RAM will solve the problem?

[Kumagoro]

Well right now i have:
AMD athlon XP 1,7+
Radeon 9200SE 64mb (crap i know, but at least it has shaders, not like my old GF2)
256 mb RAM

Civ v 1.52
small map: works just fine
standard: bit slow at the end
large: gets slow at industrial age
huge: loads 30 minutes, ending turn takes 30 mintes too

I've got an old Soltek SL75KAV mainboard, will it stand if i add a 512mb memory to it? And will i be able to play huge maps?

 

[Xanikk999]

You would need at least 1024 MB of RAM to play Huge maps without it slowing down. I think your processing speed is a tad low also.

 

[Bushface]

Video memory is vital. My machine has 512MB RAM and an Athlon 2200+ CPU: my old video card was a 64MB MX420, and ran Civ4 slowly and jerkily. Upgrading to a 256MB FX5600 card solved the problem for me, but I never use maps larger than Standard. Must try a bigger one someday.

 

[warpstorm]

Yes. RAM is the biggest problem with that rig. As Xanikk999 points out though you may need more than 512 (although that should lower it enough that it'll play with only minor chugginess). Your vieo card would be the next thing to improve and then processor speed.

 

[Xavier Von Erck]

that's barely enough RAM to run XP with any sense of stability. Yeesh.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

My laptop has 2GB of high-quality RAM (it's a graphc design computer, so I do actually need it). The video card is a 64 MB ATI Radeon X300. The game runs smoothly at 1024 x 768 with the other video settings maxed. (1440 x 900 chops it up no matter what the settings are.)

Of course, CIV randomly crashes and powers down my laptop, but, when it's running, the video is smooth.

I'd say, given my specs, the machine RAM seems more important than video memory.

 

[Panda]

You will notice a significant increase in performance. If possible, go for additional 1GB instead of 512MB. I know I didn't regret getting an additional gig of RAM.

 

[Mahatmajon]

For random interest to techy people I was running 1GB in my Athalon 3700+ with GeForce 7800GT/256MB card. While playing a huge map around 1100AD was slightly annoyed with the ~5 seconds between turns so I put in the other 1GB RAM chip I had. Amazingly it made a difference. I was pretty surprised and if I wasn't lazy I'd try to quantify the difference, but I noticed a difference and suspect by end of game time it will be fairly significant.

 

[Joebasalt13]

5 second delay ***** you shouldn't complain. I got like 3-5 minute delays now and that is after the patch and a bunch of things when I first got the game it was 10-15 minutes between turns.

 

[Civious]

I stick as much ram as I could in first.

I am running it on a 768MB, 1.6GHz P4, 128MB ATI graphics card on one machine and it runs a little slow near the end but not bad.

My laptop, Pent M 1.86GHz, 1G RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon X300 runs great unless I run window mode, then it slows down considerably.

 

[parachute4u]

I am running the game with 768 MB of ram, Sempron processor @1,8 Ghz. and Radeon 9200 128 MB RAM:

Large maps are unplayable, Standard maps are slow towards the end. I think the Gfx card is even more important than RAM. The 9200 is wayyyy too slow for this game. OTOH 256 MB is wayyy too little for XP.

Thought I post this, cause my system is a bit similar to the thread-starter's system. The RAM will help, but won't solve the problem entirely.

 

[Willem]

Well right now i have:
AMD athlon XP 1,7+
Radeon 9200SE 64mb (crap i know, but at least it has shaders, not like my old GF2)
256 mb RAM

Civ v 1.52
small map: works just fine
standard: bit slow at the end
large: gets slow at industrial age
huge: loads 30 minutes, ending turn takes 30 mintes too

I've got an old Soltek SL75KAV mainboard, will it stand if i add a 512mb memory to it? And will i be able to play huge maps?

All your specs are too low. I was running the game on the very same processor with a Radeon 9550/128 VRAM, and 1 gig of RAM. I wasn't even able to play on Large maps without it occasionaly crashing on me and getting lots of lag in the late game. I've since upgraded to an AMD 3500+ and added another 512 meg RAM. I can play Huge maps though I still have my graphics on Low, and when I use the grid in the late game it will take at least a minute before it appears.

