Here are the system requirements from the official site. Once again, curious use of the word "recommended." Maybe it all depends on your definition. Here's one dictionary's:

To praise or commend (one) to another as being worthy or desirable.

I wonder what dictionary Firaxes is using.


RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent/better
512 MB RAM
128 MD Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel and vertex shaders)
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
CD-ROM Drive
1.7GB of free hard drive space
DirectX 9.0c (included)

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
1.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
256MB RAM
CD-ROM Drive
64 MB Video Card w/Hardware T&L (GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
1.7 GB of free hard drive space
Direct X 9.0c (included)


SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS:
Windows 2000 (plus Service Pack 1 or higher), Windows XP (Home or Professional) (plus Service Pack 1 or higher)


*Requires Sid Meier’s Civilization IV to play

:rotfl: :rotfl:

Explain it to us chaps lacking computer savvy?

Well, it'll play on the recommended requirements... if you're into choppy video and long wait times between turns... :lol:

yeah here's the main problem as I see it:

recommended:
1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent/better
512 MB RAM
128 MD Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel and vertex shaders)

especially the RAM and video card, this has proven to not really be up to snuff if you want to play on the highest settings.

yeah here's the main problem as I see it:

recommended:
1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent/better
512 MB RAM
128 MD Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel and vertex shaders)

especially the RAM and video card, this has proven to not really be up to snuff if you want to play on the highest settings.

I used to play Civ 4 on a laptop with a 128 MB Video Card and I was able to play at high settings at 1440x900 without much problem. There was some slowdown while playing large maps during the modern era but nothing unplayable. Of course I had 1 GB RAM instead or 512 MB. I think RAM is much more important than your graphics card when playing Civ IV.

There was some slowdown while playing large maps during the modern era but nothing unplayable.

You have a patience. I don't. I can't stand this slowdown. I use P4-3.06HT with 1gb and 128mb. I think Duo 3.0 2gb 512mb will work fine. That's playable. Maybe your NB has INTEL Duo.

I think RAM is much more important than your graphics card when playing Civ IV.
No, CPU is everything.

I was able to play at high settings at 1440x900
Your NB must be faster than LlamaCat's 1.8GHz. 1440x900 is not old spec.

I would agree, it's mostly the RAM. I recently went from 1 GB to 2 and I'm going great on all the highest settings. I hope BTS doesn't kick it up another notch and require another gig! :)

Most games have misleading recommended specs. I guess it's part of their marketing strategy

Most games have misleading recommended specs. I guess it's part of their marketing strategy

Their marketing strategy makes ppl angry. Is it a good strategy? No...No....No.....

I have played on everything from 1.6Ghz Intel Celeron to Athlon 64 3700+ and whilst everything "worked" there was some slowdown on machines with less RAM. The CPU made very little difference.
My machine (3700+) with 2Gb RAM runs perfectly (other than the occasional MAF when running huge maps with the Visa Modpack). My wife's machine had the same processor (the 3700+) but only 512Mb of RAM, it was noticeably slower with short freezes when paging from disk until I added more RAM.
The graphics card also made very little difference. I have run on Radeon 9000 series as well as Nvidia 6600, 7600 and 7900GS and other than the Radeon I ran them all at 1600x1200 with max gfx settings (except for AA on the 6600).

On the minimum specs, 256Mb of RAM is completely absurd for WinXP, (the OS barely runs in that little space!) for Win2000 it might work but I can't imagine it would be very pleasant.

My wife's machine had the same processor (the 3700+) but only 512Mb of RAM, it was noticeably slower with short freezes when paging from disk until I added more RAM.

Disk swapping is Windows virtual memory problem. Use Warlord 2.08. Initial memory usage is fixed. Warlords 2.08 uses only 84MB. The original uses 394MB.

can someone translate for us computer-illerterate people? please? :cry:

Disk swapping is Windows virtual memory problem. Use Warlord 2.08. Initial memory usage is fixed. Warlords 2.08 uses only 84MB. The original uses 394MB.

Good to know, thanks.
I upgraded the memory before 2.08 became available so I wouldn't have noticed the improvement.

No, CPU is everything.

I can't agree. I played the game with 256 MB RAM and had problems with standard-sized maps. I then upgraded to 1 GB and now can play modded super-huge maps with 24 civs. No other hard- or software was changed.

