Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

by puzzlezaddict
Reply

Original Post

Accepted Solution

The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

★★ Novice

I don’t have much knowledge on laptops and the last time i played sims 4 when it first came out before my laptop died. All I know is it was an Acer aspire. Didn’t like it lol. Wow...It’s been that long that I’ve forgotten how to download and install cc and mods. I used to love doing that. 

im playing on my Xbox one but I prefer laptop, it just don’t feel the same. Hope I’m not the only weird one. So I need help with what laptop to buy. That will run on high and fast settings and no lag with all the cc and expansions and stuff pack. I’d like to know of two, one expensive and one affordable/ cheap. They not have to be number 1 in it’s price range. Do I make sense? I feel weird making a post in the first place after that long. Any suggestions I’d appreciate 

Message 1 of 92 (43,978 Views)

Accepted Solution

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

@Nadia756  All the more expensive laptops besides this Asus have Nvidia cards.  Most of them have an Intel processor (usually i5, sometimes i7).  But those categories aren't totally useful.  Nvidia cards are great, but what matters more is how fast the card is.  Among the cards in the more high-end laptops you're considering, the ranking goes like this:

 

1050 < 1050 ti < 1650 < 1060 < 1660 ti

 

The AMD RX 560 is a tiny bit slower than the 1050, but the performance is close.  All of these cards are much faster than an integrated graphics chip like the ones in the £350 laptops.  At that price point, there are a lot of integrated chips, but your best bet is the AMD R8, which is faster than the Intel 620 in comparable models.  (There are a number of different chips you might see, depending on the processor, but this is the simple answer.)

 

Intel makes some great laptop processors: the i5-8300H and 9300H are good, and great for Sims 4; the i7-8750H and 9750H are quite strong, overkill for the game.  But Intel also makes lower-end processors that have the i5 or i7 label as well.  Some of these are dual-core, meaning the CPU only has two cores instead of four or six, which will make a huge difference in performance.

 

Again, there are too many models to give a complete list.  But if you're looking at laptops that only have integrated graphics, your best bet for performance is getting the processor with the fastest integrated graphics chip.  In this case, the AMD Ryzen 5 2500U and 3500U have an R8, and the (many) available Intel processors in similar laptops have an Intel 620.  While the Intel processors might be a bit faster than their AMD counterparts, depending on the exact model, the limiting factor as far as Sims 4 is concerned will be the graphics chip, so getting a faster graphics chip is worth a small tradeoff on processor strength.

 

All the laptops I linked are by good manufacturers, but given the price point, all have relative weaknesses as well.  Some have better cooling than others, which is nice but not as crucial for Sims 4 as it would be if you were going to try to play a more demanding game.  Some have terrible battery life, but the battery in a gaming laptop is always going to be bad, and you should never play on battery anyway.  (The performance will drop significantly no matter what laptop you have.)

 

If you're having trouble deciding, think about how much storage you want and narrow it down from there.  You can save money with a 256 GB SSD, but that might only hold Sims 4 and one other game of comparable size.  On the other hand, you can always store data like music or photos on an external drive if you want, and it won't make a difference for viewing or listening.  You can also google the model number for any given laptop and read reviews, although check the listed processor and graphics card to make sure you're not reading about a significantly different model.

 

A used laptop is fine, especially if it comes with some sort of guarantee.  The one you linked is roughly equivalent to this HP I linked earlier.  The used one has a slightly stronger processor and a very slightly slower (as in, you might not even notice a difference) graphics card.  The used one also has a single 1 TB mechanical drive accelerated by Intel Optane memory, so it would be much faster than having no Optane but still much slower than a solid state drive.  Of course, SSDs are more expensive as well.

 

I can't make the choice for you, because I don't know what you like, or what else you might want to do with the laptop in a year or two.  All the models from quality manufacturers will perform similarly, with small differences based on proprietary software and what you use the laptop for.  But they're not going to be widely divergent unless you happen to get the rare defective model, and that's what warranties are for.  So you don't have to worry too much about benchmarks or stress tests; just choose one that meets your needs and doesn't cost more than you want to spend.

