Official System Requirements

[Mesopotamian]

stupid me

turns out i forgot to install my GTX 260M Dual GPU's and was running the game on a ******** GT9800 built-in chip, that's why

now i installed the stuff and overclocked my CPU to 3.3 and tested (max Civs (all of them ), max city states, max setting, Huge map) runs faater than a fat kid going down a steep hill on a skate board with a of NOS strapped to his back (didn't go far in testing, just like constantly pressing Next till i reached 150 turns or so & no sign of any lag)

playing will be so awesome that i actually feel bad and guilty calling my alien m17x a piece of poopy

alienware

 

[civ_king]

stupid me

turns out i forgot to install my GTX 260M Dual GPU's and was running the game on a ******** GT9800 built-in chip, that's why

now i installed the stuff and overclocked my CPU to 3.3 and tested (max Civs (all of them ), max city states, max setting, Huge map) runs faater than a fat kid going down a steep hill on a skate board with a of NOS strapped to his back (didn't go far in testing, just like constantly pressing Next till i reached 150 turns or so & no sign of any lag)

playing will be so awesome that i actually feel bad and guilty calling my alien m17x a piece of poopy

alienware

That's also why it does not run hot and suck in massive dust

 

[hbilgin]

Dear Friends, i am playing civIV with old PIV 3000 CPU, 512 MB nVIDIA 6200A AGP Graphics Card, 2 GB RAM. Can i install civ5 and can play? Thanks for your help.

 

[tokala]

People with similiar specs got it to run, and even reported it to be playable in strategic mode, but I would seriously recommend a better computer for it

 

[hbilgin]

People with similiar specs got it to run, and even reported it to be playable in strategic mode, but I would seriously recommend a better computer for it

Dear tokala, thank you very much. Best wishes.

 

[cardgame]

you will NOT be happy if you try to play it on that computer

 

[AlwAysAnA]

Playing the directx10 version.

Playing a small game with 6 players and 6 city states with all settings on lowest possible.

Game lags a lot when i scroll the map, turns take like 10 seconds + even after only 50-60 turns. Spent 5 hours playing until 150ad.

Im on a dell laptop with this system;


Nvidia Quadro NVS 135m
Intel Core 2 DUO CPU T7700 2.40Ghz
RAM: 4Gb


Simply not good enough? What can i do? I so badly want to play 12 civs on a large map.

If i have to buy a new computer, it has to be a laptop. Please suggest me one as i aint no exert. Will an apple work?

 

[tokala]

Simply not good enough? What can i do? I so badly want to play 12 civs on a large map.

If i have to buy a new computer, it has to be a laptop. Please suggest me one as i aint no exert. Will an apple work?

No laptop will be much faster than the one you have, at best you will get ~50% shorter turns
Look around here in the tech support forum, there are several things that helped people to get shorter turn times.

A laptop with a better video card will not have that choppy scrolling, though.

 

[Taygeta]

Dear Friends, i am playing civIV with old PIV 3000 CPU, 512 MB nVIDIA 6200A AGP Graphics Card, 2 GB RAM. Can i install civ5 and can play? Thanks for your help.

I don't know enough about your graphics card, but I have a similar, if a bit faster rig (P4 3.2 ghz, 2 gb ram + AGP Radeon HD3850) and CIV V (not a demo) runs something like 60-100 fps and rarely slows down with all almost all maxed.

All you need is *memory*. If you have 2 GB, everything is ok.

Those who say it will not run well enough with that kind of rig, dont know enough about PC's.

 

[Unmasked]

No laptop will be much faster than the one you have, at best you will get ~50% shorter turns
Look around here in the tech support forum, there are several things that helped people to get shorter turn times.

A laptop with a better video card will not have that choppy scrolling, though.

I recently bought a Sager with a quad core 720QM and an nVidia 460M graphics card and it runs great at full high def with all settings on high and 4x aa. I haven't gotten a game on it to turn 300+ yet but it seems to run better than on either of my desktops (Athlon 3700+ with a GTX? 6800 and a Q6700 with an ultra 8800). It was kind of pricey at about $1300 but there are plenty of good options with a bit less GPU for a few hundred less.

 

[robertl30]

Civ 5 runs for a while and then gets so sluggish/crashy that it's unusable. I'm hoping a few more patches might make Civ stable, but I also realize it's time to consider a hardware upgrade.

What I got:

Intel Core2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
4.0 GB (3.25 Usable)
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (build 7600), 32-bit
GeForce 8800 GT

So... I've got my eye on a Core2 Quad that will fit my LGA 775 motherboard. But I'm more befuddled by the array of GPU choices these days.

