I'm coming in from the toaster end of the spectrum, HP Notebook. 138 sims (and you guys should SEE the alien just dropped into my game... LOL! She has a mohawk... ) and I have relationship decay completely turned off.
Medium graphic settings, which *may* be too much, but the game keeps putting them there, so I keep going with it, till something snags. Pausing every so often to let things "catch up with themselves" helps a lot, usually. I'm hardly an immersion player anyway, I'm an hour to hour player, most of the time.
I see "not responding" hangs fairly often, but that's on me, because I've overloaded a couple of sims relationship panels with EVERYBODY, knowing good and well the game will grump. I do that to make flagging easier. <shrug>
I do have SOME relationship culling enabled. I turned it on at first for everybody to see (copy game, of course), and it wiped out something like 237 relationships. Including ALL the "disliked" or "despised" ones, because they were less than 0.
So I posted asking DP about fixing that so zero is zero and not everything below it... we need a few haters in the mix for at least one aspiration point I know of. And then I tried again, with the settings to cull NPCs only and 0 level only. That helped, it was about 73 relationships and my playeds still had the ones they didn't like showing.
For now my settings are on N, Z but I might change the Z to the Greet Level one at some point. Still checking it out. I played for a little while this morning, before that, I hadn't even opened the game since the 20th.
Busy week! One more shift to go, tonight. Whew!
Edit: just saw the Load Time question. I added a little cc recently, along with all the other things I've done that point to me trying to blow up my laptop, don't they? Hahaha!! My load times are getting a LITTLE longer, but, they aren't anywhere near Sims 3's "take a shower" level of hurry up and wait.
I'm playing my game my way, mostly. I'll sit here a little longer and wait, if it means I can do what I want. Pauses aren't such a huge price to pay.
why would you put a computer in the toaster?
Whoops. I meant my laptop is low-end, aka a toaster, which I thought was cute when someone else said that about their machine.
Here's my dxdiag (text format, not zipped), if anybody cares...
i was only playing with you i'm sure you knew that though. before work i can't go in game so i get bored.
Knee jerk reaction, I've run into English vs other languages issues enough to wonder if I'm too "slang" for general consumption, sometimes. Just making sure.
I just remembered, it was about role sims and families.
If you're hanging out at a park (I like Desert Bloom a LOT), it won't matter if you have Maximum Homeless at 0, for a park, those 3 person (mom, teen, kid) families are considered Roles.
I found out when I asked DP what was going on, because with my Max setting at 0 and getting 3 of those families generated, I was afraid something was wrong. It wasn't, they just get a pass through there, because of the lot type.
That may not be the only "exception" but it's the only time I've seen it, so far. I haven't visited many lots, honestly. That's on the list for this week while I'm off, going on walkabout and seeing what/who spawns.
Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know about these families.
So, I looking through the settings. I found the Decay settings, and the Homeless setting. I set all of those settings to 0. Set Custom Population thing to True.
@egwarhammer : I'm a bit confused for the relationship culling option. It says there is an EA one, and a "Cleaner" one. (I have Cleaner installed, too.)
What is the difference between EA's and the Cleaner one? What is EA's is like vs the Cleaner one? (It looks like the Cleaner one has some settings I can customize/change.)
I just remembered, it was about role sims and families.
If you're hanging out at a park (I like Desert Bloom a LOT), it won't matter if you have Maximum Homeless at 0, for a park, those 3 person (mom, teen, kid) families are considered Roles.
I found out when I asked DP what was going on, because with my Max setting at 0 and getting 3 of those families generated, I was afraid something was wrong. It wasn't, they just get a pass through there, because of the lot type.
That may not be the only "exception" but it's the only time I've seen it, so far. I haven't visited many lots, honestly. That's on the list for this week while I'm off, going on walkabout and seeing what/who spawns.
Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know about these families.
So, I looking through the settings. I found the Decay settings, and the Homeless setting. I set all of those settings to 0. Set Custom Population thing to True.
@egwarhammer : I'm a bit confused for the relationship culling option. It says there is an EA one, and a "Cleaner" one. (I have Cleaner installed, too.)
What is the difference between EA's and the Cleaner one? What is EA's is like vs the Cleaner one? (It looks like the Cleaner one has some settings I can customize/change.)
