If I upgrade my Video Card?

[Tae]

Will I still be able to play the game?

Seriously with all the talk of problems with different setups, I am actually scared to upgrade my card. I currently can run Civ 4 very happily on LARGE maps with just some tollerable late game slowdown. The game does not crash, never really had any issues other that late game performance.
My specs:

Athlon 2200+
1 GB Ram
plenty of HDD space free ( I have 360gb total)
Vanilla Radeon 9500 128mb

The game is very playable on Large maps, all I really enjoy anyway, huge just gets too long of a game for me. But I have decided I want to upgrade my Video Card to a 6600GT, I figure it will be my last upgrade on this current machine, I am just trying to eek out another year before I decide to build a whole new rig.

I am just hoping I see a benefit in this game, but really worried the damn thing will break.

Does upgrading a Video card matter at all to this game? Or are the performance issues do more to programming bugs?

Any advice appreciated.

 

[Mikesla]

Will I still be able to play the game?

Seriously with all the talk of problems with different setups, I am actually scared to upgrade my card. I currently can run Civ 4 very happily on LARGE maps with just some tollerable late game slowdown. The game does not crash, never really had any issues other that late game performance.
The game is very playable on Large maps, all I really enjoy anyway, huge just gets too long of a game for me. But I have decided I want to upgrade my Video Card to a 6600GT, I figure it will be my last upgrade on this current machine, I am just trying to eek out another year before I decide to build a whole new rig.

I am just hoping I see a benefit in this game, but really worried the damn thing will break.

Does upgrading a Video card matter at all to this game? Or are the performance issues do more to programming bugs?

Any advice appreciated.

Good Question, and one I can't answer.

The people who were able to play it before the patch couldn't after installing the 1.52 upgrade, so this one is up to you. I figure if the game is working fine at the moment I wouldn't bother getting a new card, because if the next major patch fixes the majority of the problems people are experiencing, then hopefully the game will play even better after the patch. Keep your money for your new system your going to build, and enjoy the game as you are.

Rule of thumb is : If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Later!

 

[Tae]

Thing is I really do want to upgrade. 6600GT's are very affordable right now and MUCH better than the card I have. I know I will get benefits upgrading for other games I play, just wonder if I will see it in CIV 4. This is the game I play the most right now.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Reignking]

Thing is I really do want to upgrade. 6600GT's are very affordable right now and MUCH better than the card I have. I know I will get benefits upgrading for other games I play, just wonder if I will see it in CIV 4. This is the game I play the most right now.

Thanks for the reply.

I just updated my 866 mhz / GE Force 2...to AMD Venice 3200+ and 6600 GT. Before, I could play on my way-below-spec machine. Now, I get crashes. Incredible.

 

[Tae]

I just updated my 866 mhz / GE Force 2...to AMD Venice 3200+ and 6600 GT. Before, I could play on my way-below-spec machine. Now, I get crashes. Incredible.

It is stories like yours that has scared me. I really have had great luck playing the game on my current setup and it is by far my favorite game. I was considering doing a whole new machine just to get optimal performance out the game, but everything I read there were no gaurantee's of what would work.

Still...I want the card...I have been looking at it as an upgrade for a few months. If I have to work through some issues to get the game working, so be it. But I am really hoping I get a late game performance boost.

 

[Zanmato]

I think there is a issue with a 6600GT or was it the 6800. There is a thread about the BFG brand of these cards which just crashes most of time with Civ4. I upgraded from 128mb FX5200 to 256mb PNY 6600, just the normal one not a GT. In fairness, the GT is only marginally faster - like several frames faster with the faster clock-speed. All my issues with lags, choppy movies, etc were fixed with this new card more so in late-game. In my case, the performance boost was pretty big.

 

[VimesUK]

I upgraded two of my machines and you might find this information of use to you...
On one machine I have the following hardware...

ASRock motherboard, which has both a PCI-Express and AGP graphics card slot.
2GB of memory
AMD Opteron 148 - Which is an AMD64 CPU running at 2800mhz.
ATI 9800pro graphics card.

The game is ran at 1280x1024 with all the eye candy on.

The game runs fine on the larger maps with upto 18 Civs with no real slowdowns on later levels. However....

If I then replace the AGP ATI 9800pro card with an ATI 850XTPE PCI-Express card I find absolutely ZERO difference in the performance of the game.

BUT

If I slow down the overclocked CPU from 2800mhz to its default of 2200mhz then I do notice a difference in the time taken between turns as the game progresses, and once the full map is revealed.

Whilst there maybe other games that have a high dependency on the power of the CPU I do think that Civ 4's need is higher than many of the others due to the amount of processing that is required in-between turns. Whilst the PC is 'thinking' about its next move there is very little graphically happening on the screen to use the processing power of the GPU and so the emphasis is placed on the need of a fast CPU.

So, to me, the need of a 'good' graphics card is important but the most noticeable increase in performance has been found by going from a Socket A rig to a AMD64, overclocked in my case, based system.
Whilst I am sure that the 2GB of memory helped, in particular before the 1.52 patch, the fast CPU gives the most benefit in this game.

