What is required to play Sims games

coolagarry

My grand-daughter has the following laptop;
Acer Aspire 5720Z Notebook Laptop,
Dual Core T2310 1.46GHz, 15.4" TFT,
2048MB RAM, 80GB Hard-drive, DVD±RW,
Intel GraphicsX3100, WiFi, Vista Home Premium
She would like to play sims on it and wonders what type of
upgrade she would need.
I assume it would be memory and graphics. Any recommendations please
and would it be just plug in or a trip to the computer shop?

Antispam

You cant really upgrade laptops the only thing you can upgrade is ram which is okay for your system. The graphics isn't the best but you are unable to change that.

Well you can upgrade HD and DVD drive but that is relevant here

XP is definitely better for gaming than Vista but probably not worth changing for playing games.

TBH laptops aren't idea for moderna gaming unless you pay around £800+ and they have a dedicated graphics card rather than a shared memory one.

Intel's GMA X3100 doesn't look to bad for a integrated graphics card but will probably share memory from the pc.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4154

You probably need a mouse for sims 2 too, it should be capable of play sims 2 but when sims 3 comes out in Spring 09 well it may not cut it

iviv

Wikipedia lists The Sims system requirements as:

Windows 95 or later (Windows NT is not supported), 233MHz Pentium II, 32 MB RAM, 4x CD-ROM drive, DirectX 7 compatible sound card, 2MB High Color capable graphics card with DirectDraw compatible driver, 300MB hard drive space. The Sims Complete Collection does not work consistently on Windows Vista, but will cycle repeatedly between initializing four modules or give other errors

While The Sims 2 is:

• OS: Windows 98/98 SE/Me/2000/XP/Vista
• CPU: 800 MHz
• RAM: 256 MB
• Disc Drive: 8x CD-ROM/DVD drive
• HDD: 3.5 GB free space
• Video: 32 MB DirectX 9.0 and T&L compatible
• Sound: DirectX 9.0 compatible

You should be able to play both of these on that laptop without upgrading (Though Sims 2 will probably be played on lowish settings.
To be certain, check this site out:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

Visit it on your laptop and it can scan your computer and tell you if it meets the requirements.