Official System Requirements

I don't understand the numbers on graphics cards. I have an ATI Radeon 3100 - is that any good? 3G of RAM, dual core 2.1ghz. Ran Civ4 perfectly fine, but I have to dial things down for mods like Quot Capita.

Would it also help if I installed Vista 64bit? It's currently on 32, but can be upgraded (or so the shop guy told me).

That appears to be an embedded chip, not a graphics card and around the minimum requirements performance wise (not really sure on the latter).

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-HD-3100.20165.0.html
 
Oh, pretty close but I think this one is going to be able to do it.:D

Pentium T4200 with app. 2.0 GHz (dual core)
4GB Memory
1GB VRAM nVidia Geforce GT 120M.

But the question is: will it be able to play RFC?:rolleyes:
 
Yeah, I too remember something along the lines of an improved engine which works as good or even better (thanks to supporting multiple cores, which Civ 4 did not) on the same HW than Civ 4 does ;)

Just out of curiosity I looked up the requirements for Civ 4

MINIMUM

# Windows 2000/XP with SP1 or higher
# Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon CPU with at least 1.2 GHZ
# 256 MB RAM
# 64 MB graphics card with Hardware T&L (GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)
# DirectX 7 compatible soundcard
# DVD-ROM drive
# 1.7 GB free hard disk space

RECOMMENDED

# Windows XP with SP1 or higher
# Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon CPU with at least 1.8 GHz
# 512 MB RAM
# 128 MB graphics card with DirectX 8 support (pixel- and vertex shaders)
# DirectX 7 compatible soundcard
# DVD-ROM drive
# 1.7 GB free hard disk space

I never really expected that to be true, but the jump is certainly more than I thought.

Oh well, I am somewhere between minimum and recommended, since it is a 2 year old laptop (yes, it was high end at that time ;) ).

So your saying CiV will run on the same HW that Civ IV did?
 
Going purely by benchmark figures I don't actually think I'll be able to meet the minimum requirements on my laptop :(. My Radeon Mobility HD4570 is bottom of the high-end list with a score of 283, and the i3 integrated graphics (Intel HD as far as I could tell) is 328. Other than that I'm more than fine with Win7, Core i7 and 4GB DDR3. Can I scrounge together enough money to build a desktop...maybe. Will have to see how the demo performs, although I'll be buying Civ5 anyway - I'm going to find some way of playing it, even if it's not just yet. I'm a bit shocked, as I can play Team Fortress 2 respectably on here, so I thought a strategy turn-based game would have no problem.

D712 said:
So your saying CiV will run on the same HW that Civ IV did?
The recommended graphics is for Civ4 "128 MB graphics card with DirectX 8 support (pixel- and vertex shaders)". That doesn't come very close to the minimum graphics requirements for Civ5, so no, I'm afraid not. That is the way with new generation games though, using the latest and best hardware. I just wish they could have a playable option for mid-range performing laptops.

Not just graphics, but everything else that was recommended for Civ4 is years old and won't make the cut for Civ5. Well, with the exception of the DVD drive :D
 
Going purely by benchmark figures I don't actually think I'll be able to meet the minimum requirements on my laptop :(. My Radeon Mobility HD4570 is bottom of the high-end list with a score of 283, and the i3 integrated graphics (Intel HD as far as I could tell) is 328. Other than that I'm more than fine with Win7, Core i7 and 4GB DDR3. Can I scrounge together enough money to build a desktop...maybe. Will have to see how the demo performs, although I'll be buying Civ5 anyway - I'm going to find some way of playing it, even if it's not just yet. I'm a bit shocked, as I can play Team Fortress 2 respectably on here, so I thought a strategy turn-based game would have no problem.


The recommended graphics is for Civ4 "128 MB graphics card with DirectX 8 support (pixel- and vertex shaders)". That doesn't come very close to the minimum graphics requirements for Civ5, so no, I'm afraid not. That is the way with new generation games though, using the latest and best hardware. I just wish they could have a playable option for mid-range performing laptops.

Not just graphics, but everything else that was recommended for Civ4 is years old and won't make the cut for Civ5. Well, with the exception of the DVD drive :D

ahh. Well Im still gona wait for the demo, because my system is known for running games when it shouldnt. Is CiV's recommended/minimum graphics card the same as napoleon: total war?
 
So your saying CiV will run on the same HW that Civ IV did?

No, no, no. He was just posting the Civ 4 specs (which everyone here was complaining about 5 years ago) as a comparison.

For reference, the minimum spec Graphics cards and release dates:
Radeon 2600XT: June 2007
Geforce 7900GS: Fall 2006
Core i3 integrated: January 2010

To check what graphics card you have, right-click on the desktop, select "Properties" (This may be "Screen Resolution" in Win7), and then go to the "Settings" tab. In the box above the resolution slider, you'll likely see "Monitor on NVIDIA xxx", "Monitor on Intel xxx", or "Monitor on ATI xxx".

