Fellow Low End Players, Graphics OR Gameplay?

thatpinkcoconut

Mr. OCD back at it again. I have a non-gaming laptop from like 10 years ago. Although I've been playing TS4 for 4 years now using the same device, I'm still curious about what the other low spec Simmers think about this.

If you can, please share your specs, average FPS, and graphics settings.

Onverser

Gameplay over Graphics A. I have everything set to LOW and I'm enjoying it; good performance.

I upgraded from my low end PC a while ago but when I had it is was a combination, I tried to have as nice graphics as possible whilst keeping it running smoothly. Only thing I couldn't bare is laptop mode, I'd rather have some lag than have that turned on.

SERVERFRA

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

I have my Graphics settings at:
Sims-Very High
Objects-Medium
Lighting-High
Reflections-Medium
Distance-High
The rest on low.

I play only Vanilla, that way my game is playable.

thatpinkcoconut

SERVERFRA wrote: »

I have my Graphics settings at:
Sims-Very High
Objects-Medium
Lighting-High
Reflections-Medium
Distance-High
The rest on low.

I play only Vanilla, that way my game is playable.

I doubt you're on low end. Your config sounds like you're on a decent rig.

SERVERFRA

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

That's why I voted the perfect balance.

SheriSim57

I ended up having to give up my cheap laptop about the time city living and toddlers came out, bought a more expensive one..... I play vanilla but have all packs except snowy escape and JTB ( just haven’t got around to buying them yet ). I have a good graphics card, once in awhile I experience a small amount of lag, but It is usually pretty good even at high, considering I spent a pretty fortune for this last laptop, if I had to I would lower graphics if I had to to balance them out, which I might have to as more packs are still being added. And this is not a low end laptop, but I’m no tech, and don’t really know how to optimize it.

Sharonia

Both are important to me. I won't play the Sims 4 on anything but ultra settings.

When the Sims 3 was current I couldn't play it with the graphics on a setting that I liked so I quit playing it altogether. I need to enjoy what I'm looking at when I play it.

Simmerville

Graphics over Gameplay A. I'm willing to sacrifice some FPS just to make everything look decent at least; okay-ish performance

I have never focused a lot on this, and it surprises me a bit that it was not a bigger issue than it was, because my computer is now 4-5 years old and was among the very cheap options back then. The video card is integrated, and I never upgraded anything. Game is running decently (tiny lag, which gets better if I free up more hard drive space), graphic settings are good to great. I'm sure the FPS is poor, but I don't mind as long as it is possible for me to make videos for my Youtube.

In the future I'm prepared to be very selective when adding new packs, because I prefer keeping the settings where they are today.

PS: I'm not thrilled about the upcoming "100 new skintones" - that we probably can not choose whether we want or not. I really don't think they will mean much to a low end game, except possibly slowing down performance by occupying hard drive space. I already have more skin tones than I need, and never really understood the "political correct" fuss... Hopefully those files will not be forced onto simmers on poor computers - or there will be a way to avoid it.

EnkiSchmidt

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

Not on a low end system anymore, but when I was I had reflections disabled, everything else at lowest and then tried raising view distance and sim detail, the visual categories that matter most to me. There was some lag/stuttering, but no crashes.

Simburian

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

thatpinkcoconut wrote: »

SERVERFRA wrote: »

I have my Graphics settings at:
Sims-Very High
Objects-Medium
Lighting-High
Reflections-Medium
Distance-High
The rest on low.

I play only Vanilla, that way my game is playable.

I doubt you're on low end. Your config sounds like you're on a decent rig.

I use exactly the same specs. but my NVidia GTX 1060 is getting a bit long in the tooth now and my laptop is more than 3 years old. The card came out in 2016 I think so I think Maxis might have used it a lot in testing, along with the 1070 as it was capable of running Oculus Rift if they wanted to use it later.

I'd sacrifice any bit of that spec to just play the game though.

Two updates I got just before the Expansion arrived and might be why I'm not having problems were connected to Audio and Camera. HP updated them

Realtek Semiconductor Corp. - MTD - 1/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - 10.0.16299.21304 Successfully installed on ‎11/‎11/‎2020

Realtek - Camera - 4/27/2018 12:00:00 AM - 10.0.16299.20038
Successfully installed on ‎11/‎11/‎2020

Version10 November 2020:2004-OS Build 19041.630 and 20H2-OS Build 19042.630

8.00 GB RAM. 1 Terabyte HD.
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz 2.81 GHz

From what I am getting from the game this is getting to be the minimum specs. as the game is taking longer to load and travelling loadscreens getting longer.

