It might be a PC exclusive to start, but The Sims 4 has an appeal far beyond the master race. Electronic Arts isn’t making its newest Sims game especially demanding hardware-wise as a result.
The company recently posted its recommended specs for The Sims 4 on the game’s FAQ page, and it looks like a lot of people will be able to enjoy the game once it launches next week:
REQUIRED: Internet connection required for product activation.
OS: Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1
PROCESSOR: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent) MEMORY: At least 2 GB RAM
HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games
DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only
VIDEO CARD: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better
SOUND CARD: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
DIRECTX: DirectX 9.0c compatible
INPUT: Keyboard and Mouse
Fear not, beleaguered SimCity fans. While EA says that an internet connection is required “for activation,” The Sims 4 is not an always-online game. Also, keep in mind that these are the required specs. The recommended specs are much more substantial:
REQUIRED: Internet connection required for product activation.
OS: 64 Bit Windows 7,8, or 8.1
PROCESSOR: Intel core i5 or faster
AMD Athlon X4
MEMORY: 4GB RAM
HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games
DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 650 or better
SOUND CARD: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
DIRECTX: DirectX 9.0c compatible
INPUT: Keyboard and Mouse
We’ll have to wait until the game launches next week to see how The Sims 4‘s performance shakes out, of course. But it makes sense that EA would want to keep the game more casual-friendly than, say, Battlefield 4 or Titanfall — two of its rockstar shooters that are often used as poster children for powerhouse gaming rigs. The Sims has long been a best-selling PC gaming franchise, thanks in large part to its ability to reach people who might not even know what Battlefield or Titanfall are. It’s also been five years since The Sims 3 launched, so many loyal fans will be revisiting the franchise on fairly old machines.
These are just EA’s recommended hardware specs, mind you. The game could technically run on less powerful hardware. But gamers who want to get the most out of The Sims 4 will probably want to bring a bit more firepower to the table too. But even then, the game isn’t a hog by any measure. In his article for Forbes, Evangelho recommended a Sims 4-specific gaming rig that would cost players a tad more than $US400. That’s about $US1,200 less than what I just dropped to build myself a new PC gaming rig, for a point of comparison. And that’s not including a monitor, mouse, keyboard, or any sort of audio system.
So don’t fret, Sims fans: come next Tuesday, you won’t have to worry about having the most up-to-date tech. Instead you can devote all of your time and energy to what’s truly important: feeling lots of feelings in The Sims 4 and obsessing over all the glorious, teeny tiny details of its character creation menu. That’s assuming there won’t be any SimCity or Battlefield 4-level disaster at launch time, though. But EA won’t let that happen again…right?
Fingers crossed.
via Forbes
Comments
15 responses to “The Sims 4’s PC Requirements Are… Non-Existent”
Oh thank god. The Legend of Corey Everhard, playboy firefighter, shall live on!!
*inside reference only I would understand*
just dont try to start a family or have a pool party
Corey Everhard don’t play dat game…
Corey Everhard sounds like a pretty cool guy.
I’m surprised people are actually still interested in Sims 4. I was kinda looking forward to it until reading that massive list of all the things missing/cut from previous base games (and announced Sims 4 features).
The only thing really going for it atm is the graphics and with a couple of mods Sims 3 looks as good if not better.
Decided to pick up Sims 3 instead (never really played it), way cheaper and more feature-complete.
Edit: Here’s the list I was talking about for anyone interested. http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/0/759976.page
Rusted On Following.
CoD, Battlefield, Modern Warfare, Halo, Ninty, Sims.
Regardless of how good the next game is, certain communities will always buy it regardless of the decisions of the maker of the game. It takes two or three bad games in the series before the audience starts to go.
Sims 4 will sell incredibly well, but not because of us*, it will sell well because of the target demographic – people who play Sims and barely any other type of game.
*disclaimer: I’m buying it on day 1, simply because my wife loves it and wants it.
In the same boat. Fiance love sims and buying it day 1 for her. Have the complete Sims 3 as well.
You and Stan are horses and horses are terrible people.
MURDER!!
Im buying it for my wife and saying good bye to PC gaming for about a month I would say……..on the plus side I should have the TV free for the footy finals.
Happy wife, happy life 😉
Well considering that it has less content in the base game than The Sims 1 (Way too many things removed to even care to name) and it is far less seamless than The Sims 3 in gameplay (The Sims 3 had one loading screen and you could travel the whole neighborhood but The Sims 4 has a loading screen between EVERYTHING) I would expect the requirements to be bare minimum which is more than the game is
The Mac specs are non-existent, I can’t believe they aren’t releasing a Mac version, they did a huge amount of OSX sales of Sims 3.
I can’t stand the game, but all my daughter’s friends play it religiously, and most of them have Mac laptops and have been asking me to install bootcamp!
Wait wait wait WHAT.
Holy shit. I did not know this. I am GUTTED, oh my god. I… aww man. I am seriously bummed now. Poor form, EA!
Origin isn’t on OSX is it?
I will wait a bit with buying Sims 4. Got other things to play with at the moment – replaying Skyrim, finishing Far Cry 3 (getting boring now tbh, just wanna know about the story), and if all goes well, I will have a copy of Beyond Earth sometime soon.
so this will run on a more modest PC than the sims 2 & 3…. well. i am suddenly less excited.
Can The Sims 4 run on Windows 10 Technical Preview?
The game doesn’t run on windows 10 technical preview, currently i am running build 9926 ( most recent ) – and it gives an incompatibility error upon start-up.