To all the hp notebook players with integrated graphic cards I have a few suggestions on how to make the game run as smooth as possible on a notebook.

I have a pavilion tx1200us notebook, my graphic card is NVIDIA 6150, before I purchased the game I checked my system requirements on ea, it detected my notebook could not run the game, so I went to hp.com and updated my chipset driver, the NVIDIA nForce Chipset/Network Drivers which is under the network tab, then I updated my video card driver which you can find under Driver - Graphics, after I updated the drivers went back and checked my requirements again the site detected that my system was up to par and my game works great.

Now for Graphic performance issues at first I had lag issues because I set everything on high just to test my card,(I have an old card I know) my suggestion first would be to change in game setting to medium, for me there is no lag, if still having issues tweak in game settings that suits you notebook, if still having problems my second suggestion would be to modify graphic card setting IF YOU HAVE AN NVIDIA GRAPHIC CARD ( in VISTA start-control panel-classic view- nvidia control panel) and change the card setting ( go to 3D- SETTINGS on the left of the screen, then click on ADJUST IMAGE SETTINGS WITH PREVIEW, then click the radio button USE MY PREFERENCE EMPHASIZING and slide the bar according to your preference) quality or balance work fine for me.

And finally for poor performance on while playing on battery power, the game will lag on battery so my suggestion would be to use your adapter as much as possible, when I play the game I disconnect my battery (to prolong battery life I have both a 6 cell and 8 cell battery) and run off the adapter. I would also suggest not to charge your battery while playing the game it makes your notebook work harder especially if you plan on playing for hours, if you need to charge the battery while playing I would suggest using a cooling pad/ chill pad to keep the temp moderate on the notebook.

I hope this will help




Update for battery performance, you can decrease a certain amount of lag if you change your power settings to high performance while playing the game on battery power but this will drain your battery at a faster rate so I suggest have your adapter close at hand. Also on the chill pad I would suggest a two fan system it will keep the notebook cooler for a longer period of time and distribute the air equally under the notebook, if you do not want to purchase a chill pad i would suggest to play the game in a cool to cold room to keep everything running smoothly

Wow Thank you sososososo much!!!!!!! It was starting to get really irritating to play in my laptop because the game ran so slow sometimes and sims didnt seem to make 'natural' movements they were all 'sharp and square' I dont know how to explain it properly!
But thank you so much. =D

Xxx.

girltxgamer,

Thanks for posting that! I've added it to my list of useful bookmarks.

-Big Guy-

These are the hardware specs for my notebook; again I want to emphasize my graphic card is old so those of you who have anything above the NVIDIA 6150 should be able to increase in-game settings with little or no lag.



HP pavilion tx1200 notebook
AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-58, 1900 Mhz,
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (intergrated)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB
OS Vista™ Home Premium 32 bit

The Sims 3 performance (pc environment)
1. Only using ac adapter no battery connected
2. NVIDIA control panel 3d setting on performance
3. IN Game Settings (if not mentioned not in use)
a. full screen
b. screen size 1280x800 (max resolution for notebook) refresh rate 60
c. object hiding
d. reflections- on
e. visual- medium
f. Lighting & shadow- medium
g. Tree detail - medium
h. High Detail Lots- 4
i. Texture detail- high
j. Sims detail- high
Note: tested all three NVIDIA control panel settings for 3x speed, all settings above equal, PERFORMANCE- 3x speed works perfect, BALANCED- 3X speed little to no change just about equal to 1x, Quality- 3x speed non-existent. have not tested on battery power don’t plan on it, so if anything is missing or the test not objective enough give me some suggestions I will see what I can do. Hope this helps.