Some upgrade advice please

[wlb79]

Hi, I've just joined the forum as I'm in need of your expertise.

I'm trying to play the Civ V demo, and I've found that its the first game which won't run properly on my machine. The game runs slowly, the worker location icons in the city screen don't line up, most icons are pixelated and broken up, etc.

Having said that my PC is now four years old.
The specs are.

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
Windows XP

I'd like to know what is in most need of upgrading and what to go with, I don't want to build a new system just yet, just an upgrade.

Does anyone think they can help?

 

[Lamargo]

Your graphics card is below the requirements. The rest of your system, ie Processor and memory, are just scraping the bottom of the barrel. Upgrading the graphics card to one which is supported will fix the graphics issues but you will likely be stuck on fairly low settings without upping the processor and memory (amount and speed) also. Check what your motherboard can handle and see if you can drop a faster processor (a lot of dual core motherboards can take quads too, but check before buying!) and memory in there or at least bump up another gb of ram if you can't go faster.

 

[tokala]

The video card is NOT below the requirements
It should run Civ5 in DX9 mode around medium settings.
Sounds more like a driver issue. Try uninstalling your old driver, then install the latest for your card. But CPU and RAM are indeed minimum.

Overall the system is fairly well balanced, i.e upgrading only one component will be of limited use as than the next one will be the bottleneck.

Upgrade options sorted by "bang for buck" ratio:
Option one (for free): Set FSB speed in BIOS to 1066 and RAM:FSB ratio to 1:1. Voila, CPU is running 25% faster.
Your RAM is suitable for FSB 1333 at 1:1, so setting it to that might work, too. BUT it might be to much for the CPU and the system might refuse to boot. So for more advanced overclocking you should read up on things
Option two (~$40) Add another 2GB of RAM, preferably of EXACTLY the same type as already installed. Might be a good idea for general usage, too.
Option three (>~$60): new video card. HD 5670 seems to be the "card just right for Civ". But anything upwards from HD5570 and GT240 should be already a huge improvement.
Option four (~$150) new CPU. Quad core preferably, something with more Cache and higher frequency compared to the old one recommended.Consult the CPU suppport list . Make sure you look at the correct one for your board revision

 

[Lamargo]

The video card is NOT below the requirements

Yes it is, it's a Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT.

The games minimum requirements are: Video: 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT or better, 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS or better, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics.

The X1900 XT is below the stated minimum requirements.

When compat testing is done on a title, the lowest model card, which does not show any issues, is listed as the minimum which is supported. This suggests that cards below the HD2600 XT will have some kind of known issue and are therefore not supported to run the game.

 

[tokala]

Yes it is, it's a Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT.

The games minimum requirements are: Video: 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT or better, 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS or better, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics.

The X1900 XT is below the stated minimum requirements.

When compat testing is done on a title, the lowest model card, which does not show any issues, is listed as the minimum which is supported. This suggests that cards below the HD2600 XT will have some kind of known issue and are therefore not supported to run the game.

I suggest you do a little research on video card specifications and nomenclature before you spread further disinformation

 

[Lamargo]

I suggest you do a little research on video card specifications and nomenclature before you spread further disinformation

I suggest you try and learn to admit when your wrong. I've explained how the X1900 is below requirements and I know from my years of experience working in the games industry and technical support that if the X1900 was a supported graphics chipset, it would be listed as such. The fact that a higher level card is listed instead, and not this one, supports this as fact.

Apologies to wlb79. I was trying to help you by giving you factual information and seem to have been trolled in the process. I am trying to bring my knowledge from my working life to help fellow civ fans out within the community but it seems like a waste of my time right now.

 

[MarcusAgrippa]

I suggest you try and learn to admit when your wrong. I've explained how the X1900 is below requirements and I know from my years of experience working in the games industry and technical support that if the X1900 was a supported graphics chipset, it would be listed as such. The fact that a higher level card is listed instead, and not this one, supports this as fact.

Apologies to wlb79. I was trying to help you by giving you factual information and seem to have been trolled in the process. I am trying to bring my knowledge from my working life to help fellow civ fans out within the community but it seems like a waste of my time right now.

Source : CIV V System requirements thread on official 2K forum

Between Minimum and Recommended Spec:
nVidia 9600GSO
nVidia GT 330
ATi 5570
nVidia 8800GTS 320MB
ATi HD 3200
nVidia 8800GT 256MB
ATi X1900 XT, ATi HD2900 XT

Why? Because HD2600 XT perfs are way below X1900XT 512 ones (kinda 50% difference).

