Players whose games run fairly smoothly, what computer (specs) do you have?

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I've been working and have finally saved up enough for a new computer! However, what I don't have now is knowledge. I would love some input on what computer to look into, or what specs to look for. I am mainly looking to play TS3, but perhaps also other games that aren't too advanced. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!

texansky

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This is my new laptop (6 months old). We had an older HP model custom-built to meet our wants and needs. (FYI: This model is listed as no longer available for purchase from HP now, but the specs should still be helpful.)

I run Sims 3 with all of the graphics set to high. I have had almost zero lag and the only time the game shuts down on me is when I would leave it run for days at a time. That is in no way a computer issue.

I ran a dxdiag and parsed out the pertinent information below.

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System Information:
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Machine name: HP-LAPTOP
Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64-bit
System Manufacturer: HP
System Model: HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15z-ec200
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H with Radeon Graphics (12 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM - 16GB
Available OS Memory: 15716MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Supported

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Display Devices:
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Card name: AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics - THIS IS THE INTEGRATED GRAPHICS CARD ON THE MOTHERBOARD
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x1638)
Display Memory: 8354 MB
Dedicated Memory: 496 MB - This is why the system uses the NVIDIA GTX 1650 for gaming!
Shared Memory: 7858 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
HDR Support: Not Supported
Hybrid Graphics GPU: Integrated

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 - THIS IS THE ACTUAL VIDEO CARD I RUN THE GAME WITH
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Display Memory: 11820 MB
Dedicated Memory: 3962 MB - about 4GB
Shared Memory: 7858 MB
HDR Support: Unknown
Hybrid Graphics GPU: Discrete

Speakers and microphone are built in Realtek(R) Audio - nothing fancy - pretty standard for the industry.

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Disk & DVD/CD-ROM Drives
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- I would not go less than 500GB for the main hard drive and would recommend getting something larger (at least double) and/or getting a second hard drive to hold your data files to keep your The Sims 3 folder on the C: drive optimized.

We chose this combination of drives because the M.2 type SSD has faster access, and we wanted a large drive for storage and the USB external drive works for our purposes.

If you want to put your game files on the second drive, I would recommend that you install it internally as the access is faster. For me, speed is not important right now. The few programs I run on this laptop (Legacy Family Tree and The Sims 3 so far) don't require me to install programs on the drive. If I ever get to that point, this laptop has room for an internal drive as well.

Drive: C: - THIS IS AN INTERNAL SSD Card attached directly to the motherboard (M.2 type)
Free Space: 200.6 GB
Total Space: 487.5 GB - 500GB
File System: NTFS
Model: INTEL SSDPEKNU512GZH

Drive: - THIS IS AN EXTERNAL SSD Drive
Free Space: 755.9 GB
Total Space: 953.8 GB - 1TB
File System: exFAT
Model: Samsung PSSD T7 SCSI Disk Device

I don't have a CD/DVD drive as I use Origin to install and play my game and everything can be installed online for both applications. If I find I need one, I will probably go with an external one.

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Some helpful information on specific game tweaks, and some background on my play style.
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NOTE: The reason my game tends to crash is that I post stories on the games I play, and I am constantly switching between the game, notepad, the Sims 3 forums, and Wix web editor to document my stories as I play. I do use save as frequently if something important happens that I don't want to lose. At the very least, I save every time I clear out my Notifications in the top right of the screen. I tend to crop notifications from print screens and save them in my screenshots folder in numerical order to use in the story with my screenshots. If the game crashes, I don't want to lose all that work and have to scrap the print screens and screenshots since my last save.

Today I incorporated the recommendations for getting the game to recognize the graphics card, tweaking some Option settings and NRAAS mod settings, as well as setting my FPS to max 60 which matches the monitor's refresh rate. (Uncapped, the FPS can get as high as 400, which will overheat your video card and cause it to burn out. Some laptop monitors have a 144 refresh rate, but I don't think you would notice a difference between 60 and 144 FPS while running The Sims 3.

I followed the instructions from a youtube creator, who calls herself "acottonsock", to do the changes and she was very thorough, even for those with little computer knowledge. The video is called "ULTIMATE SIMS 3 FIX GUIDE 💫 (2022)". She shows how to manually add the graphics card, set the max FPS, and a lot of other Options settings and some NRAAS settings that will make the game run much better, like reducing the stray population in town. She has a lot of helpful videos for The Sims 3 including an in-depth series of videos on the NRAAS mods.

I take a lot of screenshots and use Save As every time I save my games, so I got the 1 TB external drive to hold my backups. Once the downloaded content (items purchased from the store) are installed through the Launcher, I move the files to the external drive in a folder called downloads.

I have a subfolder in the Screenshots folder for each of my separate game saves (Forsythe Family Legacy, Simselves, Farming Challenge with a Twist, etc.) so I can swap out the pictures when I switch games. I also have the same folders on my external drive with subfolders to separate the different screenshots. The files are named in numerical order, so obviously when I remove the screenshots from the Sims 3 folder to save on the external drive, the computer won't allow me to have files with the same name in the same folder. So when I decided I have enough screenshots for a game, typically 250 to 500 files, I will put the groups of pics in separate subfolders and name them with the date range of the pictures to keep track of the order in which they are taken. Probably overkill, but it works for me.

I also store backups of my mods, and document files related to Sims 3 on the external drive. I back up other stuff that I want to preserve from The Sims 3 folder like library files, Sims, etc. There's more but I won't bore you with the details.