In short, if you bought a laptop with Intel graphics before 2010, it does not meet the minimum specs for Civ 5.

However, this doesn't mean that Civ 5 won't run. It just means it won't run well and it may not be playable.
 
I just wish they could have a playable option for mid-range performing laptops.

If you're really struggling with performance overheads, isn't the strategy layer likely to counter some of that? I think it was called the strategy layer...2K Greg posted screenshots a couple of weeks back that gave an overview of the 2D overhead layer allowing full play without ever having to go into the fancy 3D view...surely all the bells and whistles won't be dragging performance down if you use that?

Time will tell I guess! :crazyeye:
 
Does anyone know if a 8400M graphics card is better than the nVidia 7900 GS? If so, I might just meet the minimum.
 
8 GB of Disk space and 4 GB of RAM?! CIV only required 2 GB I think, but wow, I guess it's time to remove some of my older games (my games from the '90s work on my Windows 7!)
 
ahh. Well Im still gona wait for the demo, because my system is known for running games when it shouldnt. Is CiV's recommended/minimum graphics card the same as napoleon: total war?

Essentially, yes. I'd say Napoleon is probably harder on graphics than Civ 5 will be (at least on the battle map). Does N:TW run on the Intel 4500?
 
8 GB of Disk space and 4 GB of RAM?! CIV only required 2 GB I think, but wow, I guess it's time to remove some of my older games (my games from the '90s work on my Windows 7!)

1TB hard drives are like $50 now ;)
 
Does anyone know if a 8400M graphics card is better than the nVidia 7900 GS? If so, I might just meet the minimum.

According to benchmarks at http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php I'm afraid not.

GeForce 8400M G: 96
GeForce 8400M GS: 124
GeForce 8400M GT: 170

GeForce 7900 GS: 608

Still, like it's been said, there may yet be ways for us to enjoy Civ on low-end graphics, notably the strategy layer. I'm not sure I want to be limited to the strategy layer but if it works it might give me time to save up for a desktop. I've not had a desktop in years - the last one I bought was a Dell Optiplex GX1 (second hand) and that was to play Civ3 :D.
 
Going purely by benchmark figures I don't actually think I'll be able to meet the minimum requirements on my laptop :(. My Radeon Mobility HD4570 is bottom of the high-end list with a score of 283, and the i3 integrated graphics (Intel HD as far as I could tell) is 328.

Something is fishy there. Even a mediocre dedicated chip like the 4570 should be significantly faster than the best integrated graphics, I would expect a 4570 to be more than twice as fast, at least if the manufacturer of your notebook didn't cripple it by using really slow memory.


According to benchmarks at http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php I'm afraid not.

Would't trust that one. Some strange results there, a 9600GT as fast as a 8800GT? Comparing everything from the very first GeForce up to the latest monsters by one convenient number just cannot work.
 
I have ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series 1024mb, quad core with 3gb ram. I hope that will be enough to run it smoothly.
 
Fortunately I'm able to squeeze A LOT out of my 100 something video card.

After all I can run crisis and Napoleon at medium specs.:)
 
2K Greg (or any other hardware experts), my new laptop has a Core i5 Dual Core processor that supports 4 threads. So I essentially have 4 virtual processors. Does that provide enough horsepower to meet the 4 core recommended setting or are 4 real CPU cores much more powerful than a 2 core processor that supports 4 threads? I just don't have a very good grasp on Intel's Hyperthreading tech.
 
Something is fishy there. Even a mediocre dedicated chip like the 4570 should be significantly faster than the best integrated graphics, I would expect a 4570 to be more than twice as fast, at least if the manufacturer of your notebook didn't cripple it by using really slow memory.

I know - maybe that benchmark figure isn't accurate, I'm not sure. Going by what notebookcheck.net says, I might be in luck:

AMD Mobility Radeon HD 4570
Intel HD

EDIT: I might be in luck...as long as I can keep my laptop cool enough while playing that it doesn't throttle to half-performance! With it using all my 8 logical cores on my hyper-threaded i7 that might not be easy...

EDIT2:
2K Greg (or any other hardware experts), my new laptop has a Core i5 Dual Core processor that supports 4 threads. So I essentially have 4 virtual processors. Does that provide enough horsepower to meet the 4 core recommended setting or are 4 real CPU cores much more powerful than a 2 core processor that supports 4 threads?
Hyper-threading doesn't give you double the performance, as the 2 threads are sharing a single core, albeit cleverly, so they won't get their own cache, for instance. So 4 logical cores isn't the same as 4 physical cores, but I think you'll be close if not within the recommended range.
 
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