Official System Requirements

[The_J]

Ok so after that depressing news....this is the description of my CPU, probably still under spec but a bit clearer the my ealier information:
AMD Athlon X2 64 2.5 GHz,

Oh, that processor again is above the minimum specs .

also I cannot find the graphics cards listed in the specs. so what can I use if I do not find those.

You might want to take a look at this chart and see if you can find a comparable card or above them.
That will not be totally accurate, but mostly enough.
For a really accurate help you'll have to wait for one of our hardware pros here.

Also why am I sudden;y having problems with my other civ games that were working fine before and are not on Steam?

Is it a problem? Sure, the processor might be at 100%, but maybe the games are also running faster. Do they?

 

[blindmouse]

I apprecitate the response, in regards to the last question/response, actually they are not running faster and the fan on the CPU is running all the time. I am wondering if there is another process or service running at the same time. But I have watched the system through the resource monitor and have seen nothing that stood out except for Steam when Civ V is loading up the current game. It then stops running like that after the game is loaded and play can start.

 

[Myth5]

Ok so after that depressing news....this is the description of my CPU, probably still under spec but a bit clearer the my ealier information:
AMD Athlon X2 64 2.5 GHz, also I cannot find the graphics cards listed in the specs. so what can I use if I do not find those. Also why am I sudden;y having problems with my other civ games that were working fine before and are not on Steam? and another stupid question... what makes that card below spec?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2964-7.html and Steam's minimum PC system requirements will tell you all you need to know. The graphics card is several tiers too low; however, the CPU is not under minimum specs, an Athlon X2 2.0 Ghz is the listed minimum. So a graphics card at least is needed to at least run the game. The other problem though is confusing and would require more information to solve.

Ninja'd X|

 

[blindmouse]

ok so is this a card that will work? ZOTAC ZT-50601-10L GeForce GT 520, money is tight (big surprise) and I am trying to keep the cost down.
Nowas to the game issue fo rmy other civs. When I run them the CPU goes to 90-100%, the fan shifts into high gear (maybe the heatsink needs another cleaning), according to the resource monitor only one of the cores is maxxed out. This is happening with SoSE as well none of which had any issue running under Vista. Could I have picked up an 'bad' driver for the grapics? I updated when I switched to Win 7 and there was an update that I had not loaded previously.

BTW yes Dream Theater is awesome.....

 

[Myth5]

ok so is this a card that will work? ZOTAC ZT-50601-10L GeForce GT 520, money is tight (big surprise) and I am trying to keep the cost down.
Nowas to the game issue fo rmy other civs. When I run them the CPU goes to 90-100%, the fan shifts into high gear (maybe the heatsink needs another cleaning), according to the resource monitor only one of the cores is maxxed out. This is happening with SoSE as well none of which had any issue running under Vista. Could I have picked up an 'bad' driver for the grapics? I updated when I switched to Win 7 and there was an update that I had not loaded previously.

BTW yes Dream Theater is awesome.....

No the GT 520 is not good enough. You might want to pick up an 8800 GT card, they sell for ~$50 if you can find one, and are above minimum requirements. As for the older Civ games, there should be no legitimate reason why the operating system should hurt performance (if anything, they should run better on Windows 7). Have you tried rebooting? If that doesn't work, I'd google the specific issue and see what you find. Did you say whether this was a laptop or a desktop? I don't remember.

Also, yes. Dream Theater rocks

 

[blindmouse]

yes I have decided on a Radeon 6670, a much better card. The system is a desktop, all other programs run fine but the games and I loaded the compatibility upgrade for the system. This is a nVidia 6150SE 430 motherboard, so I am thinking that with Win 7 and the games (even though the graphics settings as a low as possible) the old clunker (2006) just can't do it without a card.
Of course I could buy a new system but I am cheap

 

[deepace]

The system requirements for CIV 5 say XP SP3.I have Win XP Professional SP2.When I search for Win XP SPS 3 Update the file is 316MB and it says that it is for IT Professionals and Developers downloading and installing on multiple computers on a network.
This can't be what I need,can it?
Terry

 

[FeiLing]

If you have problems obtaining the service pack from Windows Update, you can download the stand-alone update package from the Download Center. This page will say that this installation package is intended for IT professionals and developers. However, you can safely download this file.

Or you could just turn on auto-updates, which makes sure you got all prerequisites updates.

 

[The_J]

This can't be what I need,can it?

It can .
It's just so that Microsoft wants that all the people directly use the auto update function, so they recommend manual installation only for professionals.
But that pack is what you need, ignore what the text says.

 

[claestw]

I'm using a 8800GT with C2D E6750 2.66GHz on Win7-32bit. I must say the performance is passable at best. It works fine if you play in strategic view, but even then you'll notice delays entering city screens and queuing production when you're well over 200 turns. (Standard map, no mods.)

If you want to play terra maps or large maps or just having all the eye candy you can while playing in the 3D landscape view on a standard map, you'd really have to do better than my spec.

Which brings up the question. What kind of spec should I up grade to, if I plan to play Large maps with the best graphics settings and still have a reasonably responsive game by say 2050AD? I'm planning to upgrade my computer (which is almost five years old now) before Gods & Kings is released.

