Official System Requirements

[mamba]

Well, I guess I kind of fall into this camp then, but I don't think I did anything any other normal consumer wouldn't do.

That probably is true, but then most consumers know very little about the PCs they buy or what would have been a better choice for them.

I'm certainly no technological savant, but I did my homework enough to know that I definitely wanted to pay a little extra to make sure it came with a dedicated graphics card. My laptop has a 512MB ATI Radeon 4570.

which is a relatively weak card, my 2 year old laptop has one twice as powerful

It did everything I wanted, handled Civ 4 awesomely and following when I've bought desktops in the past I figured I future proofed myself at least a year or two with the dedicated card.

being able to run a 5 year old game is not proof of anything

Needless to say when the announcement for CiV came out (Jan? Feb? I can't recall at the moment other than I knew it was well after I bought my laptop) I was pumped and figured I'd have no problems. The specs came out and, while I'm decently above the minimums on everything else, my GPU is apparently even a little below the min. (Frankly I still can't completely figure that out which shows how ridiculous these numbering conventions are...clear as mud).

Their point is not to be obvious, that would be easy to accomplish. There even are differences between a 460GTX with 768MB and 1GB RAM, besides the obvious 256MB difference.

So for graphics cards (and recently CPUs too) you need to do a thorough analysis of what exists and what the differences are, unfortunately.

This is on a laptop I bought 8 or 9 months ago. It was definitely middle of the road on price and nothing remotely bargain bin.

a middle of the road laptop is low end on the performance scale, laptops cost roughly twice as much money for the same performance as a desktop (and top out at the middle of the performance scale).

Needless to say I'm gonna EXTREMELY bummed if I can't play CiV and I totally understand culdeus' POV. I thought I made a safe purchase at the time...what are you gonna do? :shrug: Here's hoping though....wish me luck.

I would wager your graphics card is close enough to the minimum to work

 

[tokala]

Are you kidding? What terrible news this is.

Naaah, that looked suspiciously like overheated/unstable memory of the video card of their "beastly" gaming rig. Which might be actually a good sign, as this might be an indication that it ran at extremely high framerates, though this is mere speculation.

And the problem with laptops is, that from a design/marketing perspective it is much more attractive to put in slightly more powerful CPU for a much higher price than just use a "sufficient" CPU (almost any will do these days) and make the effort to accomodate even a marginal gaming GPU, which takes quite a lot of design work to do it right.

 

[bhavv]

Are you kidding? What terrible news this is.

No it isnt.

The crash that they had was a blatantly obvious graphics card crash due to overheated memory. It is very easy to test your PC for graphics card stability to prevent this using Furmark which stresses your graphics cards for any instability.

Chances are that although they were using an 'uber high end PC', it was still a shoddy pre built computer with poor cooling.

In a desktop PC, its always a good idea to have a case with a side fan for the graphics cards, or to spend as little as £10 to get something as simple as an antec spotcool fan to place over the graphics card (even more helpful in SLI / Crossfire setups):



I can run my PC overclocked to 4 Ghz on the CPU and 890 / 4250 on the GTX 460s (default speed is 725 / 3600), and I never get any crashes because it is well cooled and both my GPU and CPU temperatures remain under 80 degrees.

The crash that they had in the live stream was fully evident of a poorly built computer, it had nothing to do with Civ V.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Internet Connection and acceptance of Steam™ Subscriber Agreement required for activation.

Well, there goes any chance of me buying it out the window.
Fireaxis just sold one copy less.

 

[Vlade Divac]

So for graphics cards (and recently CPUs too) you need to do a thorough analysis of what exists and what the differences are, unfortunately.

a middle of the road laptop is low end on the performance scale, laptops cost roughly twice as much money for the same performance as a desktop (and top out at the middle of the performance scale).

I would wager your graphics card is close enough to the minimum to work

Yeah, I did do a decent amount of research, asked a lot of questions on forums, and thought I was in pretty good shape. The main point at that time was to make sure I had a dedicated card over integrated. Nothing I saw back in November called it a lower end lappy card, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Thanks for your opinion...I know its pretty obvious the uber-gamers on this forum are tired of the laptop users asking "Can I run it" questions, but this thread has been helpful to say the least. Like I said, Civ is the only series I play so imagine thinking you're are all set for the new, shiny, only once-every-5-years game and then abruptly wondering if you're sunk.

