Computer Spec. Required

[Lucius_]

I don't think I'd say Skylake is designed for notebooks etc. <edited inaccurate information.>

As to the question between Kaby lake and Skylake, Kaby lake is a newer generation. Unless something funky happens, it's almost always better to get an equivalent newer generation processor. As for turboboost, basically that means in down time, the processor will run at a lower power consumption, but under load it boosts to full speed. But like was said before, Mhz isn't everything with processors and really isn't a great measure for power.

Go to cpuboss.com, pick your two processors and compare the specs and benchmarks side by side.

 

[dturtle1]

..............................
wrt '64 Gb of RAM is overkill' discussion -- I already do RAM drives on 32 Gb of RAM. for Civ, that's not a big deal (no mass HDD pulls while playing) but it can help in some situations. faster than SSD in most cases.

That is a bit cheeky Would help for games like Witcher 3, GTA 5 etc... pretty much any Open World Streaming Game with Heavy Assets. Actually i am not sure if GTA 5 would fit

Extra RAM wont help turn times though. The Sandy lake CPU will of course , but Extra RAM wont suddenly make your game run faster, hence why even now there are very few games that recommend over 8GB Ram. Hell even GTA 5 only recommends 8GB

 

[SJSerio]

That is a bit cheeky Would help for games like Witcher 3, GTA 5 etc... pretty much any Open World Streaming Game with Heavy Assets. Actually i am not sure if GTA 5 would fit

Extra RAM wont help turn times though. The Sandy lake CPU will of course , but Extra RAM wont suddenly make your game run faster, hence why even now there are very few games that recommend over 8GB Ram. Hell even GTA 5 only recommends 8GB

The recommendations are minimum recommendations.

 

[Sporally]

So I've decided to buy a new PC and as I love the Anno-series and bought Anno 2205 almost a year ago I am really keen on buying a new PC in a few days.

I've had these two PCs suggested by two friends. What are your thoughts on them?

1. https://www.komplett.dk/product/877675/pcer/pc-baerbar/gaming-laptops/msi-gl72-173-full-hd-mat
2. https://www.fcomputer.dk/computer/b...-17.3″-gtx960m-2gb-gamer-bærbar-grå-sort.html

Anno 2205 won't even start on my current PC and I also had a problem on one of my PCs with Beyond Earth (seems I weren't the only one on this forum). Not only because my PC wasn't fast enough, but also due to some software issues obviously.

If I buy one of the PCs above, should I be worried that Civ6 could not run due to some software issues or shouldn't that be a worry to me at all? I would be devastated if I couldn't run Civ6 on it.

 

[dturtle1]

Nope...https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/en-us/articles/203428177-Grand-Theft-Auto-V-PC-System-Specs

Anyways... for Civ 6 i would be focusing on CPU, any i5 or equivalent should be fine. 8Gb RAM would be nice but i dare say you will get away with 4GB, preferably the faster the better. SSD's wont give you much but they are nice anyways and will speed up loading times. A half decent video card is probably all that you require, it is not amazingly graphic Intensive. If GTA 5 can get away with GT7800 (1GB) i amm sure it will do Civ6 just fine.

 

[MadDjinn]

That is a bit cheeky Would help for games like Witcher 3, GTA 5 etc... pretty much any Open World Streaming Game with Heavy Assets. Actually i am not sure if GTA 5 would fit

Extra RAM wont help turn times though. The Sandy lake CPU will of course , but Extra RAM wont suddenly make your game run faster, hence why even now there are very few games that recommend over 8GB Ram. Hell even GTA 5 only recommends 8GB

and most of the games out now are still 32bit...

Extra RAM isn't for the user side usage (I know my 32 Gb doesn't do 'extra work' just sitting there in CivV), it's for the developer side.

there's only so much they can pack into the game if it's 32bit limited. Also, there's only so much modders can add on top of that. And that's a real clear limitation of 32bit.. developer side.

also the comparison to GTA 5 is a bit wrong. It's a different type of engine that is used, and look at the HDD requirements: 65 Gb. So they mass load/drop things into memory constantly -- which means you go SSD, rather than memory or CPU for performance improvement in those games.

Whereas a game like civ has more things running at any one point in time that GTA 5 does, so it needs less HDD swap (almost none except on loads) and more memory foot print.

 

[stealth_nsk]

and most of the games out now are still 32bit...

