Can Your System Handle Civ IV?

[Grey Fox]

Congratulations, your system will Rock this product! Wish we had a system that hot you lucky dog.

Hell yeah!

It thinks my AMD 3500+ is overclocked to 3.5ghz. (I wish!)

Well it said my AMD 3000+ was overclocked to 3.0ghz, and thats kinda true, cus thats why its called 3000+, its supposed to run Like a 3.0ghz pentium.

 

[vbraun]

Well it said my AMD 3000+ was overclocked to 3.0ghz, and thats kinda true, cus thats why its called 3000+, its supposed to run Like a 3.0ghz pentium.

I know.

I still wish I could up my actual clock speed to 3.5 from its current 2.2.

 

[evil_linus]

Nice function there! must try it when I come home too. But it shouldn't be a problem. My work computer can run it on recomanded settings...

 

[NinjaCool]

My system passed well with "your system will Rock this product!" Lol

 

[BeefBayford]

This tool is ace!

P.S. I can run CivIV OH YEAH!

 

[46Bubba]

I posted a similar question - specifically about the video card requirements. I'm planning a full upgrade to an HP Pavilion zd8000 with an ATI Radeon X600 video card (other stuff meets recommended min requirements). Down side is that I can't use this link until I buy the damn thing and run the test. Oh well...

 

[toft]

Woohoo... my GeForce 5700 LE passed

 

[Blazer6]

My GeForce FX 5200 passes by two lines, and it tells me some drivers can be upgraded.
The only problem with my video card is that I have to spend money to get a card with half the allocated power.

 

[holy king]

works good, although it tells me i failed, cause my videocard is missing one feature:

Video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card

Video RAM: Required - 32 MB , You have - 64 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - No

 

[NinjaCool]

Not good holy
I believe this means you cannot run the game as civ4 uses this feature for its gfx engine and it states in the minimum requirements that T&L is required :/

 

[Mercade]

Video RAM: Required - 32 MB , You have - 64 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - No

On my laptop I have exactly the same. Can anyone explain what is Transform & Lighting, and why it is so important?

Thanks.

 

[NinjaCool]

In short: T&L is a type of video technology that takes all the 3D information that used to be handled by the computer processor and gives it to the GPU. This enables for a more complex 3D environment by adding a higher polygon count and improving the lighting at the same time it allows the computer processor to handle other tasks.

 

[mastertyguy]

My school computer didn't pass!

 

[doronron]

works good, although it tells me i failed, cause my videocard is missing one feature:

Video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card

Video RAM: Required - 32 MB , You have - 64 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - No

Not good holy
I believe this means you cannot run the game as civ4 uses this feature for its gfx engine and it states in the minimum requirements that T&L is required :/

That might not be entirely accurate. Civ4 utilises the same graphics engine as Pirates! does. My laptop uses an Intel Extreme graphics chipset which does not support any form of HW Transform & Lighting. However, my laptop runs Pirates! on the highest graphics settings with no flaws and at least a 30fps Framerate. Pirates! also requires HW Transform and Lighting, by the way.

 

[NinjaCool]

Its strange that they have it in their minimum requirements if it works without but its only good if thats the case.
I checked the Pirates requirements and it too says card must have T&L support, strange

 

[doronron]

Some software allows the CPU to handle the T&L calculations instead of the GPU at the expense of overall processing speed. It's just a matter of whether or not the software's resources check doesn't automatically stop the program from running once it knows the GPU does not have the right hardware architecture to handle T&L. The gamebryo engine (at least the iteration used for Pirates!) does not stop the program from running, and the game then relies on the speed of your computer to get the needed fps with the extra bells and whistles.

This is how I understand it works, at least.

 

[Mercade]

That might not be entirely accurate. Civ4 utilises the same graphics engine as Pirates! does. My laptop uses an Intel Extreme graphics chipset which does not support any form of HW Transform & Lighting. However, my laptop runs Pirates! on the highest graphics settings with no flaws and at least a 30fps Framerate. Pirates! also requires HW Transform and Lighting, by the way.

Sounds my laptop is not unlike yours. We'll have to wait and see, then. There is still hope and all that.

 

[doronron]

Sounds my laptop is not unlike yours. We'll have to wait and see, then. There is still hope and all that.

My laptop's a good piece of hardware. A Toshiba Satellite A15. 2Ghz CPU and 1GB RAM. The only problem with it is the subpar GPU. Intel 852/855s just don't hold up anymore. I will be converting this machine in the near future entirely into a business unit. At least until I do, it should be able to handle Civ4 just fine.

 

[strhopper]

My desktop pass's with flyin colors but my laptop fails due to the graphics card................is it difficult to update a graphics card on a laptop? my lap top passes execpt for the lighting part

 

[doronron]

Unfortunately, there is no way to upgrade your laptop's GFX card. Until they can cram the equivalent of an ATI x300 onto a PCMCIA card, you're SOL. You'll have to buy a whole new machine (which is what I've done).