9800 PRO + AMD 2000 XP - it is not enough

You could throw two 7800Gt's on that and hardly see an improvement. The card you have is almost too heavy for your processor.

Performance is not just about the most expensive VC (videocard), it's about having the right components. Adding a GF 6800 is like having a ferrari with one cylinder...
Upgrade to a 3000 AMD 64 with a Gig of RAM and you will see an improvement.

Animation is smooth as a baby buttocks on my rig and those the specs I use (with a 9800PRO)

Civ is probably heavy on the processor anyway (and RAM). MANY many calculations going on, so your card is waiting for it to send something to do.

 

Funny thing is that 3D Mark hardly touches your processor because...it test your videocard...
Great wonder the 6800 performs better than the 9800 does.
Not to mention that 3D mark is 100% purely unbiased...yes sirree bob. Yeah right..

Anyway, you seemed to have made your mind, so why am I wasting my time here?
He'll be back tomorrow of course, going "ZOMF, this g4mes IZ br0ken!!!".

 

Havn't got civ4 yet (so I spending my time lurking here instead) but if my 9800Pro can play half life 2 and doom 3 I'm sure it can manage the most complex animations civ4 throws at it... oh and ironduck, go for an AMD 64, more bang for your buck everytime

 

Same card, slower processor, and only 512 mb of ram and mine runs perfectly smooth.

 

You're quickly going to find yourself in a game of ever decreasing circles. First you want to improve the graphics card because it's choppy. But then is that being limited by your cpu? But then is the bandwidth of the AGP being a problem in some other new game, so a new MB to switch to PCI-E? But then that means another new graphics card...

My advice is to struggle on for a little while and wait until Vista comes out. At which point to a big upgrade, probably getting enough bits to get an OEM copy of Vista, and suddenly as an 'older' game Civ 4 will run smoother than you could have hoped.

 

Yesterday morning I had a Radeon 9200 and 512 mb of ram and civ ran pretty good. But, since good isn't good enough and I just got my quarterly bonus, by last night I was running an overclocked 6800 gt and a gig of ram and now everything is lightning fast. I highly recommend that card. Huge bang for the buck.