com/R5-3550H-Processor-Graphics-FX505DT-AH51-Keyboard/dp/B07VBK4SYS/ref=as_li_ss_...

 

3. https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Ideapad-i5-9300H-Processor-81LK00HDUS/dp/B07VC55LF5/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2F...

 

4. https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Gaming-Laptop-i5-10300H/dp/B08BS557MX/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2FUI4UG...

 

5. https://www.amazon.com/Latest-HP-Pavilion-i5-9300H-Windows/dp/B07TMHXCRJ/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2FUI4UGZ3K...

 

If anyone has had experience with these laptops or has input on the specs of these models, please let me know! Thank you!

Message 1 of 16 (1,325 Views)

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Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

@SerenitySims101  Excess heat will shorten a the lifespan of computer hardware, but the components will do everything possible to protect themselves.  That's why I keep mentioning thermal throttling: it's not that your laptop would likely be damaged by excess heat, it's that the heat would cause the CPU and GPU to downclock so they don't become damaged, and you'd see the results in performance.

 

A 1650 Max-Q should be able to run all Sims 4 packs together on ultra graphics settings.  Whether that extends to your custom content depends not so much on the amount of cc you have installed as the type.  High poly (high resolution) items take more resources to render than EA-made items.  The more of these items are in camera range—not just installed, but actually being rendered—the higher the demands placed on the graphics card.

 

It's therefore difficult for me to predict whether a Max-Q card would be fast enough for you, or even whether a 1650 ti would be fast enough, since there is some extremely high poly cc floating around.  I can only tell you how much performance, roughly, you'd gain or lose depending on the choice.

 

Having said that, it sounds like peace of mind might be the most important consideration here.  If you're already worried about hardware temperatures, there's a good chance you'll keep thinking about it while you play, and that might impact your enjoyment of the game more than turning down one or two graphics settings to high.

 

Regardless of which laptop you choose, you can help limit the workload of the components, and therefore limit the temperatures to some degree, by capping in-game framerates to 60, or maybe 72 if you happen to have a 144 Hz monitor.  (Fewer frames rendered per second means a lower workload.)  This process is quite simple once you have the laptop in front of you; if you need help with the process at that point, feel free to ask.

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I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.

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Message 8 of 16 (1,184 Views)

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Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

@SerenitySims101  I'd  cross off the last option because its graphics card is about 30% slower than the card in the others.  While the 1050 should still (barely) be able to run Sims 4 on ultra graphics settings, that's a lot of performance to give up for no improvement in price.

 

For the others, the Acer Nitro has the best battery life, and the performance of it and the Asus would probably be a bit better than the Ideapad.  The performance of any of them should be fine; this is about a few percentage points of improvement.  The bigger concern though is that these are all offered by third-party sellers, so if you did have an issue, it might be difficult to get support from them or Amazon.  Their ratings are mediocre to decent, but still not great.

 

Even putting that aside, you could get a slightly faster 1650 ti for your budget.  These are all sold by Amazon itself:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-i5-10300H-GeForce-Keyboard-AN515-55-59KS/dp/B08H2H89K1

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-15IMH05-81Y4001XUS-Notebook/dp/B089KR7Y7Z

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Gaming-G3-3500-i5-10300H/dp/B08DX82SD8

 

Again, the Acer should have the best performance; the advantage of the Dell is it has a much larger hard drive, which would be convenient if you wanted to store large amounts of data.  The Ideapad doesn't have great in-game performance, and its screen isn't as good, but I linked it since the fact that you're considering a couple other options suggests maybe you like it for other reasons.

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I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 2 of 16 (1,299 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

★★★★★ Novice
@puzzlezaddict Thank you so much for the advice! I have a quick question before the computer one, how did you tell if it was being sold by a third-party seller or not, I thought since it said "Sold by HP" or another brand it meant it was coming from the brand itself?

The Acer you recommended seems pretty good to me, thank you for the tip on upgrading to a better card. My only concern is the heating because looking at the reviews, some are stating that the computer gets super hot (I'm not sure if the heat can be resolved with just any fan or maybe I need to do something else to fix the issue).
Message 3 of 16 (1,285 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

@SerenitySims101  On the Amazon site, under the Buy Now button, you can see the "ships from" and "sold by" labels.  If you click on the seller name, you'll see the company's overall rating and can look at individual reviews as well.  I'm looking at the desktop site; I don't know whether that makes a difference.

 

The Acer I linked is the same overall model you linked, just with a slightly faster graphics card, which shouldn't change the thermals very much, if at all.  The thing is, all the gaming laptops in this price range run quite hot if you push their hardware enough.  I wouldn't worry about the processor temperature that much if the most strenuous task it will ever run is Sims 4—that shouldn't come close to maxing out the CPU or its temperature.

 

GPU temperatures are much more important, especially as the graphics card will throttle performance at high temps to protect itself.  Even then, it's usually more useful to look clock speed on high load: you know the GPU will hit the temperature where it starts to throttle; the question is how much performance you lose when it does.

 

If you want a comparison, take a look at the thermals listed in these reviews:

 

https://laptopmedia.com/review/acer-nitro-5-an515-55-review-can-it-handle-the-comet-lake-h-processor...

https://laptopmedia.com/review/dell-g3-15-3500-review-they-hardly-changed-anything/

https://laptopmedia.com/review/lenovo-ideapad-gaming-3i-15-review-second-generation-ideapad-gaming-1...

 

The "temperatures and comfort" section should give you an idea of what you'd see.  The fps tests in games that are more demanding than Sims 4 may be interesting to you as well.

