Can I sims on a Netbook?

[antechinus]

I am going on holidays, and am afraid I will suffer sims withdrawal. Can I run sims on a MSI Wind U100 netbook?
Specs are:
Intel Atom N270 1.6 Ghz processor,
1 Gb RAM
Motherboard 945GME
Integrated graphics Intel GMA950
Win XP

[J. M. Pescado]

No. I see no graphics card. And your CPU is inadequate. No Sims for you.

[mitchellcjs]

You MIGHT be able to get basegame to run.  Maybe.  Possibly.  But if so, it would be with yucky yucky appearance.

[spaceface]

I agree about trying with only the Base Game, and you will probably get jagged object outlines and those spade-like hands. Avoid placing any showers and fountains, water effects will slow the game down a lot. Your game will choose the lowest graphics settings, don't try to change them. Also, use task manager every time you play, to turn off all unnecessary applications running on your machine.

You could do what I did and try one of the Stories games, at least with Life Stories and Pet Stories you can create your own lots and sims and play normally once you have run through the "story" part. (Don't try Castaway Stories because sadly you can't place lots.) They are lower-spec games designed for laptops. If your graphics card isn't up to much you will still get red walls and flashing ponds though. Stories did keep my addiction satisfied when I was on a 2-week vacation once. I used cheats to add 2 families together so that I could do an Asylum Challenge, it worked fine.

[Gwill]

It would be like enjoying a nice cup of burned peas when you need coffee.
Sometimes withdrawal is easier to deal with.

[Liz]

Maybe a dose of The Sims instead of TS2?

[violajack]

I play the sims2 on my wind U100.  I have the base game, Uni, Nightlife, Pets, Seasons, Free Time, and the Ikea stuff pack.  I have a rather large download folder full of awesome hacks and various assorted custom content.  I am also using clean templates.  I play with details and textures high (I like my sims to have all their fingers) and most everything else low.  It runs native resolution (1024x600) fairly well, and even runs to my 20" external monitor 1280x800.  On the external is gets a big slideshowy on the faster speeds, but on the smaller resolution of the wind itself, it runs fairly smooth.  I haven't upgraded my RAM yet either, and this is all with just 1 gig of RAM and on Vista.  If you have 2 gig of RAM and are running over XP, you will get even better performance.  I can load pretty big lots, including the downtown clubs and such.  It's not the smoothest thing in the world, but it works.  Be sure to grab the latest bios 1.09, which allows overclocking.  I overclock 15% when I'm playing on the external monitor to help it keep up.  The bios allows up to 24% overclock, but I haven't tried more than 15% yet.  For more info about the new bios, check the wind forums. 

[Zazazu]

And what is your processor? Antechinus's processor is for crap.

[Simsbaby]

The MSI Wind uses the same processor I think.

[violajack]

My processor is the 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom.  All the winds are the same except for battery and wireless options.  Mine happens to be a U100-279US. I have same proc, RAM, chipset, and graphics as antechinus.  Also, I upgraded (or not depending on your point of view) the XP that came with it to Vista.  These little machines are surprisingly capable.  The wind also makes a nice hackintosh, as I am posting from it in OSX right now.  

The RAM upgrade really would help though as it would allow the integrated graphics to pull more system memory for graphics use.  I plan on popping an extra gig into mine at some point.  Unfortunately it does require taking off the entire bottom as there is no RAM access door.