Extra RAM isn't for the user side usage (I know my 32 Gb doesn't do 'extra work' just sitting there in CivV), it's for the developer side.

there's only so much they can pack into the game if it's 32bit limited. Also, there's only so much modders can add on top of that. And that's a real clear limitation of 32bit.. developer side.

also the comparison to GTA 5 is a bit wrong. It's a different type of engine that is used, and look at the HDD requirements: 65 Gb. So they mass load/drop things into memory constantly -- which means you go SSD, rather than memory or CPU for performance improvement in those games.

Whereas a game like civ has more things running at any one point in time that GTA 5 does, so it needs less HDD swap (almost none except on loads) and more memory foot print.

OS caches things in memory, so those 32 or 64 GB could actually be of heavy use, especially for the games like GTA5.

Similarly, 32-bit game could use temp files on HDD to overcome memory limit. On computers with large amount of RAM, they'll be RAM-cached anyway.

 

[Wizard-Bob]

there's only so much they can pack into the game if it's 32bit limited. Also, there's only so much modders can add on top of that. And that's a real clear limitation of 32bit.. developer side.

Excellent point. I know my Flight Sims suffer from all the add-ons - frequent OOM errors due to the ceiling

 

[Manetheren]

I remember playing Civ III on my wifes crappy laptop that had integrated graphics. It was slow, but it played fine. Unlike a FPS it shouldn't be graphically demanding, so I think any computer in the last five years with a decent processor will be able to play it, but the game turns will take longer on older computers.

 

[MadDjinn]

I remember playing Civ III on my wifes crappy laptop that had integrated graphics. It was slow, but it played fine. Unlike a FPS it shouldn't be graphically demanding, so I think any computer in the last five years with a decent processor will be able to play it, but the game turns will take longer on older computers.

not quite. in many ways, civ games are more demanding, just in different ways.

Ie, take and FPS. their graphics style is that there's a constant 'view' that gets loaded/unloaded as you move along. there's not many items on the screen at any one point in time.

whereas in civ, there are 1000's of items on screen at any one point in time. it hits a different aspect of GPUs. you can lower quality which will start to limit the amount you see in game, and what amount of the GPU is used, but it can hit some types of graphics cards quite hard (especially if they're meant for less computation, more stream style).

 

[Acken]

So I've decided to buy a new PC and as I love the Anno-series and bought Anno 2205 almost a year ago I am really keen on buying a new PC in a few days.

I've had these two PCs suggested by two friends. What are your thoughts on them?

1. https://www.komplett.dk/product/877675/pcer/pc-baerbar/gaming-laptops/msi-gl72-173-full-hd-mat
2. https://www.fcomputer.dk/computer/b...-17.3″-gtx960m-2gb-gamer-bærbar-grå-sort.html

Anno 2205 won't even start on my current PC and I also had a problem on one of my PCs with Beyond Earth (seems I weren't the only one on this forum). Not only because my PC wasn't fast enough, but also due to some software issues obviously.

If I buy one of the PCs above, should I be worried that Civ6 could not run due to some software issues or shouldn't that be a worry to me at all? I would be devastated if I couldn't run Civ6 on it.

Both look like good gaming laptops. Good brands and good specs for a laptop.

The alternative would be to go for a desktop.

It should work if the game is correctly optimized. As usual there is always the risk of technical difficulties on a new game but these computer should be enough... there are no reason for the game to ask for more unless it is poorly optimized. Which is always something that can happen....

 

[Lucius_]

So I've decided to buy a new PC and as I love the Anno-series and bought Anno 2205 almost a year ago I am really keen on buying a new PC in a few days.

I've had these two PCs suggested by two friends. What are your thoughts on them?

1. https://www.komplett.dk/product/877675/pcer/pc-baerbar/gaming-laptops/msi-gl72-173-full-hd-mat
2. https://www.fcomputer.dk/computer/b...-17.3″-gtx960m-2gb-gamer-bærbar-grå-sort.html

Anno 2205 won't even start on my current PC and I also had a problem on one of my PCs with Beyond Earth (seems I weren't the only one on this forum). Not only because my PC wasn't fast enough, but also due to some software issues obviously.

If I buy one of the PCs above, should I be worried that Civ6 could not run due to some software issues or shouldn't that be a worry to me at all? I would be devastated if I couldn't run Civ6 on it.

They are the exact same computer....

Ok that's exaggerating and not entirely correct, but same specs. Both great brands. Both are laptops though. My experience with gaming laptops vs desktop. Laptops burn out and you will be looking at expensive repairs in 3-5 years. Not to mention in that time, you will start wanting something a bit more powerful, and upgrading the GPU is out of the question. Personally, I hate gaming laptops because I find them a massive waste of money.

