Higher than I expected, but that might be a good thing. I'd be quite surprised if the game struggled at even Large map sizes on a computer meeting these requirements (except dual-core Atom). It'd be a nice change if people found Standard to be playable with a bit less than the stated minimums rather than Standard to be unplayable with the stated minimums, as happened with Civ4 around release (prior to the patches).
It's a 4-year old NVIDIA GeForce 6800. They're calling for a 7900 series at minimum. I expect I'll still give the demo a whirl, but I'm not hoping for much.
It might run the game, but the performance will be pretty low if it does. Try the demo, and see if you can get anything playable. The nice thing about strategy is that you can still play with low framerates.
It's a shame we single core guys aren't getting any love here
I really hope it runs decently on my computer.. I don't want to have to upgrade a motherboard and processor....
Try the demo... with previous incarnations of Civ, the limiting factor with a weak CPU was always increasingly long turn times. If you have a high-end single core (3.6 GHz+ Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD), it wouldn't surprise me if it was sufficient for powering the graphics, but agonizingly slow on large/huge maps.
I've played Civ3: Conquests on a Pentium II that was at/below the requirements (depending on whom you believe for the requirements), and it played. Not very impressively, but a standard-sized map was doable without horrendous waits. Actually did better than Civ4 on a PC that did meet the minimum requirements.
While my current system has a dual core rather than a quad (Intel 2.66 GHz), the main bottleneck, I have been told, is the graphics card. My 256MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO already has problems with Civ IV sometimes, so I'll want to upgrade for Civ V.
Right now I'm considering either a GeForce 9400 GT 1GB or a Radeon HD4560 1GB DMS59. I'm kind of leaning toward the Radeon because it has a dual monitor capability (and yes, I have two monitors) even though the GeForce is much cheaper. Does anyone have a preference or an alternative suggestion?
That's definitely below the minimum requirements, and not close. The 9400 GT is newer than the 7900 GS, but less powerful. It would get the game playing, but not much beyond that. It's not powerful enough to justify having 1GB of memory attached, either (attaching lots of memory to a weak card is a common marketing tactic for making the cards appear more powerful than they are). The 4560 would definitely be powerful enough.