Is this laptop decent enough for TS3?

foxx_fennec

I’m looking to replace my 5-year-old Lenovo Thinkpad T430i with something better. For the last few years, I’ve been exclusively playing TS4 mainly due to the amount of lag in TS3, but I’d like to go back to playing both games if my next laptop runs TS3 decently enough.

The laptop I’m looking to get is a Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1.
https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-inspiron-15-7000-2-in-1/specs/

I know I won’t be able to find a good gaming laptop without forking over a ton of money, but will this one be decent enough, as far as less-expensive laptops go? If not, does anyone have any better recommendations?

I’m looking specifically for a laptop (no desktops!) ideally under $750, though I’m willing to pay up to $900 if performance is particularly good.

puzzlezaddict

The computer you listed isn't going to give you anywhere near the TS3 experience you want. The processor is U-series, which stands for ultra-low power, meaning it will throttle power compared to its more powerful cousins. Even more importantly, this laptop only has an integrated graphics card. For TS3, you really need a dedicated card—at least an Nvidia 960 or 1050 ti. Otherwise, the more demanding expansion packs (Pets, Seasons, then IP and ITF) might be out of the question. There's also the issue of cooling, especially on a laptop; Dell products aren't great in this regard.

I'm sure @phoebebebe13 can find you a better laptop than this one, and still within your price range. Just specify your country as well as anything else you want your laptop to do besides play TS3 and TS4.

foxx_fennec

What about the Dell G3 15 Gaming? I just came across this one.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/dell-g3-15-gaming/spd/g-series-15-3579-laptop

This one does have an NVIDIA graphics card (NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 - is that good?); the reviews have mixed comments about the cooling, but I'm sure it can't be any worse than my current laptop in that regard.

puzzlezaddict wrote: »

I'm sure @phoebebebe13 can find you a better laptop than this one, and still within your price range. Just specify your country as well as anything else you want your laptop to do besides play TS3 and TS4.

I'm in the USA. I'm interested in using it for some games which are fairly intensive (e.g., Skyrim, BATIM, Civ5); other than that, I'm mostly going to be using it for lighter stuff like web browsing, coding, lighter games (e.g., OpenRCT2, UnReal World), etc. I also want to dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu.

Having a built-in webcam and CD/DVD drive would be a plus, but neither of those are hugely important, since I can use external USB ones if necessary.

puzzlezaddict

That one looks a lot better, although the cooling problems should not be discounted. There's also the issue of RAM—8 GB is enough for TS3, but to futureproof your computer, you'd really want 16 GB. I believe you get better performance from 2 RAM sticks instead of the one that this laptop has, but that's right at the edge of my knowledge. The best thing really is to wait for phoebe to weigh in, or igazor if she's not around.

As for the other games, I'd just be looking up recommended specs and guessing. Aside from phoebe and igazor, Chesterbigbird may have some insight if she happens to be available.

igazor

I'm not the shopping expert that @phoebebebe13 is, but the other thing to consider is hard drive capacity. The first one you had linked to and at least one of the better Dell models only have a 256 GB SSD. Although some games (like TS3) do benefit from running off an SSD over a regular hard drive whereas others (like TS4) do not, you would end up running out of space very quickly and especially with that planned Ubuntu partition. Larger SSDs drive the price tags up considerably, which is why we so often see very small SSDs to run Windows combined with a much larger drive, such as a 1 TB HDD where just about everything else should be installed and the user Documents folder redirected there.

You should be able to do better than even those Dell models at or under $900 (USD).

This one, for example, seems to hit all the right notes or at least should be really close to what you are looking for and is within budget. No SSD and we usually recommend an i7 for laptops, but the new H series (hexacore, so 6 cores) i5s also sound great to me, if that's worth anything.
https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GV62-8RD-200-Performance-Steelseries/dp/B07D4ZML7M/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

But please don't press the "Buy Now" button on that until others weigh in!


Edit: See, I knew was going to get something wrong. The H series i5s are quad core, only the i7s are hexacore. Why do they do this to us? But for a lower end MSI, this still looks pretty good on paper.

phoebebebe13

@foxx_fennec

The laptop @igazor posted would be better over all. MSI is better for gaming, has better cooling . It also has a faster hybrid hard drive . You need at least a 1 tb hard drive

The dell is offering a small ssd you cant game on and the 1tb hard drive is a slow hard drive

iedy

Hello guys, sorry but im new and i cant post a thread so i need to know if the game may run on GTX960, I5 4460 and 8gb RAM without huge loading screens and such (played before on amd athlon x3, 4gb ram and gtx 960 and it barely loaded in 30-35 mins), also what packs do u recommend to install (i have almost all) in order to keep the game stable

igazor

iedy wrote: »

Hello guys, sorry but im new and i cant post a thread so i need to know if the game may run on GTX960, I5 4460 and 8gb RAM without huge loading screens and such (played before on amd athlon x3, 4gb ram and gtx 960 and it barely loaded in 30-35 mins), also what packs do u recommend to install (i have almost all) in order to keep the game stable

The heaviest hitting EPs are, in order, Pets, Seasons, ITF, and IP. But with those components you should be able to run any or all of them you want fine. I don't know what was going on with Athlon x3, but would have to guess that your system board could't really handle a GTX 960, the power supply was insufficient, or it was lack of RAM holding things back (difficult to say without more info to go on).