Question: Running Sims 2 on my laptop

[marazion]

I was wondering whether it is safe to run the Sims 2 on my laptop. I've been thinking about putting it on for a while now, but what's stopping me is that I used to play it on my old laptop, and it died when it was only 13 months old. I'm not sure whether me playing the Sims on it caused my old laptop to die, so I'm apprehensive about putting it on

Comments

[joandsarah]

It will be that graphic chip the game could stress. Sims 2 was designed to be run with a proper graphics card, not an integrated chip. Any time you see Intel-graphics you can know it's poor. If you turn all the setting down such as shadows and reflections and have a cooling pad or a fan aimed at it and don’t do huge long sessions it might cope.

OP

[marazion]

Yes, that's what I thought might let me down. In that case I won't bother, it's just not worth the risk, especially if it were to cause me to lose another laptop. Thank you for your help!

[raemia]

I haven't used a laptop for gaming in 4+ years but hopefully I can still help! Like joandsarah said, TS2 runs best with a dedicated card, but there are lots of users who play TS2 on a laptops with integrated cards and don't nuke their computers in the process. (I don't have any personal experience with this because the laptop that I had couldn't even run basegame, haha!)

I don't know how old your old laptop was, but I think your new one would be much more efficient at handling heat. I'd say just try it out (if you feel like going through the whole installation process) and see how your laptop handles it. Like you've already heard, you can tweak with the graphics settings too, especially since you'd be installing Seasons. Good luck and I hope the game works out okay!

[marazion]

My old laptop was only bought in April 2010. I bought it specifically because it had a separate graphics chip in it but in the end the processor packed up. I'm not sure whether this was because I had stressed it out too much by running TS2 on there, or it was faulty in the first place.

I suppose trying it out like you said wouldn't hurt! :)