 

[tokala]

I suggest you try and learn to admit when your wrong. I've explained how the X1900 is below requirements and I know from my years of experience working in the games industry and technical support that if the X1900 was a supported graphics chipset, it would be listed as such. The fact that a higher level card is listed instead, and not this one, supports this as fact.

Apologies to wlb79. I was trying to help you by giving you factual information and seem to have been trolled in the process. I am trying to bring my knowledge from my working life to help fellow civ fans out within the community but it seems like a waste of my time right now.

Okay, now you got me genuinely interested. I mistook your reply for the usual "1900<2600, therefore 1900 is too slow" answer. Something like "2600XT or better" sounds for the average geek like "more powerful" not "more modern", and I would assume that would be just the slowest ATI card which was available for testing on which it would run more or less fine. As the X1000s and X2000s have the same DX feature set, one would assume that as long as the older card is faster, it should work

So if any model numbers are given in the System Requirements, this actually means either older cards were not tested at all, or have not received the bugfixing efforts that newer hardware get?

The X1900s have quite a good reputation, and still have enough raw power for lots of modern games.

 

[wlb79]

Thanks for your help (I'm sure a little disagreement is healthy).

I'm able to run fairly new games, Modern warfare 2 and Napoleon, on mid-high settings with only the occasional crash on Napoleon when I put weather effects too high.

I am suprised that I have so much trouble on Civ V even when all settings are on Minimum. As Tokala said it may be a driver issue but this is a problem as ATI have put the X1900 series on a "Legacy support structure" which means that the last driver was released in February and there won't be another.

I think what might be best is if I buy a near high end graphics card and a cheap couple of gig extra ram, then by christmas upgrade the processor, m-board, and DDR3 ram. +win7.

I know you suggest overclocking the CPU but I'm a bit unsure about it, can it all go wrong if I do?

 

[tokala]

Thanks for your help (I'm sure a little disagreement is healthy).

I'm able to run fairly new games, Modern warfare 2 and Napoleon, on mid-high settings with only the occasional crash on Napoleon when I put weather effects too high.

I am suprised that I have so much trouble on Civ V even when all settings are on Minimum. As Tokala said it may be a driver issue but this is a problem as ATI have put the X1900 series on a "Legacy support structure" which means that the last driver was released in February and there won't be another.

I think what might be best is if I buy a near high end graphics card and a cheap couple of gig extra ram, then by christmas upgrade the processor, m-board, and DDR3 ram. +win7.

I know you suggest overclocking the CPU but I'm a bit unsure about it, can it all go wrong if I do?

With the FSB set to 1066 it's 99% bulletproof. For more you should have some basic overclocking knowledge, as you might need to adjust voltages, memory timings and cooling, and the board might throw in a monkeywrench or two.

If you plan to do a "Full" upgrade in the near future the most efficient path would be an AMD AM3 board that accepts DDR2 memory. So you could start now with RAM and video card and later add CPU and board and maybe PSU. If you go for a high end GPU, you might need a new PSU already with the C2D.

 

[wlb79]

I've been advised here and elsewhere to overclock my CPU a little. Everyone says to change the FSU to 1066 but I can't see anywhere in the bios that would allow me to do this.

Any help would be appreciated as I'm not going to change anything when I don't know what I'm doing.

 

[tokala]

I've been advised here and elsewhere to overclock my CPU a little. Everyone says to change the FSU to 1066 but I can't see anywhere in the bios that would allow me to do this.

Any help would be appreciated as I'm not going to change anything when I don't know what I'm doing.

Uups, messed that up anyway. The default FSB IS already 1066, you will want to up that to 1333, which corresponds to the specified speed of your RAM. The Core2Duo FSB is a so-called "quad-pumped" bus, as in the data rate is four times as high as the physical frequency.
The BIOS Screen should look similiar to the attached image, with the CPU host frequency at 266MHz. You will want to change that to 333Mhz. Make sure the system memory multiplier is set to "2.00"
That's it

In the unlikely case that your machine mishaves after that, just revert the changes.

 

[wlb79]

Thanks for the help. I set the FSB to 1333 but this crashed the PC on startup so I'm running it at 1224mhz which is about 15% faster and it seems stable now. The big difference will come in a couple of days when I get the new RAM and GPU.

Thanks again for your help.