Civ IV Machine!

[Teutonic_Knight]

Can someone who has Civ IV and a computer that can run it without problems, please post the specs for me? I am buying a new computer and want to get an idea on what I should buy. Yes, I am pretty adept on building custom rigs, etc, but I want Civ IV to run great. I have yet to finish a game of Civ IV on my current system:

ASUS Terminator2 T2-P STANDARD Intel Socket 478 Intel Pentium 4 INTEL 865G
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card 8x AGP (Good video card!)
Intel Pentium IV 2.6 GHz Processor (nice! And runs cool! Less than 80 deg)
512 MB of DDR400

 

[Holj102]

ASUS Terminator2 T2-P STANDARD Intel Socket 478 Intel Pentium 4 INTEL 865G
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card 8x AGP (Good video card!)
Intel Pentium IV 2.6 GHz Processor (nice! And runs cool! Less than 80 deg)
512 MB of DDR400

From what I can tell that computer should be working fine in all aspects except RAM. Supposedly, the v. 1.52 patch fixed most of the problems with ATI cards so that shouldn't be a problem (I'm trying to run it on an nvidia 6800 which is having it's own problems). The one thing in that current HARDWARE set-up would be your RAM. If you were to double it up the game should be able to run great straight through. You may consider increasing virtual memory software wise, but RAM is faster memory access than virtual memory any day of the week. Why spend all sorts of money building or buying a new computer when an upgrade in RAM should easily do the trick? Just a thought. If you do go for a new computer, stay away from nvidia 6000 series of cards. All of them have been having problems with the game. The 6800, for instance, crashes on almost everyone's computer between 5-30 minutes of loading. It ends up requiring a hard reboot. Hope that helps.

 

[EoE]

Some people with 6800 cards don't seem to have problems. But I agree that a lot of those reporting crashes here have that card. Including me.

Anyway, the 6800 card is a power hog and runs very hot. So while it does give a lot of bang for the bucks, it doesn't exactly add to the stability of a system.

rgds/EoE

 

[Holj102]

Yeah, some people have it working. We're not the lucky ones in that regard huh?

 

[Pellanor]

I've got a similair system, AMD instead of Intel, but I have the same video card, and 2gb of RAM, so just doubling up the RAM won't fix the game for you. I've actually seen a fair number of systems posted with the 9800 pro that have had problems with the game.

I'm also looking at upgrading my machine, partially due to Civ IV.

 

[Teutonic_Knight]

Thanks for all the help. I popped in an extra 512Mb of RAM and it ran better, but at about 1100AD, and 13 cities, it CTD. Standard map, 7 civs, etc.

I mean, I LOVE this game, but I just wish I could get a machine for it to run on.

 

[Zydor]

You dont mention if you have loaded Patch V1.52 - if not, do so, its a must have Patch. There were very significant memory issues pre-V1.52, most,if not all of that category have vertually gone now.

Regards
Zy

 

[blargh]

Mine is:

ATI Radeon 9550 256 MB
512 MB DDR 400 MHz
Pentium 4 3.1 GHz (HT)
Gigabyte 81PE1000 motherboard (or s0mething...I think)

The game runs nearly perfectly aside form needing to clear the cache once in a while to avoid a nasty fatal error (which mostly happens if I go into worldbuilder too much )

You may want to try the Omega drivers for your card instead of downgrading to a 9550 lol. ATI tends to write crappy drivers.

 

[Neon Deon]

have nothing special in my sytem.

It is just stable. I built it that way.

I run CIV IV on huge maps and medium settings.

Heck my machine is so stable I Can use fastwrites and read write.

Some other not so special things I have.

Viewsonic E70FB 17" flat screen

Biostar M7VIGPro MB

Corsair Value Ram

Sappire Radeon 9600XT 256MB(Cat 4.12 video driver)

Samsung DVD ROM

The system is closing in on its third birthday with the exception of the Video card which I bought 11/04 (replaced a working 9000pro 128MB)and the Samsung DVD ROM which I also got last year to replace a CD ROM.

The rest is listed below

 

[Lahdoz]

I've got it running on the M7VIG Pro as well. I recently posted on memory timing, and that board isn't too picky about memory. Asus boards, I've found, are pretty picky when it comes to memory...

 

[Teutonic_Knight]

Thank you for the specs fellow Civ players! I shall build a brand new computer in the image of....Otto Von Bismarck!

I do have the 1.52 patch, I even formatted my HD, reinstalled Civ IV, and d/l the patch. This helped, but I still cannot complete a game (I now have it on medium setting for graphics)