BleepingComputer.com: Am I Able to Run Sims 2?

I really want to play Sims 2, at a smooth rate so I don't really mind the quality, just performance. I doubt I will be able to run Sims 3 but can someone inform me if I can? I would use Sys Req Lab but I've been told many times that is unreliable at times.

This is just the hardware for my laptop, I'll post the info of the hardware on my desktop later. If you need me to post some other hardware then please inform me of it.

CPU: Intel Celeron M CPU 420

CPU Speed: 1.60 GHz

System RAM: 894 MB

OS: Windows XP

Video Card: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M

Also are there any tips on making the game run smoothly even with the right hardware? I know I should exit out of all programs (Except Anti-Virus). I killed some processes I know that don't need to be running in task manager also.

Here's the info for my desktop:


CPU: Intel Pentium 4 CPU

CPU Speed: 1.69 GHz

System RAM: 894 MB

OS: Windows XP

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT


My desktop feels really sluggish though..I don't have THAT many processes running. I installed a new video card, it works but sometimes when I boot up it stays on a black screen before coming up to the welcome screen and I have to reboot sometimes several times to get it working. Also I have 3 different hard drives on it, all connected by an IDE cable. I really don't know what's the problem. On the local hard drive (C:/) I have 15 GB out of 30 GB free space, sounds like plenty to me. My desktop is pretty clean of programs too. I have no idea what the problem is. It's not a virus either.

You'll definitely be able to run sims 2 on your desktop, it will probably be a bit sluggish though. I can't guarantee it will run on your laptop, but it will run better on your desktop.


Have you defragged your hard drives lately? Also, how is your boot order set in the BIOS? You should have the hard drive with your installation of windows set to boot before the other hard drives.

Go to Can You Run It? to test.

Thank you for the responses and input. It runs particularly fine on my laptop as I just tried it now. I kind of don't want to play it on my desktop because the fans make wayy too much noise now, to the point where it's severely irritating (Even if I have no programs running at all). I just defragged my dekstop but not my laptop yet, will do that this week. I'm not sure if my local HDD is on the highest priority in the boot order but I'll check soon.

Thank you again.

How'd the defrags go? They should have cleared things up a bit for you, but if you're experiencing high fan speeds, that's probably speaking to the fact that you're operating at the top of your processing and graphics processing capabilities.

Cheers,

Sims 2 was still sluggish for me with these specs:

Intel Dual Core 2.8Ghz
2GB Ram
512mb ATi Graphics with Pixel Shader 2.0 support

even tried 3GB ram upgrade and it was still sluggish.

Since the sims 3 came out i got it and put it on and its sluggish. I find I keep getting this slight pause every 30 seconds during game play and it drives me nuts.

Sims 2 (and even Sims 3) on a Mac runs much better with these specs:

iMac (June 2008)
Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz
4GB Ram
256 ATi Pro Grpahics.