Official System Requirements

What is diff between Turion and Athlon? I've got a machine with an AMD Turion 2.2 GHz 64-bit dual core. Other than that, it is at or above all recommended requirements. (Well...it is right at 4 GB RAM, which means the system thinks it only has 3.7 GB RAM b/c some of the RAM is reserved for the OS...but still, presumably the sys reqs take that into account.) I know Turion is more power-friendly, but since the proc speed is higher than the minimum AMD speed and it is at least a dual core, I would think it compensates. Does that sound workable to meet the minimum specs?
 
Turion is simply the mobile AMD platform

What is your GPU?
 
I don't recall the exact model on that machine (it is not my primary for playing Civ 5, but would be nice to get it to work on a laptop as well), but it is a decent ATI with 512 MB dedicated memory (when I query the total memory available it always gives >1 GB because of shared memory), and it has the Pixel and Vertex Shaders 4.0 (minimum is 3.0, recommended is 4.0).
 
What laptop should I get that will play civ 5? The old lady wants a laptop, so I figured why not buy one that plays the new game.
 
sigh...
Yeah, my mouth got watery when I was checking Gainward GTX 460 GS 2GB GDDR5 yesterday... "Only" £199 :lol: Sh*t, I want it badly, I really do... :sad:

...What do you mean by "somehow reduced settings"? Like, game settings (texture level, AA etc) or screen settings (refresh rate, resolution)? If the latter then I'm screwed if I'll try to use my screen on a non-native resolution... :think:
===> I still could use some more input. Please :blush:

2 GB is useless on a mid-range card on a mid-sized display. And what settings will affect the performance will depend on the game you are playing. A lower resolution will almost always lead to a proportional increase in fps. And modern screens do usually a quite good job interpolating on a non-native resolution, at least for games.

I am about to upgrade my rig from an old duel corel e6750 2.8 to something that will run civ 5 well. I have around £290 to budget with and like i say i want a cpu that is mainly for gaming. I have a reasonible graphics card although the games i mainly play are map based strategy games like the total war series and civ (my reason for doing this)

According to "can you run it" i am below min cpu settings. I have norrowed my choice to two options. 1 CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz
argon Extreme Intel Core i3 2.93GHz @ 4.20GHz Overclocked Bundle

No, you are NOT below the min CPU settings. A C2D 2.8 GHz will work JUST FINE! That "CYRI" is garbage :rolleyes:
Upgrading to another Dual-Core don't make any sense at all. And a Hexa core might not very cost-effective, either. Some upgrades that might make more sense: 1. Overclock your CPU - for free 2. Plop in a Core2Quad Q9505 - £150 3. Buy a Phenom X4 + DDR2 capable mainboard, use your old RAM - £150 4. Go for a Core i5-760+DDR3 RAM > £290

I don't recall the exact model on that machine (it is not my primary for playing Civ 5, but would be nice to get it to work on a laptop as well), but it is a decent AMD with 512 MB dedicated memory (when I query the total memory available it always gives >1 GB because of shared memory), and it has the Pixel and Vertex Shaders 4.0 (minimum is 3.0, recommended is 4.0).
If it has shared memory, it is by definition NOT a "decent" chip, and the Pixel Shader Version and amount of RAM are NOT a performance indicator :rolleyes:
Important things are memory bandwidth, GPU clock frequency and number of processing units ;)
 
It has 512 MB *dedicated* memory, like I said. I did make a typo -- it's an ATI card, not AMD...I had processor on the brain still from my previous post.

That said, if you query the amount of memory available as video memory, it generally returns >1 GB (exact amount varies), which is what I meant by that statement--but 512 MB of that memory is fenced off guaranteed graphics memory. It's not one of those cheap-o cards that claim to have a gig of shared graphics memory...which means you aren't buying any memory on the card...RIP OFF! But good graphics cards will also try to co-opt system memory as a graphics overflow, even though they have dedicated memory as well.