From my understanding, CPU only influences wait time between turns. RAM influences the very annoying lag within the player's turn (and also inter-turn wait times, but it's less noticable there).

I play on a Core 2 Due, E6600. 1024 Mb, 256 7300 GT.

I still get slowdowns at modern time.

Thats on bloody huge map.

I can't agree. I played the game with 256 MB RAM and had problems with standard-sized maps. I then upgraded to 1 GB and now can play modded super-huge maps with 24 civs. No other hard- or software was changed.

From my understanding, CPU only influences wait time between turns. RAM influences the very annoying lag within the player's turn (and also inter-turn wait times, but it's less noticable there).

I can't agree. I played the game with 256 MB RAM and had problems with standard-sized maps.

Unfortunately 256MB and 512MB are not enough for windows. Vista needs 2GB of RAM to use completely. At least 1GB is good for WINDOWS(2000/xp).

Ah, if I still had the worst computer from this site as I did 3/2 months ago I would have cared, now my AMD Athlon 4000+ with 2 GM RAM won't care. :p

The graphic requirements of this game are not like some other games.

Its purely AI CPU work.

I've found having a 3 Ghz processor compensates for having a lack of RAM.

Civ runs faster and smoother on my current laptop with less than 512Ghz RAM but a 3 Ghz processor than it did when I had a laptop with 1G RAM but only a 1.8Ghz processor. Make of that what you will.

Actually, I think the graphics card is a lot better in my current laptop, so that's another variable. *shrug*

I can't agree. I played the game with 256 MB RAM and had problems with standard-sized maps.

Unfortunately 256MB and 512MB are not enough for windows. Vista needs 2GB of RAM to use completely. At least 1GB is good for WINDOWS(2000/xp).



Windows 2000 works fairly well on 128MB, great on 256MB

CPU is everything. RAM in close second. GPU coming in at third.

Even my e6300 at 1.8Ghz is considerably slower than when it is overclocked to 3.0Ghz. The wait times between turns are much shorter.

Translation is.. that they don't think the recommended specifications is good enough.

I would agree if you are playing on Huge maps. But playing on Smaller maps the spec will work fine... just a little on the slower in between turns side.

I used to play Civ 4 on a laptop with a 128 MB Video Card and I was able to play at high settings at 1440x900 without much problem. There was some slowdown while playing large maps during the modern era but nothing unplayable. Of course I had 1 GB RAM instead or 512 MB. I think RAM is much more important than your graphics card when playing Civ IV.

I agree. Civ4 works fine on my laptop, especially with the half-fix for MAF (I am keeping my fingers crossed the BtS fix is even better). Of course, I specifically bought this computer to be Civ-capable, but you can never tell until you actually play the game.

I just hope there is no issues with Vista. I've not really run into any issues yet since the upgrade, and I figure BtS will be more Vista-friendly than Warlords.

Is this expected to be more resource intensive than Warlords or Vanilla? My understanding is they've redone some of the code so that it's faster and more efficient now?

BtS has the same system requirements as Warlords and Vanilla. Changes to the game engine probably won't make any noticeable difference

CPU is everything. RAM in close second. GPU coming in at third.

Hrm, This is the second time I read this bit of misinformation in this thread. I'd be a bit more careful with overgeneralizations like that, I don't think "CPU is everything" is a good advice to people who look for an upgrade.

If the system has to swap RAM to the hard drive, then a great powerful CPU will simply do wait cycles while the game swaps data in and out, and do zilch to improve game performance. Someone who experiences lag due to insufficient RAM, and buys a new CPU based on recommendations like "CPU is everything", will be a sad panda when he finds out that game performance barely improves at all.

I wonder why Vista isn't mentioned with the supported OS's. Is it just a given these days, that new PC games are Vista ready so that the gamecompanies don't have to mention it? :)

This weekend I'm upgrading my system to a Core2Duo 2,4GHz, 2GB ram and a 8800GTS graphics card with Vista Premium. Since such a setup will run games like Oblivion, Crysis and Quake Wars with no problem in 1280*1024px resolution, it better run BTS smoothly as well. :cool:

My 'old' setup is the 2,4GHz P4, 1GB ram, ATI 9600pro and XP. No problems playing CIV IV, but the waiting between turns in the endgame is noticable...

