New PC or Laptop - experience and advice appreciated
#1 02-12-2018 
  • Registered
  • 5
  • 5
Hi all,

My Asus Republic of Gamers laptop has finally died and gone to laptop heaven. I was lucky to have had a Windows 7 laptop so haven't experienced problems with graphics and Sims until recently when I installed Assassin's Creed Origins. That did my entire system in.

Sooo, to cut a long story short, I would like to buy either a laptop or PC which will be reserved to exclusively play Sims 2 (all EPs, latest pack I bought was Mansion and Gardens).

I would really appreciate any sort of advice with what sort of machine I should buy and if I should stick with getting a machine that still has Windows 7. I am not planning to build the machine myself.

I'm also not that great with changing config files etc. I can follow advice but don't want to eff around too much because it got me into problems in the past. I like good graphics of course, because I'm a visual junkie, so a good graphics card that would enable fairly high res would be important.

I should also mention that I am not planing on using Origins. I still have discs of all games which I'd use to install (and then patch I guess).

Grateful for the community's trusted advice with this.
epo

0
#2 02-12-2018 
I'm running TS2 (old disc version, no Origin, no UC) on a somewhat new-ish Intel Core i5-7500 3.40GHz system with Win7, and it causes me absolutely no issues!

Whatever system you buy, if it's new, it will probably have Win10 pre-installed. If you still have a functional Win7 installation DVD, I would strongly advise that you get rid of Win10 immediately, and install the Win7 OS on any new machine that is dedicated to running TS2.
For the hardware, I would advise a 500GB+ SSD for the OS, TS2 and non-game programs. You can always add a larger HDD for other games and stuff.
And make sure that you get 8GB or maybe 16GB of good RAM for your system.

With such a setup, from the moment you boot up your system, you can be playing TS2 in well under a minute!

2
#3 02-12-2018 
  • Registered
  • 5
  • 5
Great! Thank you so much for this fast reply. I don't have Win7 installation DVD but I'm sure that can be procured.

What would be the difference between buying a Core i7 vs i5? Would that help the game?

Since I am somewhat of an orphan when it comes to drives and their operation - if I have an SSD for the OS and TS2 etc and an HDD for my other games how will that work during installation? The HDD drive will just be another drive under "Computer" and I can select it for example when I install my Assassin's Creed games?

Also, what graphics card do you have?

Sorry for all these questions, I really appreciated your guidance BoilingOil.

1
#4 02-12-2018 
You're welcome, @epo. If I can help, I will.

Don't worry about asking questions. Better get the information BEFORE you buy than AFTER. Now you can prevent getting into trouble, rather than having to whine about the trouble you got yourself into, when the money has been spent!

Core i5 vs i7 --- I could not say. Information on the difference between the two should be available on the internet somewhere. Maybe on Intel's pages?

All that I *do* know, is that an important factor is the number behind the dash. The higher the first digit, the newer generation the CPU is. The Core i5-7500 is a seventh generation processor of the Core i5 series. So it'll be way faster and more stable -- I suppose -- than for example an i7-2xxx or an i5-5xxx

SSD/HDD --- Yes, it works exactly the same as with two HDD drives. Or as a single drive with multiple partitions. When installing programs, you can select on which drive and in which folder to install. In fact, SSD is just a much --- *MUCH* --- faster type of HDD, but without the actual spinning disk. It's made up of memory chips.

Graphics Card --- Currently, I'm using an nVidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4096MB GDDR5 memory. Evidently (just look at the number of problem threads in the Graphics Cards section of this board), under Win10, the GeForce 10xx series cards are almost impossible to get to work properly with TS2. But on Win7, this is NOT an issue. It works like a charm for me!
I inherited my love for nVidia graphics from the days when I was a faithful user of Diamond MultiMedia graphics cards.

2
#5 03-12-2018 
Oh, in hindsight there's a few things that I should add:
  • my *previous* CPU was a Core i7-2xxx. It worked just fine with Win7, TS2 and an SSD. Only when the integrated sound and network functions of my motherboard stopped working, I needed a new mobo. And the newer mobos wouldn't accept my old RAM chips, while the newer RAM chips wouldn't work with the old CPU. So I had to change everything anyway. That's when the Core i5 came in.
  • the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is strong enough to run TS2 with ALL graphic options enabled even in 3840 x 2160 resolution, and you won't notice any slowing down! The *only* time that you *might* occasionally notice a moment's delay, is when a Witch arrives at the lot you're currently playing. And that delay is usually not more than two seconds, and I'm not even sure that this has anything to do with the graphics card. On older systems, a witch arriving could pause my game for up to half a minute!

So yeah, I'm perfectly Celebrate happy Celebrate with my current system, and can recommend something similar to anyone!

3
#6 03-12-2018 
  • Registered
  • 5
  • 5
Great thanks BoilingOil, I will take all this information and see what I can get for a reasonable price. I'll let you know how I fared.


*** BoilingOil edited this post to remove offensive space in his name Big Grin

1
#7 03-12-2018 
(03-12-2018 09:42 AM)epo Wrote:  *** BoilingOil edited this post to remove offensive space in his name Big Grin

(02-12-2018 01:08 PM)epo Wrote:  Sorry for all these questions, I really appreciated your guidance BoilingOil.

And leefish edited that one ... Tongue

2
#8 03-12-2018 
  • Registered
  • 5
  • 5
Oops sorry for that offensive space addition!

2
#9 14-12-2018 
  • Registered
  • 5
  • 5
I just wanted to update on my laptop problem and say thank you again to BoilingOil wave for his kind and immediate help. I will keep his tips for future procurement of a SIMS computer and I think it is good that it is out there, because many people might need assistance purchasing the right sort of machine.

I turns out, I could reset my laptop to its' factory settings following steps that generous people shared on youtube. I wanted to share the youtube pages here as someone someday might need to do this: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_q...+from+bios.

One can reset a machine, even if it seems that the laptop is D.E.A.D. going through a BIOS resert to "Factory Settings". Of course only if the machine is not completely broken. I was lucky that my laptop survived after all.

What I have learned through this experience:
1. BoilingOil and this Forum is a blessing. Glad I am part of this community now.
2. BIOS reset
2. Good that I kept backups of all my sims games. All I needed to do is install all the games again and plop my backups into the correct folders.
3. If possible, have a Windows7 machine reserved just for Sims. I will not install any other game on my SIMS laptop anymore.

Thank you. epo

1
#10 14-12-2018 
I'm glad we could be any help to you, @epo.

MOST of us TS2 players are genuinely ADDICTED to their game, and dread the prospect of experiencing the heavy withdrawal symptoms when we can not play as a result of some technical difficulty. That's why we help: for solidarity! We could not live with ourselves if we did NOT help. So please, think nothing of it.

Thank you, however, for adding your experiences and further helpful information to this thread. This way, you have already done your part as an active member of the community, as others may find your input most valuable too!

3


Sorry, that is a members only option