Ok, graphics cards, that`s where it gets complicated. Avoid embedded graphics. Period. New laptops made today just get built-in cards powerful enough to play Sims, and if I say, hardly. I mean baaaaaaarly scratch the past. Unless you`ve just bought your laptop, it probably doesn`t have a graphics card that supports The Sims 3 well enough – assuming your laptop doesn`t have a separate graphics/RAM card. So, for safety – AVOID BUILT-IN CARDS. Uh, ok, AMD has a good 5000 series, but anything above or below will struggle with The Sims (not because they`re not “good” enough, but because they`re not optimized for gaming). NVidia is fantastic, everything from the GTX 260+ can make Sims work perfectly on high quality (and it`s an old map, it`s beautiful).
I had an AMD Radeon 7770 before replacing this card. I “should” be able to run The Sims to the fullest, but I struggled because my map was more for things like Photoshop/video creation than games. Nvidia specializes in gaming. It`s as simple as that. Regardless of the performance potential of these cards, not all NVIDIA Quadro and AMD Firepro workstation graphics cards are supported in TS4 and TS3 because they are not designed for gaming. TS3 relies heavily on the processor and a multi-core processor makes a huge difference in terms of performance, but that doesn`t mean all graphics cards will work. What this means is that if you have a really powerful dual or quad-core processor, you may be able to get better performance from the cards perhaps. If you have an older single-core processor, even Yes cards may not offer perfect performance. Poor performance even with a good graphics card? You may need to change the way TS3 detects graphics cards. For more information, see this guide. I have a laptop with 8GB RAM and AMD Radeon HD 7660G. My game works well with maximum graphics as long as I keep my CC (package) below 3GB.
Note: It is not recommended to play TS2 or TS3 on a motherboard video chipset. If you have a computer with embedded video, it is recommended that you read this guide. The new on-chip graphics (integrated into the processor) are suitable for running TS3. If you have a laptop, check out this article. Note about these requirements: The requirements listed below come directly from the official TS3 website. These are the absolute minimum requirements you need to get the game up and running. These are NOT the minimum requirements for a playable gaming experience! If you only have the bare minimum and a low-end graphics card, you will NOT be able to play the game! It will work. But it won`t look good, work well, or work regularly without crashing. For laptops, see here. Portable versions of these chipsets may work, but run relatively slower. This is especially true for Nvidia Max-Q series cards. However, Max-Q graphics cards are based on high-end Nvidia GTX/RTX cards and should work fine.
If you have a laptop with Optimus, it is recommended to configure TS3 to run on the Nvidia graphics card. Non-x86-64 systems, such as ARM-based systems (Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs), have poor performance when running TS4 and TS3. I have to do Sims 3 on a laptop that is supposed to be able to run it well, and I have to run it at absolute lowest settings and even then, I have a lot of problems with that. What kind of laptop do I really need to run? I don`t trust what EA says about it because they obviously don`t know what they`re talking about. To work properly, I`d say you need a decent graphics card and a good processor. Integrated graphics cards are not intended for gaming. They heat up due to the high load and can damage your motherboard. Simulation games are CPU-intensive than GPUs, so a good processor is important for The Sims 3 to run smoothly.
Installing your games on an SSD should probably also help with loading times. The minimum system requirements are the minimum recommended system and hardware requirements for a computer that are required to play a particular game. The requirements for several Maxis and Electronic Arts games are below: By: www.thesims3.com/game/systemreq (with some minor modifications based on advanced graphics card knowledge) Legacy Intel`s legacy GMA (non-HD) chipsets with underclocked parts will not work properly. Intel`s Celeron n-series, n-series Pentium, and Intel Core M GPUs are ultra-low power that also feature underclocked GPUs. By default, integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and NVIDIA TurboCache variants can use settings higher than what would be optimal for them. Graphics settings can be lowered to improve performance. ^ Some of these cards are dual GPU cards and are known to perform micro-stuttering. As a result, performance on these cards is reduced. The same goes for graphics cards in SLI or CrossFire mode.
For computers with integrated graphics chipsets, the game requires at least: The Sims 3 system requirements require a minimum AMD Radeon 9200 SE graphics card with 128 MB VRAM. You also need at least 1 GB of system RAM and a minimum processor equivalent to a 2.00 GHz Intel Pentium 4. You will need at least 5 GB of free hard drive space to install the game. These requirements are very low – any PC should be able to run this game without any problems when the graphics are down. I play on a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit computer with an Intel i7 920 overclocked to 3.00GHz, 12GB of RAM and a GTX 260 Core 216. The game performs quite well at medium to high settings with all expansions except Into the Future. It works slower when CASt and CAS are used because I have to load everything, and during the game I have some issues when I move the camera. If you`re looking for a laptop, make sure it doesn`t use built-in graphics and Google how the game will perform on that particular model. All requirements are the same with the following additions: This table is for desktop charts ONLY and does not take into account the rest of your computer. If you have a great graphics card but everything else sucks, your performance will be zero. If you have a newer computer with a powerful processor and lots of RAM, but install a crappy graphics card, you`ll probably still have performance issues. Yes, you can play medium to high settings with your CPU, which is 83% lower than necessary, but it will play.
Plus, your graphics card and RAM are perfect for gaming. Edit: It is also important to pay attention to what is in your machine. Intel is good for quality, AMD is good for efficiency (in terms of processors). NVidia is usually designed for gamers (although they have other cards you can also browse that have other things in mind – like Photoshop)Nvidia focuses more on performance, AMD is again good for efficiency. The name and type of things in your computer are important because all the above names have had days where they made a bad line of things, and you could have gotten one. My specs (although I have a desktop) run 8GB of RAM, an Intel i7 with 3.40GHz performance, and an Nvidia GTX 760 (formerly AMD Radeon HD 7770) with 3GB of dedicated video RAM.