are all laptops doomed?

[minger]

Does anyone have a laptop that DOESN'T have the cheshire cat/dark terrain problem?

I was thinking of getting a new computer anyways, but I really want a laptop...

 

[pixelboy411]

I've got a dell inspirom and a dell latitude. same problem on both

 

[pixelboy411]

I've got a dell inspirom and a dell latitude. same problem on both

 

[ukimi367]

I have the same problem....

My hardware:
HP Pavilion ze4600 Series Laptop
Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M Processor 2500+
768MB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon 4X AGP and 3D Architecture
64MB DDR Video Memory

I have looked at the Firaxis and 2K websites, but no information yet. But it seems that there are enough problems that they are going to have to release a patch pretty soon...

 

[pixelboy411]

With the T&L Video requirement, there is no simple "go buy a new video card" solution, so I would expect we are doomed

 

[GenMarshall]

The ATI problem is common, not just to laptops. There is a thread posted somewhere in eather Civ4 Tech help or Civ4 General Discussion.

 

[allism]

The ATI problem is common, not just to laptops. There is a thread posted somewhere in eather Civ4 Tech help or Civ4 General Discussion.

The ATI problem is not the problem minger is describing here. The ATI problem (which does not allow gameplay at all, even with video cards that meet the minimum specs) seems to be being addressed by Firaxis. The Cheshire Cat/Dark Terrain problem (where it's possible to enter the game, and play, but you can't SEE much of anything) seems to be more likely to happen on video cards that don't support T&L, but is not limited to video cards that don't support T&L.

 

[Comraddict]

some expensive laptops have nice gfx such as radeon 9600/9700; x600/x700/x800
nv geforce 5600/6600/6800

however most of us have either intel integrated, gf4mx, gf5 5200fx, radeon 200m, radeon 300m, all of those are low end.

 

[Celeval]

Dell Inspiron 700m, about four months old - Cheshire Cat
HP/Compaq nc8000 - seems to work so far (ATI Mobility Radeon 9600), but I needed the newest drivers. Haven't gotten very far, so don't know if it'll bomb out on me later yet.

 

[pixelboy411]

I've got 2 dell laptops that won't run it with intel integrated video 8xx series. Maybe the 9xx series would, but I can't afford a new machine right now.

 

[allism]

Can't play it on my Inspiron 1150.

This guy was able to get it to work on his laptop but NOT his desktop:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133179

 

[Shepherdboy]

The problem is not necessarily with all laptops. I have a Dell Inspiron 600m with a Radeon Mobility 9000 that works OK most of the time. What I mean by that is this: the game loads and plays fine. Nothing seems to be missing or dark (other than the unexplored territory).

Every once in a while the system slows to a crawl. If I save the game and reload it, everything returns to normal. Not sure if that's a video issue or some service on my computer eating up CPU cycles.

Shepherdboy

 

[pixelboy411]

yeah, I saw that, but I have not seen a post from anyone who could run the thing without T&L. I'm a computer guy, and had never seen that requirement before now, but apparenty it is commom???

 

[allism]

yeah, I saw that, but I have not seen a post from anyone who could run the thing without T&L. I'm a computer guy, and had never seen that requirement before now, but apparenty it is commom???

This is the first modern game that I've run into that is unplayable on my laptop (wetrix is unplayable, but it's because it causes my computer to crazy overheat). I don't do the FPS type games, though.

I believe I've seen a few posts around from people who don't have T&L who have had no problems. Most people that aren't having problems, though, aren't going to be sitting here on the forums, though - they're going to be off playing their game.

Hmmm...I'm tempted to see what I can scrounge up as a video card that meets the requirements except for the T&L and swap my husband's video card out, since his system is running flawlessly. I'm not sure what we might have that falls into that grey area, though - everything we have is extremely old or fairly new.

 

[pixelboy411]

If you stumble on any of the posts from people with no T&L, let me know! I've missed those. I have a laptop, so there won't be any swapping....

 

[kwintz]

I completely lucked out for once and the game plays on my Dell Latitude 510 w/ 1.8 pentium 4 and 512 megs of memory. The T and L crap was making me nervous, but i got the game installed and played it for about 10 hours straight...the game does get a bit slow in the modern era, but i suppose i could turn the resolution down some.

 

[pixelboy411]

I believe that one comes with ATI on board. You totally lucked out!

 

[pibrahim]

No problems with a Toshiba Qosmio laptop here...

GFX card is a Geforce 6600 GO.

 

[solar]

No problems with my Gateway laptop, unsure of model.

 

[guyfamous]

HP zv6000 series. Runs the game fine. It has an ATI video card and I haven't had any problems. It's only two weeks old, so that probably helps.