Straight from the horse's mouth - recommended hardware specifications not enough ?

One reason I'm concerned is because CivIV doesn't run as well as CivIII did under the recommended requirements. At the time CivIII came out I had a computer that met the recommended reqs, and I was able to play the biggest map with the most civs just fine, with only slight slowdown in the late game.

In civIV, this is impossible with a computer that only meets the recommended requirements.

If this trend continues, by the time civVI or civVII come out, you'll need a computer that is at least 8-9 times higher than the recommended requirements to play all aspects of the game smoothly.

ChuckLe said:

There's a particularly enlightening thread over at the public Apolyton forums with comments by Sirian, a(the?)Civ IV map designer.

For those of us that want to play on large maps with the recommended hardware specifications for the game, then tough, you can forget it!

Also, it appears that the excessive RAM and virtual memory usage is there by design, and if you don't like that, then... tough.

Further, despite claims to the contrary, this game has NOT been tested sufficiently. Sirian himself says:


If the map designer himself has not tested other configurations, and further still does not know the effects, then those that say we are beta testers for this snail paced, bug ridden, resource hog have been proved right.

At the very least, it shows that feedback from 'official' beta testers has not been effective.

Anyone intersted in the full comments by Sirian can read it here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=142296 and http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=142296&pagenumber=2 (Huge + Terra + 18 Civs =awesome game) errmm NOT it later appears.

Those with the attention span of a gnat with amnesia need not concern themselves, as huge maps will have sent you to sleep long before these problems start to manifest themselves, as will actually reading the 'gist' of the Apolyton thread (or this one) so don't waste your time.

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Not that I disagree with you, It's very apperant that the game went through minimum testing if any at all prior to release. The countless crash bugs and in game oversights are evidence of that. None the less, let's be a little realistic here.

Minimum requirements are just that, the absolute minimum system you need in order for the game to work at all. There are no promises anywhere that say that if you meet the minimum requirements you'll get top notch performance on a Huge map with 18 Civs. I don't think there is any dispute about this, anyone who is a gamer to any extent at all would know this.

Recommended requirements are what they say is ideal for the game to perform well and if you have the recommended requirements (short of the countless bugs) the game does in fact perform very well. It's true that if you max the game out on a Huge map with 18 Civs your end game will be sluggish, but you can't blame this on anyone. Perhaps it's not common knowledge, but most gamers that follow design concepts and dev diaries can tell you that games always have some aspect of them that is made with the future in mind. For example Everquest 2 when it was released, people complained that when you turned all the graphics out to the max, even on the best PC money can build or Buy the game ran like crap. The reason, if you paid attention to dev diaries and designer notes was that they created some of those settings for machines that don't even exist yet, but will one day soon. They wanted to make sure that the people who rushed out and bought the first set up advanced 3rd generation vid cards would get something for their money. These types of arrangments are usually made in advanced with the hardware producing companies like ATI.

The point here is that play a game on Huge with 18 Civs, is not a game for a weak machine and quite frankly if you only meet the recommend requirements for Civ 4, your about 2 years behind in Specs. Perhaps the recommended specs are a little misleading, since there are aspects of the game that won't work well even if you meet them, but if you are even half a gamer you would know that in advance. There is a reason why hardcore gamers spend gobs of money and time upgrading and maintaining their machines of death. They want to be able to play games "maxed out", and believe me they do.

I have an Alienware 3.2 pent IV Overclocked with a Radeon 9600 Pro 128mb with 1.5 Gig of RAMBUS memory. a high speed hardrive and I can run Huge with 18 Civs with absolutly no lag until the very late game before the game starts to bog down a little bit. If you talk to hardcore gamers they will tell you that even my machine is not "top of the line", there is certainly things I can do to upgrade.

I think that the recommended system should be able to run a recommended game - an 18 civ huge map game is only available as a custom game, so I wouldn't exactly call it recommended - therefore I'd say it perfectly suitable for the game to demand above recommended hadware in that case.
Of course the game has it's bugs and needs some tuning, but I have yet to wait as long for a turn to finish as I did in civ 3...

Edit: responding to Dida.

That doesn't sound right. I have a cruddy 420MX card and only 512 MB of ram (running XP, no less) and waited maybe 30 seconds (don't think even that long) between turns at the end of a standard-map game with 8 civs.

Dida said:

I played `8 civs on only standard map, and by the modern age, I have to wait like 5 minutes for each turn to end, not to mention the increased frequency of 'crashing to desktop'.
Tell me why I should believe that they actually did adequate testing on this thing.
My spec is the following:
AMD FX - 57
nVidia 6800GT
1 gb Corsair RAM
250 gb SATAII HDD

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You must have a problem with your computer, I dont have any problem with slow performance on huge map with 18 civs (except when going in to military advisor it takes little long, maybe 10 seconds).
My spec is the following:
AMD FX-55
Nvidia 7800 GTX
2 Gb RAM
200 Gb Sata Hdd

From day one I have been playing nothing but HUGE EPIC PANGEA maps that I even modded from 80x60 to 100x60 in size (w/14 CIVS) and I've still, yet, to experience these complaints about slow play or lag. And my system isn't state of the art, I've always stayed middle of the road.