Time to get a new laptop next year for me.

Goldmoldar

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

Coming from an era where gameplay was king and graphics was secondary I value gameplay very much for I do not play graphics. However, I do not like my graphics looking like CGA but more like EVGA or SVGA if the graphics that are around today was not around. I got my first video card from Monster Graphics. I run at least 6 complete computer systems and I have an good balance on each as to have balance all the major components must be in synch.

muze

Graphics over Gameplay A. I'm willing to sacrifice some FPS just to make everything look decent at least; okay-ish performance

I used to play with laptop mode on because I didn't know which settings to use and it just made me wanna stop playing the game. Visuals are a big part of why I play The Sims 4 so I had to get used to lagging. When I turned reflections off it made the game run much smoother, now I can play with a mixture of high and medium settings. It's still a bit laggy sometimes but worth the experience.

Kimmer

I didn't find the right choice for me.
Gameplay is always over everything for me. I used to play with the toaster of a laptop, with laptop mode and lowest possible graphics and I didn't have a care in the gaming world with it.

When Cats & Dogs came out I realized that I can't play with the toaster anymore. I bought a gaming laptop. It was a mid range laptop back in 2017 (NVIDIA GTX 1050) but not anymore. I tried ultra graphics and it worked back then, but I didn't want to damage my new laptop and I couldn't even see the difference between ultra and high. I chose to play with high graphics.
Slowly after every expansion and game pack since C&D I started having more and more lag and stuttering. I lowered my graphics one by one and now I play with mostly medium. I still have lag that gets worse and worse and I'm debating if I should turn laptop mode on soon. The worst lag usually gets away after about 30 minutes of gaming, so it's still okay.

It's not the worst thing to turn on the laptop mode if I have to, but it will take some time to get used to. I've been there and if I can get smooth gameplay I don't care. I just don't have money to buy new laptops every few years just for Sims. The other games I play still work on highest possible graphics on this laptop, just The Sims is a lag fest.

Daephene

Graphics over Gameplay A. I'm willing to sacrifice some FPS just to make everything look decent at least; okay-ish performance

I added RAM to my computer last year and now I can play on medium graphics with almost all of the packs with little enough lag that it doesn't bother me. I care about graphics too much to settle for low, but I also can't take too much lag.

I have a new computer coming in the mail because I suspect this 10 year old one I'm playing on is reaching the end of its life, and I made sure to order one that should let me play on high graphic settings going forward. If it can't do ultra I'll be ok with that.

SimTrippy

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

Always set to ultra which usually works perfectly (if there are no strange crashing bugs 😅)

ETA: but should that not be possible then gameplay > graphics

Atreya33

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

I have all grafic options set to medium and the game runs OK. I want the game to run smoothly but still want sims to look fine. I play on a laptop so my screen is not that big anyway. So far it works for me.


I am a bit anxious about the skin tone patch in December because so far I don't use the uncompressed skin tones and that option seems necessary to get the better skintones. I hope the existing skintones will stay the same for those who can't use the uncompressed version.

netney52

Gameplay over Graphics A. I have everything set to LOW and I'm enjoying it; good performance.

Most of my graphics are on low except the one for distance and get pretty good gameplay. Pre November patch the lag wasn’t too bad (can be annoying in larger households). The graphics are not amazing but I don’t expect amazing gameplay or graphics with a low end laptop. It’s not as bad as sims 3 that was awful and would take an hour to load sims 4 only takes 5-10 minutes at the most.

Goldmoldar

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

PriestessBizarre wrote: »

I've got a low-end PC, at least 5 years old (specs below), and even when I bought it, it was just a cheap piece of rubbish - I didn't care, I didn't do any gaming at that time.

Just a couple of days ago I increased the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB which has helped, but I really would like to have higher graphics and speed (so yeah, gameplay is more important than the poll option I chose might suggest - however the wording of that option was closest to my sentiments ).