 

P.S.  Only the 15" and now 16" MacBook Pros are good for games, and they're not a cost-efficient choice.  I love my Mac, but I would never recommend it for Sims games to someone who cares about price at all.  You can get equal performance from a £700 Windows laptop and probably do a couple of upgrades as well, if you decide you want to later.  Macs are wonderful for what they are, but they're not the right choice if your primary goal is to play games.

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

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

View in thread

Message 8 of 92 (43,797 Views)

All Replies

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

@Nadia756  I can list however many options you want, in whatever price range(s) you want.  But "expensive" and "cheap" can vary widely from person to person, so it would help to know your particular definitions of those categories.  Your country matters as well, since prices will vary.  To give you an idea, in the U.S., a laptop that will run Sims 4, all current packs included, on ultra graphics settings, might cost $700 if I can find a good sale.  A good enough laptop that can handle medium-high settings could be around $250 cheaper, but again it depends on sales and inventory.

 

Please also let me know what else you'd like to be able to do with this laptop, like play other games or store large collections of data (photos, music, that kind of thing).  At any different price point, there will be at least a couple different configurations, and which one is best for you depends on what you plan to do with the computer besides play Sims 4.

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

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 2 of 92 (43,910 Views)
0

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

★★ Novice

Hey thanks for the response. I wanted to know about an expensive one, not for purchase but to compare with other laptops. Im looking for something affordable that performs the same as a expensive one. I’m from the uk and my budget is with £300-350 or anything lower. 


I’ll be using the browser to download content for the game and just browse the internet and watch YouTube, the basics most people do. But it’s mainly for gaming I’ll be playing sims 4 and other games that will interest me. And for all the other packs for sims for and mods/cc 

Message 3 of 92 (43,902 Views)
0

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

@Nadia756  The thing is, for £350, you won't be able to find a laptop that will perform anywhere close to the level of a £700 model.  At least not if you're interested in new models—there's probably something used on Ebay that would compare, but only if you're willing to buy from Ebay.

 

Otherwise, your best options are all variations on the same theme: AMD processor with integrated R8 graphics, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB solid state drive (very fast, but not particularly  large).  This kind of laptop will handle all TS4 packs on medium graphics settings, perhaps with a couple turned up to high, depending on what kind of framerates you'd like.  Here are a few different equivalent models, starting at £350:

 

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v155-15api-amd-ryzen-5-3500u-8gb-256gb-ssd-15.6-inch-radeon-v...

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/hp-255-amd-ryzen-5-8gb-256gb-ssd-15.6-inch-windows-10-home-laptop-8a...

https://www.laptopoutlet.co.uk/hp-255-g7-15-6-full-hd-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-2500u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-win...

https://www.box.co.uk/HP-255-G7_2580199.html

 

If you wanted 1 TB of storage, this is the only model I saw for a comparable price:

 

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/acer-aspire-3-amd-ryzen-5-2500u-8gb-1tb-amd-radeon-vega-8-15.6-inch-...

 

I checked half a dozen different sites, and this is the best I saw for your budget, at least in new models.

 

For comparison's sake, these laptops are the cheapest models I saw that would currently run all Sims 4 packs on ultra (albeit barely), although I only looked at a few sites for comparison:

 

https://www.box.co.uk/HP-Pavilion-Gaming-15-ec0001na_2788805.html

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-fx505dy-15-6-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-...

 

This one has a significantly faster graphics card and would be expected to handle all packs on ultra settings for most of, if not the entire, run of the game:

 

https://www.box.co.uk/HP-Pavilion-Gaming-15-ec0002na_2788807.html

 

As for the other games that might interest you in the future, it's impossible to say how they'd run on any of these laptops without knowing what those games might be.

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

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 4 of 92 (43,886 Views)

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

[ Edited ]
★★ Novice

@puzzlezaddict Wow...you actually searched for me. Thank you, I really appreciate that. But if I was to purchase one out of these, then I think I’d be going for the last one. HP laptop seems like the best bet out of the rest. I like how this one looks too.

 

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/hp-255-amd-ryzen-5-8gb-256gb-ssd-15.6-inch-windows-10-home-laptop-8a...

Ok, so if we was to forget about the budget. What laptop would you recommend then? Also what do you play on? 

