Good to know I'm not missing out on too much then. I've been wanting a new card for awhile now. I'm playing games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion at a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and the 8800GT isn't quite up to the task of maxing the graphics on either. But I don't want to bother with another DirectX 10 card, I'd rather wait for an 11 capable unit. Maybe next year then.
System Requirements?
- Thread starter rwil
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Good to know I'm not missing out on too much then. I've been wanting a new card for awhile now. I'm playing games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion at a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and the 8800GT isn't quite up to the task of maxing the graphics on either. But I don't want to bother with another DirectX 10 card, I'd rather wait for an 11 capable unit. Maybe next year then.
I can play Oblivion on my MacBook, it has pretty low specs needed
Arkangelus
Prince
To be fair, there's a big difference between being able to run it on basic and to be able to have all of the options turned up. Oblivion especially is notorious for needing a TON of horsepower at the higher settings and resolutions, but most games will play on most things if you're prepared to knock down the graphic settings. For games like Civ (and drawing on my own experience, The Sims 3, since I helped out a lot of casual users with that), they'll play well enough so long as you've got a certain feature (pixel shader i think?) and 128/256Mb of RAM on your card, but the higher settings you go, the more detail you can have. For those on a budget, a £20 8400GS will run the Sims 3 just fine, and I expect that you'll see the same with Civ 5, especially as they've said they want it to be laptop capable, just obviously some of the gorgeous effects that we've seen in the screenshots will have to be turned off for that.
Some of the keener discussion though is aimed at the high end stuff - if you're going to put down £100+ on a peice of hardware, its reasonable to expect that you should be able to get 100% of the benefit out of the games you play on it! Thats where there's a little concern just now, wondering if the current first-gen DX11 cards will deal properly with the DX11 effects.
I actually run it pretty well, I have all visual things slightly below default because it is simply Oblivion running in a shell so the shell uses processing power, my Macs specs
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Arkangelus
Prince
It'll be graphics card that's the main constraint, probably, and resolution. It was (one of) the first to have HDR lighting, plus the engine isnt very stable.
(Sorry this is getting pretty off topic
)
So yes, System requirements for Civ 5 have been stated as being pretty low on the minimum settings, but we know that it uses DX11 so can push the newest graphics cards too, we just dont know how much yet.
(Sorry this is getting pretty off topic
)So yes, System requirements for Civ 5 have been stated as being pretty low on the minimum settings, but we know that it uses DX11 so can push the newest graphics cards too, we just dont know how much yet.
sgrig
Comrade
I wonder if I'll be able to play Civ5 on my laptop, which although has a pretty decent T9550 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 3GB of RAM but has Intel X3100 graphics. Wouldn't really want to buy a new computer just for a game!
Arkangelus
Prince
They did specifically say that they were developing 'for laptops', and since a huge majority use either Intel GMA (that The Sims 3 ran fine) or an integrated nvidia or ATI card, I'd guess that should run. Usually with the Intel ones you need a bit of extra RAM to run 3D games on it, but I would THINK that it should be able to handle Civ on a basic level fine. If you've not got too much added sparkles and graphics it should be more taxing on other resources than most 3D games that will run happily on lesser graphics setups.
Well that's the difference. I don't find the default settings to be good enough. I have everything cranked right up, with a couple of things like grass distance set beyond the default max. And I still can't have any anti-aliasing, and need to rely on Streamline to give me a boost in certain areas. I'd also like to be able to use some VWD objects in the game, which is out of the question with my 8800GT. It's not that I can't play the game, I just can't have it look as good as I want it to. Close, but not quite. Besides, I doubt very much if your notebook is running at a 1920 x 1200 resolution. That makes a huge difference right there. Lowering the resolution is not an option either since that's the only widescreen format my monitor will support.
But I have no problems at all with Civ 4, and I suspect the same will hold true for version 5. It would be nice to be able to see those DirectX 11 effects though. I'm curious to know what kind of a difference that will make.
actually I run it like that because I use a lot of mods for it (without them I can run mostly maxed out except for water reflection and stuff as that screws with the game), I use Anti-Aliasing 2x (did I get that right?) I run it at 1280x800 res,
if it can run on netbooks, it will run on my Mac
CTH
Prince
Corei3 is not the worst processor out there, it is not a monster but I think it will run civ 5 fairly well, the processors are rarly the bottleneck in games these days. Perhaps mostly because if you buy a budget processor you buy a budget GPU at the same time and then the gpu would be the bottleneck.
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
Fairly sure that processor should be fine since the iX series are pretty standard. I am sure Firaxis would tweak the settings until they got an acceptable performance from the iX chipsets. They are kinda the benchmark processor.
I am even sure the game will run fine on my core2duo E8500, 2 cores@3.1Ghz. I have a 9800 GT so my GPU is fine, and I trust the game will be fast enough as a result...
I am even sure the game will run fine on my core2duo E8500, 2 cores@3.1Ghz. I have a 9800 GT so my GPU is fine, and I trust the game will be fast enough as a result...
Arkangelus
Prince
Although its not on the same sort of level as a dedicated GPU, the i3s have essentially just moved the integrated graphics chip from the motherboard to the processor. Assuming the baseline of minimum requirements stays reasonable you should WELL be able to handle it, but you might not get the same sort of dynamic shadow effects and sparkly water as you would if you had a dedicated graphics card.
Here is a relevant page of an i3 review that said that basically on games that are designed to be optimized, especially for laptops, the integrated graphics chip performed well.
I'm in the market for a new notebook and definitely want to be able to run Civ 5. Any thoughts on whether the Asus U30JC-A1 would be up to the task?
I like the portability of this product, but am not sure the i3 processor and GeForce 310M will have enough horsepower to run the new Civ.
Thanks
I like the portability of this product, but am not sure the i3 processor and GeForce 310M will have enough horsepower to run the new Civ.
Thanks
I do both, lots of mods and maxed out. And no AA. Though I don't really understand why you're being so contrary with your posts on this. If I say my video card isn't good enough for my own games, why is that an issue for you?
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
Welcome to civfanatics, tmmill! 
Edit: Sorry thought the Asus U30JC-A1 was a motherboard rather than a complete notebook. Will look up the specs now, one sec pls.
Edit 2: Ok cannot seem to find more exact specifics, but from what I see I think that notebook should be fine when running Civ V. You may need to tune the graphics down somewhat to avoid noticing a hickup here and there, but in the end it should get an acceptable performance just fine.
Edit: Sorry thought the Asus U30JC-A1 was a motherboard rather than a complete notebook. Will look up the specs now, one sec pls.
Edit 2: Ok cannot seem to find more exact specifics, but from what I see I think that notebook should be fine when running Civ V. You may need to tune the graphics down somewhat to avoid noticing a hickup here and there, but in the end it should get an acceptable performance just fine.
I've pasted the CNET review below for the notebook I referenced if it helps.
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-u30jc-a1/4505-3121_7-34043767.html?tag=latestReviews
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-u30jc-a1/4505-3121_7-34043767.html?tag=latestReviews
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
That was the one I looked into as well.
What bugs me though is that no specifications about the FSB and such are in there. I suppose we may assume that the memory in there is fully utilised by the mobo. This would make for some very solid memory speeds, also the processor is fine. I am not really up to speed when it comes to the performance of video cards for notebooks. I cannot comment on that too much, but I would assume there will be settings in the game that you can lower should it come to that.
Taken all that in consideration I think you can tune the game enough so that it should run at an acceptable speed, but I doubt the laptop's performance should be stellar. It will be fine, but if you are looking into buying a computer for the sole purpose of running Civ V I think that you can find something more acceptable for the money.
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