The increased RAM has helped pretty significantly with the speed though. However, when I tried to change the graphics to high (previously was on low-medium) it slowed right up again and basically became the kind of interrupted game play I was having previously. So I went back to medium, which is better than low-medium I guess, but I'm still a little disappointed that I couldn't go high.

I just wish I could afford a whole new system. There are no more RAM slots left, but at least I could put an improved graphics card in, I guess. Not sure I'm willing to spend that money though, considering I really will need to replace the whole system as soon as I can.

Overall summary:






Further detail:

Even with the two slots there is an way to increase your memory from 8 GB to 16 GB by getting 2 8 GB sticks and to it your computer must be able to go beyond 8 Gb and depending on how well you want your system to run your Memory speed is too slow and getting an new system may be more beneficial However, you are stuck with the card as this is an internal type card if this is an laptop and more than like even if it was an desktop I there may not be an expansion slot for an video card upgrade.

HopeyStarr

Graphics over Gameplay A. I'm willing to sacrifice some FPS just to make everything look decent at least; okay-ish performance

This time last year I was playing on my old Macbook at could barely run the game after Seasons. Despite that I would push my settings to get the most graphics wise out of the game. I could not settle for my sims rendering on anything less than Medium. Another thing I needed was a high viewing distance. Of course all the mods and cc I used wasn't helping with performance.

It's the little visual things that do it for me with this game so thankfully last holiday season I was able to get a computer that can run the game on ultra. I'm kind of surprised I endured that long with intense lag, super long loading screens, stuttering, freezing and occasional crashing just for slightly better graphics. Well, I guess it wasn't terrible all the time.

But forget about an 8 sim household, living in a mansion. Just clicking between sims would take an eternity.

Goldmoldar

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

PriestessBizarre wrote: »

.
@Goldmoldar - yeah I thought about getting 8 GB sticks, but I was worried my computer couldn't handle it. It is a desktop computer, btw.


Tech is not my strong suit, obviously. I can manage the likes of putting in a new stick of RAM (although I had to do a good bit of googling to work out how to get the right one - I didn't use my brains enough just to take the existing stick out and take it to the store with me. Besides, I wanted to order one online as I did not have my car that day), but anything that's getting more complicated might mean some far more in-depth research!


.

More than likely seeing the MB is an custom made board for HP it does not have an dedicated MB manual, do you know the model of your desktop?

SimplyJen

I'm not on a low-end PC (and I have no real business posting here)... This is just my experience. Wall of text because I'm on mobile

Back in the day, I played S3 on a crappy eMachine. At the time I knew my graphics weren't great but I still had fun. Then I shared a random screenshot after S3: Pets came out and the official Sims FB page shared it. The amount of hate comments pointing out how bad my graphics looked really bothered me. I wasn't able to improve much with minor hardware upgrades from a discount bin. Then finally I built my first gaming PC in 2015 with my husband. I built another a few years after that. Both custom rigs were/are way overkill for sims but it has also allowed me to play other games that are more demanding. Now I am quite spoiled with Ultra settings. I can't go back to low/medium.

Pretty much I was fine with bottom of the barrel low settings / performance until I was spoiled by a nice desktop. This current build of mine was midrange when I put it together and probably could use a video card upgrade (for other games) but I'm still very happy and grateful to have it.

TomasGrizzly

I'm happy to have found the perfect balance between the two. Lucky me. Stable performance.

I go for a compromise. I wouldn't notice full details anyway, so I just fiddle with it to find a setting that looks relatively well without making the CPU and GPU fans sound like a jet engine.
In games that allow it (in a way that's easy to find), I limit FPS to ~80 anyway (I doubt my monitor can display more than 60).
Then, my PC (4-years-old) isn't THAT low-end yet - the weakest part is the HDD, I'm considering buying a big SSD to cut on loading times.

haneul

I like to push things to their limits, so I would fiddle with my settings until my graphics were as good as they could be without lag. I'd change every single setting one by one until it was just right. I hate lag as well so I would stick to smaller homes on smaller lots (with fewer objects especially high polygon objects). I'd delete the cache files and keep my screenshot and saves folders small. I'd also use mods to help me optimize my game and not play with a ton of EPs installed.

I didn't vote, though, because I'm fortunate and play on ultra settings. I have a gaming tower with high specs.