EA has released the system requirements for The Sims 4. Looking them over, not much has changed since the last entry, The Sims 3. It looks like anyone with a PC strong enough to handle games from the last few years should be able to run this one.
The requirements are:
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
For comparison, The Sims 3 required a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1.5 GB of RAM and the same 128 MB of Video RAM. Essentially, if you could play The Sims 3 on your PC, you can probably play The Sims 4 as well.
The relatively low requirements will of course allow more players to join in the game, but also indicate that the visuals have not been massively improved since the last entry in the series. Aside from the standard optimization that comes with more experience, it seems like not much has changed in the graphics department between games.
The Sims 4 recently made headlines due to its cutting of past features from the series, namely pools and toddlers. Some speculated that those features removal was to optimize performance, and allow less powerful machines to run the game. These system requirements seem to back up that speculation.
The Sims 4Â will be released on PC starting September 2nd 2014.
