‘The Sims 4: Cats And Dogs’: You Might Want To Upgrade Your PC First Before Getting The DLC

It looks like gamers will need a heavy-duty PC or laptop to be able to play and fully enjoy the highly-anticipated The Sims 4 downloadable content (DLC), Cats and Dogs.

Electronic Arts and Maxis increased the minimum system requirements for the DLC, and The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs will need that extra horsepower to run smoothly.

For starters, the DLC now requires the computer to run 64-bit instead of the usual 32-bit for previous expansions. It should work best on a PC or laptop that is powered by Windows 10, although Windows 7 (Service Pack 1), Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 are also acceptable.

As per the changes, the random access memory (RAM) should not be lower than 4 GB for The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs while the hard drive should at least have 1 GB of free space. A disc drive is needed to be able to install the DLC.

The number increases to 14 GB for users who will be installing the base game for the first time. Gamers should also make room for custom content and saved games, which could go up to 1 GB.

As for the central processing unit (CPU), video support, and the capabilities the computer should have to run The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs with no trouble, EA and Maxis require the following minimums.

CPU: 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)

VIDEO: 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

Note that these are only the minimum requirements, not the recommended ones, which are yet to be revealed. A member of The Sims forums advises it will be ideal for the hardware to be well above the minimum to ensure stable performance all around when playing The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs.

The user notes that this is because, as detailed in technical discussions in the forums, even those with the minimum requirements still suffer hardware failures that will sour the experience altogether and even render unusable an otherwise amazing The Sims 4 expansion.

That being said, it will be best for players to beef up their gear before picking up the DLC. The good thing about this is that The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs is not coming until November, so Simmers still have plenty of time to prepare for its arrival.

First announced back in August, the highly-anticipated DLC will add not only the titular pets fans have been waiting to see in the game but also other animals like raccoons and foxes.

It also comes with a Create-A-Pet menu that is much more extensive than what the title has in creating the Sims themselves. In The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs, players can basically customize everything and even mix breeds of the cats or dogs to make their furry friends unique.

[Featured Image by Electronic Arts and Maxis]