Suitable PC for sims 3?

PurpleThistles

I am looking at doing a swap with my laptop for a pc. I havent been able to play the sims 3 for over a year or so, after my last pc died and I simply do not have the funds to buy a full price pc.

The one I am considering swapping with:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz running windows 7
2gb Corsair Ram
160gb Hard Drive
Nvidia 8800GTS 512mb

Please dont suggest saving up for a new one, because it just isnt going to happen, I am a lone parent to four kids, money is very tight! As long as this one will cope with the sims 3, I will be happy just to be able to play it again!

Shadow2Soul

You would most likely need more ram, since the computer is running windows 7.


I'm not sure about the graphics.

PurpleThistles

well I have the desktop and it passed canyourunit online completely! The graphics card actually has 1.2gb not 512 and everything else was an easy pass! Just downloading from origin now, cant wait to get back to playing the sims (going to put another 2gb ram in it though)

Shadow2Soul

I'd be careful of the site canyourunit. It tells me my graphics card has 2GB of dedicated memory and it doesn't. The only way my graphics can use up to 2GB is if it pulls roughly 1.5GB of my ram.

bob007

I'm guessing the video card has 512mb of dedicated memory - the rest is borrowed from main memory. The hard drive is really small by today's standards. canyourunit is only a guide and not written in stone. As a side note the 8800 should run TS3 ok BUT the Nvidia 8XXX series graphics chips are known to run hot so make sure there is plenty of air flow. Some older systems may only take 2gb of memory max.

PurpleThistles

Thanks! The desktop is custom built and can take another 2gb from what I can see. I agree the hard drive is small, though the desktop is entirely for the sims, anything else I have an external hard drive for. As it is, I cant play it yet, as thanks to having 2 shoddy desktop pcs in the past and a laptop break on me, I have reached my license limit on the game (other two auths are on parents pc and boyfriends which I would prefer to keep for playing when visiting!) contacted ea though and provided my product keys, they are going to increase the limit for me seeing as on the broken pcs/laptop, I cant deathorise. Phew!