Message 5 of 92 (43,853 Views)
0

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

@Nadia756  I have a 15" MacBook Pro.  It's Bootcamped, so I can run the game in both Windows and macOS, or at least I can run it in macOS when it's working at all.  (That's a completely different story.)  It has an AMD Radeon Pro 560, which handles the game quite well, although I don't own anywhere near all the packs.

 

Any laptop with at least an Nvidia 1050 or an AMD RX 560 should be able to run Sims 4 on ultra graphics settings now; the question is for how long that's true.  We have no way of knowing how demanding future expansion packs will be, although we can sort of guess.  The best estimate is that an Nvidia 1060 (a card that's mostly phased out now) will always handle all packs together on ultra settings, and a 1650, a bit below that, may or may not quite be able to handle ultra when the game is out of development.  Still, for the price, a 1650 is an excellent choice for Sims 4.  A 1660 ti is great, and also more expensive, and also overkill for the game.

 

The laptops I linked before are all decent models, but if price doesn't matter so much, you could do a bit better.  Among the models with a 1650, the cheapest option I saw with more than 256 GB storage is £750, so £100 more than the HP I linked before.  For that price, you could have a secondary hard drive of your choice installed at a local shop.  Still, here's the option, if you want to see, with otherwise the same hardware as the HP:

 

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-tuf-fx705dt-nvidia-gtx-1650-8gb-17.3-fhd-amd-r5-3550h-gaming-lap...

 

There are a few models with a 1060 still floating around.  I don't know whether you'd buy another Acer, but this one is £858, with a stronger processor than the HP or the Asus above.  The recent Nitros have gotten surprisingly good reviews, so they're not a bad choice these days.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Nitro-AN515-52-Gaming-Notebook/dp/B07S49JZXR/

 

If you're not willing to buy another Acer, these two also have a 1060.  The first has 16 GB RAM, which is great if a bit unnecessary for Sims 4; the second has a much stronger processor, which is also great but unnecessary for the game.

 

https://www.box.co.uk/81LB00BLUK-16GB-Lenovo-Legion-Y530-15ICH_2759773.html

https://www.box.co.uk/HP-Pavilion-15-dp0003na_2462229.html

 

There are a number of configurations available with a 1660 ti.  The cheapest is an Acer (again), at £900.

 

https://www.box.co.uk/Acer-Nitro-5_2557788.html

 

This HP has a slightly stronger processor than the HP above, plus a massive amount of storage: a 512 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD.  I've also heard anecdotally (from an excellent source) that this is a great laptop.  Of course, it's £1,000, and that might be much more than you want to spend.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-Pavilion-17-cd0033na-i7-9750H-Dedicated/dp/B07SFRPSBX

 

The nice thing is, as long as you get a decent laptop, Sims 4 should run fine on it.  Even the ones in the £350 range from before will handle the game okay, albeit on lower graphics settings.  The question is how far you can go in terms of upgrades before it's no longer worth the money.

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

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 6 of 92 (43,830 Views)

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

[ Edited ]
★★ Novice

@puzzlezaddict Is the MacBook Pro good for gaming? Before I started this post, I read other posts and most of them were saying they’re running core i5 or i7 with Nvidia. So how do I know which laptops have these two things?

 

I think these 3 look nice, Asus, and the Lenovo and the last one, hp pavilion. I don’t mind an Acer again but which one would u recommend from this list and which one would you recommend from the affordable list out of the first set of links you provided? One more thing, is it worth it getting refurbished laptops like the one below 

 

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/refurbished-hp-pavilion-power-15-cx0599sa-core-i5-8300h-8gb-1tb-16gb...

refsource=ldadwords&mkwid=sO8GwmqX0_dm&pcrid=341952619666&product=A2%2F4rF82Ea&pgrid=70273689978&pta...

 

 

is this one any good for what I want? 

