Upgrade on limited budget

[ellie]

Hiya

Ive had to stick civ iv on my spare machine, which is lower spec.

Ive found that even with graphics at lowest setting i get really slow
responses between turns on large maps so im willing to spend a little on upgrades.

Currently the processor runs at 2Ghz, there is 1GB of pc3200 ram
(in 1 stick of 512mb and 2 x 256) and its a basic card..radeon 9200. (128MB ram)


So, im in a bit of a quandary, i dont care about graphics quality
but i have to choose between either

a) Picking up a slightly better card

b) Buying a 1GB stick taking me to 1.75GB in the machine

Can anyone advise on the best option?. Id do both but money is limited atm.

Game runs fine on normal maps its just once map goes above 75 x 75 i have problems. And for me the bigger the map the better

Thanks

Ellie

 

[Zanmato]

Can anyone advise on the best option?

I think you would be better investing in a new card with 256mb onboard preferably. I'm not sure what is a good ATI Radeon card for Civ4 but if you wanted to go with nvidia instead then a GeForce series 6 card would be a good choice so I guess you could look for a Radeon equal to the nvidia spec.

Processor and RAM should be fine as they are already.

 

[Tae]

A faster video card would be my guess as the best thing to upgrade on a budget.

My specs are close to yours but I have a faster Vid card (Radeon 9500) but a slightly slower processor if you are running AMD. Mine is 1.8 GHZ, but that is equivilent to a 2.2 Intel chip from what I understand. My ram is also PC2700, but I think I am running it at PC2200 levels (266mhz) because of my processor. I really don't have much problems running the game on Large maps with 1024X768 res and high graphic levels, but I do get quite a bit of slowdown late in the game. Not game ruining, but annoying.


This is why I am going from a Radeon 9500 to a GeoForce 6600GT this weekend.

 

[Markus5]

Yep. I moved to a 6600GT and it plays much much better. Go with the video.

 

[ellie]

k guys ill prolly get the x1300 (AGP version)

dunno if anyone has experience with it.

Wasnt sure how much ram the bigger maps used, so wasnt sure if
the lag was unrelated to the graphics card.

 

[Zanmato]

The game shouldn't be going over 1Gb of memory now in any case. Could try shutting down some background apps like Anti-virus, etc in the Task Manager to free up some more RAM and then see how the game runs.

 

[ellie]

OK, been given a 9800 pro (256mb) that a friend was getting rid of.

Ill stick this in, see if it helps. Not sure how these old cards perform
but worth a try.

Anyway thanks guys appreciate it