With MC's version, you can be a lot more selective. EA is all/nothing, Cleaner lets you choose your degree of impact. I *really* like it! I've *never* let any kind of EA culling run, but I do have my relationship culling turned on with N, Z settings (npc only, zero level relationships), and that seems to be working really well for me.
I've only triggered it twice (2 different tries at the same save, via copied files), and seen the scheduled run one time so far. (Still trying to figure out when they fire off.) So far, so good! (Once I found the best settings for me.)
I'm coming in from the toaster end of the spectrum, HP Notebook. 138 sims (and you guys should SEE the alien just dropped into my game... LOL! She has a mohawk... ) and I have relationship decay completely turned off.
Medium graphic settings, which *may* be too much, but the game keeps putting them there, so I keep going with it, till something snags. Pausing every so often to let things "catch up with themselves" helps a lot, usually. I'm hardly an immersion player anyway, I'm an hour to hour player, most of the time.
I see "not responding" hangs fairly often, but that's on me, because I've overloaded a couple of sims relationship panels with EVERYBODY, knowing good and well the game will grump. I do that to make flagging easier. <shrug>
I do have SOME relationship culling enabled. I turned it on at first for everybody to see (copy game, of course), and it wiped out something like 237 relationships. Including ALL the "disliked" or "despised" ones, because they were less than 0.
So I posted asking DP about fixing that so zero is zero and not everything below it... we need a few haters in the mix for at least one aspiration point I know of. And then I tried again, with the settings to cull NPCs only and 0 level only. That helped, it was about 73 relationships and my playeds still had the ones they didn't like showing.
For now my settings are on N, Z but I might change the Z to the Greet Level one at some point. Still checking it out. I played for a little while this morning, before that, I hadn't even opened the game since the 20th.
Busy week! One more shift to go, tonight. Whew!
Edit: just saw the Load Time question. I added a little cc recently, along with all the other things I've done that point to me trying to blow up my laptop, don't they? Hahaha!! My load times are getting a LITTLE longer, but, they aren't anywhere near Sims 3's "take a shower" level of hurry up and wait.
I'm playing my game my way, mostly. I'll sit here a little longer and wait, if it means I can do what I want. Pauses aren't such a huge price to pay.
I think my load times only go up to five minutes (depending on the save file and how much cc I've got in), but I've never actually timed it and unfortunately playing isn't part of my plans for today.
My loading times on my laptop range between 5 and 10 mins depending on what I'm doing or how long I've been playing for. Generally to "save and exit" takes about 10mins for example. I also find pausing every so often helps things catch up. My game runs on the 32bit option because I get warnings on the 64bit option, I would imagine that makes a difference to loading times as well.
...My loading times on my laptop range between 5 and 10 mins depending on what I'm doing or how long I've been playing for. Generally to "save and exit" takes about 10mins for example. I also find pausing every so often helps things catch up. My game runs on the 32bit option because I get warnings on the 64bit option, I would imagine that makes a difference to loading times as well.
Wow! 5 - 10 minutes for loading is pretty long.
How many CC/Mod items do you use in your game? And how many RAM do you have in your laptop?
As I posted before it's about two and a half minutes to start the game on my PC with almost 2000 CC items.
64bit is reasonable on systems with more than 4 GB RAM. On the other hand a minimum of 4 GB RAM for playing S4 is highly recommended.
Bonxie: Great Skua, stercorarius skua. Meet me on Fair Isle.
@Bonxie how are you at interpreting dxdiag files? I'd love for you to take a look at mine and let me know if I should do anything to improve what I have going on.
I kinda think it's just an "it is what it is" thing, given my specs. And my love of detailed info. But reading dxdiag info is outside my area, so I really don't know for sure.
I've never timed my loads, I'll do that today. Finally off work, the Cheerleader is IN! For the week. Next work, Sunday afternoon. I'll be around.
Edit: btw, I play on 32 bit. Dunno how to get to the AMD 64 bit drivers here... (besides, 32 bit is fine, and also, 64 would probably have worse issues. Meh.)
/edit
@Bonxie how are you at interpreting dxdiag files? I'd love for you to take a look at mine and let me know if I should do anything to improve what I have going on.