2.4ghz processor
1 gig pc3200 ddr 400 ram
GEforce Ultra 5900 video card
Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Gamers sound card.
Virtual Memory (2500)
(2) hard-drives (one for OS/virtual memory only) (other holds all the programs and games)

Graphics Video Card Settings:

Anti Aliasing settings : Application controlled

Anisotropic filtering : 8x

Image Settings : Quality

Vertical Sync: Application controlled

Force Mipmaps: Bilinear

Conformant Texture Clamp: ON

Extention Limit: OFF

Hardware Excelleration: Single-display mode

Trilinear Optimization: ON

Anisotropic mip filter optimization: ON

Anisotropic sample optimization: ON

Negative LOD Bias: CLAMP

Screen Resolutions 1024/768 75 hertz 32 bit

The game just runs flawlessly and I've had it almost 2 weeks now, played more hours than I can even remember and still waiting to see this slow down and CTD's. a handful keep talking about. Of course my system isn't a store bought pos like Dell, Hewlett Packard or Compaq, so, that probably means a lot as well. I don't even use ASUS boards though, I've found a JETWAY board to be quite sufficient at 1/2 the price. ASUS is getting like name brand store bought crap, merely a top $$ NAME nothing more. Same as Kingston memory, built to sell for top $$, really doesn't deliever anymore than generic ram if you shop around and read the specs.

Game is great, once you can play it for those that can't you will agree.

smarpoe said:

when I look back on it... I learned a hellova lot in my attempts to get it up an running. Stuff I never knew about and it's thanks to a lot of folks in this forum. A lot of smart people here.

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Same here, I probably quadrupled my computer knowledge since buying this game

Lobox said:

You must have a problem with your computer, I dont have any problem with slow performance on huge map with 18 civs (except when going in to military advisor it takes little long, maybe 10 seconds).
My spec is the following:
AMD FX-55
Nvidia 7800 GTX
2 Gb RAM
200 Gb Sata Hdd

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I have no problem with my PC. It can run Battlefied 2, Half Life 2, World of Warcraft, Age of Empires 3 and all the other much more sophisticated games than Civ4 flawlessly, on high graphic setting. Not to mention my 37 inch plasma monitor rocks.
But civ4 has huge memory leak issues, unless you have tons of memory to leak, by time you have completed 7 or 8 hours of game play it will get bugged down no matter what.

MattJek said:

Same here, I probably quadrupled my computer knowledge since buying this game

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So we actually have to think Firaxis for releasing an unfinished buggy product so we can learn about computer hardware/software huh?

Thanks for the reply Sirian.

As you repeated here, and like on Apolyton, you said you don't know the effects of turning down the settings, so I don't see how I've put words into your mouth.

I'm certainly not slamming your work either. The random maps have always been the key to great gameplay in the Civilization series in my opinion.

You say that a little slowness late in the game doesn't bother you. It does bother me, I'm afraid. Even more so if the game is completely unplayable (no exaggeration), which apparently you don't find.

Other people on the thread contradict themselves, like Lobox for example who says he doesn't have ANY slow performance on a huge map with 18 civs and then says 'except going in to military advisor it takes little long, maybe 10 seconds'! As if 10 seconds to access an advisor screen is somehow acceptable!

Yet others didn't bother to read the original Apolyton thread at all it seems, when they say blah, blah, blah.. fine in Middle Ages...When the whole point is that the game sucks big time when you get to the latter part of the game. Where's that fly swatter?

Anyway, it is as plain as day to anyone reading the thread here or at Apolyton, that you do not see a problem with the game. It's quite acceptable apparently that you need hardware way in excess of the recommended requirements to play large maps. Seeing as that appears to be the case then any expectation of a patch addressing the snail's pace will be... nil?

Again, it appears that you see no problem either that CPU utilisation is at 100%, you need huge amounts of slow virtual memory, and huge amounts of RAM also?

Sorry, but I do see that as a problem.

I were never be able to play civIII at the huge maps when it came out without it slowing down too much for my patience. Played huge maps when conquest shipped and i had a better pc. Will be the same with cIV.

ChuckLe said:

(..)Anyway, it is as plain as day to anyone reading the thread here or at Apolyton, that you do not see a problem with the game. It's quite acceptable apparently that you need hardware way in excess of the recommended requirements to play large maps.(..)

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The point (as I see it) is: You do not need the hardware in excess of the recommended requirements to play large maps, but having that hardware makes the game run smoother.
The way you state it is that you cannot play large maps if you don't have hardware way in excess of the recommended requirements.

It's a matter of opinion; some find waiting 10 seconds for the advisor screens acceptable on those settings; others don't. The ones that find it acceptable play it like that; the ones that don't find it acceptable find other solutions.

balearicrazy said:

I wonder how many more of these stupid threads will appear on Civfanatics this week!

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Until they get it fixed, maybe 50 or so.

Despite the apologists for this game, it has some real problems - too numerous to list here.

What the OP cites is only one of MANY problems on larger maps or more than the default number of 8 civs on a medium map.

