best video card to play Civ IV and BTS

[Brew God]

Hello Civ Community,

I have a Radeon X 300 video card which came with my HP Media Center m7250n desktop. It's a 128 mg devoted video card and not shared. I have 3 gigs of ram, and my chip is a Dual Core 2.8 megahertz Intel.

I want to upgrade my video card to 256 megs devoted. I am looking at 100 - 150 dollars to spend. For gamers this is a budget card I know but CIV IV and BTS are the only games I play. ONLY I SAY. I am not a gamer.

What suggestions do you guys have. I don't know which video slot I have for my computer the Express etc?

Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thank You

Brew God

 

[niels251]

any modern videocard will do even if its an budgetcard. civ4 doesn't require a state of the art videocard

 

[Psyringe]

I've got an nVidia 7600 GT (about middle class at present, I guess), and it runs the game fine, even on super huge maps (modded to be 50% larger than the stock huge maps). A slightly weaker card will probably work as well. I'd recommend nVidia over ATI for Civ4 because ATI cards seem to have more trouble with the game. (There are other games for which it is the other way round, it usually depends on how the game was developed. But if Civ4 is all you play, then switch to nVidia.)

 

[niels251]

i have an ATI card and ik works fine. What really works for CIV4 is RAM and you got plenty

 

[toft]

Personal opinion:

Intel > AMD
Nvidia > ATI

 

[Willem]

Hello Civ Community,

I have a Radeon X 300 video card which came with my HP Media Center m7250n desktop. It's a 128 mg devoted video card and not shared. I have 3 gigs of ram, and my chip is a Dual Core 2.8 megahertz Intel.

I want to upgrade my video card to 256 megs devoted. I am looking at 100 - 150 dollars to spend. For gamers this is a budget card I know but CIV IV and BTS are the only games I play. ONLY I SAY. I am not a gamer.

What suggestions do you guys have. I don't know which video slot I have for my computer the Express etc?

Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thank You

Brew God

It sounds to me like you have an AGP slot for your video card. That makes your options limited to begin with. On the ATI side, a Radeon X800 will do just fine and as mentioned already, an Nvidia 7600 will be more than adequate. These are both reasonably priced cards too. I would also recommend switching to Nvidia.

 

[Aristos]

Hello Civ Community,

I have a Radeon X 300 video card which came with my HP Media Center m7250n desktop. It's a 128 mg devoted video card and not shared. I have 3 gigs of ram, and my chip is a Dual Core 2.8 megahertz Intel.

I want to upgrade my video card to 256 megs devoted. I am looking at 100 - 150 dollars to spend. For gamers this is a budget card I know but CIV IV and BTS are the only games I play. ONLY I SAY. I am not a gamer.

What suggestions do you guys have. I don't know which video slot I have for my computer the Express etc?

Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thank You

Brew God

I had the X300, and was quiet happy with its performance. But some months ago I got the GeForce 8600 GTX from XFX. It works like a charm! and should be within your budget by now.

I play even Company of Heroes with everything on high with that gem, without any problems! So Civ 4 is not an issue with it.

My comp is almost a twin of yours, I have the 7170 and with the card upgrade I also expanded the RAM to 3. So, you should get the same excellent performance with the 8600 GTX.

Enjoy!

EDIT: I agree, Intel >> AMD, and Nvidia>>>>ATI (knowing both). Also, if you have the X300, then you have a PCI-E slot, and the 8600GTX is a PCI-E so you're good!

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

i have an ATI card and ik works fine. What really works for CIV4 is RAM and you got plenty

I have 4gigs doesnt seem to make much difference from 1gb

 

[Warts]

I had a 7900 GT 256Mb DDR3 card it was great for everything EXCEPT Civ4. Traded it to a friend for a 8500 GT 512 Mb DDR2 card. It is slower but at least it works in Civ4. I also tested a 6600 256 Mb card and it ran okay.

 

[Brew God]

Hello Civ IV and BTS Community,

Thanks for your comments. I think I might also have some CPU Usage issues which causes my CPU to be at 100 % Usage while playing the game.

I have some great ideas on video cards to get. I will switch to the Nvidia card.

If money was no object what card would be ultimate for Civ IV and BTS as well as get me well into CIV V.

Any thougths or suggestions would be great.

This Brew is for You

Brew God

 

[GoodGame]

So the moral is that CIV4 demands huge memory on the vid card over speed performance of the vid card?

I had a 7900 GT 256Mb DDR3 card it was great for everything EXCEPT Civ4. Traded it to a friend for a 8500 GT 512 Mb DDR2 card. It is slower but at least it works in Civ4. I also tested a 6600 256 Mb card and it ran okay.

 

[Underdawg]

Personal opinion:

Intel > AMD
Nvidia > ATI

Errr... a very very simplified judgement....

To have a good verdict, one must judge on a case-by-case basis an not make such sweeping statements. And how can it be opinion when there are benchmarks out there? One merely has to compare the actual real world in-game performance and then compare the prices.

But in terms of raw performance, Nvidia currently holds the crown in all levels (entry, mid-range, high-end), especially with their fantastic 8800GT (the rise of the new 7900GS/X1950 Pro - cheap, affordable, and performs much better than its price indicates). AMD/ATI is just totally failing in the GPU department.

