Running Civ 5 on a Laptop

[ManakinRex]

Having enjoyed Civ 3 & 4 I definitely want to play Civ 5 yet after reading several posts regarding specs/ hardware issues/ etc. I seem to be a bit in the dark. I've tested my machine on 'can u run it.com' and it fails yet I've seen setups by other users on the web with lower specs who claim to run it just fine. Could anyone confirm my laptop's specs as being 'viable' to play civ 5?

Type: Toshiba Satellite
Processor: AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile Rm-70 2.00 GHz
RAM: 3.00 (2.75 GB usable)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
Video Card: ATI Radeon 3100

Even if I have to play on 'minimal' settings that would be enough for me. I just want to confirm that it could even 'run'.

Thank you for reading this, happy playing

MR

 

[FeiLing]

You barely fulfill the minimal specs. It should run, but it probably would be advantageous if you were a sadomasochist.

 

[The_J]

the Radeon 3100 is probably weaker than a Radeon 2600, therefore it doesn't match the minimum requirements.
Easiest way to find it out: Try the demo on Steam.

 

[Yeshua]

the Radeon 3100 is probably weaker than a Radeon 2600, therefore it doesn't match the minimum requirements.
Easiest way to find it out: Try the demo on Steam.

The_J, I ran the demo on Steam and it played really well. If you remember, I posted my computer specs in another thread. Do you foresee problems if I get the full game after a certain amount of turns?

 

[The_J]

Nearly every computer has a problem with civ5 in the late game ^^.
If it might come to the point at which it is unplayable...no idea .

 

[timtofly]

I recently "upgraded" to a DELL XPS.

i7 2.2 with 8gigs ram. The part that helps is the graphics and it is a nvidea geforce 555M.

In fact I was able to watch a bluray movie, via HDMI on a pioneer 60 inch plasma while playing the game at the same time on the laptop screen. This was on a huge map around turn 1500 of a marathon game. There were no graphical slow downs or glitches. There is the normal 10 to 25 second in-between-turn time. There is still an occasional loss of frame rate, but the last patch has fixed a lot of the issues. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this laptop does not have the same issues that have been reported by others. While slightly crazy in attempting to play it on my old laptop which meant waiting 15 seconds every time I wanted to add an item to the city build que, I now find myself playing a whole game in one sitting and still wasting time.

Two things: Nvidea designed their cards with this game in mind. This game was designed for multiple things to happen at the same time.

When one is looking for a computer they need to take these two things into account. I am not saying that AMD/radeon's will not work, but I am saying that nvidea may have a design advantage. The other thing is finding a computer that takes advantage of multiple cpu to gpu to RAMM pairings that eliminate bottle necks in the games ability to process extreme amounts of data.

There are laptops out there that will do just fine with the game, I am happy to say.