Yeah, I think I can read it.
So my verdict is <dramatic drumroll>: It's OK so far.
CPU and RAM is OK, Graphics is - hm - sort of low average, but seems to work und it's nothing, you could change easily.
You would get a considerable improvement of S4 game performance if you would replace your old-school mechanical harddisk with a SSD (solid state drive). SSD improves the performance so much, you can notice it with every mouseclick - not only in the game, also with every other application you use. It's not something nerdy like changing your CPU to gain 2.5GHz max core frequency instad of 2.2GHz (wow, +0.3 GHz!) and what can only by seen in benchmark results. Using a SSD is a real booster for the whole system. Meanwhile I changed all my system disks to SSD, also because SSD pricing became really attractive over the years. And above all, the change is quite easy, if you know, what to do.
Edit: btw, I play on 32 bit. Dunno how to get to the AMD 64 bit drivers here... (besides, 32 bit is fine, and also, 64 would probably have worse issues. Meh.)
64bit is great, but it's not that important in S4. S4 Windows process tends to be comparatively small (something about 1.8 - 2.0 GB instead of 3 GB in S3). From memory management aspects and from the 64bit Windows architecture, it would be better to run the game in 64bit mode, but this is only secondary.
Post edited by Bonxie on
Bonxie: Great Skua, stercorarius skua. Meet me on Fair Isle.
...My loading times on my laptop range between 5 and 10 mins depending on what I'm doing or how long I've been playing for. Generally to "save and exit" takes about 10mins for example. I also find pausing every so often helps things catch up. My game runs on the 32bit option because I get warnings on the 64bit option, I would imagine that makes a difference to loading times as well.
Wow! 5 - 10 minutes for loading is pretty long.
How many CC/Mod items do you use in your game? And how many RAM do you have in your laptop?
As I posted before it's about two and a half minutes to start the game on my PC with almost 2000 CC items.
64bit is reasonable on systems with more than 4 GB RAM. On the other hand a minimum of 4 GB RAM for playing S4 is highly recommended.
Hi @Bonxie
I have two small CC and the MC command centre base module with one extra add on module at a time (either occult or pregnancy). If I look at the warning I get when using 64bit option it looks like system requirements aren't enough. It could be that I have slightly less than the 4 GB they recommend.
Then you should switch to 32bit version of the game.
Im currently on my macbook and dont know exactly how its done, but Im sure @egwarhammer or @Bonxie can help you out.
If not, I will give you further info when I get home in a few hours.
Hi @Bonxie
I have two small CC and the MC command centre base module with one extra add on module at a time (either occult or pregnancy). If I look at the warning I get when using 64bit option it looks like system requirements aren't enough. It could be that I have slightly less than the 4 GB they recommend.
Do you have a 64bit Windows installed at all? For systems with less than 4 GB it's not madatory to have a 64bit OS - quite the contrary.
Bonxie: Great Skua, stercorarius skua. Meet me on Fair Isle.
Hi there @Bonxie and @egwarhammer
The game is updating at the moment, I'll recheck all the settings when it's done and I've put the mods back on.
I have widows 10, 64bit OS and (here's the problem) 2.00GB RAM. @itsug I always have it set at 32bit just to be safe.
Hi there @Bonxie and @egwarhammer
The game is updating at the moment, I'll recheck all the settings when it's done and I've put the mods back on.
I have widows 10, 64bit OS and (here's the problem) 2.00GB RAM. @itsug I always have it set at 32bit just to be safe.
You should consider to upgrade to at least 4 GB if possible. It would be a quantum leap...
The 64bit OS on the one hand and the 2GB RAM on the other is a weird configuration - doesn't fit at all.
Bonxie: Great Skua, stercorarius skua. Meet me on Fair Isle.
It actually surprises me that Windows even agreed to install 64bit on that, since previous versions of windows 64bit have said no if you got less then 4GB RAM.
Going to agree completly with @Bonxie here. See if you can get that upgrade.
By the way, if you're a fan of No Strings, you'll want to update the extra part of MC to 2.15.1. Today's patch broke something in it, fixed now, if you redownload that module.
I've sent out what links I know to... if you didn't get one, PM me.