 

[FeiLing]

You can not/should not upgrade that computer. Wait and save up enough to buy a new one from scratch.

 

[claestw]

Ah, I'm actually relieved to hear that. Nothing beats a brand new system.

What about a I5 3.4GHz plus say GTX 560Ti? The two of these plus a reasonable Asus motherboard, a 250GB SSD, 16GB RAM. I think that's within my budget for June/July. I'm wondering how much the SSD will do for Civ, though. My vga fan screams so loud I don't know if Civ 5 does much disk access mid-game.

 

[duckstab]

So it looks like I'm going to finally have an opportunity to get a better computer. For practical reasons, I'm probably going to go with a laptop, even though I know graphics performance could be an issue. Do you folks think the following will be adequate to run G&K when it comes out?

* Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
* AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M Accelerated Processor (2.4GHz/1.5GHz, 4MB L2 Cache)
* AMD Radeon(TM) Discrete-Class Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
* 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)

The system comes to around US$625. For an extra $75 I could upgrade the graphics card to

* 1GB AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7690M GDDR5 Discrete Graphics(TM) [HDMI, VGA]

Necessary? Worthwhile?

 

[callan]

If you are buying that laptop to play games I'm afraid you'll end up disappointed.

* AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M Accelerated Processor (2.4GHz/1.5GHz, 4MB L2 Cache)
* AMD Radeon(TM) Discrete-Class Graphics [HDMI, VGA]

This refers to the new generation of hybrid processor (an Accelerated Processing Unit or APU) that sacrifices power for flexibility. Essentially it's a 4 core CPU with the GPU bolted on to the same chip. Because of it's low power draw (between 30-40 Watts depending on the model) it's also not capable of running it's 4 cores at max power simultaneously. Rather it can run a single core at 2.4GHz or 4 cores at 1.5GHz.

All in all this boils down to that laptop being terrible at playing games. It will probably technically run Civ 5 but not at any kind of playable level. And that is for a turn based strategy game, you can completely forget about any modern games that actually involve stuff moving in real time. Adding the additional (actually) discrete GPU (you'll note the above GPU being called "discrete-class" which is essentially just marketing BS) for $75 would help but it's still going to be bad. I'm not sure what your budget is but if you're at your limit with that notebook (which I would judge to be a fairly budget model) then I would suggest considering a very good tablet which has the massive advantage of being the big fish in it's pond which is actually populated with games are designed to run on it's platform.

edit: Not sure this is the thread you should have used if you want a lot of feedback by the way man!

 

[duckstab]

Thanks for the info! I don't play real-time games, period - my reflexes are just too slow for that to ever be an enjoyable experience. So my graphics requirements are probably more modest than most folks who are in the market for a "gaming" PC. Nevertheless, if it can't manage something of the magnitude of Civ5 then it probably isn't a good buy.

What would be a more appropriate thread for these types of questions?

 

[callan]

Start your own thread I reckon. It's not that this is the wrong one persae, I just don't think too many people will stop by here.

 

[timtofly]

Start your own thread I reckon. It's not that this is the wrong one persae, I just don't think too many people will stop by here.

Actually, I check every new post via the bolded type face, even this one.

If you really want to play Civ5 in all of it's glory, you need an I7 with 8 cores and a dedicated video card. Some models also incorporate balanced CPU/GPU, so the power consumption drops down under normal operations. Even in such a laptop civ5 makes all the fans scream like a jet taking off.

8Gigs of ramm is ok, I do not think 16 would make that much difference, unless you absolutely have to have other programs running at the same time.

 

[sl168]

I think it's time to upgrade my computer.G&K has just killed my performance.I like to use large and huge map size.Here's what I'm running:

Pentium D 3.4 Ghz
Gigabyte P43 based board
4 GB RAM
XFX 4890 GPU
WD 750 GB 7200 rpm HD
Corsair TX 650 watt PSU
Windows 7 64-bit

What I was thinking of doing is upgrading to:

Intel i5-2500k 3.3 Ghz
MSI Z77A-GD65 board
GSkill Trident X 8GB ddr3 2400 RAM
After market cpu cooler
ssd for boot and some programs(civ 5)
WD HD for other files
Keep the PSU and GPU the same

What is your opinion on this setup?Do you think the GPU is up to the task?And how about the PSU?Shouldn't it still be enough for the job?

 

[tokala]

PSU up to the task?
Probably, unless it's a defective unit
Your setup will use less than 300W peak

GPU should be fine for CiV.

As a side note, you really, really don't need that fancy overclocking memory, some run of the mill Crucial or Kingston DDR3-1333 will make no noticably difference performance wise.
And it's much less likely to act up

 

[timtofly]

Keeping your GPU, will allow the same graphics settings, and screen refreshes you are used to. Other things like turn times, and the slow down from the amount of units, will show improvement. G&K is not the only thing that is "slowing" down performance. The latest patch has also brought out a slew of issues.

The main question is after all the kinks are worked out will this upgrade benefit me, or would things have eventually resolved themselves? G&K did not add that much graphic wise, so keeping your GPU would be a cost decision and not one based on game performance.