Can you run it is very odd in how it reports things -- completely agree there. For example, it said one of my older machines had an Intel 1.83 GHz Duo 64 processor, which failed on *processor speed* because 1.8 GHz was required! (The processor type passed, but not processor speed!) The detection wasn't to blame, but somehow they parsed things wrong and decided 1.8 > 1.83. Can you run it is useful to see what the game requires and what your machine has in one location, but it is not useful in the pass/fail -- look at the breakdown and see for yourself. That said, be skeptical of the memory CYRI reports for your graphics card -- that number is not dedicated memory.

I agree the Shader version does not a good graphics card make, but it is one of those essential things -- if your shader version isn't above the minimum you can't play the game.
 
2 GB is useless on a mid-range card on a mid-sized display. And what settings will affect the performance will depend on the game you are playing. A lower resolution will almost always lead to a proportional increase in fps. And modern screens do usually a quite good job interpolating on a non-native resolution, at least for games.

Wow, I can't believe that you've went through the effort of answering to my post, especially that it was two pages ago!
Thank you

Hm, I thought that with 64-bit system extra 2GB of dedicated RAM will basically ensure smooth gameplay even on a HD (because I am curious about it and want to check how it looks like), especially that you've confirmed earlier on that my 9600 GT will struggle.
As for the game I mean - come on, it's Civ Fanatics! Only Civ5 that matters now :)
In any case, thanks for giving me hope - I can obtain GF460 with 1GB for less than 200GBP, so that's a start :cool:

Ah, and if you say that interpolating lower resolutions on high-tech screens is doable nowadays, then it's another promising news :goodjob:
 
2 GB is useless on a mid-range card on a mid-sized display. And what settings will affect the performance will depend on the game you are playing. A lower resolution will almost always lead to a proportional increase in fps. And modern screens do usually a quite good job interpolating on a non-native resolution, at least for games.



No, you are NOT below the min CPU settings. A C2D 2.8 GHz will work JUST FINE! That "CYRI" is garbage :rolleyes:
Upgrading to another Dual-Core don't make any sense at all. And a Hexa core might not very cost-effective, either. Some upgrades that might make more sense: 1. Overclock your CPU - for free 2. Plop in a Core2Quad Q9505 - £150 3. Buy a Phenom X4 + DDR2 capable mainboard, use your old RAM - £150 4. Go for a Core i5-760+DDR3 RAM > £290


If it has shared memory, it is by definition NOT a "decent" chip, and the Pixel Shader Version and amount of RAM are NOT a performance indicator :rolleyes:
Important things are memory bandwidth, GPU clock frequency and number of processing units ;)
Actually a hexacore might be a very effective way to run the game since it is so multithreaded that the hexacore can brute force it
 
Hm, I thought that with 64-bit system extra 2GB of dedicated RAM will basically ensure smooth gameplay even on a HD
Even 1GB over 768 MB will show only a marginal fps gain at anything below 2560x1920 ;)
As for the game I mean - come on, it's Civ Fanatics! Only Civ5 that matters now :)
In any case, thanks for giving me hope - I can obtain GF460 with 1GB for less than 200GBP, so that's a start :cool:
If you only care for Civ5, chances are the 9600GT will do the job just fine, and you won't be gaining much image quality from a better card. A GTX460/1024 will be overkill in any case, probably even HD5750/70, GTS450 and GTX460/768 will be more than capable of running Civ5 at max settings at 1920x1200.
Actually Civ5 requirements are not very demanding on the video card side, contrary to the impression one could get from the vocal minority here at CFC :p
 
Even 1GB over 768 MB will show only a marginal fps gain at anything below 2560x1920 ;)

If you only care for Civ5, chances are the 9600GT will do the job just fine, and you won't be gaining much image quality from a better card. A GTX460/1024 will be overkill in any case, probably even HD5750/70, GTX450 and GTX460/768 will be more than capable of running Civ5 at max settings at 1920x1200.
Actually Civ5 requirements are not very demanding on the video card side, contrary to the impression one could get from the vocal minority here at CFC :p

