Requirements for giant maps?

[Faustmouse]

hi!
First, I love this mod! best Game I've ever played!
The Downside is, i can't play a size bigger than standart, and these only to the very early middleage before constant MAFs...
Now I want to upgrade my PC, I will use Win 7 then, but I was wondering, how much RAM I need to play the biggest mapsize all the way up to the galactic era? And what CPU and graphic board do you recommend for this?

 

[strategyonly]

hi!
First, I love this mod! best Game I've ever played!
The Downside is, i can't play a size bigger than standart, and these only to the very early middleage before constant MAFs...
Now I want to upgrade my PC, I will use Win 7 then, but I was wondering, how much RAM I need to play the biggest mapsize all the way up to the galactic era? And what CPU and graphic board do you recommend for this?

Thats really a question of how much money do you "want" to spend.

btw thx for the nice comments and Welcome to CFC.

 

[Faustmouse]

I think, the only thing i might need is some RAM, cuz i only got 2 GB with Win Xp atm... My Graphic board should be fine, it's a geForce 8800 with 1 GB and I got a Quadcore 2,8 GHz CPU...

 

[Koshling]

I think, the only thing i might need is some RAM, cuz i only got 2 GB with Win Xp atm... My Graphic board should be fine, it's a geForce 8800 with 1 GB and I got a Quadcore 2,8 GHz CPU...

6G ideally. 4G will get close to the max that can be achieved given Civ4 is a 32 bit app anyway. If you are buying with Civ in mind worry most about CPU single threaded performance (do NOT go AMD), and RAM (up to 6G - above that wont matter). If you care about load times disk speed matters, but once the game is loaded it is irrelevent, so I wouldn't score it as a major factor.

 

[Faustmouse]

Does the CPU speed up the loadingtime between the turns, too?
So ill buy 6 GB Ram. No need for a better graphic board?
And I think I should use Win 7 with 64 bit, even if Civ is a 32 bit app?

 

[AIAndy]

Does the CPU speed up the loadingtime between the turns, too?
So ill buy 6 GB Ram. No need for a better graphic board?
And I think I should use Win 7 with 64 bit, even if Civ is a 32 bit app?

Single core speed is what determines the time between turns.

Ideally you want to provide Civ with a full amount of 4GB RAM to use but a 32bit operating system can't do that as it uses a considerable part of the 32bit address space for itself and special purposes.

 

[Faustmouse]

Ideally you want to provide Civ with a full amount of 4GB RAM to use but a 32bit operating system can't do that as it uses a considerable part of the 32bit address space for itself and special purposes.

ok. Is it possible to play the largest map with 6 GB RAM (4 GB RAM for CIV) oder should I try a smaler Version to avoid frustration?^^

And when I tried to play a Worldmap scenario for C2C, there is an error while loading the Map (after I did all my settings and click on play). Is this because my hardware or is it because the scenario itself? I downloaded it from this forum...

 

[Koshling]

ok. Is it possible to play the largest map with 6 GB RAM (4 GB RAM for CIV) oder should I try a smaler Version to avoid frustration?^^

And when I tried to play a Worldmap scenario for C2C, there is an error while loading the Map (after I did all my settings and click on play). Is this because my hardware or is it because the scenario itself? I downloaded it from this forum...

Yes. I play on the largest (gigantic I think it's called) size with no great problems. I use Win7 64, 8G RAM, with am over 2 year old (Intel 9450) CPU. My main bottleneck is single threaded CPU performance, but a more modern (Intel) CPU would help a lot due to turbo capability (i5 or i7 families anyway)

 

[strategyonly]

Like above stated, if you have money go for the i7 no doubt there, but if not the i5 is ok.

 

[DRJ]

ok. Is it possible to play the largest map with 6 GB RAM (4 GB RAM for CIV) oder should I try a smaler Version to avoid frustration?^^

And when I tried to play a Worldmap scenario for C2C, there is an error while loading the Map (after I did all my settings and click on play). Is this because my hardware or is it because the scenario itself? I downloaded it from this forum...

