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sims & laptops (5 posts)

Anonymous Posted 5 years, 12 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Hello,

I am looking to buy a notebook/laptop computer for our daughter's 15th birthday. She is a mad Sims gamer and we were hoping to only spend about $1000 dollars on her. She wants to use the laptop for school work but would also like to play her sims games on it as well if possible.

The store said we would need a dedicated graphics card to play her games and the amount of money we were going to spend will not play them. Is this true or would the games just not play at peak performance?

What would be the solution otherwise? Our budget is rather limited but this is her only birthday wish. Are we destined to fail in our quest?

The laptop model in question we are looking at is a Toshiba satellite a100 with an upgrade to 512mb RAM.

Thanks

Mrs flash

Chris Burrage Posted 5 years, 12 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: sims & laptops

Here are the graphics cards supported by Sims 2 -

ATI RadeonTM series (7000 or better)
Radeon 7000/VE series (non-T&L; requires 2.0 GHz processor)
7200, 7500
8500, All-In-Wonder 8500
9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
X300, X600, X800

Nvidia® QuadroTM series
Quadro, Quadro2, Quadro4

Nvidia® Geforce series (GeForce2 and better)
GeForce2
GeForce3, 3 Ti
GeForce4, 4Ti, MX 420, 440
GeForce FX 5200, 5600, 5700, 5800, 5900, 5950
GeForce 6600, 6800

Intel® Extreme Graphics (non-T&L; requires 2.0 GHz processor)
82845, 82865, 8291

The card in this laptop (may vary) -

ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® XPRESS 200M with upto 256MB shared video memory* (UMA) 64MB default

is not listed, therefore not supported, but with the memory set to 256 MAY work. Of course if you can find a laptop with one of the above listed cards then you will be fine.

Chris B

Gordon Drennan Posted 5 years, 12 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: sims & laptops

I'm not sure that these games don't work, but rather that they become unusably slow. The games require plenty of CPU processing power, they require plenty of video RAM, and they like some video graphics chipsets better than others. If the computer you choose to buy hasn't got one of those you have to option it up with more of the others.

I'd suggest that if you are buying a $1000 laptop and you want performance you're be better off with one like the Compaq Presario V2627AU which uses an AMD Sempron processor than one like the Toshiba that uses Intel.

The intel-based low-end laptops are more portable. They run cooler and they run longer on their batteries.

The AMD-based laptops have more powerful processors and they have separate internal video cards like the ATI Radeon.

Computer stores seem to be more into selling the regular range of products. Whereas you often find the low-end AMD-based machines on special at very good prices at stores like Harvey Norman and Officeworks.

Michael McDonald Posted 5 years, 9 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: sims & laptops

Hi Mrs Flash,

My sister also is a mad sims gamer. As we were on a budget for her christmas present, we bought her a Dell Inspiron 2200, with a 1.4GHz Celeron, 256MB ram, and intergrated video.

We installed sims and it ran well. A little laggy. Only recently we bought a extra 512MB stick for it, and since then Sims 2 runs like an absolute dream.

Sims doesn't appear to be a game that requires huge graphical performance, my advice though is to get as much ram as you can afford!

gamerhelp Posted 1 year, 6 months ago Joined: N/A

Found some cool stuff here http://www.gamerfuse.com Galactic Conquest “Galactic Conquest” is a free sci-fi browser MMO game with over 350,000 members. The game takes place in 10,500 AD, and you have been elected as leader of a planet. Like other browser-based games, “Galactic Conquest” is a kingdom-building game, and it's up to you to make your planet one of the leaders in the galaxy.

To do this, you must ally with or wage war against other players, and build your own planet (and future colonies) up. There are over 100 research types, 33 planet types, 1000+ battle strategies, 80+ missions, 8 races, and 12 resources in the game.

Due to its nature – and being mostly text-based – this is a game best played in short bursts, or once a day at work or school.

sims & laptops (5 posts)

sims & laptops (5 posts)

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