Posted it on my wall, forgot to do it here. Strange evening I'm having (rl) woot. (not really)
@Bonxie this may sound like a stupid question; but how do I upgrade to 4GB on a laptop? @egwarhammer I totally deleted the mod out the folder before the game update and reinstalled it again after I ticked the box in-game to allow mods. So far it looks ok, haven't come across any problems but I didn't add the two extra modules onto it. I didn't get a pm but will let you know if I see something wrong.
Is there anything MC command can do about pre-made sims having NPC jobs such as waiter, masseuse, and stuff like that? I've been having this issue for so long and I think those sims shouldn't be able to perform this type of action since it becomes unavailable the moment I play the certain sim. Thank you
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Oscar Wilde
Is there anything MC command can do about pre-made sims having NPC jobs such as waiter, masseuse, and stuff like that? I've been having this issue for so long and I think those sims shouldn't be able to perform this type of action since it becomes unavailable the moment I play the certain sim. Thank you
I never thought about that, and I don't have an answer, but I certainly hope so, and if not, I hope DP can do something about that.
@Bonxie this may sound like a plum question; but how do I upgrade to 4GB on a laptop?
If you know what to do, it's a matter of minutes in most cases. If you have never done it before, you should ask somebody for assistance who is familiar with such things.
Can you please tell me the manufacturer and the type/model of your laptop as precise as possible?
Bonxie: Great Skua, stercorarius skua. Meet me on Fair Isle.
@Catrixiah if you know how to get your dxdiag, I don't mind if you post it here... you'll have to break it up, it will take at least 4 posts, maybe more.
In Windows 10, it's the windows key +R. In the "run" box, type in dxdiag and wait. It may look hung, it just takes a minute (here) for the next window to open (info gathering takes time).
At the bottom there's a Save All Text (something like that) button. Click that, it creates a dxdiag.txt file you can then copy and paste into posts here.
Or you can do what I did, upload the text file somewhere else and post the link here. Either way. But if @Bonxie is willing to help you, I don't mind at all making it easy for you to show her your stuff.
I did. "Okay so far" was enough for me. SSD is a good idea... how hard are they to add to a laptop? Is it just plug in and go? USB thing?
If you think it's an excellent idea (and can help me with that "easy if you know how" part), I may look around this coming weekend for one after I get paid.
Is there anything MC command can do about pre-made sims having NPC jobs such as waiter, masseuse, and stuff like that? I've been having this issue for so long and I think those sims shouldn't be able to perform this type of action since it becomes unavailable the moment I play the certain sim. Thank you
The Careers module allows picking how many (range setting) of each age group you want employed. Here's the cooler thing about it, there's also a setting to decide whether you want jobs potentially given to ALL sims you aren't playing (which I don't like), OR to unplayed sims only.
At the beginning of a new game, I usually have my sim cheat to know everybody, and I'll mark them ALL unplayed, to be able to add the most flags, the easiest way. Then I'll go to MH and mark the ones who have jobs I like as Played, so they'll keep them.
I left several premades alone, didn't go back to them. I now have Eva Cap-whatever as a yoga instructor, and Zoe and Joaquin are both bartenders (didn't care that Joaquin lost his entertainer gig)... and Johnny Z is a detective, which I also didn't do, but thought was cool when he (and Mitchell, and Ulrike, and a few others) showed up for Don L's first day of police work.
Pregnancy adds a wrinkle, though. Katrina C (unemployed) married one of my Librarians during a MC alarm. I left it alone till she hit 3rd trimester, then marked them played (which lost him his job, they've got $$$ money, though, so meh), so I'll get the MC "in labor! join?" message when she gives birth.
I also will probably get a new Librarian when I play. I dropped my family off out front of it about 6am gametime, haven't played ahead to see if my other Librarian (female married to teen Morgan Fyres, lib is also now pregnant by one of my mail carriers, Jade's husband Camilo Amaya) will show up for the early shift, or if the game will toss me a new one.
It's just one of those things. If you don't want them being given NPC jobs, you'll need to mark/keep them played, and set Careers to affect Inactive sims only.
I did. "Okay so far" was enough for me. SSD is a good idea... how hard are they to add to a laptop? Is it just plug in and go? USB thing?
