I’m a long time fan of Civ 4. Recently it stopped working on an old MacAir. If I can purchase Civ 4 in the PC edition what would the ideal computer or operating system be for optimum performance? I would even consider a refurbished system. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Recommendations for system
- Thread starter Tumkin
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a pen-dragon
Warlord
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- Jun 8, 2024
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First note that Civ4 is quite old, thus you do not need any fancy hardware to get it running.
It is a 32 bit application, meaning that it can not use more than 4GiB of RAM anyway. I have heard that Apple stopped supporting 32 bit applications, so that may be the reason it stopped working? Downgrading to an earlier OS might solve your problem. If you want to do this, I would recommend you do some thorough research.
It is not hard to run for any moderately new graphics card, including on-board ones.
It is entirely single-threaded, so the number of cores does not matter if it is greater than two. I say two because I read somewhere that it can use a different core for graphics related stuff, but I may be wrong. For the game decisions themself, it definitely uses only one core.
Basically the only parameter of a modern system that still matters is CPU frequency.
Back in 2005 it ran better on Intel CPUs/ Nvidia GPUs than AMD ones, and while this is maybe still a little true today there is little difference. I only have the comparison between the few systems I have run as data.
As for the OS, it was built solely for Windows and will thus run there without much of a setup. Running it via wine on Linux now works just as well, with some people even reporting slightly better performance, but comes with more installation overhead. On iOS I have no idea besides the above.
It is a 32 bit application, meaning that it can not use more than 4GiB of RAM anyway. I have heard that Apple stopped supporting 32 bit applications, so that may be the reason it stopped working? Downgrading to an earlier OS might solve your problem. If you want to do this, I would recommend you do some thorough research.
It is not hard to run for any moderately new graphics card, including on-board ones.
It is entirely single-threaded, so the number of cores does not matter if it is greater than two. I say two because I read somewhere that it can use a different core for graphics related stuff, but I may be wrong. For the game decisions themself, it definitely uses only one core.
Basically the only parameter of a modern system that still matters is CPU frequency.
Back in 2005 it ran better on Intel CPUs/ Nvidia GPUs than AMD ones, and while this is maybe still a little true today there is little difference. I only have the comparison between the few systems I have run as data.
As for the OS, it was built solely for Windows and will thus run there without much of a setup. Running it via wine on Linux now works just as well, with some people even reporting slightly better performance, but comes with more installation overhead. On iOS I have no idea besides the above.
s.bernbaum
Mostly lurking
I run CIV on older systems. I use two old Macs, running Mac OSX 10.6.8 on one of them, 10.14.6 on the other, and Windows 7.1 on a virtual system under Parallels on both. It runs fine on all four. I mainly use the 10.6.8. system. I mostly run the Windows virtual system only when I want to use a mod that won't work on Mac. The nice thing about the Macs is that under the systems that I use, the discs are still recognized, so I can use all versions of CIV. I never have the internet connected when I use the virtual Windows system, so there is no security risk using 7.1.
Tecumseh1
Prince
You can run civ4 on mac using Parallels program. It's a little laggy but works fine
The main issue for civ 4 over the years for me has been ram. Once you switch to 8gb+ of ram game runs very well. Ryzen CPU handle the game fine. Most modern systems now have at least 8gb of ram. 4GB on 32 bit is fine too.
The days where I was stuck on 512mb or 1gb it became an issue on larger maps.
The days where I was stuck on 512mb or 1gb it became an issue on larger maps.
Since 2018 (before that I don't remember), I have played civ 4 on 4, 8 and 16 GB systems and the only one where I have experienced lagging was the 16 GB one. But only if, after turning the computer on, I open any app before starting civ, otherwise it runs fine.
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