Do Any of You Run Civ 4 on a Laptop?

[dennylynch]

If so, does it run fine?

I'm thinking of buying this rig solely to play Civ IV:

Processor • AMD Mobile Athlon™ 64 2800
Memory • 512MB SDRAM On Board
Display • 15.4" WXGA TFT LCD with Resolution 1280X800 pixels
Video system • ATI Mobility™ Radeon™ 9700 Pro Chipset with 128MB VRAM

Would this work do you think? Or do you see a part I should upgrade?

 

[oldmcgroin]

i run it on an AMD Sempron 3000+ 1.8ghz with SIS 760 64mb graphics and 1gb RAM. Runs ok. videos are dodgy and its a little choppy when i'm zoomed out but its playable.

I would think on the laptop you specified it would run fine. maybe an update on the RAM would help.

 

[StyxNCa]

I have an hp Pavilion ze5400 and it runs ok for me, just choppy wonder movies and disappearing animals. Other than that I have no problems.

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
Memory: 512 MB
Video: RADEON IGP 34xM (Omega 2.6.87) 64 MB memory

 

[Zydor]

Below is a good review of that beastie - bare in miond it was written in Jul 2004.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/mobility_9700/

My thoughts would be on the Graphics processing power, it will run Civ IV now, yes, but with speed limitations - as with all notebooks. The newer X Series of ATI MOBILITY RADEON gives you a better "bang for your buck". Review below, which you can do some useful comparisons to the 9700 review above.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/mobility_radeon_x700/

The other aspect is the technology base - the X700 Series MOBILITY chips are "uptodate", whereas with the 9700 you are already behind the curve on day of purchase - after 2 years use, you are using 5 year old + technology. Not a showstopper - but pause for thought.

I would certainly upgrade to 1Gb, and if the dosh stretches go for 256mb on board Video (the 9700 & X700 MOBILITY will take that)

You would not be disappointed with it, but have a serious think about X700 / 9700 / 1Gb /256Mb pro's & cons as mentioned above

Regards
Zy

 

[Snaerff]

I'm running on a Dell Inspiron 8600. 1.6Ghz centrino, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb dedicated RAM on my GeForce 5650 card. No problems for me, although the graphics won't improve over 1024x768 (Other applications can use the full 1680x1050).

I'd certainly go for 1GB RAM. Otherwise, I think what you suggest will do the job.