As for the Intel vs AMD CPU 'war', basically, if one will overclock, get the Intel models, but if one will not, then get the similarly priced AMD coutnerpart (and most of the times even cheaper, ex. AMD X2 6000+ vs. Intel counterpart e6600). But I overclock so of course I'll go with the core 2 duo.... nothing beats the feeling of having a CPU perform 65% faster than default.

Note that the amount of memory on a given video card (GPU - graphics processing unit) is not a good indicator of the overall power capabilities of the card. For example, a 256MB 7900GS is about 15x-20x faster than a 256MB 7300GS. One can see that even though the amount of RAM is the same, the performance is not.





As for the OP,

HP Media Center m7250n
2.8Ghz Intel Pentium D (A bit weak, Civ IV only uses one core really, so it performs only a tad bit better than a Pentium IV 3.0Ghz)
3GB RAM (MORE MORE MUCH MORE than enough, 2GB of RAM is excellent)
X300 Video Card (Weak, but Civ IV is not very demanding on the graphics)

I looked up this model and found out it has a PCI-e slot, which will enable it to have PCI-e based video cards. You said you have a $100-$150 dollar budget, I would recommend the following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814186013 - WOW, what a steal, a 7900GS for $99.99 after rebate. I strongly suggest you do not buy from any of the big-box stores (Best Buy, etc) because they often overcharge by charging double or triple the normal price. Newegg is the biggest US retailer of computer hardware and accessories and they offer great customer services so no worries if you are a bit iffy dealing with ordering online.

If you look around newegg, there are 8600GT models for sale also for about the same price, but the 8600GT is really underwhelming compared to their last generation counterparts... Just search for benchmarks comparing the 8600GT versus the 7900GS/X1950 Pro.

I wouldn't recommend to go to a more powerful model because your CPU would bottleneck it (moreso than it would already bottleneck a 7900GS); it would hold back a more powerful card from performing fully because the CPU would not be able to keep up with the GPU (Simplified - Basically, the CPU cannot handle the data the GPU is sending it fast enough which makes the GPU have to wait for the CPU to finish before the GPU can process new data).

 

[Desert-Fox]

8800 GTX is needed.

 

[draethor]

Hello Civ IV and BTS Community,

Thanks for your comments. I think I might also have some CPU Usage issues which causes my CPU to be at 100 % Usage while playing the game.

I have some great ideas on video cards to get. I will switch to the Nvidia card.

If money was no object what card would be ultimate for Civ IV and BTS as well as get me well into CIV V.

Any thougths or suggestions would be great.

This Brew is for You

Brew God

The "CPU usage issue" is a result of your GPU offloading most of the work to your CPU. With a better video card you would find CPU usage would drop substantially.

If money is no object, then you want an 8800 Ultra. There are some caveats with this card, however. The first is that it's too big to fit in most OEM desktops. I know for a fact it won't fit in many of the higher end HP models (8100y, etc).

Secondly, with most high end graphics cards you'll also need to upgrade your power supply. Forgive me for assuming here, but it sounds like you're relatively inexperienced with computer hardware. Replacing the power supply is pretty easy, but you should have at least some knowledge so you don't fry yourself or your motherboard (as well as figuring out which GPU to purchase).

Many of the recommendations here are good ones because they don't take much power. The 7600 GT is great and would almost certainly not necessitate a better power supply. The 7900 GS might work as well. An 8600 might also work, but it's not really faster than the 7900 GS (though it supports dx10).

If you want a faster card, you'll need to first find a picture of your mobo and make some measurements on it, or open up your box and do it by hand. Secondly, you'll need to find a good power supply to support it.

 

[Willem]

If money is no object, then you want an 8800 Ultra.

Yes, the Ultra is probably the best card out there if you're not concerned about price. But it's not cheap. It's also a PCI-E card so your motherboard needs to be able to use those cards. The power requirements are also very high. The techie at the computer store I deal with recommends at least a 640 watt. Personally I'd go with 700 just to play it safe. And since it's DirectX 10 compatible, you'll be ready for Civ 5 when it comes out.

 

[draethor]

Yes, the Ultra is probably the best card out there if you're not concerned about price. But it's not cheap. It's also a PCI-E card so your motherboard needs to be able to use those cards. The power requirements are also very high. The techie at the computer store I deal with recommends at least a 640 watt. Personally I'd go with 700 just to play it safe. And since it's DirectX 10 compatible, you'll be ready for Civ 5 when it comes out.

There amount of wattage you need for a graphics card is always a little misleading.

What you need to look at is the number of amps on the 12V rail. The 8800 ultra needs a shocking 37A at a minimum, which is nearly 440W by itself (well, that minimum theoretically is overstated by a fair bit and includes things like your CPU). So if you had a VERY high quality gaming 500W power supply you'd be fine.

On the flip side, there are probably some 640W power supplies out there that wouldn't cut it (though that's probably unlikely ). My computer came stock with a 480W power supply, but it only supported 19A on the 12V rail, so I wasn't able to run my 8800 GTS. Luckily, I had a decent 600W power supply lying around (that I got for free, mwa ha) with 29A on the 12V rail so I'm fine. Note that this 600W power supply wouldn't even be close to being able to support a quad-core system with an 8800 ultra.