System Requirements?

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Everyone is making (hopefully) educated guesses. But aside from the obvious questions that you should know the answers to anyway (yes, your core i7 with a high end graphics card will work, or no your 704 MB of RAM isn't going to do the trick), no one is saying anything that should be taken as gospel. Actually I find it kind of hilarious how long this thread is given that no one really knows what the specs will be yet.

this thread is long because a lot of people are between that i7 core and that 704 MB RAM . my question. how much will cost a laptop that can run civ 5 in september ?
 
Do you mean run at all, run okay, run decently or run well?
 
if i look at the any PC at future shop i have this one for example. I guess my brother in law could reduce it 100$ for me...

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...fp-10144843-msimsi156intelcorei5430m226ghz-en

I just want a hdmi video output big screen and run civ 5 at middle settings . i guess they'll be cheaper by september...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a $500 laptop won't likely play thus game at medium settings at higher resolutions. 1080p resolution is 1920x1080. You'll need a dedicated video card which will add to the cost. around a $1000 for a laptop, possibly $750.

Now if this system will be on a table in the living room I would suggest an HTPC type system that are small and for $500 (without monitor) should get you a decent system to play at medium settings. and you should be able to play all games at medium since it will have a much better card for the price.

remember, a laptop gaming card is limited to "Mini PCIe" speeds of 1x (special versions are x4), while a desktop has standard PCIe x16 capabilities..

Here's a copy of my #255 post:
While getting new 10.6 (June) ATI drivers today, I cam across this article on Acer releasing new Laptops. A high end 18.5" 1080P i7 system with ATI 5850 Mobility 1GB card for $1599, and some mid-range laptops 5745(Intel) and 7745(AMD) at $699 and up, which seem to have ATI 5650 Mobility.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365423,00.asp

I looked and newegg.com has them for sale.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Acer has been good from my experiences with them. But I'd definitely wait on getting a laptop until Civ 5 releases for real world test, or at least some beta runs showing how well it runs on various laptops. also, the longer you wait, the more options you'll have.

-=Mark=-

Currently, only ATI 5000 series video cards support DX11 on budget laptops. All others only support DX10, if that is important to you. nvidia may have one by late Sept, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

-=Mark=-
 
this thread is long because a lot of people are between that i7 core and that 704 MB RAM .

Yeah, and that's my point. For people with computers inbetween the obvious ranges, you're not going to get an answer here. At best you'll get a fairly educated guess that you shouldn't take as final anyway, and at worst you'll get someone talking out of places not normally reserved for speaking. I know everyone wants to know now if their comp will run the game, but if you really want to know for sure you'll just have to wait.

Two months to go, then everyone will know exactly what kind of specs they need and how much a comp with those specs will cost.
 
They have said that your pc "should" run civ v better than it ran civ iv. I have an i7 860 and a gtx 275 and even civ iv isn't smooth as butter(the graphics Is las gen but still) at certain points of the game. However from what they say I suspect V will run much better. If your pc just barely scraped by with civ iv, I don't think they can do anything to male V run that much better, atleast enough for you to notice. If you are planning on keeping your old pc, think if you want another 5 plus years of that experiance :) with V that you've been having with iv.

A good gaming pc can always be used for surfing the web, and typing reports and sending emails. A home office pc can always be used for surfing the web, and typing reports and sending emails, but will never be a good gaming pc!'

Just don't go and buy a pc if it sounds good, ie quad core with 8gigs ram and a 1gb graphics card!! Sweet!! Chances are the processor is too slow, the rams crap, and the graphics are a 6 year old rebranded model!! Cough nvidia cough! Reaserched each part yourself, don't ask people here, because half the time they might be wrong or might not know and guess. Read legit reviews, not user reviews, people are idiots, and may love something that's crap, just because they don't know better. Also never listen to sales people!!! They are mostly liars who will sell you sh@t for a commision!! This is all from personal experiance!! Your best bet is to build your own from the ground up, you'll get what You want and not what a company wants you to want! It's cheaper(most of the time, unless you have expensive tastes :) ) and you'll have a better understanding of what you own!!

This is all my opinion, and is just a general statement!
 
if i look at the any PC at future shop i have this one for example. I guess my brother in law could reduce it 100$ for me...

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...fp-10144843-msimsi156intelcorei5430m226ghz-en

I just want a hdmi video output big screen and run civ 5 at middle settings . i guess they'll be cheaper by september...



I put my PC in my living room on a small console table beside the fireplace.

as for gaming i have a baby, an Xbox, a Wii. I only play PC for Civ

That notebook is very weak. For 699 you can have much better notebook
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=aec973cec411e99044fd644be876c9e2en02

If its going to stay at home all the time anyway you either can build (its very easy) better PC for 500$ or buy used PC with recent HW and very good performance around 500 bucks.
 
Did anyone else watch the GDC talk the Firaxis graphics programmer guy gave?
My basic summary is:

"We've made the engine/programming stuff so damn efficient we can have thousands of animated characters on screen at any one time while Civ IV struggled with 100.... oh and by the way, we can make the game run on integrated graphics"

[minus water animation/sparkliness, idle animations, depth fog and perhaps a few other zero impact on gameplay things]

?
 
So I keep telling them, staterman. . . :)

I would add "Oh, and the graphics will no longer cause the rest of the game to slow to crawl in the late stages of games on huge maps."
 
Did anyone else watch the GDC talk the Firaxis graphics programmer guy gave?
My basic summary is:

"We've made the engine/programming stuff so damn efficient we can have thousands of animated characters on screen at any one time while Civ IV struggled with 100.... oh and by the way, we can make the game run on integrated graphics"

[minus water animation/sparkliness, idle animations, depth fog and perhaps a few other zero impact on gameplay things]

?