If you don't have DVD-Rom, It's a time to buy it. The biggest expansion ever! Including Warlords. It might be packed in 1 DVD or 4 CDs.

If you don't have DVD-Rom, It's a time to buy it. The biggest expansion ever! Including Warlords. It might be packed in 1 DVD or 4 CDs.

In North America you don't need to upgrade to a DVD-ROM to play BtS as it's going to be on CD (2 to be exact). However everybody should upgrade to a DVD-ROM anyways just to convince publishers to stop making games on CD and move up to DVD. I'm sick of juggling around 3+ CDs everytime I want to install something.

As always with games, the recommended should be interpreted as the minimal specs.

That way there are usually no bad surprises.

Rince

With the masses trained to thing clockspeed=everything, you have to put low memory numbers in your minimum and reccomended specs, or the game won't sell.

My personal rule for systems. memory size (in bytes) should be equal or greater than cpuspeed (in hertz). That has held up for me for over 20 years. 2gigs of ram in a 2ghz system. 1gig in an old p3-800. 256mb in my dual-cpu p133. 32mb in my 486/33

Modern 3ghz dual-core systems should be running 4gb minimum.

With the masses trained to thing clockspeed=everything, you have to put low memory numbers in your minimum and reccomended specs, or the game won't sell.

My personal rule for systems. memory size (in bytes) should be equal or greater than cpuspeed (in hertz). That has held up for me for over 20 years. 2gigs of ram in a 2ghz system. 1gig in an old p3-800. 256mb in my dual-cpu p133. 32mb in my 486/33

Modern 3ghz dual-core systems should be running 4gb minimum.


It seems to be reasonable.

Modern 3ghz dual-core systems should be running 4gb minimum.
As a matter of the fact, Duo 3.0GHz is simular to P4-6.0GHz. Benchmark-wise.

I can't agree. I played the game with 256 MB RAM and had problems with standard-sized maps.

Unfortunately 256MB and 512MB are not enough for windows. Vista needs 2GB of RAM to use completely. At least 1GB is good for WINDOWS(2000/xp).

Windows XP can run perfectly fine with as little as 512MB of RAM, you just need to keep the system clean from all the crap people usually install (including bloated and useless anti-virus suites).

But CIV4 absolutely needs 1GB to run well, even with normal maps, on the modern age. I'd even recommend 1,5GB.

Is there any advantage from the use of dual core processors with CIV4? At least I never read anything saying it took advantage of it, but it would be a nice addition if it was included with BtS. A single AI algorithm may even be hard to parallelize, but the game could run calculations for different actions in parallel, I guess.

Is there any advantage from the use of dual core processors with CIV4?
Unless you're doing heavy multitasking there won't be any advantages since Civ4 doesn't support multithreading

i dunno. i'm used to playing CM (now Football Manager) series on largest database for years now, even when my PC specs were very modest, which means that between your 'turns' you often get time to go make a tea & drink it too, and in some case it still won't be your turn/the matchday lol.... I think these 'playable' and 'unplayble' thing is hugely subjective for turn based games because we're not too overtly concerend about framerates.

128 MD Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel and vertex shaders)

:lol: I :lol: in the face of video card requirements because i have a 512 mb Video Card:lol:

Windows XP can run perfectly fine with as little as 512MB of RAM.

Good for you. I bet you doing nothing except using XP only. Try to open 100MB XLS files and think how perfectly fine is. Using XP in 512MB PC is not perfect. If you say yes, run Civ4 in 512MB PC is perfect, too. It's based on your point of view.

:lol: I :lol: in the face of video card requirements because i have a 512 mb Video Card:lol:

Size isn't everything ;) ... as I found out when I tried to play EU3 (I had enough ram 256 MB, it needed to be a PCIe or AGP card though) :sad:

Windows XP can run perfectly fine with as little as 512MB of RAM, you just need to keep the system clean from all the crap people usually install (including bloated and useless anti-virus suites).

But CIV4 absolutely needs 1GB to run well, even with normal maps, on the modern age. I'd even recommend 1,5GB.

