Picking Out a Laptop

[plumbob_thief]

Hi all.

I'm in the market for a laptop that will run Sims 3 all it's expansions smoothly.

I've been looking at these two:

1.) Model: HP Pavilion 17-e049wm

-AMD Elite Quad-Core A10-5750M accelerated processor (2.5 ghz, up to 3.5GHz, 4MB L2 Cache)
-8GB DDR3 SDRAM
-750GB SATA Hard Drive
-AMD Radeon HD 8650G
-Windows 8 64 Bit

2.) Acer V3-571-6844

-Intel Core i5 3230M 2.6 GHz (3 MB Cache)
-8 GB DDR3
- 500 GB Hard Drive
-Intel HD Graphics 4000
-Windows 7 64 Bit

Both are priced around $600, which is at the high end of my budget. I realize the graphics cards aren't the best, but as long as the game and some expansions is playable at medium-ish settings without lag and massive glitches I'm fine. So basically what I'm asking is this:

-Will one or both of these play the game and it's expansions on medium settings without issues? If both, which one is better?

-If neither will work, could you suggest a model that will do the trick within my budget?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[plumbob_thief]

Gah.

*are playable

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[Flynn Arrowstarr]

Hi, Plumbob_Thief.

After checking the specs on both of the graphics options, neither one will work that well. I only say that because the Intel HD 4000 series doesn't play The Sims 3 well at all, and the Radeon card in the HP has no dedicated memory. You really want between 256 MB and 1 GB dedicated video ram for The Sims 3 (depending on your desired graphics settings) - without it you may end up on low settings.

Hope this helps and happy Simming!

Flynn

[Dizzisquirrel]

Hi my friend and I both run our Sims plus eps on a Dell xps,
bought online from Dell about 2 years ago now, I would highly recommend.
you can even get discount codes - http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk/dell

[plumbob_thief]

Hi, Plumbob_Thief.

After checking the specs on both of the graphics options, neither one will work that well. I only say that because the Intel HD 4000 series doesn't play The Sims 3 well at all, and the Radeon card in the HP has no dedicated memory. You really want between 256 MB and 1 GB dedicated video ram for The Sims 3 (depending on your desired graphics settings) - without it you may end up on low settings.

Hope this helps and happy Simming!

Flynn

Would this one work? Sorry to be a bother, but I'm hopeless when it comes to technology.. The person above suggested a Dell so I found this one:

Dell XPSTM 15

-Intel Core i5-3230M processor (3M Cache, up to 3.2 GHz)
-6gb DDR3 RAM
-500gb SATA Hard Drive
-NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M, 1gb
-Windows 7 Home, 64 Bit

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HBC618A/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1391372466&sr=8-1

 

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[Flynn Arrowstarr]

The processor and the graphics card are both better in this system. You should be able to play on at least medium settings and possibly on high settings. I would suggest later putting at least 8 GB of memory in it, but otherwise it should work pretty well.

Hope this helps and happy Simming!

Flynn

[plumbob_thief]

Thanks!

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[RunAmokSims]

I know everyone has their favorites and I've always been partial to AMD components.  They just seem to work well for me. About a year ago I bought this laptop  http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c03610937 . I haven't had any of the lag that people report with IP and I don't seem to have a lot of the bugs people talk about.  The only thing I've run into is that sometimes with heavily decorated homes it takes a few seconds for the items to render from white to their normal color. I'm planning on adding more memory to help with that.

[plumbob_thief]

I know everyone has their favorites and I've always been partial to AMD components.  They just seem to work well for me. About a year ago I bought this laptop  http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c03610937 . I haven't had any of the lag that people report with IP and I don't seem to have a lot of the bugs people talk about.  The only thing I've run into is that sometimes with heavily decorated homes it takes a few seconds for the items to render from white to their normal color. I'm planning on adding more memory to help with that.

The HP laptop I listed first had specs very similar to the one you linked. They both have integrated cards though... but I have a friend who runs Sims 3 with almost every expansion pack and a ton of CC + store content on a PC with Intel HD graphics, so I guess it's possible the game will be playable with an integrated card.. She plays on the highest settings with almost no problems. I don't understand it lol.

Computers are confusing :/