Anyone playing (S) G/W OTM with Vista OS?

[Thrallia]

Your problem is likely the dedicated video RAM...my card, despite only scoring 200, has 128MB of dedicated RAM.

2xAA is 2x AntiAliasing, minor antialiasing, but any antialiasing is hard on the video card because it smooths out all the rough edges on the graphics.

As for running in windows mode...I don't find Civ to be any more stable in this method(although others have, from what I read long ago before v1.52), I do find that it takes less time to bring up other apps like notepad or the CFC website though.

As for the 2000 I mentioned, I was referring back to the Radeon X1700 on the laptop I linked to for you...It scored a 23xx on the same test you looked at for the two Nvidia cards and has 512MB of dedicated RAM.

 

[da_Vinci]

Your problem is likely the dedicated video RAM...my card, despite only scoring 200, has 128MB of dedicated RAM.

Hmm ... the Notebookcheck site says that an X300 with 128 is more like an X600, so that would make sense.

On the other hand, from my research...unless you really want a 200GB hard drive, this might be the notebook for you: Asus G2P

Appreciate all the input!

Not wedded to the 200 GB HD ... external storage is so cheap now, why have a slow moose on board? Definitely have some more comparison shopping to do, as Alienware had an interesting configuration for just under $2000 (high end video card, fast HD) in a custom cofiguration.

Do you know of any retailers that stock Alienware? Might still buy online, but like to see the item in real life before I decide.

dV

 

[Thrallia]

not that I'm aware of, Alienware was bought by Dell, so I think its entirely online now.

If I could afford a new laptop right now, I'd probably get one of those alienware ones...I like the dual video card and dual hard drive configurations!

Enjoy your shopping!

 

[da_Vinci]

@ Thrallia: Here is a new diagnostic puzzle: today I loaded GOTM 17 and it crashed halfway through the first turn of play!

Not the usual freeze, blue screen and auto reboot, but this time a sudden crash to desktop with an error message that there was a failure to allocate video memory. The machine had been on for a while doing other things, so I suppose I should always reboot to start a Civ session (till I get a better box).

I've checked at HP and no newer video drivers. Trying to figure out why this game is so much worse than previous ones. We are using a new HOF mod for this one IIRC. Maybe that needs the latest DirectX? I've just updated my DirectX so we will see if that makes a difference.

Otherwise, I can't figure why GOTM 17 is being a unique problem for my machine.

dV

 

[Thrallia]

no clue...the only time I've gotten that message was when playing a huge map up past the middle ages without stopping, before v1.52, and I ran out of video RAM, computer RAM, and virtual RAM...I think that might be what happened for yours(or your computer just plain freaked out when it ran out of regular RAM)

You could either increase your paging file size(virtual RAM), or hopefully just reboot before you play Civ...I think I read something about an error issue in the latest HOF mod, but don't recall exactly what it was...if it is possibly because of the mod, you might want to let Denniz know over in the HOF forum.

 

[da_Vinci]

@ Thrallia: latest wrinkle ... early play crash in SGOTM 4, the blue screen and reboot variety. So that gets HOF mod off the hook it would appear. AlanH suggested a reinstall of Civ 4 and Warlords might help ... do you think that is likely to be useful? Or do you think nothing can save this weak video card?

dV