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sims 3

weary
weary Posts: 147 Forumite
my daughter has just installed this on her new laptop but it runs so slowly,does anyone else play this ,is it the game (takes up lot's of space)or the laptop
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Comments

  • 4743hudsonj
    4743hudsonj Posts: 3,298 Forumite
    weary wrote: »
    my daughter has just installed this on her new laptop but it runs so slowly,does anyone else play this ,is it the game (takes up lot's of space)or the laptop

    what laptop is it?

    she should try changing the display settings to a low setting so the game runs faster

    its a compromise between looks and performance
    Back by no demand whatsoever.
  • weary
    weary Posts: 147 Forumite
    thanks we will try that its a e machines d620 hope i've bought a good one
  • 4743hudsonj
    4743hudsonj Posts: 3,298 Forumite
    weary wrote: »
    thanks we will try that its a e machines d620 hope i've bought a good one

    errm no:/

    im sorry to say

    its very low end budget and im suprised it runs sims 3 at all

    it has a single core 1.6ghz processor, you need a 2.4ghz single core at least to run it decently

    you have a gig of ram and you need 1.5 actualy rand and an extra half gig for the graphics processing as you have no dedicated graphics chipset so a total of 2 is needed



    to be honest your stuck

    you can check http://www.crucial.com/ and use there scanner to see how much ram the computer can handle and buy a gig more if possible

    i had a quick look but there are 3 variations of the d620 so i cant tell you for sure

    but they all seem to be able to hold 2gb of ram (2 1gb cards)

    now the scanner will tell you what is best for you because there could be two possibilities

    either you have 2 half gig chips in there now in which case yo need the 2x1gb pack which is under £25 or there is just one 1gig chip in there in which case you could just buy a single 1gig chip

    but to be honest for the price difference the first option is better either way


    BUT be warned, increasing the ram will help the game run but to what extent is unclear as the cpu will still be heavily burdened and may be a limiting factor to any possible speed increase

    what i recommend doing is starting up the game and let the computer rest

    then press ctrl+alt+del and click on task manager

    go to the performance tab and there will be two graphs there showing you the cpu and the ram workload

    watch them for a minute and see if either or both are running at 100% for long periods

    then click back onto the game without closing the manager and play for a minute or two normally. then click the windows key and click on the task manager on the bottom and see what it shows then

    report back on these results and i may be able to tell you if you need more ram or not

    out of interest how much did you pay?
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  • jaydeeuk1
    jaydeeuk1 Posts: 7,714 Forumite
    Debt-free and Proud!
    By looks of the spec, it has an AMD x1200 which is a really slow graphics chipset and a low power processor. More memory may help slightly, but it crawled on my wifes Toshiba lappy with an Intel Core 2 duo, 3gb RAM and an intel x3100 and that was on near minimum graphics setting (which looked crap) and 800x600 res.

    How new is the laptop, and did you buy it over the internet? May be able to return under DSR.
  • 4743hudsonj
    4743hudsonj Posts: 3,298 Forumite
    jaydeeuk1 wrote: »
    By looks of the spec, it has an AMD x1200 which is a really slow graphics chipset and a low power processor. More memory may help slightly, but it crawled on my wifes Toshiba lappy with an Intel Core 2 duo, 3gb RAM and an intel x3100 and that was on near minimum graphics setting (which looked crap) and 800x600 res.

    How new is the laptop, and did you buy it over the internet? May be able to return under DSR.


    no they wont

    dont mention dsr if you dont know what it applies to

    the op has opened, turned on, registered vista and installed software leaving it in no way a resealable condition which is what dsr specifies

    anyways what do you think the chances are that they received it only 7 days ago or less?
    Back by no demand whatsoever.
  • samhale
    samhale Posts: 413 Forumite
    Why would DSR apply?....

    I've just bought Sims 3 of an Indian man on eBay. Hasn't come yet.
  • savemoney
    savemoney Posts: 18,125 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    edited 19 June 2009 at 5:59PM
    I very much doubt it will work properly on a cheap laptop or pc with integrated graphics, it will tell you that it doesn't support something when you install it

    I got yesterday a Nvidia 9600GT (512mb)with low profile for my daughters pc because her new pc with a ati pcie card ATI HD3400 didnt run it very well and this was a new pc

    http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=33638&tid=gsearch

    Plays it fine
  • Blackpool_Saver
    Blackpool_Saver Posts: 6,599 Forumite
    on back of box it gives minimum specs required, my sons comp is quad core with 4 gb ram and it's ok on that but we have a separate problem which I am gonna post about so as not to hog your post, I hope you get it sorted but I really think you need a high end comp and they are not that expensive today.
    Blackpool_Saver is female, and does not live in Blackpool

  • savemoney
    savemoney Posts: 18,125 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    Its not such ram its graphics/cpu

    My daughters new pc low profile which is only 3 weeks struggled with it but its was down to pcie graphics card, I went for best on market for the pc given its a low profile one so not many around, this of course will be no good to op as I suspect it has a integrated graphics with shared memory
  • mr_vampy
    mr_vampy Posts: 247 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    This is from the Sims 3 official site

    Minimum system requirements for The Sims 3:

    Windows XP
    • Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
    • 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
    • 1 GB RAM
    • At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
    • 128 MB video card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
    Windows Vista
    • Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
    • 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
    • 1.5 GB RAM
    • At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
    • 128 MB video card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
    For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires at least:
    • Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA X3000 or above
    • 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU for Windows Vista, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (or equivalent) for Windows XP.
    • 0.5 GB additional RAM

    Supported Video Cards

    NVIDIA GeForce series
    FX 5900, FX 5950
    6200, 6500, 6600, 6800,
    7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
    8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
    9600, 9800, GTX 260, GTX 280

    ATI Radeon™ series
    9500, 9600, 9800
    X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
    X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
    2400, 2600, 2900
    3450, 3650, 3850, 3870,
    4850, 4870

    Intel® Extreme Graphics
    GMA X3x00 series

    Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly. Intel integrated chipsets featuring underclocked parts will not perform adequately.

    Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants will have low settings selected, but should run satisfactorily.

    The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.
    Note: Attempting to play the game using video hardware that isn't listed above may result in reduced performance, graphical issues or cause the game to not run at all.
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