Or maybe no terrain like in Civ 4 if your Graphics card didnt have some feature,
 
Did anyone else watch the GDC talk the Firaxis graphics programmer guy gave?
My basic summary is:

"We've made the engine/programming stuff so damn efficient we can have thousands of animated characters on screen at any one time while Civ IV struggled with 100.... oh and by the way, we can make the game run on integrated graphics"

[minus water animation/sparkliness, idle animations, depth fog and perhaps a few other zero impact on gameplay things]

?

yes, but you will be seeing more more of them (can't stacks and IIRC ~20 characters/unit)
 
While increasing the texture they have scaled back the number of "objects" requiring texture. For example: for land you have plains, grassland and mountains, instead of grassland, plains, hills, forest, mountains. Plains now have a plains texture, hills texture, and forest texture. Having less "base" objects allows the game to be scaled down to run more effeciently. Same with a unit, the "base" unit will have access to hundreds of textures.

Like Thyrwyn, and staterman have said, graphics will not bog down the game. You will need hard drive space, but today's processors and memory will run the game smoothly. Now if you want to run Civ 5, Office, and dozens of other programs in the back ground, you may have problems. In fact Civ 5 will have it's own in game browser, to eliminate having another one running in the back ground.

While building your own computer, may be fun, you have to be sure that what you are buying is still mainstream and compatible with each other. 95% of retail computers have been tested to perform optimally or they would not put them on the market. The issue that most people have is they have too many programs running at the same time, whether intentionally or not. Most programs have been picked up online without the user even aware of their pressence.
 
That notebook is very weak. For 699 you can have much better notebook
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=aec973cec411e99044fd644be876c9e2en02

If its going to stay at home all the time anyway you either can build (its very easy) better PC for 500$ or buy used PC with recent HW and very good performance around 500 bucks.

no building, i usually have them at 50% at future shop only... I just took the first one that came out for my example... but why is this one so better then the one i took in my example. it has to be a laptop too...no way a desktop ever returning in my home ever...
 
no building, i usually have them at 50% at future shop only... I just took the first one that came out for my example... but why is this one so better then the one i took in my example. it has to be a laptop too...no way a desktop ever returning in my home ever...

Its GPU is much much better.

Why do you refuse desktop? They have better price/performance, can be upgraded, its easy to OC (overclock) it etc.
 
no building, i usually have them at 50% at future shop only... I just took the first one that came out for my example... but why is this one so better then the one i took in my example. it has to be a laptop too...no way a desktop ever returning in my home ever...

as rebel said, it has a much, much better video. Yours had Intel HD video which has only 12 shader processors, while his shows an ATI Mobility HD 5650 which has 400 shader processors! quite a bit more video power. Also the Intel video only supports DX10 and the 5650 supports DX11, which means even more video power as it has more built-in video functions that are processed by the video card and not the CPU of your computer's processor. Plus the 5650 will handle medium settings on 1080p monitor, while Intel's HD video will be luck to run 1080p on low settings. also, the 5650 has 1GB of its own memory, so it doesn't use your CPU's memory and take away from your 4GB of windows memory like the Intel HD video does.

The only thing I seen lacking is "Switchable Graphics" that allows you to switch from integrated video to dedicated video to save on battery life. But if this thing isn't going to be leaving the house, then "Switchable Graphics" isn't a big deal.
 
Well, Starcraft II will have the following specs
(could it be that civ5 will have sg. similar?)

Minimum System Requirements*:

PC: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 (Latest Service Packs) with DirectX 9.0c
2.6 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
128 MB PCIe NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT or ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card or better

Mac: Mac OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
Intel Processor
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT or ATI Radeon X1600 or better

PC/Mac: 12 GB available HD space
1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista/Windows 7 users, 2 GB for Mac users)
DVD-ROM drive
Broadband Internet connection
1024X720 minimum display resolution

*Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.

Recommended Specifications:

PC: Windows Vista/Windows 7
Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
2 GB RAM
512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon HD 3870 or better

Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo processor
4 GB system RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT or ATI Radeon HD 4670 or better
 
Well, Starcraft II will have the following specs
(could it be that civ5 will have sg. similar?)

Minimum System Requirements*:

PC: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 (Latest Service Packs) with DirectX 9.0c
2.6 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
128 MB PCIe NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT or ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card or better

Mac: Mac OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
Intel Processor
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT or ATI Radeon X1600 or better

PC/Mac: 12 GB available HD space
1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista/Windows 7 users, 2 GB for Mac users)
DVD-ROM drive
Broadband Internet connection
1024X720 minimum display resolution

*Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.

Recommended Specifications:

PC: Windows Vista/Windows 7
Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
2 GB RAM
512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon HD 3870 or better

Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo processor
4 GB system RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT or ATI Radeon HD 4670 or better
SC2 is a RTS game, therefore it needs good FPS in order to play well since it depends greatly on accurate and prompt user input. Civ relies less on FPS, so I would think that the system mentioned in SC2 requirements can also run civ5. I would however think that any single core processor would be a bit too light to play.
 
SC2 is a RTS game, therefore it needs good FPS in order to play well since it depends greatly on accurate and prompt user input. Civ relies less on FPS, so I would think that the system mentioned in SC2 requirements can also run civ5. I would however think that any single core processor would be a bit too light to play.

single core: as for minimum?
 
single core: as for minimum?
It would work of course, but it would almost certainly be a light processor for a game optimised for multi-core processors.

That being said, cheap multicore processors work way faster than single cores and they can be had for less that $100.
 
I now have a P4 3.0 GHz - I thought of waiting for a Sandy Bridge CPU,
playing civ5 with P4 till that... but eh, not sure I can wait
 
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