Question about Pets and processor compatibility in general

[skeletonkiss]

Okay. I have an HP Pavillion with a 1.0 ghz Celeron proc. and 256 of ram. I plan on going to the max my comp will take, which is 512, probably next month. What I want to know is, will Pet runs on a 1.0ghz? I know the specs say 1.3 ghz minimum, but does that mean it WON'T run or just won't run at it's potential?

Because my game is already somewhat slow, and crappy graphics, but by no means unplayable. I have to watch poly counts and large lots, but I've learned what my comp can handle and how to best take advantage of that. I know the upgrade in ram will help too. But I REALLY want pets, and if it would run, I would get it in a heartbeat.

So is the 1.3ghz just a guidline or will the game absolutely not work on less?

[StarboardParoxysm]

I wouldn't install Pets on that system. If you do not meet the minimum requirements, you should not get it. Especially with that low-powered processor, especially with that little bit of RAM (and without knowing what kind of card you have) I would strongly advise against it. Pets is a lot beefier than previous expansion packs in graphics requirements (for some strange reason, despite the only thing it really adds being pets - though they are pretty graphically challenging what with fur layers and stuff). I noticed, with my 3.0 gHz Pentium 4 processor with Hyperthreading, plus 1.5 gigs of RAM, I was getting pretty bad performance with it, so I upgraded my graphics card from an onboard Intel to a decent 256 mb Geforce.

It's not that the game absolutely will not work on unsupported stuff (sometimes) but that it simply will not be at all playable. I wouldn't do it. Heck, I wouldn't get Pets. The whole, "Omg pets!!!!11one" factor wears off REAL quick and then they're just boring residents of your house that tear up your furniture, pee in the living room, dig holes in the yard, and keep the game from fast-forwarding properly through work and sleep. They're really not that cool. There's maybe like... a dozen interactions you can do with them, and all of ONE interaction that adult pets have toward baby pets. They, uhm, suck.

Recommended requirements can be viewed here: http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:System_Requirements

[skeletonkiss]

Yeah, I mainly want pets cause I'm a serious pet lover. I feel weird not having them in my sims house cause I would never live without them.

I do plan on increasing ram tho... But I figured that pets wouldn't work so I'll probably stick with Uni and NL which work fine and maybe OFB when I get more ram.

[StarboardParoxysm]

I love pets IRL too. I always have to have at least one cat or I just don't feel right. But they're really not that cool in the game. They're just a pain to take care of, annoying, and not that versatile... or even that cute. They're fun for like a day or two, but then they just get irritating and they're soooo limited.

Even with increased RAM up to 512, I wouldn't recommend Pets. You'd want to have at least a gig for Pets or Seasons. They're pretty hefty in terms of requirements. OfB ran... okay when I only had 512. Not wonderfully but OfB actually seemed to improve some of my performance here and there. I think they optimized some stuff.

[nekochanpurr_SC]

I would agree you need at least a gig of RAM with pets... Its not pretty trying without it. I tried, lol. Ran back to the store and bought a 512 after that..

[leighthesim_SC]

i used to run just the sims 2 with 256mb of ram it did tortiose impresions wityh no downloads and even then i have at least a 2gh prossessor so not advisable if i were you i would go down to the local pc shop and but your self a nice shiny new prossessor with the memory or a whole new pc because running with even 512mb of ram isn't pretty

some thing like this (http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx?catalog_name=Savastore&product_id=20012878&rstrat=13636) with a new graphics card would run sims beautifully

or this (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/INTEL-DUAL-CORE-6-4-GHZ-250GB-2GB-DDR-2-20X-DVDRW_W0QQitemZ130113441155QQihZ003QQcategoryZ179QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) would run it perfectly (its better than mine in some aspects)
but i'd look for new and boxed system towers on ebay i just found some thing that would run sims 2 and all eps quite well for under £50

ofb would run with what you've got now but it would look crappy and it would run realy slow and i realy would recommend even running the base game with what you've got now but i would upgrade majorly if you want pets(or seasons) i mean heck my little 8 year old sister has a better comp