 

[Stefanskantine]

hey guys I'm looking at getting laptop primarily to play Civ V. How do you think these specs will handle it- near max settings? just past mid settings? I know its tough to say, but if you can just give me a ballpark guess that would be sweet.

MSI G7
i5-430M (2.26GHz)
Radeon HD5730 (1 GB DDR3 VRAM)
4GB DDR3 RAM

This machine is on sale for equivalent of about 1K usd here in Korea, (I'm currently an expat) which seems like a good deal for the specs given typical local prices. Good buy?

 

[tokala]

hey guys I'm looking at getting laptop primarily to play Civ V. How do you think these specs will handle it- near max settings? just past mid settings? I know its tough to say, but if you can just give me a ballpark guess that would be sweet.

Probably around medium settings, will depend the display format, too. Should be a fair deal for that price.

 

[Stefanskantine]

Probably around medium settings, will depend the display format, too. Should be a fair deal for that price.

ok cool, I may go with it then. is a 17.3 inch, 16:09 aspect ratio. It lists LCD resolution as 1600x900, I'm not sure what that means since obviously you can change resolution.

BTW, thanks Tokala, this is like the third time you've answered my questions in this thread. You are like the unofficial "OMG OMG OMG can I run it" representative.

 

[tokala]

ok cool, I may go with it then. is a 17.3 inch, 16:09 aspect ratio. It lists LCD resolution as 1600x900, I'm not sure what that means since obviously you can change resolution.

BTW, thanks Tokala, this is like the third time you've answered my questions in this thread. You are like the unofficial "OMG OMG OMG can I run it" representative.

At a non native res it won't look that good anymore, and it might not work below 768 or 600 lines
And if you ask the other guys, they probably think I'm the inoffical CFC doomsayer
It's just refreshing that once in while someone pops up with a reasonable GPU

 

[Toys®Us]

I have 2 computers at home.
But maybe the laptop will be a problem if I want to play (Civ 5).
Let me know please:

Aspire 5551-2468

- AMD Athlon II X2 Processor 2.1 GHz (2 Cores)
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Graphics
- 4 GB DDR3 Memory
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits

AT THE SAME TIME, I don't want to post another thread: Do I need to buy the game again for my laptop? Right now, Civ 5 is preloaded on my other computer. I open a new account with Steam or I use the same ID? I don't want to be banned by mistake there...

Thank You very much!

 

[tokala]

I have 2 computers at home.
But maybe the laptop will be a problem if I want to play (Civ 5).
Let me know please:

Aspire 5551-2468

- AMD Athlon II X2 Processor 2.1 GHz (2 Cores)
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Graphics
- 4 GB DDR3 Memory
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits

AT THE SAME TIME, I don't want to post another thread: Do I need to buy the game again for my laptop? Right now, Civ 5 is preloaded on my other computer. I open a new account with Steam or I use the same ID? I don't want to be banned by mistake there...
Thank You very much!

Should work on low(est) settings. You can install steam games on multiple machines and share save games via steam (if supported) , but you can (legally) only play on one machine at the same time.

 

[Thrallia]

I'm just wondering, what graphics does that laptop have? Because it doesnt seem likely for a $400 laptop to have 7900 GS / 2600 XT equivalent graphics.

Also, Im thinking that 7900 GS is a typo for 7600 GS.

It has an ATI 3200HD something or other in it. Not great, but the fact that it has 256MB dedicated and can access as much of general access RAM as it wants(of which I have 3GB), means it'll at least meet the minimum requirements.

Heck, it plays StarCraft II perfectly fine, and it's minimum requirements are higher than Civ V's.

 

[bhavv]

You can save Civ 5 games on Steam, and play on your account on any Computer.

You only need to buy the game once and can play it on any PC after its installed, but only one person can play it at any one time. Remember you should never share your steam account with anyone.

 

[bhavv]

It has an ATI 3200HD something or other in it. Not great, but the fact that it has 256MB dedicated and can access as much of general access RAM as it wants(of which I have 3GB), means it'll at least meet the minimum requirements.

Heck, it plays StarCraft II perfectly fine, and it's minimum requirements are higher than Civ V's.

hmmm, that might work then, its about the same as a 9400m.

