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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 7:56 AM
Compatible Laptop
Hello. I'm new here so please be kind
I play the Sims 3 with a ton of cc and mods. A ton as in 50,000 cc and 5,000 mods, give or take. I have all the expansion packs and stuff packs. I'm buying a new laptop and I cannot afford a really expensive one. Would someone please give me their opinion on this laptop for my situation? Like, running the game on high or med settings and the lagging of the game.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072QSVHP...1_t2_B073ZGYCZS
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 9:23 AM
You're in the right ballpark with that one (I'm seeing a whopping $12 off the regular price if you hurry, that's silly but maybe you are seeing a better discount on your end). You could do better for the final pricetag but by cutting some corners. Have you shopped around other sites to find comparable models?

One thing to note, you will constantly struggle with drive space issues if you attempt to install your game and keep your Documents folder that includes the TS3 user game folder on the SSD. At 256 GB, it's not really large enough to hold everything you intend to throw at it as well as manage saved ongoing games so you will want to install the game on the much larger HDD and redirect the user Documents folder there. That unfortunately negates much of the benefit of having an SSD as far as the game is concerned, but larger ones do drive the price tag up further.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 12:53 PM
Not enough. Unless you intend on having less than 100 gigs for the rest of your stuff. I'm barely coping with 512Gb.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
#6 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 1:44 PM
My Win 7 partition on which I play TS3 is an oddball size, 350 GB. And I'm frequently, not every day, struggling to keep the free space from dwindling down too far even with less of a ginormous collection of CC and mods as the OP describes. It can be done on 256 GB of course, but it's no fun to have to count every bit and byte as we throw stuff onto the drive, make copies of saved games, etc., and heaven forbid we might want to install a new program entirely not related to simming that could benefit from running off the SSD on it.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 1:53 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
You're in the right ballpark with that one (I'm seeing a whopping $12 off the regular price if you hurry, that's silly but maybe you are seeing a better discount on your end). You could do better for the final pricetag but by cutting some corners. Have you shopped around other sites to find comparable models?

One thing to note, you will constantly struggle with drive space issues if you attempt to install your game and keep your Documents folder that includes the TS3 user game folder on the SSD. At 256 GB, it's not really large enough to hold everything you intend to throw at it as well as manage saved ongoing games so you will want to install the game on the much larger HDD and redirect the user Documents folder there. That unfortunately negates much of the benefit of having an SSD as far as the game is concerned, but larger ones do drive the price tag up further.


Thank you for the quick reply and the great advice. I'm going to use the HDD advice. To be honest, till now I didn't even know you could install the game on a HDD to play instead of installing onto the actual computer. Do you know if there is a way to change the amount of RAM the game uses? I think it's preset to only use 1 or 2.
Mad Poster
#8 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 1:57 PM
Quote: Originally posted by jbarker2375
Thank you for the quick reply and the great advice. I'm going to use the HDD advice. Do you know if there is a way to change the amount of RAM the game uses? I think it's preset to only use 1 or 2.

As of Patch 1.17 on Windows, which is really ancient history now, TS3 will reach for up to almost 4 GB of RAM as it needs it provided the RAM is available. The real danger point is somewhere above 3.5 GB for many of us, but we can do no better than that due to TS3 being a 32-bit application. The only able to use 2 GB thing was from long ago, before Late Nite was released. Only players of the Mac version of the game have that to contend with that now.

If a patched up to date game on Windows is only using less than 2 GB now, it means that particular ongoing game just doesn't need any more than that yet.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 2:07 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
As of Patch 1.17 on Windows, which is really ancient history now, TS3 will reach for up to almost 4 GB of RAM as it needs it provided the RAM is available. The real danger point is somewhere above 3.5 GB for many of us, but we can do no better than that due to TS3 being a 32-bit application. The only able to use 2 GB thing was from long ago, before Late Nite was released. Only players of the Mac version of the game have that to contend with that now.

If a patched up to date game on Windows is only using less than 2 GB now, it means that particular ongoing game just doesn't need any more than that yet.


Thank you. I am still learning all the tech stuff about this game. Oh and I did find the MSI laptop for the same price but including a mouse, mouse pad and headset. Big whoop right? LOL. Thanks for all the advice and info and quick response. YOU ROCK!!! Happy simming.
Scholar
#10 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 2:21 PM
If it possible, and not too costly, for the other needs ( for the S3 alone it's seriously overpowered machine but I suppouse you do not intend to use this laptop only for Sims 3, right? ) I'd aim for more VRAM - 2GB will give the hardware hard time even with remastered, not mentioning "remastered and modded for quality", relatively old games. Also about 500GB (530/512) SSDs became much cheaper lately, so if it's not a great struggle, give it a chance.


favorite quote: "When ElaineNualla is posting..I always read..Nutella. I am sorry" by Rosebine
self-claimed "lower-spec simmer"
Test Subject
Original Poster
#11 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 2:27 PM
Quote: Originally posted by ElaineNualla
If it possible, and not too costly, for the other needs ( for the S3 alone it's seriously overpowered machine but I suppouse you do not intend to use this laptop only for Sims 3, right? ) I'd aim for more VRAM - 2GB will give the hardware hard time even with remastered, not mentioning "remastered and modded for quality", relatively old games. Also about 500GB (530/512) SSDs became much cheaper lately, so if it's not a great struggle, give it a chance.


Thanks for the advice. Could I eventually upgrade to the 500GB? I'm scrapping for pennies here. LOL.
Scholar
#12 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 2:46 PM
surely; in such case go for better pieces you cannot change later (GPU, VRAM for example)


favorite quote: "When ElaineNualla is posting..I always read..Nutella. I am sorry" by Rosebine
self-claimed "lower-spec simmer"
Mad Poster
#13 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 4:10 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
Dang, what am I missing?

A lot of things, surely. Personally I'm relatively light on CC and mods (4.7Gb) but I have 39 gigs of saves and some 55 gigs of screenshots so it's getting there quite nicely.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Top Secret Researcher
#14 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 5:30 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
256 GB not enough for TS3 save folder? O_o

I think it has two hard drives: "RAM: 16GB DDR4 2133MHz | Hard Drive: 256GB SSD M.2 SATA + 1TB (SATA) 7200rpm "
An SSD for the OS and a 1 TB SATA for data... Mine did that but I had to add my own SATA hard drive.

Sims are better than us.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 11th Feb 2018 at 7:24 PM
A terabyte is quite adequate for a laptop. Put the game install on the SSD and the documents on a HDD and you've got something.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
#17 Old 12th Feb 2018 at 2:03 AM
I try not to throw anything away. I mean yeah sure I have 1.22 terabytes of video recordings that need cleaning up, but that's easy because it's ~750 files total. Now you just try sorting through ~33479 image files (closest possible estimate to actual number) and throwing the ones you don't like, one or two megabytes at a time. It feels futile enough digging through the videos already, and they're probably 500 times larger on average.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
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