Bottom line is you need to get a whole new computer. AMD no longer makes processors with the socket configuration that the 1700 does. I had to get a new motherboard as well.

 

[BasketCase]

Civ IV can be extremely hard on the graphics card. My other PC on which I tried to play it had a GeForce FX5200 with 128megs on it. While the game ran decently (frame rate a little slow), the card ran very hot, and would not overclock at all without causing frequent hard crashes.

My current gaming rig has a GeForce 6800 GT with 256 megs. This card runs the game nicely, but the GPU runs up to 81 degrees C when Civ IV is on the screen (that's the bottom edge of the "yellow" temperature zone for this card, it usually runs at 60 degrees C when not under load).

 

[MrPaladin]

that's barely enough RAM to run XP with any sense of stability. Yeesh.

min spec for XP is 128 (and I've seen systems run with 128)... but I recommend at least 256 to run XP alone, if your a gamer I do recommend 512 or higher depending on your games requirements...

ram isn't as expensive as it used to be, try and get extra ram at time of pc purchase...

 

[MattJek]

I upgraded my comp from 512 to 1G and that helped my Civ4 preformance a lot. No crashes even on huge maps

 

[`DG`]

3700+ AMD with 1gb Ballistix 2-2-2-4 2T s) and 7800GTX, it runs Civ4 well enough on huge maps all settings high but once the game really gets going it feels sluggish. Wait times between turns are more than fine (couple of secs, though 'events' happen right in the middle of turns, dont recall having that in a Civ game before) but it feels like there's some HDD swapping going on or something sometimes during play.

Straight after I quit a big game I can open Task Manager and Civ4 is eating a huge chunk of RAM, which it takes a minute to clear out.

Switching res up to 1280x960 doesnt feel any more sluggish at all, which suggests it's either RAM or CPU.

Civ4 does crash on me occasionally, a soft crash just exiting the game. Only thing I can figure a guess on is my RAM temps are high. All my temps are good, but I've the stock HSF which doesnt seem to put much air around the ram sticks, the ram "heatsinks" are hot to the touch during playing, and I cant think of it being anything else (unless the game's buggy).

 

[A Silly Goose]

When it comes to video cards, it's my own belief that how much RAM the card has is really more important than how current the model is; my 64MB Radeon 7000 could run Civ IV, but since then I've gotten a 256MB Radeon 9600 that plays it much better. Considering there are people with higher-end, yet lower-memory, cards that don't do too well, the major factor may very well be the card's RAM.

Unfortunately, I had upgraded my system's RAM from 512MB to 1.5GB at the same time I upgraded my graphics card, so I really can't say if such is the case when choosing a video card for Civ IV.

...Considering 512MB is the minimum requirement of memory for Civ IV, one should definitely get more than 256MB RAM anyhow, though; thus, I'm going to have to recommend a combination of video card and RAM for your upgrade.





...In fact, I did a little research on that Soltek SL75KAV that was mentioned, and it looks like it was starting to get out-dated as far back as 2002; for example, it apparently is limited to SDRAM, while the norm is currently the faster DDR. As such, you may want to consider upgrading your motherboard as well.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Go for RAM, 1024 if you can.
And then you could play Large maps without big problems.


Having Athalon2600XP, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9000Pro (64MB)

 

[morchuflex]

Hello.

I have a 2800+ Athlon, a GF6 (6800GT) and 1 Go RAM; and Civ4 plays decently, but nothing more. After about one hour of play, it gets sluggish (lag). Only workaround is quitting and reloading. Then it's smooth again for about one hour. I guess there's a memory leak out there.

Doesn't anyone find it strange that Civ4 requires the same kind of PC as Quake4?

 

[player1 fanatic]

Not at all.
The Civ4 game taxes both CPU and GPU.
CPU for AI and all those pathfinging algorithms.

And GPU for graphics.

Also, the nature of Civ4 is progressive, so the farther are you in the game, the more units, the more cities, more graphics per screen and more pathfinding.