On another note, if you can find something with a Geforce 1060M (which I'm not sure is out yet or not), well the new Nvidia cards blows all the earlier generations out of the water.

 

[ww2commander]

My experience with gaming laptops vs desktop. Laptops burn out and you will be looking at expensive repairs in 3-5 years. Not to mention in that time, you will start wanting something a bit more powerful, and upgrading the GPU is out of the question. Personally, I hate gaming laptops because I find them a massive waste of money.

This! You need to consider the load and heat you're putting on your hardware when playing demanding games. Having upgraded from a very good laptop (temp solution) to the aforementioned desktop, I made sure I had sufficient cooling capacity (Noctua NH-D5 w/ twin fans + 3 aux fans) to keep things running smoothly all the time.

With my laptop, playing the same games I noticed it would start to go off the charts when the CPU or nVidia fans kicked in. I still think I may have caused some damage playing games like GTA 5 on it!

Whilst laptops are very convenient/space saving, you need to factor in your expected life span of the device if you're planning on thrashing it with high settings or CPU intensive games.

 

[Gorbles]

Sorry I'm not that technically clued up so I am unaware as to what you mean.

Is the Kabylake more powerful than Skylake or is it just more efficient?

In a word, efficiency.

But overall this probably makes it better than the pure performance (by the numbers) of Skylake.

 

[MkLh]

not quite. in many ways, civ games are more demanding, just in different ways.

Ie, take and FPS. their graphics style is that there's a constant 'view' that gets loaded/unloaded as you move along. there's not many items on the screen at any one point in time.

whereas in civ, there are 1000's of items on screen at any one point in time. it hits a different aspect of GPUs. you can lower quality which will start to limit the amount you see in game, and what amount of the GPU is used, but it can hit some types of graphics cards quite hard (especially if they're meant for less computation, more stream style).

A modern action game (say Farcry Primal) has much more "items" (should be details) than a game like Civ6, like thousands of leaves swinging in the wind, grass etc. Besides a non-action game doesn't need a steady 60 fps as frame rate drops don't really affect the gameplay.

 

[Cephme]

In a word, efficiency.

But overall this probably makes it better than the pure performance (by the numbers) of Skylake.

and only SOME of the laptop SKUs of it will be available in time for CIV 6. None of them will have the iris graphics (which would be interesting to see how civ does on an iris grade integrated graphics chip) and there will be no desktop SKUs until at least January 2017. If you are looking for a laptop something to keep an eye on. If not Skylake is probably the best price performance point for another good 6-12 months.

 

[flairin]

Nope...https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/en-us/articles/203428177-Grand-Theft-Auto-V-PC-System-Specs

Anyways... for Civ 6 i would be focusing on CPU, any i5 or equivalent should be fine. 8Gb RAM would be nice but i dare say you will get away with 4GB, preferably the faster the better. SSD's wont give you much but they are nice anyways and will speed up loading times. A half decent video card is probably all that you require, it is not amazingly graphic Intensive. If GTA 5 can get away with GT7800 (1GB) i amm sure it will do Civ6 just fine.

Yeah, I am looking at a cheap laptop with an i5 and 64 bit with 4gb. I know nothing about these new generation of intel processors. The last I knew you needed to run a quad core for Civ 5, but this i5 is a duo core? I don't get it? Would this run Civ 5 and possibly Civ 6? Is win 7 an appropriate OS?

 

[Babri]

Yeah, I am looking at a cheap laptop with an i5 and 64 bit with 4gb. I know nothing about these new generation of intel processors. The last I knew you needed to run a quad core for Civ 5, but this i5 is a duo core? I don't get it? Would this run Civ 5 and possibly Civ 6? Is win 7 an appropriate OS?

This should help you in making your decision about what intel processor to choose.

Video link

 

[flairin]

Thank you for the link! What a big hot mess all this is! I could go for a "turn off the heralds" version of this game, as well as Civ 5

 

[Lucius_]

Yeah, I am looking at a cheap laptop with an i5 and 64 bit with 4gb. I know nothing about these new generation of intel processors. The last I knew you needed to run a quad core for Civ 5, but this i5 is a duo core? I don't get it? Would this run Civ 5 and possibly Civ 6? Is win 7 an appropriate OS?

Laptop i5's are dual cores with hyperthreading iirc. My Dell XPS with i5 ran CiV perfectly.