 

I'm not saying that temperature isn't or shouldn't be a concern, just that it's possibly a problem on any gaming laptop in this class.  Even most non-gaming laptops will heat up quite a bit when running games, unless the manufacturer throttles performance to a significant extent.  So the question is what you do about it, and the answer is usually just make sure the laptop can cool itself, expect the internal software to throttle performance when appropriate, and run utilities like CPU-Z and GPU-Z to keep an eye one temperatures yourself.

 

 

——————————————————————————————————————————

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 4 of 16 (1,266 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

[ Edited ]
★★★★★ Novice

@puzzlezaddictYeah, I see the two labels underneath Buy Now, thank you for bringing that to my attention I never even realized that.

After looking at the temps of the Acer Nitro 5, I did become concerned with the heating situation (but I'll still be considering it in my final decision). However, I did find this https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Premium-Processor-GeForce-Keyboard/dp/B07WNGFTN2/ref=sr_1_30?dchild=1&ke... that seems to have pretty much the same specs as the Acer. I know this one is also sold third-party, but the ratings seem pretty good overall. I will still be looking at this laptop to check with the cooling as well to compare it to the Acer.

 

Or this MSI: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-gf63-15-6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i5-nvidia-geforce-gtx1650-256gb-... (only thing is it has a 1650 not 1650 ti).

Message 5 of 16 (1,253 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

[ Edited ]

@SerenitySims101  I couldn't find a review for the specific configuration in the Asus, at least not in a few minutes of googling, but I would expect it to run with about the same temperature profile as the others based on similar Asus laptops.  I'm not saying it's a worse choice, just not necessarily any better, at least from a temperature or performance perspective.

 

For the MSI, the issue is not so much that it's a non-ti card but that it's the Max-Q variant.  That stands for maximum efficiency, which means the card uses less power.  It also therefore doesn't perform as well as even a regular 1650.  The gap is not dramatic, but going from a regular 1650 ti and a 1650 Max-Q, you might expect to lose around 10% of performance, depending on the game and the graphics settings you use.

 

The MSI does run cooler because of that efficiency though.  So the question is what's more important to you: getting the best performance for your money, or keeping temperatures in check.  Either answer is valid.

——————————————————————————————————————————

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 6 of 16 (1,233 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

[ Edited ]
★★★★★ Novice

@puzzlezaddict Thank you for the breakdown. I think I'm concerned with the thermal issues because I have no plans to replace this next computer anytime soon, especially while I'm still in college, so I assume that a computer with more thermal issues has a shorter lifespan. While researching, I did see multiple people recommend undervolting and using thermal paste, but I've also seen some reviews saying that even when using those two methods, the temperature still gets high in the Acer (I also watched a simmer's updated Acer Nitro 5 review and she said she wouldn't recommend/her con list was bigger than her pros list).

As of right now, it seems as though I'm leaning towards the MSI more, but I do have a question regarding the graphics card. So I know now that the 1650 Max-Q is a downgrade from the regular 1650 and 1650 Ti, so would you say that it would have trouble with high/ultra settings in the Sims 4 with the high amount of CC and mods I mentioned in my original post (I would say around 10-15 GB, maybe more)?

Message 7 of 16 (1,215 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

@SerenitySims101  Excess heat will shorten a the lifespan of computer hardware, but the components will do everything possible to protect themselves.  That's why I keep mentioning thermal throttling: it's not that your laptop would likely be damaged by excess heat, it's that the heat would cause the CPU and GPU to downclock so they don't become damaged, and you'd see the results in performance.

 

A 1650 Max-Q should be able to run all Sims 4 packs together on ultra graphics settings.  Whether that extends to your custom content depends not so much on the amount of cc you have installed as the type.  High poly (high resolution) items take more resources to render than EA-made items.  The more of these items are in camera range—not just installed, but actually being rendered—the higher the demands placed on the graphics card.

 

It's therefore difficult for me to predict whether a Max-Q card would be fast enough for you, or even whether a 1650 ti would be fast enough, since there is some extremely high poly cc floating around.  I can only tell you how much performance, roughly, you'd gain or lose depending on the choice.

 

Having said that, it sounds like peace of mind might be the most important consideration here.  If you're already worried about hardware temperatures, there's a good chance you'll keep thinking about it while you play, and that might impact your enjoyment of the game more than turning down one or two graphics settings to high.

 

Regardless of which laptop you choose, you can help limit the workload of the components, and therefore limit the temperatures to some degree, by capping in-game framerates to 60, or maybe 72 if you happen to have a 144 Hz monitor.  (Fewer frames rendered per second means a lower workload.)  This process is quite simple once you have the laptop in front of you; if you need help with the process at that point, feel free to ask.

——————————————————————————————————————————

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 8 of 16 (1,185 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

★★★★★ Novice
@puzzlezaddict Thank you so much for all the help you provided me! I think with taking all things into consideration, and as you said with having a peace of mind, I'm going to go ahead and get the MSI laptop. I believe the laptop is 120 hz, but I'll have further confirmation once I have it and I'll come back with any questions regarding capping in-game framerates.
Message 9 of 16 (1,175 Views)

Re: Laptop Purchase for Sims 2 UC and Sims 4

★★★★★ Novice

@puzzlezaddict Hi, it's been a while but I wanted to thank you again for helping me with the purchase of my laptop. I bought my gaming laptop a while ago and now that I have it, I wanted to learn more about how to go about capping the in-game framerates (I was not sure if it was okay to continue this thread to ask or start up a new thread). I also installed the sims 3, so if there is a way to cap those framerates as well, I would gladly appreciate learning more about that.

Message 10 of 16 (1,038 Views)