These are the specs of my laptop.

My laptop is very good and I like it a lot but...

TS1, 2 and 4 work wonderfully on this laptop. I play TS4 with mid-level graphic settings and TS2 with the highest settings and it works wonderful (aside from initial loading times bc cc). The only time TS4 got laggy on me was when I had like over 6gb of cc, I'm now on like 2 1/2gb.

My question comes because TS3 tends to be quite laggy on me. Like it's OK when I've deleted the cache files etc. but within a few hours of play I can feel it slowing down again. Isla Paradiso is always laggy which sucks bc I freaking love that world. I'm kinda new to TS3 (bc of previous technical issues -.-) so I don't know if I know all the fixes but I do have the nraas stuff and I delete the cache files after most sessions.

My laptop has an integrated intel iris graphics card which is not that good for gaming so i'm told. Thing is i'm kinda clueless w the inner workings of computers so idk what gpu to get or even how to put it inside the laptop ?? like they look huge from what i've seen so how tf do they fit ???

Idk, i've heard that nvidia cards are good but i have no clue as to what to go for. Any reccommendations (on the cheaper side ofc) are appreciated, in fact that is what I am asking. I only have a couple of hundred pounds to spend tho and i've ssen that graphics cards are usually over £100 so....

TLDR: I want a cheap but good dedicated graphics card and how to put it inside my laptop so that my Sims games run like usain bolt

yes there are some laptops that have the gpu's slot to change or replace their graphic card with higher spec, but only a few models of them not all, most of them are huge laptops like 17 inch laptop (like the Asus ROG laptop), you can also find their replacement graphic card on ebay, but to fit it in to your laptop, I don't think your laptop have the same option to do so, your laptop motherboard needs to have the slot to put the graphic card just like motherboard in desktop PC, some of the 15 inch laptop may have the same gpu's slot but yours.. I doubt it, and since your laptop has the i3 5157U processor, the U models usually means that even the processor itself is soldered permanently to its motherboard, you can't even change or replace it to upgrade your processor, so I doubt it if your laptop's motherboard have the required slot to add an additional graphic card, but you can ask the HP customer support to check, maybe it can support an add-on graphic card for laptop..

To get better graphics on a laptop, you pretty much just have to buy a new laptop. Good thing is the UK HP store is having a sale!

Honestly though I don't think that is really the issue. As nitroman said, even high powerd computers still have the lags with Isla Paradisio. But you could try ellacharmed's fix which does reduce a lot of the lag for me. Another option is to try find a CC beach world that you like. They usually have less problems than EA worlds.

Thank you for all the feedback guys. Tbh i have no clue about computers except that i play games on them and the internet is on them lmao~

As i said the only game i play which i have issues with is ts3 and it's still playable so it's nbd rn. I should save up for a gaming laptop in the future tho haha

Hp is better than dell in my experience, but this is a better model than the dell i had. the sims 2 killed that laptop 4 times in 2 years. well it was a very low end laptop from like 5 years ago soo...