Message 7 of 92 (43,815 Views)
0

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

@Nadia756  All the more expensive laptops besides this Asus have Nvidia cards.  Most of them have an Intel processor (usually i5, sometimes i7).  But those categories aren't totally useful.  Nvidia cards are great, but what matters more is how fast the card is.  Among the cards in the more high-end laptops you're considering, the ranking goes like this:

 

1050 < 1050 ti < 1650 < 1060 < 1660 ti

 

The AMD RX 560 is a tiny bit slower than the 1050, but the performance is close.  All of these cards are much faster than an integrated graphics chip like the ones in the £350 laptops.  At that price point, there are a lot of integrated chips, but your best bet is the AMD R8, which is faster than the Intel 620 in comparable models.  (There are a number of different chips you might see, depending on the processor, but this is the simple answer.)

 

Intel makes some great laptop processors: the i5-8300H and 9300H are good, and great for Sims 4; the i7-8750H and 9750H are quite strong, overkill for the game.  But Intel also makes lower-end processors that have the i5 or i7 label as well.  Some of these are dual-core, meaning the CPU only has two cores instead of four or six, which will make a huge difference in performance.

 

Again, there are too many models to give a complete list.  But if you're looking at laptops that only have integrated graphics, your best bet for performance is getting the processor with the fastest integrated graphics chip.  In this case, the AMD Ryzen 5 2500U and 3500U have an R8, and the (many) available Intel processors in similar laptops have an Intel 620.  While the Intel processors might be a bit faster than their AMD counterparts, depending on the exact model, the limiting factor as far as Sims 4 is concerned will be the graphics chip, so getting a faster graphics chip is worth a small tradeoff on processor strength.

 

All the laptops I linked are by good manufacturers, but given the price point, all have relative weaknesses as well.  Some have better cooling than others, which is nice but not as crucial for Sims 4 as it would be if you were going to try to play a more demanding game.  Some have terrible battery life, but the battery in a gaming laptop is always going to be bad, and you should never play on battery anyway.  (The performance will drop significantly no matter what laptop you have.)

 

If you're having trouble deciding, think about how much storage you want and narrow it down from there.  You can save money with a 256 GB SSD, but that might only hold Sims 4 and one other game of comparable size.  On the other hand, you can always store data like music or photos on an external drive if you want, and it won't make a difference for viewing or listening.  You can also google the model number for any given laptop and read reviews, although check the listed processor and graphics card to make sure you're not reading about a significantly different model.

 

A used laptop is fine, especially if it comes with some sort of guarantee.  The one you linked is roughly equivalent to this HP I linked earlier.  The used one has a slightly stronger processor and a very slightly slower (as in, you might not even notice a difference) graphics card.  The used one also has a single 1 TB mechanical drive accelerated by Intel Optane memory, so it would be much faster than having no Optane but still much slower than a solid state drive.  Of course, SSDs are more expensive as well.

 

I can't make the choice for you, because I don't know what you like, or what else you might want to do with the laptop in a year or two.  All the models from quality manufacturers will perform similarly, with small differences based on proprietary software and what you use the laptop for.  But they're not going to be widely divergent unless you happen to get the rare defective model, and that's what warranties are for.  So you don't have to worry too much about benchmarks or stress tests; just choose one that meets your needs and doesn't cost more than you want to spend.

 

P.S.  Only the 15" and now 16" MacBook Pros are good for games, and they're not a cost-efficient choice.  I love my Mac, but I would never recommend it for Sims games to someone who cares about price at all.  You can get equal performance from a £700 Windows laptop and probably do a couple of upgrades as well, if you decide you want to later.  Macs are wonderful for what they are, but they're not the right choice if your primary goal is to play games.

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

I don't work for EA. I'm just trying to help fellow players with their games.
Message 8 of 92 (43,798 Views)

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

★★ Novice

@puzzlezaddict @I got you. I will probably will be choosing one from the second set of links you provided. But it is still quite a bit of money so won’t be purchasing just yet lol. 

Before I purchase though, I will have a look around more just to be sure what I really want lol. But I really do appreciate you providing all the links and info you’ve given me, so thank you very much and I wish you and your family a merry Christmas and happy new year. 

Message 9 of 92 (43,757 Views)
0

Re: The best laptop to play Sims 4 with all packs and mods/cc

★★★ Newbie

If you don't mind me asking, I also have a quick question. I've been wanting to start playing the Sims 4 basegame now for my birthday but I'm not sure if this laptop will work. Can you please confirm? 

Message 10 of 92 (37,720 Views)
0