If you think it's an excellent idea (and can help me with that "easy if you know how" part), I may look around this coming weekend for one after I get paid.
No, sorry, unfortunately it's not USB. You have to replace the internal harddisk with the SSD. So you have to open your laptop, remove the hardisk and insert the SSD. It's really no rocket sience - but like the RAM extension it helps, if you are familiar with the internal components of your PC.
A bit more challenging is the transfer of your OS, data and apps (and games of course) to the new drive. There is a Windows built in imaging tool, which makes it very easy. But also in this case it's helpful to have some HW routine.
If you don't want to do it, may be a friend or family member would like to? 14 year old sons love to do these tricks. Easy and impressive
Bonxie: Great Skua, stercorarius skua. Meet me on Fair Isle.
Comments
Knee jerk reaction, I've run into English vs other languages issues enough to wonder if I'm too "slang" for general consumption, sometimes. Just making sure.
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/
Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know about these families.
So, I looking through the settings. I found the Decay settings, and the Homeless setting. I set all of those settings to 0. Set Custom Population thing to True.
@egwarhammer : I'm a bit confused for the relationship culling option. It says there is an EA one, and a "Cleaner" one. (I have Cleaner installed, too.)
What is the difference between EA's and the Cleaner one? What is EA's is like vs the Cleaner one? (It looks like the Cleaner one has some settings I can customize/change.)
(She/her)
With MC's version, you can be a lot more selective. EA is all/nothing, Cleaner lets you choose your degree of impact. I *really* like it! I've *never* let any kind of EA culling run, but I do have my relationship culling turned on with N, Z settings (npc only, zero level relationships), and that seems to be working really well for me.
I've only triggered it twice (2 different tries at the same save, via copied files), and seen the scheduled run one time so far. (Still trying to figure out when they fire off.) So far, so good! (Once I found the best settings for me.)
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/
My loading times on my laptop range between 5 and 10 mins depending on what I'm doing or how long I've been playing for. Generally to "save and exit" takes about 10mins for example. I also find pausing every so often helps things catch up. My game runs on the 32bit option because I get warnings on the 64bit option, I would imagine that makes a difference to loading times as well.
Wow! 5 - 10 minutes for loading is pretty long.
How many CC/Mod items do you use in your game? And how many RAM do you have in your laptop?
As I posted before it's about two and a half minutes to start the game on my PC with almost 2000 CC items.
64bit is reasonable on systems with more than 4 GB RAM. On the other hand a minimum of 4 GB RAM for playing S4 is highly recommended.
I kinda think it's just an "it is what it is" thing, given my specs. And my love of detailed info. But reading dxdiag info is outside my area, so I really don't know for sure.
I've never timed my loads, I'll do that today. Finally off work, the Cheerleader is IN!
Edit: btw, I play on 32 bit. Dunno how to get to the AMD 64 bit drivers here...
/edit
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/
Still playing around with settings. I am loving this mod.
(She/her)
So my verdict is <dramatic drumroll>: It's OK so far.
CPU and RAM is OK, Graphics is - hm - sort of low average, but seems to work und it's nothing, you could change easily.
You would get a considerable improvement of S4 game performance if you would replace your old-school mechanical harddisk with a SSD (solid state drive). SSD improves the performance so much, you can notice it with every mouseclick - not only in the game, also with every other application you use. It's not something nerdy like changing your CPU to gain 2.5GHz max core frequency instad of 2.2GHz (wow, +0.3 GHz!) and what can only by seen in benchmark results. Using a SSD is a real booster for the whole system. Meanwhile I changed all my system disks to SSD, also because SSD pricing became really attractive over the years. And above all, the change is quite easy, if you know, what to do.
64bit is great, but it's not that important in S4. S4 Windows process tends to be comparatively small (something about 1.8 - 2.0 GB instead of 3 GB in S3). From memory management aspects and from the 64bit Windows architecture, it would be better to run the game in 64bit mode, but this is only secondary.
Hi @Bonxie
I have two small CC and the MC command centre base module with one extra add on module at a time (either occult or pregnancy). If I look at the warning I get when using 64bit option it looks like system requirements aren't enough. It could be that I have slightly less than the 4 GB they recommend.
