Minimum requirements

Minimum requirements are the recommended minimum system and hardware requirements of a computer necessary in order to play a certain game. The requirements for several Maxis games is below:

The Sims and Expansions

• Microsoft Windows
  • Windows 95 and up, 233MHz Pentium II or faster, 64 MB RAM, 4x or faster CD-ROM drive, DirectX 6.0-compatible sound card and graphics card (card must have 2 MB on board memory and able to display at 800x600 with 16-bit color)
• Linux
  • Linux Kernel 2.2 or higher, Glibc 2.1.3 or higher, XFree86 4.0 or higher or equivalent, 350Mhz Celeron/Pentium II/Duron/Athlon or faster or equivalent, 64Mb of ram, 128 recommended, sound card supporting OSS or ALSA, video card capable of 16 bit color and 800x600 resolution, nvidia GeForce GPU recommended with 16mb of video ram. (NOTE: This is the ported Linux version from TransGaming)
• Apple Macintosh
  • Mac OS X 10.0.3 or later -or- Mac OS 8.6 or 9.x with CarbonLib 1.2.5 or later, 233 MHz or faster PowerPC G3 or G4, 64 MB RAM (Mac OS 8/9) or 128 MB RAM (Mac OS X), G3/333 MHz recommended; 128 MB of RAM

The Sims 2 and Expansions (Up to date)

• Microsoft Windows
  • OS: Windows 98/98 SE/Me/2000/XP
  • CPU: 800MHz
  • RAM: 256MB
  • Disc Drive: 8x CD-ROM/DVD drive
  • HDD: 3.5GB free space
  • Video: 32MB DirectX 9.0 and T&L compatible
  • Sound: DirectX 9.0 compatible
• Apple Macintosh
  • OS: Mac OS X 10.3.8+
  • CPU: 1.2GHz PowerPC G4/G5
  • RAM: 256MB
  • Disc Drive: DVD drive
  • HDD: 3GB free space
  • Video: 32MB ATI Radeon 9000/nVidia GeForce FX5200

The Sims 3

Windows XP (SP2)
2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
1 GB RAM^*
1.5GB RAM^**
128 MB Video Card
6.5 GB of hard drive space
1 GB additional space for custom content

Windows Vista (SP1) & Windows 7
2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
1.50 RAM^*
2GB RAM^**
128 MB Video Card
6.5 GB of hard drive space
1 GB additional space for custom content

^{* For Desktops with Add-on chipsets (graphic cards)}

^{* For Desktops with integrated chipsets (graphic cards) or Laptops}