Depending on the resolution and eye candy settings that you use I couldn't see a 'great' benefit in upgrading your system to an AGP type of card that might have little value if and when you upgrade to a motherboard that no longer has that slot. Although your other games, if they are important to you, might well benefit.

I suppose it depends on how deep your pockets are and whether a 'small' improvement is considered a real benefit for the cost.

 

[Tae]

I was wondering if this game is more CPU dependant. I looked at upgrading everything and I can't justify it right now. I hope more dual boards like the ASRock come out because it would be nice to just upgrade the the MB, CPU and RAM next time and not have to buy a whole new graphics card. That may be the path I have to take though, I realize buying an AGP card now is not too forward looking, but the card I have is pretty damn slow, so for $120 I maybe able to eek another year or so out of the system and hopefully get a nice boost in games I play today.

Thanks for the input, I will update this thread when I install the card and play through a game. It will likely take me a weekend to install the card because upgrades like this I like to start with a fresh OS install.

 

[Dudy80]

Well if yea do upgrade, make sure you have a power supply that can handel that new card, this is the most commonly overlooked part of upgradeing videocards and many people pop that nice shiney new card in only to find that there computer restarts and crashes or just plain doset reboot at all.

 

[Tae]

Well if yea do upgrade, make sure you have a power supply that can handel that new card, this is the most commonly overlooked part of upgradeing videocards and many people pop that nice shiney new card in only to find that there computer restarts and crashes or just plain doset reboot at all.

That is good advice and I did look into because I know the new cards require more juice. From a Power Suppy calculation form I found off of a PC enthusiest forum. I will be close with my Antec TP 330W, the calculation came to a little under 300W at full utilization. If I find my system unstable I will pick up a Fotron I found pretty cheap. Make sure I get one that can transfer to a new system when I build it.

 

[filcivfan]

Well if you do intend to go with a PSU upgrade also why not get 450 to 500w besides it would be nice to invest on PSU's as you can move them from one system to another. I got a 500W XConnect PSU and i think its handling the PC quite fine.

 

[VimesUK]

A point about the PSU....

If you do decide to buy a new one then make sure it is ATX 2.0x compliant. That way it will have the 24 pin power connector and you shouldn't need to use a convertor if and when you get another motherboard in the future.

Good luck with your new graphics card upgrade. As you haven't mentioned your resolution or eye candy settings then it could be possible that the card that you are using now is the bottleneck in your system.

If you do decide to upgrade further the ASRock motherboard is cheap and cheerful, it also works very well. The Opteron CPU must be the best value 64 bit chip that you can buy at the moment, its overclocking potential is superb. All I needed to do for one of my machines was to buy the motherboard and CPU as the memory, graphics card, PSU (you don't need a 24 pin connector with that board) all worked fine.

 

[Tae]

This is the PSU I found that had great reviews and should fulfill my needs since I won't get into liquid cooling and SLI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104954

For $50 it is a good 450w PSU from what I can tell.

 

[VimesUK]

Looks to be an awesome PSU, especially for the price.

I got this PSU on my own machine...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817194003

The PC that I mentioned to you, with the ASRock board in it, has a five years old Enermax PSU fitted and that has been fine.

Maybe I shouldn't have got such an expensive PSU but it is ATX 2.2 compliant , also complaint with the (if it ever happens) BTX standard. But was it really worth twice the cost of the one that you are looking at.....

Nah

 

[Tae]

I was going to get the fortron only IF the new card makes the system unstable and forces the upgrade. My Antec TruePower 330w is a very good PSU and really should handle it with what I have installed.

I was looking at the Antec NeoPower supplies for a new build, but just found out Antec has had recent quality issues because of moving to a new manufacturer.

I am actually thinking of buying peices parts over the next year leaving the MB/CPU as the last thing. I wanted to upgrade my Case/PSU and Sound ahead of time looking for deals...even watching out for keyboards. It really bugs me that PC parts are like cars and depreciate quickly. It always irritates me seeing something I just bought a month ago closed out for half the price just because a slightly new model came out. So this time I am going to be a deal watcher and see how it goes.

 

[koondrad]

I just updated my 866 mhz / GE Force 2...to AMD Venice 3200+ and 6600 GT. Before, I could play on my way-below-spec machine. Now, I get crashes. Incredible.

Yep I too have a Venice 3200+ and a 6600GT but I'm running the game fine. Don't be too quick to blame the hardware.

 

[VimesUK]

Rather than longevity built into PC peripherals I am sure its obsolecence as, like you, I watch with dismay the falling cost of parts just after I buy them. I do think though that the Opteron is very good value for money in the 939 range of CPU's.

 

[Tae]

Well upgraded the card without reinstalling the OS, just thought I would clean everything out that was ATI and install the 6600GT and see how it goes.

Went great and what a difference. Graphics now much smoother late game with little to no stutter and I can actually pan out and see the world and it looks good. I even went to 4AA with little trouble. Great upgrade so far.

 

[Jafendel]

Anyone know how Asus motherboards with VIA chipsets go with 6600GT? I have a7v600-x...

 

[Tae]

Just a minor update. The wonder movies no longer worked after I upgraded my card, but I followed a suggestion on this forum and turned of AA and the work again. Not all run smoothly, but they mostly do. Really strange that my older card can handle them where the newer card has a rough time.