What kind of laptop should I play civ4 on?

Yoda Power

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I'm considering getting a new laptop.

What specs should I look for to run civ4 at it's best?

Thanks in advance :)
 
Nice specs on that Aorus, but don't they run 2-3K at least?

Yoda - Civ IV will run fine on most Windows PC with reasonable specs from the last several years. IV's main issue is memory leakage and overall sub-optimal usage of RAM. Still more RAM helps, so I'd get at least 16gigs of RAM on your rig - DDR4 if you can.

GPU is not critical, so your expense there should be based mainly on what other games you like to play and what you need to run them. Any 8 to 900 Nvidia line will be great - but get GTX if you can.

Processing power can help a lot, so I'd go for the intel i7s 6 series for best bang, but really any of the latest processors are more than fine. (i3/i5/AMDs)

And highly recommend an SSD for the hard drive. Just so much better all around. Vendors inflate their prices on SSDs tremendously from what I've seen. I saved a coupla grand installing it myself, which is quite easy really.

Bottom line though - with the exception of maybe sufficient RAM and decent processor, I would be more concerned about what other newer games you play. If expense is not an issue, then just get a good gaming laptop with comparable specs to what Cereal linked to above. Aorus is a nice brand, but there are vendors like Lenovo and Asus that put at machines with decent specs at better price points.

Also note, as someone who played Civ some on non-gaming laptop for a while (decent specs actually but not physically designed for gaming), definitely get a "gaming laptop" with some cooling systems. IV will run your machine hot, so you want one that can handle that.

I have both an Asus (older) and a Lenovo (brand new) gaming laptop and IV runs great and cool.
 
Bear in mind that Civ 4 is over 10 years old, so you don't need demanding hardware at all. I got a Core i5-5200U based laptop recently, with no discrete graphics card, and it runs the game fine. Not "at its best", by far (anti-aliasing off, and not always 60 fps), but it's OK and is perfectly playable. It will fly along on any laptop with a dedicated GPU.

Oh, and I was running on a laptop with 1 GB RAM back in the day. Still only have 4 GB, and that's more than enough, although I don't run any of these "massive" maps that some people do. For "typical" usage, 512 MB is enough.

Agree with Lymond about fast processor being useful, which will reduce time between turns, but again, Civ was designed for processors from 10 years ago, and what you deem as acceptable / good is determined by what you are used to.
 
Late game is looong but its still running okay (I got feeling that civ4 is game that needs few minutes until it starts running smooth after loading map). Early game only massive forests/jungles areas slows down laptop :D /good, almost 9 yrs old laptop - 1 GB RAM, Intel Pentium dual-core 1.6GHz, running with Vista (don't ask why :D ) / will buy new only if civ6 will be good :D
 
^^^I'm surprised if you can get Zork to run on that dinosaur ;)
 
As said above, civ4 is an ancient game that runs at 32bit single core, however a 64 bit OS is highly recommended as it can use all of 4GB RAM and avoid MAFs (Memory allocation failures). Anything above wont be used iirc, but its always nice to have a bit extra for the OS+running apps.

Since its single core only, getting a strong single-core-running multiple core CPU is recommended. again, atleast a dual core so Civ can take total usage of one of the cores.

GPU not THAT important, but 1GB RAM is recommended imho.

SSDs are always nice, they use less battery than HDDs and load the game somewhat faster, but ingame there is very little difference, since whats taking time is the AI calculations.

Im personally running on stationary, but old Core2Duo with 4 GB Ram and 1 GB AMD 7790 GPU, and it runs without problems even on colossal maps in my heavily modded version.

Oh, and how big is a colossal map you might ask? This is a colossal map size: ;)

Spoiler :
Its a 200x120 (24.000 tiles), Big and Small mapscript with 30 civs.
 
I used to play Civ IV complete on the laptop I bought back on 2011, which only had 4 gig of RAM. It's really an old game so you don't need much.
 
I have a :) :) :) :):) :) :) :):) :) :) :):) :) :) :):) :) :) :):) :) :) :) non-gaming Lenovo laptop that cost me $500 in 2013 and it runs IV quite well, though I don't play Huge maps because late-game turn times get too long.

I'm going to be getting a new computer in the next few weeks though, so I thank Seraiel in particular for the link to the notebook review site.
 
I only play civ, so forget about other games. :)

So basically most new ones will do.

I want to be able to play huge maps. You guys already made some good replies, but what would be minimum for huge maps?
 
I only play civ, so forget about other games. :)

So basically most new ones will do.

I want to be able to play huge maps. You guys already made some good replies, but what would be minimum for huge maps?

As rbj already wrote, CIV is 10y old, it runs smoothly on any modern laptop. If cost plays a role take an i5 and the advice on getting 16GB RAM from lymond is well worth it. Look in my signature why. Really best you ask in the forum that I linked, don't forget to read the guide so answer questions like how much you wanna spend and for what else you want to use the notebook despite of playing CIV. For working i. e. the Lenovo P50 or P70 is hard to beat if there's a possibility to get the educational discounts (available at shops like CampusPoint but needs to be country-specific, Lenovo offers educational discounts almost everywhere though) . Really best advice I can give.
 
I used to play Civ IV complete on the laptop I bought back on 2011, which only had 4 gig of RAM. It's really an old game so you don't need much.

This. Any new hardware you buy unless you spend like $200 will run the game perfectly fine.
 
I run on an older computer and play Huge maps almost exclusively, usually Marathon. So, long games, loads of units and Huge maps. I have no problems for the most part. Occassionally, I will get a MAF error but it seems to be only when there are other programs running in the background. Here are the specs:

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 8 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 320M
 
I have had good luck with Asus and Lenovo laptops.

Lenovo Y50
15.6-Inch
Intel Core i7-4720HQ 2.6 GHz
1TB 5400RPM
8GB DDR3
GeForce GTX 960M
2GB DDR5
Probably the most durable but still affordable laptop you can get.
 
I've been running CIV IV on a HP Spectre x2. It handles huge maps, 15 civs without strain.

1.2GHz Intel Core m7-6Y75 CPU
Intel HD Graphics 515
8 GB RAM
12-inch, 1,920 x 1,280 WUXGA+ IPS WLED-backlit touchscreen
256 GB SSD HD

Cost about $800 three months ago.
 
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