Lets wait for a few more days then everyone can start trying the demo

Hmmm, how much hard drive space does Civ 5 need? Is 6 Tb enough?

 

[Thrallia]

hmmm, that might work then, its about the same as a 9400m.

Lets wait for a few more days then everyone can start trying the demo

Hmmm, how much hard drive space does Civ 5 need? Is 6 Tb enough?

yeah...and I'm on my work laptop right now, so I can't confirm it, but my card may even have 512MB dedicated. Either way, this is why I'm confused when people spend more than me on a laptop, more recently than me, and can't run Civ 5.

Obviously you need a dedicated card, but they aren't as expensive as they used to be to get a low-end one that'll work for Civ 5.

 

[ERLoft]

Hmm, seems I'm missing the Quad Core bit and the DX11 video cards, but should be good to go on the rest:

Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16ghz @ 3.85ghz
8GB Corsair XMS2
(2) EVGA 8800GTS 640mb in SLI mode
X-Fi Platinum
1.5TB+ combined HD space
Win7 64bit Ultimate

Might try and pick up a Core 2 Quad Q9550 if I can, but I'm not ready to spend the cash to upgrade the video cards or go to an i7 processor now...

Hopefully I can run everything on 'High' settings regardless...

 

[culdeus]

civ Vs recommended specification is not hardcore, Its lower than a current £500 PC.

A quadcore, 4 gb, and an Ati 4850 is a 2 year old spec now.

It may not be hardcore, but this isn't 1998. People aren't turning over their PC every couple years anymore. If it wasn't for the PC to laptop migration Intel would have a real time staying profitable. I believe this year laptop sales will pass desktop sales worldwide for the first time as well. It's a growing market, and probably the most important one and 2k is ignoring it.

I think 2k or whomever is responsible made a large mistake putting Civ on even 2 year old specs. It will be a tough sell to the masses like this. From what I recall all prior versions had very easy specs all the way back to I. CIV had some tough max specs, but had some low graphics modes that worked fine for basically anything that would boot up. The problem was the CPU in most cases, not GPU, if there was an issue.

Maybe I'm wrong and this outsells 4, but I really can't see it. I think the designers have taken a stand and are saying if you are hardcorez you buy PC otherwise we have an iphone app or console game to sell you over here.

 

[bhavv]

^^

If you already have a decent dual core system, wait until next year for Sandy Bridge before considering a Quad.

 

[bhavv]

It may not be hardcore, but this isn't 1998. People aren't turning over their PC every couple years anymore. If it wasn't for the PC to laptop migration Intel would have a real time staying profitable. I believe this year laptop sales will pass desktop sales worldwide for the first time as well. It's a growing market, and probably the most important one and 2k is ignoring it.

I think 2k or whomever is responsible made a large mistake putting Civ on even 2 year old specs. It will be a tough sell to the masses like this. From what I recall all prior versions had very easy specs all the way back to I. CIV had some tough max specs, but had some low graphics modes that worked fine for basically anything that would boot up. The problem was the CPU in most cases, not GPU, if there was an issue.

Maybe I'm wrong and this outsells 4, but I really can't see it. I think the designers have taken a stand and are saying if you are hardcorez you buy PC otherwise we have an iphone app or console game to sell you over here.

You're still completely wrong. You can get very decent graphics cards on laptops such as the Geforce 335, or Radeon 5650 mobilty which would be fine for Civ 5. Dont blame Firaxis when the absolute bare minimum integrated laptop graphics might not be enough to run the game.

 

[tokala]

Hmm, seems I'm missing the Quad Core bit and the DX11 video cards, but should be good to go on the rest:

Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16ghz @ 3.85ghz
8GB Corsair XMS2
(2) EVGA 8800GTS 640mb in SLI mode
X-Fi Platinum
1.5TB+ combined HD space
Win7 64bit Ultimate

Might try and pick up a Core 2 Quad Q9550 if I can, but I'm not ready to spend the cash to upgrade the video cards or go to an i7 processor now...

Hopefully I can run everything on 'High' settings regardless...

Makes really not much sense to upgrade that for CiV
Should be good for maximum settings apart from (maybe) fancy tesselated hillsides. And that C2D will probabaly outpace quite a lot of Quads out there
Unless your board can push a C2Q comfortably over 3 GHz, a CPU upgrade would probably not make much sense.