I can probably buy a CPU or a GPU but not both. How can I determine where the problem lies? I like to play Huge Marathon type games. They're fun until late game and it then it takes so long to Next Turn. And I find if I throw too many clicks too quickly at it it'll freeze or just plain crash.

Thanks for advice.

 

[Myth5]

Civ 5 runs for a while and then gets so sluggish/crashy that it's unusable. I'm hoping a few more patches might make Civ stable, but I also realize it's time to consider a hardware upgrade.

What I got:

Intel Core2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
4.0 GB (3.25 Usable)
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (build 7600), 32-bit
GeForce 8800 GT

So... I've got my eye on a Core2 Quad that will fit my LGA 775 motherboard. But I'm more befuddled by the array of GPU choices these days.

I can probably buy a CPU or a GPU but not both. How can I determine where the problem lies? I like to play Huge Marathon type games. They're fun until late game and it then it takes so long to Next Turn. And I find if I throw too many clicks too quickly at it it'll freeze or just plain crash.

Thanks for advice.

Your CPU is a fast dual core, quad cores barely run any faster. Go for a new graphics card, as your is right about minimum or a little above. Unfortunately long turn times are near unavoidable late game on anything larger than a standard map.

 

[tokala]

The 8800GT is almost identical with a "recommended" 9800GT, but unfortunately Civ5 runs really really bad on nVidia DX10 chips, despite that "recommendation"

Getting a socket775 quad might actually make Civ5 running slower
Benchmarks show that Civ5 do not use more than 2 cores effectively. Turn times are almost the same on a hexa core i7 and a dual core i3 with the same clockspeed. It's similiar for the fps, but there the size and speed of the CPU caches seem to have a big influence, too.

For video cards, it's pretty easy, look here and take your pick. The GTX460-768 will be about 10% slower than the 1GB version and delivers the most bang for your buck, but there are also cheaper cards that perform decently.

 

[civ_king]

Civ 5 runs for a while and then gets so sluggish/crashy that it's unusable. I'm hoping a few more patches might make Civ stable, but I also realize it's time to consider a hardware upgrade.

What I got:

Intel Core2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
4.0 GB (3.25 Usable)
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (build 7600), 32-bit
GeForce 8800 GT

So... I've got my eye on a Core2 Quad that will fit my LGA 775 motherboard. But I'm more befuddled by the array of GPU choices these days.

I can probably buy a CPU or a GPU but not both. How can I determine where the problem lies? I like to play Huge Marathon type games. They're fun until late game and it then it takes so long to Next Turn. And I find if I throw too many clicks too quickly at it it'll freeze or just plain crash.

Thanks for advice.

Go for the GPU upgrade

The 8800GT is almost identical with a "recommended" 9800GT, but unfortunately Civ5 runs really really bad on nVidia DX10 chips, despite that "recommendation"

Getting a socket775 quad might actually make Civ5 running slower
Benchmarks show that Civ5 do not use more than 2 cores effectively. Turn times are almost the same on a hexa core i7 and a dual core i3 with the same clockspeed. It's similiar for the fps, but there the size and speed of the CPU caches seem to have a big influence, too.

For video cards, it's pretty easy, look here and take your pick. The GTX460-768 will be about 10% slower than the 1GB version and delivers the most bang for your buck, but there are also cheaper cards that perform decently.

On a huge map with lots of AI the hexacore would be vastly fast

 

[Myth5]

Go for the GPU upgrade

On a huge map with lots of AI the hexacore would be vastly fast

Only if the scaling was moderately close to useful. As of now it is like 5% above 4 cores. A hexacore can actually perform worse than a faster dual core CPU.

 

[civ_king]

Only if the scaling was moderately close to useful. As of now it is like 5% above 4 cores. A hexacore can actually perform worse than a faster dual core CPU.

Max map size+max civs/city states would show the hexacore outperforming the dual core

 

[tokala]

Max map size+max civs/city states would show the hexacore outperforming the dual core

Benchmarks or it didn't happen
The i7 hexacores are a bit faster in general, but that's due to the larger L3 cache.

 

[civ_king]

Benchmarks or it didn't happen
The i7 hexacores are a bit faster in general, but that's due to the larger L3 cache.

Considering Civ V ramps up decently to 4 cores the i7 hexacore has more than four so it can bring at least the performance of quad core plus it has more L3 cache a sweet 12MB

 

[Myth5]

Considering Civ V ramps up decently to 4 cores the i7 hexacore has more than four so it can bring at least the performance of quad core plus it has more L3 cache a sweet 12MB

I doesn't ramp up decently to a quad core AT ALL. Dual core>Quad core, as clock speed>number of cores.

 

[civ_king]

I doesn't ramp up decently to a quad core AT ALL. Dual core>Quad core, as clock speed>number of cores.

It ramps up better than most game