The 9600GT will be fine if you don't need DX 11, the recommended specs only require a $150 card
 
Even 1GB over 768 MB will show only a marginal fps gain at anything below 2560x1920 ;)

If you only care for Civ5, chances are the 9600GT will do the job just fine, and you won't be gaining much image quality from a better card. A GTX460/1024 will be overkill in any case, probably even HD5750/70, GTS450 and GTX460/768 will be more than capable of running Civ5 at max settings at 1920x1200.
Actually Civ5 requirements are not very demanding on the video card side, contrary to the impression one could get from the vocal minority here at CFC :p

Ok then, so as I thought I'll wait and see, and if anything will be crappy-choppy then around Christmas I'll shop around for a GTX460. I knew that 9600GT should be more-less fine, but I just wanted to check with you guys how the HD will factor in, since I've heard horror stories that my full HD screen will fry my PC and without a monster rig I'll never be able to use HD ^^

And as for DX11 I can wait :)

Anyway, I'll stop bothering you guys now, thank you for all your responses, especially you tokala :goodjob:
 
Well, it's time to change my gfx card anyway. Will wait with the CPU. I suspect my 3Ghz Athlon64X2 will be enough. If anything, the game will just take a little more time :)
 
Meatpuck, don't believe CYRI for a moment. Most probably your CPU is absolutely fine for meeting at least the min requirements.
 
I have a laptop, so it's really not a powerful computer. I'm just wondering what type of Game Speeds (turn loading, does it turn to a snail in the modern era, etc.) I can expect with this setup listed below. Graphics while appreciated aren't hugely important. Hell, if it looks as nice as Civ 4 or Civ4:COL and runs at a good speed then I'll be happy

My specs
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T6400 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS

TIA and sorry for the odd first post here!
 
Graphics while appreciated aren't hugely important. Hell, if it looks as nice as Civ 4 or Civ4:COL and runs at a good speed then I'll be happy

That's the spirit! And that's all you can realistically expect it to look with your video card, and it might still get choppy. CPU is fine, might take a while for turns in the late game, though ;)
 
That's the spirit! And that's all you can realistically expect it to look with your video card, and it might still get choppy. CPU is fine, might take a while for turns in the late game, though ;)

Yeah, I was afraid of that, but then again Civ V isn't Crysis, so as long as it's functional I can live with it. Thankfully if it chugs a little it's not like in an First Person Shooter where you can get killed by enemy. See that's the thing, it's hard to gauge performance since Frames Per Second isn't really key since the game isn't RTS like say World in Conflict.

Funny thing is the requirements are why I never got Civ 4 for the longest time. I recall them being pretty high initially and Civ 4 had a lot of unoptimized code initially that caused it to run poorly for some reason.
 
I know this is a long shot but will this run with a 8200m g 1.3Gb shared memory integrated graphics. I've been able to get things like starcraft II running on low/med.

I'm just worried as I preordered it when they hinted that it'd run on a range of laptops, and am wondering whether to cancel my order.
 
I know this is a long shot but will this run with a 8200m g 1.3Gb shared memory integrated graphics. I've been able to get things like starcraft II running on low/med.

I'm just worried as I preordered it when they hinted that it'd run on a range of laptops, and am wondering whether to cancel my order.

Same situation. I'm just going to get the demo first and see how it runs. I'm just afraid the demo will be based on an old build and not representative to how the game actually runs.

Still if you can run SCII I have to imagine CIV V should be fine.
 
Same situation. I'm just going to get the demo first and see how it runs. I'm just afraid the demo will be based on an old build and not representative to how the game actually runs.

Still if you can run SCII I have to imagine CIV V should be fine.

I would have thought the same thing but after doing some research they specially wrote SC2 to run on low-end laptops (to encorporate massive SC1 userbase in places like Korea without them needing to buy new machines)

However, I'm not too sure about CIV 4. CYRI says I'm below the minimum specs, but it's said that before and been horribly wrong.
 
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