Hi! had 2 gig/xp on my old machine and anything bigger than standard broke, too.

now I got a new laptop for christmas with 4gig and win7/64 bit, was contemplating about getting an additional 4 gig ram but so far the giant earth map scenario runs smooth (turns ~15 sec in ancient era in windowed mode), I can even listen to external music, have firefox with several livestreams tabs open and at the same time load on 3 progs (tourtoise, torrent and dc++) with full bandwith. thx you magnificent programmers!!^^

P.S. gonna see how it works in later ages but so long its super perfect...

 

[Faustmouse]

Like above stated, if you have money go for the i7 no doubt there, but if not the i5 is ok.

I think, if Koshling can Play with a 2.8 GHz CPU, I can do this, too. So I would just buy some additional RAM und change from Win Xp to Win 7. If the Turns take some time, I'll read a book while playing

off-Topic, is there a giant Earth Map avaidable for V21?

 

[strategyonly]

I should use Win 7 with 64 bit

This is a must have.

 

[DRJ]

I think, if Koshling can Play with a 2.8 GHz CPU, I can do this, too. So I would just buy some additional RAM und change from Win Xp to Win 7. If the Turns take some time, I'll read a book while playing

off-Topic, is there a giant Earth Map avaidable for V21?

Not specially for v21 I think but it works with it - this version from Jan, 23rd is the newest one I found and the one I play atm. The 38 civs version with american tribes is pretty good. Got to unload in .../fireaxis/.../beyond the sword/mods/C2C/public maps

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11210433&postcount=101

 

[Acularius]

Classes kept me busy on my normally less busy days, so I wasn't able to update the way I wanted to. :/

As for specs, my laptop is a i7 @ 2GB, with 8GB of ram... and nVidia 1.5 GB card, and it seems to play the game well enough with around 30 seconds in between turns (If you think this is long, play Pride of Nations) at around the classic era. HAving the AI on Ruthless and Agressive tends to keep the massive buildups in check as they frequently spend themselves on each other thus keeping down the computing of turns the AI does.
(Playing the 38 civ map) [I had a recent spell of playing Dawn of War II, so I'll be playing that game again soon]

(64 bit OS, and I used a 4 GB switch that I had from somewhere else)

 

[Faustmouse]

Thx for the map!
Are the start positions fix? And if not, is it possible to change that?

 

[JosEPh_II]

I think, if Koshling can Play with a 2.8 GHz CPU, I can do this, too. So I would just buy some additional RAM und change from Win Xp to Win 7. If the Turns take some time, I'll read a book while playing

off-Topic, is there a giant Earth Map avaidable for V21?

I use Win XP Pro x64 and I can't read between turns.

I have a E7400 Wolfdale cpu Dual Core 2.8 GHz on a Gigabyte Sata mobo. I use 8GB of DDR2 1066mhz ram and a MSI R6450 (Radeon) vid card with 2GB DDR3 on board ram.

JosEPh

 

[zeinul]

I have 3 yo laptop with 4GB RAM and P8700 Core2Duo CPU Win7 64bit NVidia GeForce 9300M GS. It takes roughly 3-4 min between turns on one less than biggest map in middle-renascence-industrial ages. How can I increase performance of the game?

 

[Koshling]

I have 3 yo laptop with 4GB RAM and P8700 Core2Duo CPU Win7 64bit NVidia GeForce 9300M GS. It takes roughly 3-4 min between turns on one less than biggest map in middle-renascence-industrial ages. How can I increase performance of the game?

You can't really, apart from making sure to keep up with latest versions. Each release is typically faster than its predescesor, but within the constraints of your hardware at that point of the game those turn times sound in the order of what I would expect (or at least not radically slower).

If you use the SVN version it's somewhat faster than v20 at this point, but it's not going to make more than a few 10s of seconds difference.

Apart from hardware, make sure your laptop is plugged in, and not running on a mobile power saving setting or something (which will under-clock the CPU). Beyond that map size and number of civs are the main determinants, and as games get more developed (later eras) things inevitably slow down because there are far more units in play (and buildings to consider and so on).

 

[Faustmouse]

Do the graphic-settings play a big role in game-speed or RAM-usage?

 

[Koshling]

Do the graphic-settings play a big role in game-speed or RAM-usage?

In memory usage they play a significant role. In game speed not so much typically.