Final verdict? Black terrain = new graphics card?
- Thread starter rgndvo
- Start date
Thanks for the reply guys, I'll try that new driver when I get home from work.
On a slightly related topic, I will be purchasing a new desktop here in the next few months. What cards would you folks recommend, keeping in mind I'm on a slight budget? Would it be better to by a lower priced 256 card or would I be better off going with a higher quality 128 card for the same price?sorry for the hijack
On a slightly related topic, I will be purchasing a new desktop here in the next few months. What cards would you folks recommend, keeping in mind I'm on a slight budget? Would it be better to by a lower priced 256 card or would I be better off going with a higher quality 128 card for the same price?sorry for the hijack
I dont think its fair to have civ need a gaming computer. I dont think its a significant minority that play civ and couldnt care less about the graphics. Im not saying my mac IIgs should run civ but I have two pentium 4 computers in my house bought in the last year and civ 4 works on neither of them. I know a lot of people who play civ3 on the side and dont even have computers as new as mine. I would sooner have civ III with some different features than have civ 4 with a black screen.
Citizen Philip
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2005
- Messages
- 41
rgndvo said:
Most publishers wish to sell their product to the widest possible audience, draw your own conclusions.
I am knowledgeable about computers, I enjoy reading and keeping up to date on trends and the technology. On the other hand, I know nothing about cars, nothing. That doesn't mean I will go to buy a car, assuming that a company or a saleperson has my best interest in mind: it means I will seek out expert advice and educate myself. I also know that buying an older car has certain problems that a newer car won't, simply because they were built with different standards and that the technology is always changing: conversely it also means a new car will have problems an older car won't.
The computer market has really interesting things going for it: people who pretend they aren't going to play games, companies that are willing to sell computers that don't play games and the genunine lack of quality information from these companies about the limits of their products.
rgndvo said:
Just go out and get yourself a half decent video card then, they really aren't that expensive these days. I had to do that this summer in order to play Pirates!. The same issue, my onboard card didn't support Hardware T&L and it only cost me about $100 CAN for a new one. Well worth the investment considering the 4 games I bought this summer all required T&L. My gaming options would have been severely limited without it. If you're even slightly into games this issue will come up again, since most titles these days are based on 3D graphics.
I'll make a deal with you - how about I give you $500 and you find a way to update my business thin-and-light laptop with a good enough graphics card? If it costs less, you can keep all the change.
What is this about being superior?
What about people who do play games like Civ4 - which is a turn-based thinking game, for heaven's sake - but have other priorities in the use of their machine? My laptop is used for business purposes, it has business goals, and one of its primary features is to be thin&light. Guess what? there are quite a few of us out there with the same profile - you know, stuffy management types who also like to occassionally game when they are stuck in an airport or on a long flight, but for entirely acceptable reasons can't carry around a machine heavier than 3 pounds?
Can you accept that cost of the upgrade is not the problem, and yet at the same time an upgrade is not feasible for reasons other than cost? Personally, I think the decision to move to 3D with a game like civ4 was a very poor one, because Civ4's target audience is not comrpised of 16 year olds with itchy trigger fingers and highly developed nervous systems. I can bet you there are very few 40 or 50 year old established professionals who frequent boards for games like Doom III, yet these boards right here seem to have quite a number of them... alienating that target market - which happens to have a lot of disposable income, a whole lot more than the typical action first person shooter crowd - is a very, very questionable decision.
Willem said:
Im perfectly willing to do that but as another poster put it, I too have a laptop. Im perfectly fine to purchase a card for my desktop and play it on there for the time being and seeing as how I am starting a beta soon Ill probably put civ on the shelf and wait and see on a patch.
I am really not nearly as upset as some people are as I think computer games, dollar for dollar, are very cheap even with equipment costs. I just think that if newer games will only play on the top 5% of personal computers, it will cut a chunk out of the market. If this wasnt civ, I wouldnt even consider buying equipment to play it. I think the point is valid that 90% of the game play enjoyment with civ has nothing to do with graphics.
rgndvo said:
It's not even close to the top 5%. The recommended CPU speed is 1.8 ghz, people these days have machines that are running at 4.4 ghz, and AMD is supposed to be releasing a 5 ghz CPU soon. The same goes for the graphic card. Civ 4 is pretty middle of the road when it comes to requirements, if not even on the low end according to today's standards.
PS: Go take a look at the computers that Dell has to offer. Their bottom end desktop package comes with a 2.4 ghz processor, well beyong Civ 4's recommended specs. Mind you the video card wouldn't cut it, no Hardware T&L support.
I wasnt saying top 5% of whats in stores. Im saying top 5% of what people are using. My point is that I went out 6 months ago and bought a pretty new computer. Not necessarily a "gamer's deluxe" and not the best available, but still, it was about average for what was available. I know plenty of people with computers and I have several at work and none of them have computers even close to that. It seems wrong that that wont run a game like civ.
Like I said, if civ cost $500 Im still probably paying less per hour than I do to see a movie or have cable and getting the same or more in entertainment. Im not upset about it, I just think its sad to see civ turn into a game that can only be played by gamers.
