10.1-inch Netbook and Civ4 without CD

[Unicon]

Hi,

I have two questions.

1. Can Civ4 run on a small Netbook like the one below, with the small screen and spec?
HP Mini 210-1000sa PC (Black, 10.1-inch LED Display, Windows 7 Starter, Intel Atom 1.66GHz N450 Processor, 1 GB DDR2 RAM, 160 GB SATA HDD, Intel GMA 3150 Graphic 256 MB, 802.11 b/g Networking, up to 3.5 Hours Battery)

2. Has anyone ever downloaded a game from a legal website and installed it without a CD?

Thanks
Uni

 

[Furiey]

Welcome to CFC!

There are problems running Civ 4 on a netbook, the screen resolution is less than the game actually needs so you have to mess about with windowed mode and having a scrolling window within that to see the whole screen. Far from ideal but some people have managed it, many have given up though. It will take quite a bit of messing about and you may not be satisfied if you do get it going. There are several threads down this forum about it but I've not seen one for a while so it will take a bit of searching to find.

There are several places that do download versions of the game, there is an offer of Civ 4 Complete on direct to drive for $10 although you will have to check if it is still on. Other places such as Steam, Gamespot and several others also sell it, I haven't got any downloaded versions so am not sure of all the vendors. Downloaded versions are becoming increasingly popular. Some people do have issues installing, but some people have issues with the disc versions too. You should note that any patches are specific to the vendor and you can not just download them from other sites, but as long as you get them from the vendor you should be fine, many versions are supplied fully patched now. The patch issue used to be a problem when patches were being released as the on-line vendors were very slow to issue their own patches, now there will be no more new patches this should not be an issue. If you have not got a CD on your netbook getting a downloaded version will be a much easier option than trying to get the disc versions to run. Plain Civ 4 supplied on disc needs a disc in the drive to run legally, so in a discless system a downloaded version is the legal option too.

Found a thread link this person installed the US complete disc version which does not need a disc in the drive to run, but the thread covers setting the windowed mode and has comments form others that may be helpful in your decision.

 

[Unicon]

Hi Furiey,

What a dicent reply! Thank you very much!

Just becaus of your reply I should get Civ4 and most probably will! Though first I have to checkout that link you mentioned.

What ever happens I'll keep this forum posted...

Krgds,
Uni

 

[bwcbwc]

Direct2Drive is continuing their Civ 4 complete sale from last week. I was just on there to see if "Week 4" had anything new and Civ 4 was still there. I don't think you'd be able to run BTS on a netbook, but $10 (specifically $9.95) is cheaper than buying Vanilla + warlords individually.

 

[Unicon]

Hi Furiey & Dwcdwc,

thanks again for the update...

I thought before I spend some cash check out the demo and...

ERROR
X Failed to Initialize Renderer - Check DirectX Version and Graphics Settings.

I think it has something to do with Windows7 as well... maybe the demo is not set for the new operating system!?

However, I'm not giving up jet!!!

 

[Furiey]

You may never get the demo to run on W7, that was designed for XP and the original Civ 4 would not even run on Vista before the final patch was released. The demo has never been patched so is unlikely to run on W7.

Patching the game and installing the latest directx9c from Microsoft is what we usually advise with this error.

 

[Unicon]

Hi Furiey,

thank for the hint.

I guess I have run out of options... now is the time for decisions! Ether I buy it to find out if I can make it work or will wonder for the rest of my life if it could have worked...

Arghhh... that's a difficult dicision... let's flip a coin... and head wins!

Keeping you updated and thanks for the support!

Krds,
Uni