Need help...

[TinySarabia]

Hi guys! new here... well for a brief introduction, I'm Tiny, I have a laptop Acer 4730z with the following specs:

Intel Pentium dual-core processor T3400(2.16 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 1 MB L2 cache)
Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M
2 GB DDR2

At present I have Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 32-bit installed... And I play a lot of games with this laptop... But I seem to have trouble playing The Sims 2.. It LAGS a lot... The only time I can run it smoothly is when I close my applications(Rainmeter, Objectdock), and turn on the Turbo Mode on Tuneup Utilites.. Recently I saw my friend playing The Sims 3 on a very similar laptop with the same OS... And it runs very smoothly... Without all the closing of other applications... It really pisses me off that I can't run a much lighter game than hers... any suggestion on what the problem is or what I can do to make it better? Is it the hardware? Is it the game itself?

On a different note, I don't know which section to post this so Moderators, feel free to transfer it... Thank you..

 

[Neverhavemoney]

Hello Tiny,
Welcome to Seven Forums!

It is deffinatly a hardware issue. Only 2GB of ram is probably what is setting it off. You will definatly want to upgrade that. Also, I am not sure what your harddrive disk space looks like, but you may also want to update this as well.

Let us know if you need anything else,
Ben

Hi guys! new here... well for a brief introduction, I'm Tiny, I have a laptop Acer 4730z with the following specs:

Intel Pentium dual-core processor T3400(2.16 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 1 MB L2 cache)
Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M
2 GB DDR2

At present I have Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 32-bit installed... And I play a lot of games with this laptop... But I seem to have trouble playing The Sims 2.. It LAGS a lot... The only time I can run it smoothly is when I close my applications(Rainmeter, Objectdock), and turn on the Turbo Mode on Tuneup Utilites.. Recently I saw my friend playing The Sims 3 on a very similar laptop with the same OS... And it runs very smoothly... Without all the closing of other applications... It really pisses me off that I can't run a much lighter game than hers... any suggestion on what the problem is or what I can do to make it better? Is it the hardware? Is it the game itself?

On a different note, I don't know which section to post this so Moderators, feel free to transfer it... Thank you..

 

[Mellon Head]

It is deffinatly a hardware issue. Only 2GB of ram is probably what is setting it off. You will definatly want to upgrade that. Also, I am not sure what your harddrive disk space looks like, but you may also want to update this as well.

Disagree. 2 GB should be more than enough. Tiny's system exceeds the minimum requirements:

Answer: Maxis has released information on the system requirements for "The Sims 2." If you have a T&L (info about what T&L is below) capable video card with at least 32 MB of video RAM (such as nvidia GeForce 2 or better or ATI Radeon 7000 or better) then you need at least:

• 800 MHz processor
• 256 MB RAM if Windows XP
• 128 MB RAM if Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000
• At least 3.5 gigs of free hard drive space

If you have a non-T&L capable video card (such as TNT2, Intel, or Rage for example) then you need at least:

• 2.0 GHz processor
• 256 MB RAM if Windows XP
• 128 MB RAM if Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000
• At least 3.5 gigs of free hard drive space

Emphasis mine.

That's from this site: The Sims 2 System Requirements

The Intel graphics card might be the problem, but he still has more than enough clock speed and memory to do the job for that game, even with that GPU.

The likely culprit is too many applications running simultaneously (Rainmeter, ObjectDock...), and it's loading the machine a little too much for the game to work well. With the Intel GPU, the game has to use more CPU cycles for the graphics rendering, so the less the CPU is loaded, the smoother it will run. More RAM will help anything to a point, but in this case the CPU is cycle starved, by the sound of things.

Cheers.

 

[A Guy]

If Melon Head is indeed correct, you might benefit from something like Iobit Game Booster. I don't game myself, nor need it, but it would seem ideal for your situation if applications were the issue. A Guy