Im currently on my macbook and dont know exactly how its done, but Im sure @egwarhammer or @Bonxie can help you out.
If not, I will give you further info when I get home in a few hours.
MC CmD is available at https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/
Do you have a 64bit Windows installed at all? For systems with less than 4 GB it's not madatory to have a 64bit OS - quite the contrary.
The game is updating at the moment, I'll recheck all the settings when it's done and I've put the mods back on.
I have widows 10, 64bit OS and (here's the problem) 2.00GB RAM.
@itsug I always have it set at 32bit just to be safe.
You should consider to upgrade to at least 4 GB if possible. It would be a quantum leap...
The 64bit OS on the one hand and the 2GB RAM on the other is a weird configuration - doesn't fit at all.
Going to agree completly with @Bonxie here. See if you can get that upgrade.
MC CmD is available at https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
I've sent out what links I know to... if you didn't get one, PM me.
Posted it on my wall, forgot to do it here. Strange evening I'm having (rl) woot. (not really)
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/
@egwarhammer I totally deleted the mod out the folder before the game update and reinstalled it again after I ticked the box in-game to allow mods. So far it looks ok, haven't come across any problems but I didn't add the two extra modules onto it. I didn't get a pm but will let you know if I see something wrong.
I never thought about that, and I don't have an answer, but I certainly hope so, and if not, I hope DP can do something about that.
If you know what to do, it's a matter of minutes in most cases. If you have never done it before, you should ask somebody for assistance who is familiar with such things.
Can you please tell me the manufacturer and the type/model of your laptop as precise as possible?
In Windows 10, it's the windows key +R. In the "run" box, type in dxdiag and wait. It may look hung, it just takes a minute (here) for the next window to open (info gathering takes time).
At the bottom there's a Save All Text (something like that) button. Click that, it creates a dxdiag.txt file you can then copy and paste into posts here.
Or you can do what I did, upload the text file somewhere else and post the link here. Either way. But if @Bonxie is willing to help you, I don't mind at all making it easy for you to show her your stuff.
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/
I did.
If you think it's an excellent idea (and can help me with that "easy if you know how" part), I may look around this coming weekend for one after I get paid.
The Careers module allows picking how many (range setting) of each age group you want employed. Here's the cooler thing about it, there's also a setting to decide whether you want jobs potentially given to ALL sims you aren't playing (which I don't like), OR to unplayed sims only.
At the beginning of a new game, I usually have my sim cheat to know everybody, and I'll mark them ALL unplayed, to be able to add the most flags, the easiest way. Then I'll go to MH and mark the ones who have jobs I like as Played, so they'll keep them.
I left several premades alone, didn't go back to them. I now have Eva Cap-whatever as a yoga instructor, and Zoe and Joaquin are both bartenders (didn't care that Joaquin lost his entertainer gig)... and Johnny Z is a detective, which I also didn't do, but thought was cool when he (and Mitchell, and Ulrike, and a few others) showed up for Don L's first day of police work.
Pregnancy adds a wrinkle, though. Katrina C (unemployed) married one of my Librarians during a MC alarm. I left it alone till she hit 3rd trimester, then marked them played (which lost him his job, they've got $$$ money, though, so meh), so I'll get the MC "in labor! join?" message when she gives birth.
I also will probably get a new Librarian when I play. I dropped my family off out front of it about 6am gametime, haven't played ahead to see if my other Librarian (female married to teen Morgan Fyres, lib is also now pregnant by one of my mail carriers, Jade's husband Camilo Amaya) will show up for the early shift, or if the game will toss me a new one.
It's just one of those things. If you don't want them being given NPC jobs, you'll need to mark/keep them played, and set Careers to affect Inactive sims only.
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/
No, sorry, unfortunately it's not USB. You have to replace the internal harddisk with the SSD. So you have to open your laptop, remove the hardisk and insert the SSD. It's really no rocket sience - but like the RAM extension it helps, if you are familiar with the internal components of your PC.
A bit more challenging is the transfer of your OS, data and apps (and games of course) to the new drive. There is a Windows built in imaging tool, which makes it very easy. But also in this case it's helpful to have some HW routine.
If you don't want to do it, may be a friend or family member would like to? 14 year old sons love to do these tricks. Easy and impressive