Is there any advantage from the use of dual core processors with CIV4? At least I never read anything saying it took advantage of it, but it would be a nice addition if it was included with BtS. A single AI algorithm may even be hard to parallelize, but the game could run calculations for different actions in parallel, I guess.

funny, I've been running Civ4 without hiccups, on high settings on a 128MB Radeon X300 card since I bought it. Oh, and I've only got 512MB of RAM and a 1.7 MHz Centrino CPU. Meets the requirements, and I can say that I've had great results thus far. I can't play huge maps without a lot of delay late in the game, but I don't crash, and since nearly every game I play is for the HOF or GOTM, I don't have time to play Huge maps anyway.

Oh, and Jon Shafer said that Civ4 works better with multi-cores, it wasn't programmed to do better, but it does.

YES!! I just installed another 1GB of RAM, making it 1,5GB total, and suddenly, the late ages on huge maps are actually playable!! Very promising for BtS... :clap: :clap:

funny, I've been running Civ4 without hiccups, on high settings on a 128MB Radeon X300 card since I bought it. Oh, and I've only got 512MB of RAM and a 1.7 MHz Centrino CPU.

Believe me, you'll notice the difference if you add some more memory. Civ4 easily uses some 700MB of memory in the later ages, and that causes a lot of memory swapping.

if i can play warlords can i play BTS
dont feel like finding that info

funny, I've been running Civ4 without hiccups, on high settings on a 128MB Radeon X300 card since I bought it. Oh, and I've only got 512MB of RAM and a 1.7 MHz Centrino CPU. Meets the requirements, and I can say that I've had great results thus far. I can't play huge maps without a lot of delay late in the game, but I don't crash, and since nearly every game I play is for the HOF or GOTM, I don't have time to play Huge maps anyway.

Oh, and Jon Shafer said that Civ4 works better with multi-cores, it wasn't programmed to do better, but it does.

Believe me, you'll notice the difference if you add some more memory.

The high performance is very important in MP. Under the simultaneous turns situations, moving units fast is the best way to kill enermies or your units will die first. Maybe you aren't MP-Player. Play 1vs1 in MP. If your rival has a high performance PC; Duo 3.0 2GB 512MB video ram, your units will suffer from the simultaneous turn lagging. His units always move faster than yours. He keeps asking you to hit ENTER faster. Eventually he will call you a lagger. BTW if you don't have over 1GB, don't play MP. The game will be scrapped because you're a lagger. PPL doesn't want to play with a lagger in MP. Turn "Blazing speed" on and play a game. If you couldn't finish your turns in Blazing timer, your PC is not ready to play MP.

Yeah, I've found out the hard way that my computer is not ready for MP. :) I've tried to play a few games but people complain immediately about the lag and everyone eventually quits. I don't even notice the lag when playing by myself (at least not until the late game), but in MP everyone detects it immediately. I hope to get a new PC soon that'll allow me to begin playing MP in BTS though... I wanna show off my mad Civ skills ;)

Marketing Strategy = lie,,lie,,and lie some more :P

. .. .. .. . this is going to be a stupid question but...how do I get more RAM?

You buy some more :)
It is easy to install on a desktop computer, could be a little bit harder on a laptop but still not hard. You just open the computer up and plug it in, then you got more ram :)

Btw, BtS will perform about the same as warlords according to the chat.

I'm going to Frys...yes more RAM!

. .. .. .. . this is going to be a stupid question but...how do I get more RAM?

If you don't know about different RAM types and speeds, the best method is to simply carry your PC to a dealer you trust (i.e., someone who wants a satisfied customer instead of always selling the stuff with the biggest margin), and have him handle it. Alternatively, try to find out the type and specs of your RAM and mainboard (could be specified on your receipt, and should be printed on the respective boards).

Adding a RAM chip is very simple - you just plug it into its socket and check whether the lock pin has closed.

The difficult thing is to get the right RAM for your machine. You need to know the speed of your current RAM. You need to know how many free and occupied RAM banks your machine has. You also need to know the RAM compatibility of your mainboard (some boards don't work well with specific RAM chip layouts). If you know the type and make of your mainboard, you can get all this info from the web.

Alternatively, you can just go out and buy some RAM, but then don't yell at us when you've got compatibility and/or stability issues.