Video Card Q+A

[libertypoint]

How is it working? I almost bought one. I tried Civ 4 & Warlords with a GeForce 5200 and started having problems well into the game.

 

[texasfireball]

Can anyone answer why my laptop meets at least the min. specs. to run the game and it freezes the whole kit and kaboodle after a certain point.
First, there's nothing wrong with the install. I use the same discs on my pc and haven't a problem.
Second, follows is what my system has as read by System Requirements Lab:




CPU
Minimum: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP
You Have: 2 processors running - Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
PASS
CPU Speed
Minimum: 1.2 GHz
You Have: 3.00 GHz Performance Rated at 4.50 GHz
PASS
System RAM
Minimum: 512 MB
You Have: 511.0 MB
PASS
Operating System
Minimum: Windows 2000/XP
You Have: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
PASS
Video Card
Minimum: 64 MB 3D Video Card with Hardware Transform & Lighting (NVIDIA GeForce2+ / ATI Radeon 7500+)
You Have: MOBILITY RADEON 9200 (MOBILITY RADEON 9200 AGP (0x5C61))
PASS
Video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card

Video RAM: Required - 32 MB , You have - 64.0 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - Yes

Video Card Driver Version (DirectX)
Your driver version number is: 6.14.10.6436
FYI: Your video card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper video card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.
DirectX Version
Minimum: DirectX® version 9.0c (included) or higher
You Have: 9.0c
PASS
Sound Card
Minimum: Yes
You Have: SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio
PASS
Sound Card Driver Version
Your driver version number is: 5.12.1.4011
FYI: Your sound card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper sound card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.
Free Disk Space
Minimum: 1.7 GB
You Have: 28.6 GB
PASS
CD
Minimum: 4X Speed CD/DVD-ROM
You Have: HL-DT-ST DVD+RW GCA-4040N
PASS, but the Speed could NOT be analyzed


Third, I do not have any viruses, ad-ware and such. My hard drive has 25gigs left on it. This is a clean computer that gives me no problems otherwise.

Here's what it does. (I've even changed the game options to Low Resolution)
Everything loads and runs perfectly until after you choose the world and leader options and the Start Game button appears.
I press the Start Game button and I get the starting off screen with Your Leader on it but after I continue the screen show black, other than it says that I have joined the game and autosaving in the top left and it shows the settler in the circle with an arrow, such as you would have if you next unit to move was off of the screen.
A couple of seconds later the mouse cursor disappears and my whole computer freezes up and I can only shut down by unplugging.
After I fire back up I get a "your computer has recovered from a fatal error" message.

Can anyone help me?
I have a 2 year old and another on the way and a laptop is so much better than sequestering myself in one room to play the game.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[KrisKringle]

I ran the test for my computer noted above to play Civ 4 warlords I passed all sections and exceeded the minimum ansd recommended system requirements and I am still having problems with the game freezing up during play.

Recommeded: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP
I Have: 2 processors running genuine Intel (R) CPU T2500 @ 2500 - Passed

Recommend: 1.8 GHz CPU speed
I Have: 2.01 GHz Rated at 3.76 GHz - Passed

Recommend: System RAM 512 MB
I Have: 1022.1 MB - Passed

Recommend: Windows 2000/XP
I Have: XP Pro w/SP2 (Build 2600) - Passed

Recommend: 128 MB Video Card w/directX 8 support w/pixel & vertex shaders (NVIDIA GeForce 5600+/ ATI Radeon 9600+)
I Have: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300

Video Ram Required 128MB: I Have 512 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration Required; I have
Video HW Transform & Lighting required; I have
Vertex Shader Ver 1.0 required; I hae 3.0
Pixel Shader Ver 1.0 required; I have 3.0

DirectX Version 9.0c required; I have 9.0c
Sound Card recommended; I have conexant high def audio
Free disk space recommended 1.7 GB; I have 85 GB
Cd Recommended dc/dvd-rom; I have HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GMA4082N

Anyone have an idea what would be causing the game to freeze up????

 

[Skallagrimson]

Civ4 is crap when it comes to video card requirements.

They really just have no idea what they're doing. I have 256 Mb of video RAM, Diamond Radeon X1550 (was top of the line less than a year ago), 1 Gb of system memory, and when playing BtS on MEDIUM graphics on a STANDARD SIZE map, it crashes halfway into the game with the video memory allocation error.

THEY LIE. Whatever specs they say for video cards, I have it and it's NOT GOOD ENOUGH for those people. Words cannot express how evil, disgusting, and stupid they are at Firaxis. Scum. End of.

 

[ecc]

Civ4 is crap when it comes to video card requirements.

They really just have no idea what they're doing. I have 256 Mb of video RAM, Diamond Radeon X1550 (was top of the line less than a year ago), 1 Gb of system memory, and when playing BtS on MEDIUM graphics on a STANDARD SIZE map, it crashes halfway into the game with the video memory allocation error.

THEY LIE. Whatever specs they say for video cards, I have it and it's NOT GOOD ENOUGH for those people. Words cannot express how evil, disgusting, and stupid they are at Firaxis. Scum. End of.

Nah man, you're blowing it way out of proportion. It depends on your configuration.

Reinstall XP.

Upgrade RAM to 2GB and lag goes away..at least it did for me.

 

[demosthlocke]

I just bought Civ4, and called in the support about my laptop card,said it wasn't good enough. But I don't think the guy liked me. So, a second opinion would be very much appreciated.

Does this card meet minimum requirements?

Intel(R) GMA 950

Direct play 8 (is this like directx?)

128 MB total memory


My RAM is 2 gigs



I tried installing it on my brothers laptop, and it started up, and the picture and video worked, but all the text in the text boxes looked like bar codes. any ideas??