I want it all! And I want it now.

[erikg88]

Hey guys - I'm a high-school graduate now, and with graduation comes... crisp dollar bills. With the sudden influx of cash, I've an urge to spend it. And since I've decided the DS isn't for me, I figured I'd give myself a decent graphics card. Here are my computer specs.

The Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+, ~2.2ghz
RAM: 1 Gig (of DDR, I presume)
The Graphics Card: A GeForce FX 5700LE, with 256 megs of memory.

My desire is simple: to play Civ 4 with all the graphical bells and whistles on, and with no hiccups or slowdown.

Can my rig, assuming I get a new card, accomplish this? If the answer is yes, which graphics card (with the upper limit of my budget being ~250) is going to do the job for me?

Thanks a lot for reading, and thanks a metric ****-ton if you can help.

 

[superslug]

My desire is simple: to play Civ 4 with all the graphical bells and whistles on, and with no hiccups or slowdown.

That'll depend more on what mapsizes you play than how powerful you're equipment is. Slowdown is inevitable on huge maps.

As far as upping your video card, that's a tough one to advise you on. You could go for all of your money on a card, and do great, but you could also go most on a card and the rest another gig of ram...

 

[erikg88]

That'll depend more on what mapsizes you play than how powerful you're equipment is. Slowdown is inevitable on huge maps.

As far as upping your video card, that's a tough one to advise you on. You could go for all of your money on a card, and do great, but you could also go most on a card and the rest another gig of ram...

Well, I play on Tiny maps right now, and the game is choppy when I scroll around - I want to see multi-model formations!

So when you say slowdown, do you mean between turns, or lagging while scrolling about?

Anyway, another gig of ram? Really? And here I was thinking 1 gig was sufficient. Any idea what a good price for a gig of ram would be?

Thanks for the post.

 

[Zanmato]

If it's lagging when you're scrolling around it has more to do with the video card and how much it can do in the time. Make sure you have any anti-alising set to 0 samples. I honestly don't think you can do what you ask for with that card, more so on larger maps. I would consider a GeForce series 6 card or if you really want to go all out go for a series 7 or get a new PCI-e system. You should however be able to pick up a good series 6 card with your budget. I don't think more RAM will help as much as a new graphics card but by all means if you want another stick get one, it's cheap enough at the moment.

Also, if you go to the nvidia control panel through the Windows Display control panel and set the 'Image Quality' to Performance it will help with the smoothness. You can also increase the AGP aperture in the BIOS if you like to increase performance further but only marginally.

 

[crunch]

1GB memory: $64 and upwards
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7+1052307858&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&SubCategory=147

Graphics card: I'd take some geforce 7600GT.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010380048+4017+106790717&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=48

 

[NT_Jedi]

Turn_Off the Grid when playing the game... not sure why, but this causes major slowdown during the game. Use the food icon one instead.

Also if you want the game to load faster turn off the movies in the options.

 

[erikg88]

Yeesh! I have a headache trying to figure out all of this technical stuff.

Anyway, since I'm on AGP, it appears that I'll have to settle for something like a GeForce 6 serious, as Zan suggested... but apparently a new issue has arisen - power supply.

My power supply is only 250w (I think, which seems low). Would a new card be a problem?

P.S. I want to bounce my head off a wall, here.

 

[yvovandoorn]

250W could be a problem. I'd suggest putting in a nice 350w (as in don't get the $20 one but rather get the $50-$60 one). Like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103934

Oh and I'd get the Nvidia 7800GS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130269 - more pipelines and AGP.

 

[Zanmato]

I use this for finding out on much power I need http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp. I think a PSU upgrade will be needed, perhaps 350W or above to be safe.

 

[erikg88]

I use this for finding out on much power I need http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp. I think a PSU upgrade will be needed, perhaps 350W or above to be safe.

Wow, that's quite a site!

According to that, I should be at around 236 with a GeForce 6... that should be okay, then? Looking at my amps at the +12V rail, I've got 16A - is that enough?

I'm just curious because while I know how to plug in graphics cards and RAM, I don't relish the prospect of replacing a PSU (and the requisite cash, to boot).

Thanks for your posts, Zanmato.

 

[Zanmato]

I would try to get one with 24 amps on a single 12v rail or at least 14 amps on a dual 12v rail and round up the wattage to 300w. Antec PSUs are quite good and come with the dual rails. A PSU is pretty simple to replace but can take some effort removing the plugs from devices sometimes. Do take note of your motherboard ATX socket (no. of pins) and the number of devices you need to power. I think most newer systems come with the 24 pin socket (ATX v2.0) but older systems have 20 pins so check that the ATX plug on the PSU has the 20 pins. Good ones have the ability to fit either 20 or 24 pin sockets these days. A 380w Antec is priced around £45 here, good PSUs to consider are Antec, ThermalLake, Zalman and Enermax.