Is more RAM and better Video Cards enough

[Marshall Thomas]

I want to play a Civ 4 campaign on a huge, terra map with 18 civilizations. If I get over 1GB of RAM and a good video card, should this be enough for it to run really well? If not, then how much RAM should I get? -what type of video card should I get?

Does anything other than RAM and video cards signifigantly matter?

I love the huge, terra Civ4 campaign so much that I am willing to invest in almost any upgrade that makes playing it possible. Would anyone please offer me some thoughts? Thanks

 

[bruno.gabriels]

I'm playing a huge terrain campaign with the following configuration:

ATI X800Pro
1 GIG RAM PC3200
Virtual Memory: min 4 Gig - max 5 Gig
Defragmented hard disk (10000 rpm)
New versions of all drivers

The huge campaign plays good, not many hickups. But I already got some CTD's.
Since it is related to the memory overuse of the game I installed FreeRam XP Pro for the moment so until now I haven't had a crash anymore. Of course once the entire map is visible and some more action occurs this could reoccur...

If this occurs I guess the best option is to try out the unofficial patch by Harkonnen on this forum, I'm gonna wait until I really need it...

If that doesn't do the thing, I'll be off to the computerstore for another 1 GIG RAM module.

It's a great game but I'd want to see faster response from the publisher concerning the memory-problems...

 

[lamaslany]

I want to play a Civ 4 campaign on a huge, terra map with 18 civilizations. If I get over 1GB of RAM and a good video card, should this be enough for it to run really well? If not, then how much RAM should I get? -what type of video card should I get?

Does anything other than RAM and video cards signifigantly matter?

I love the huge, terra Civ4 campaign so much that I am willing to invest in almost any upgrade that makes playing it possible. Would anyone please offer me some thoughts? Thanks

1 GB of RAM should be enough if you have 1-2GB of virtual memory but for the smoothest gameplay 2GB would be preferable. In truth I doubt you'll notice much difference between 1.5GB and 2GB of RAM but 2GB errs on the side of caution.

I'm not that hot on graphics cards so I'll let the more experienced offer advice about that. For the record though I'm using a Radeon 9500 (soft-modded to a Radeon 9700) with 128MB and the game seems fine (although the cut-screens are a little sluggish but I think that has more to do with my processor).

Your CPU could have a fairly large impact if it is on the low-end of the recommended requirements list - what are you using at the moment?

A fast hard drive is particularly important if you don't have sufficient RAM but defragging as suggested above may be enough.

...
1 GIG RAM PC3200
Virtual Memory: min 4 Gig - max 5 Gig
...

Your virtual memory settings are huge!

You might find you get better performance if you were to set it to min 1035MB - max 2059MB (you should get less disk thrashing - assuming that is a problem for you at the moment!). Personally I'd use a fixed size of 1547MB.