Like I said, if civ cost $500 Im still probably paying less per hour than I do to see a movie or have cable and getting the same or more in entertainment. Im not upset about it, I just think its sad to see civ turn into a game that can only be played by gamers.
rgndvo said:
I saw a post awhile back of someone mentioning that he could get the game to run, slowly, on a P3 900 mhz system, well below specs. The thing was that he had a fairly good video card. That component is the only thing stopping most people having issues from being able to play the game. And the video card technology that Civ 4 uses has been around for at least 5 years. I don't see it as being that exclusive. Sure it sucks for the laptop people who can't upgrade their cards and are stuck with one that's substandard, but that's hardly Firaxis' fault. That's the risk they take when they buy a machine like that, they can become obsolete very quickly and there's nothing anyone can do about bringing them up to par.
Yes, yes, but again, many of the cards in the laptops for people like me ARE relatively new, DO support hardware T&L (like the mobility radeon line), and work in some cases but not in others...
Willem, my laptop is a $3,000 machine. It's not a cheap device by any means. In fact, it was arguably the top dog in the market of business thin&lights up until about 15 months ago when I bought it. It is *still* considered right up there with the best of them. I think it is ludicrous to state things like "That's the risk they take when they buy a machine like that, they can become obsolete very quickly". In this sense, your posts read as very, very condescending and very, very out of tune with what we are trying to say.
lightnng said:
But it's the truth isn't it? A system is only as good as it's weakest link and if you don't have the ability to upgrade your components, then laptops can become obsolete very quickly. My desktop can never become obsolete since I can replace anything in it as soon as something better comes along. When you buy a laptop, you're aware that it has those limitations, you assume the risk that it might not meet the standards of the next generation of machines. Which according to Moore's Law happens every 18 months. Those machines have obsolesence built into them due to the simple fact that you can't upgrade any of the key components. It certainly doesn't help matters any when many of the manufacturers use parts that are obsolete to begin with, like video cards that don't support hardware T&L.
If Im firaxis though, Im realize that people with laptops and people who dont have an acceptable video card still make up some sizable portion of my market. Id be writing a game that works on those computers even if it means I write it to look fantastic on computers with T&L and look acceptable on the rest. Like I said, Im not saying it should work on every computer and every platform but it shouldnt only be for gamers. I find it hard to imagine many non-"gamer owned" computers being able to run civ 4.
No, it's not. Not in my case, nor in many others.
See? That's where you continually show that you don't actually read what some of us are saying. Let me try again - my video card definitely, certainly, without doubt, 100% supports hardware T&L. Not maybe, not through software, not through black magic, just plain simple hardware support.
So - taking hardware T&L support out of the picture as it is irrelevant in this case - can you offer some constructive ideas on to deal with the black terrain problem?
Subtestube
Chieftain
Willem said:
I'd just like to say that this is false. AMD is in no way planning to release a 5 GHz CPU any time soon - from their roadmap, the absolute fastest single core AMD based processor we can expect any time soon would be an FX-59 at 3 GHz. As for Intel, the highest clocked CPU they have at the moment is 3.8 GHz. It is unlikely that they will release a 4GHz CPU, although the top end Pentium 4s can be overclocked to well over 4GHz with exotic cooling solutions. To get 4.4Ghz, you would need to be running an overclocked Pentium 4, although an overclocked A64 FX chip would almost certainly beat it in gaming situations. I guess, technically you could consider a dual-core chip as 'double' its clock speed, but in games that's simply untrue at this stage, as they're almost all very very single-threaded.
I realise this comes off as a little 'know it all'-y of me, but you are stating hardware figures as if they're fact, which in fact they aren't.
Nevertheless, your point stands - 1.8GHz as a recommended CPU spec is pretty conservative. It's also worth noting that even in terms of use 1.8GHz (or equivalent - in AMD terms that would be an 1800 XP) would be well below the 'top 5th percentile'. My own system has a 2.4GHz CPU and is closing on 3 years old. I believe, according to the Windows Game Advisor, that it's in the 'top 14%' of submitted systems. Being that the majority of people submitting would be those with an interest in gaming, being that it's a Beta service, that means that 1.8GHz is still pretty easy on the CPU front.
At the same time, I agree - it was a poor decision to require hardware T&L in the GPU. Although I can play Civ IV on my desktop, I'd really LIKE to be able to play it on my notebook, which I won't be able to.
lightnng said:
Upgrade your drivers first off, that might just do it. If it's a Radeon 7500, go into your advanced display settings. Look for SmartGart, turn off your ARP acceleration. Reboot, turn it back up to 1, reboot again, turn it up to 2. I've read that this works, though your game will be slow. Don't ask me why you have to reboot a couple of times, it's just something I've read.
Sorry, I haven't come across any procedures for a GeForce. But then I haven't read that they're having the black terrain problem, so maybe it doesn't need anything. People with a GeForce MX 4xx card seem to be able to run the game with virtually no problems.
PS: People with the Intel 9xxx series of video chips are able to run the game with no problems, since it does have Hardware T&L. You'll have to run it at a slightly lower detail level though. There's an option for all you laptop users.
Subtestube said:
Yeah well, AMD's classification system tends to confuse me. I've read, and only on these forums mind you, that they're releasing the 5000+ series this Christmas. In my mind that means 5 ghz. And if I read that someone has a 4400+, I read 4.4 ghz. I admit I could very well be off base there. Even still, Civ's 1.8 ghz doesn't come close to the 3.8 ghz you mention.
Subtestube
Chieftain
The 5000+ series will probably be a Dual core CPU running at 2.6GHz, if my memory of AMDs naming is correct (and it may not be, but it'll be close).