I have for the most part tried to remain neutral in my postings about issues here. I have been trying to help out as I can, and be proactive, and not complain needlessly.

But I have to speak out on this.

Reading Sirians' remarks, I feel a huge sense of dissappoinment. I respect Sirian greatly, he is a class act. He makes his points well...and that is where my problem lies.

Where in all the pre-release hoopla was this mentioned...that basically civ4 would be a resource hog? That the recommended specs would not really allow you to play large maps, or wage a total world war, or where anything other than the Standard game with 7 other civs may be a reach for the those specs?

Where in all the pre-release hoopla was it mentioned that you could play a larger game, but you should really not scroll around the map; instead sticking to viewing only your territory?

If these things had been mentioned, there would be no problem IMO. People with the RECOMMENDED hardware could have made an informed choice whether or not to buy the game knowing that they would have to upgrade their hardware greatly if they wanted all the features. But they were not, and I for one feel somewhat decieved.

There was a poster running around here for a while who was badgering everyone for info on how the game would play huge maps, and large empires in the modern age. He was at times rather obnoxious, and would keep harping on the issue, and claiming that game would be unplayable. People slammed him, and perhaps rightly so due to his way of posting...but no one ever really answered him. And from what Sirian has now said, he was right.

Why publish minimum specs at all in such a case - and why publish recommended specs without explaing them? This is a clear case in my view of marketers dissembling in order to pump up pre-sales. I am really disappointed that a classy company like Firaxis let Take2 do this. But now they are one and the same...so I guess the $$$ does trump class in this case.

All that said, I can live with the slowness...I cannot live with the constant CTD's I am getting on a machine that meets all the RECOMMENDED specs. I expected it to play...yes, I expected game play bugs, but not bugs that would prevent the game from playing on a machine that is at recommended specs. (And no, I am not an inexperienced user - I am an IT professioanal with over 15 years experience; I know how to keep a system in decent shape.) I bought Civ because I like Strategy games - I could give a flying you-know-what about eye candy. I never expected it not to run - I was reassured that it would from reading all the pre-release hoopla - but I guess I was misled.

Finally, I have put Civ4 back in the box. I cannot return it - or I probably would. Instead, I will wait patiently for the patch ( or two or three) that allows me to at least play with no CTD's, no weird graphical bugs, no stuttering movies, fixed diplomacy bugs, on a Standard map with 7 other Civs. I will not scroll around to look at the world, or zoom in or out very much. That type game will keep my interest for about 3 months - maybe. I was a Harpoon Fanatic during much of the 90's - until that buggy program finally got too much. I loved the original Sims after that...until the bugs with the expansion packs drove me away. I lov Civ2 and Civ3...I will always play those, but indications are right now Civ4 will eventually drive me to find another product, much like Harpoon and The Sims did...and it will not be a T2/Firaxis product, of that I am certain.

End of Rant. Thank you. Now I will go back and lurk quietly again in the Tech and Bug forums.

Moderator Action: Not quite. He has the right to complain that the game doesn't meet his expectations. You do NOT have the right to call him an idiot. You DO have the right to point out where and how he is wrong; just don't get personal. --Padma

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We do not allow public discussions of moderator actions.
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Rik Meleet said:

The point (as I see it) is: You do not need the hardware in excess of the recommended requirements to play large maps, but having that hardware makes the game run smoother.
The way you state it is that you cannot play large maps if you don't have hardware way in excess of the recommended requirements.

It's a matter of opinion; some find waiting 10 seconds for the advisor screens acceptable on those settings; others don't. The ones that find it acceptable play it like that; the ones that don't find it acceptable find other solutions.

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Oh yes I agree.

Personally I would find a 10 second delay totally unacceptable, as I find a 30 second delay to toggle the tile grid equally unacceptable.

With those sorts of delays, I would regard the game as unplayable, hence the need for better hardware to play large maps. I bet some would say 'but even then...'

However, if you do regard this as acceptable (and the majority agree with you) then this will never be perceived as a problem by the developers, and hence never 'patched'!

How can a problem that doesn't 'exist' be patched?

There's already a fix out for this: Upgrade your machine.

I'm lucky I guess. I'm playing the biggest map with 18 civs and have reached the modern era with no lag problems. Even zooming and panning have never presented a problem.

Every experienced gamer has a story (or three) about "minimum specs" and the like. You just know in advance what you get if you are purchasing a game that has minimum specs fitting your PC. It's just part of PC gaming. Buy a console if you don't want these problems (of course, you won't be able to play Civ on a console, though! )

You know it's strange, I have all the recommended specs for Quake 4, but when I try to play the game at 1600x1200 with High details and 8x AA I get lag too.

Moderator Action: There's no need to mock the thread-starter. He brings out a serious and valid point. - Rik

RIT Beast said:

There's already a fix out for this: Upgrade your machine.

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Did you actually read the Apolyton thread?

People with much higher specified computers than the recommended requirements are also suffering from unacceptable performance late into the game.

What do you suggest they do?

I have an idea. Do as Sirian says and just lump it and like it?!