System Requirements

First post for me so sorry if I'm repeating a question...

I'm planning on upgrading my system and want to get a laptop. The site says a "recent graphics card like the Radeon 9800" is recommended. Will a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X600 be sufficient? I'd hate to go out and get a new laptop only to find that I can't play CIV IV on it! New baby that is on the move a lot makes a laptop kinda necessary. Any big computer brains out there that can help?

Well, according to ATI's website about the Radeon Mobility X600:

Specifications
3D Graphics Performance
Supports Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0
Pixel and Vertex Shaders
Quad rendering & dual vertex engines
Full precision floating point with full performance
0.13 micron GPU featuring Low-K process technology
Fast 3D engine speed
Low power operation
SmoothVision™ 2.1
Eliminates “jaggies” on the edges of objects and other visual artifacts for smoother-looking images without compromising performance
Multisampling with 6 unique samples per pixel and ATI’s patented gamma correction
16X Anisotropic filtering improves image quality by sharpening blurry textures to bring out finer detail
SmartShader™ 2.0
Provides comprehensive hardware accelerated support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0.
Fully supported by OpenGL® using custom extensions
Up to 16 textures per pixel
Enables advanced Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 effects such as multiple render targets, user clip planes and high dimension floating point textures
Control panel allows gamers to enable exciting pixel shader effects in Direct3D® or OpenGL® applications.
Accelerated Home & Business Multimedia
Hardware acceleration for MPEG encoding and decoding, for DVD playback, personal video recorder and time-shifting applications
Video Input Port for notebook TV tuner solutions
FullStream™ - hardware accelerated video de-blocking for enhanced Internet streaming video quality
Optimized support for wide-aspect LCD panels and HDTV output
PowerPlay™ 5.0
ATI’s fifth-generation PowerPlay™ power management technology provides users with the optimal balance between performance and power consumption
Multiple power-saving settings offer increased control and flexibility
POWER-ON-DEMAND – constantly monitors system activity, dynamically adjusting clocks and voltage based on user scenario
LOW POWER LCD – enables lower LCD refresh rate for longer battery life
Vari-Bright™ technology optimizes notebook panel brightness for more power savings
Visual Display Flexibility
Flexible and easy-to-use interface for multiple display settings
LCD-EE™ display engine allows for support of the latest high resolution and wide-screen notebook displays such as WUXGA (1920x1200) and QXGA (2048x1536).
Improved scaling of desktop resolution to full panel sizes
Improved video quality through compensation for LCD latency
165 MHz integrated TMDS transmitter, for support of DVI Digital Flat Panels at up to UXGA resolution (1600x1200)
Integrated TV-Out Encoder
Dual RAMDACs at speeds of 400MHz
Integrated HDTV encoder, supporting component output (YPbPr) for both North American and Japanese D-link connectors
VPU Recover™
Automatically activated if the graphics processor hangs, triggering the driver to reset the GPU, avoiding system “crash”
Multiple Variants For Ultimate Design Flexibility
Mobility™ Radeon® X600 series is ATI’s ninth generation of mobile graphics with integrated onchip memory delivering true flexibility for numerous mobile form factors, from full size to “thin-and-light”.
Discrete
On-chip 64MB DDR (128-bit)
On-chip 128MB DDR (128-bit)
AXIOM™:
AXIOM™ (Advanced eXpress I/O Module) is a new design concept, enabling Notebook designers and users to reap the benefit of PCI Express, and achieve faster time-to-market with cutting edge, innovative solutions. ATI is an industry leader in PCI Express and is first-to-market with true native high-performance mobile graphics products. ATI is now building on that leadership by introducing AXIOM™ - a family of modular graphics and multimedia solutions for the Notebook PC using PCI Express interconnect.

AXIOM™ is a flexible approach to PCI Express modules and provides the most reliable and fastest time to market with cutting edge, innovatove solutions:
Proven, robust connector
Standard form factors
Can be customized for optimal fit with industrial design
Standard interconnect for graphics and other peripheral designs
Takes full advantage of PCI Express interface - AXIOM™ is a full family of modules
Full support for ATI FlexFit™ technology

******

I'd have to say yes.

46Bubba said:

Will a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X600 be sufficient?

Click to expand...

Graphic card is sufficient, get more RAM

civilization 4 ? where can we find them

Look under Civ IV pre realease info, a very nice tool for checking your states was also on the fourm.

Thanks for the help everyone. I had done some homework on specs, but didn't see any smoking gun that said YES. It looked sufficient to me though.

As for RAM, I'm planning on a GIG for the CPU. Did homework on that too and learned that the 256MB of RAM is exclusive to the video card, so the 1 GIG.

So, if I have my wife persuaded I will get a Pentium 4 3.2 GHz, 1 GIG of RAM, and the ATI Radeon X600 video card. I'm thinking that it will do the trick. Its not the end-all of gaming computers, but going with a laptop calls for compromises..

Again, thanks. Can't WAIT to get my paws on the game!!!

Mobility Radeon X600 can handle Civ4 BUT it's worse than 9800.