Technical Requirements?
- Thread starter sbrylski06
- Start date
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
yep, definitely. If steam can upload to you so you use your entire bandwidth for downloading then you can expect no more from steam.
You may want better bandwidth, but that hardly has anything to do with steam. Steam uploads as fast as you can download, which is all you can expect it to do. I stand by my previous statement.
If you have a 30 megabits connection you should get a download speed of about 3.75 megabytes / second. I have the same speed and steam maxes it out with me. Maybe check that your download location in settings is correct, or otherwise pick another one. 200KB is faaar too slow for your connection.
I don't have internet at all. I go online to these forums while at work.
But by time the definitive game is for sale (Expansion Pack #2) and all the bugs have been worked out, three or four years down the road, I probably will have internet. I'll also know from these forums if the game is any good.
player1 fanatic
Fanatic
Isn't this thread supposed to be about laptops, and minimum system requirements, not ISP bandwidth?
Yes...and no.
Internet is now a technical requirement, and bandwith is something which has to be considered, because there's no way to get around the patches (i mean: I have to download them with the connection on my gaming pc. I don't mean: There's no option to prevent it).
Internet is now a technical requirement, and bandwith is something which has to be considered, because there's no way to get around the patches (i mean: I have to download them with the connection on my gaming pc. I don't mean: There's no option to prevent it).
Hephaistos
Chieftain
If you want a graphics card that supports directX11 in your laptop you should look out for one of the following cards.
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650, HD57x0, HD58x0
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M
(source)
About the processor, the i7 ones are faster but more expensive. I'm going for the i5 because it is certainly good enough for the job. I'm going for the 430M just because of the availability in the local stores but if I see a 450,520,540 or 580 I'm gonna consider changing my mind.
(source)
So for a surprisingly low price of only €799.- you can get a decent casual gaming laptop.
for example this Toshiba L670.
Any helpfull comments on this choice?
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650, HD57x0, HD58x0
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M
(source)
About the processor, the i7 ones are faster but more expensive. I'm going for the i5 because it is certainly good enough for the job. I'm going for the 430M just because of the availability in the local stores but if I see a 450,520,540 or 580 I'm gonna consider changing my mind.
(source)
So for a surprisingly low price of only €799.- you can get a decent casual gaming laptop.
for example this Toshiba L670.
Any helpfull comments on this choice?
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
The i5 has a very very poor price/performance ratio for gaming. I would advice anyone not to get an i5 if it is gaming that you are interested in.
Hephaistos
Chieftain
For high end gaming you might be right but i7 laptops cost 1500,- and i5's only 1000,-.
I did some searching and found very little difference in performance between the two, at least not worth the extra costs. Look at these three benchmarks:
Spoiler :
You could maybe say you better get the i5-520M and up because of the lower communication suite performance of the 430M but all the other test are comparable.
Also the article concludes:
- Therefore, a CPU starting at Core i5-430M and up should be recommendable for games. As before, the major part of gaming performance in the future will also be put in the responsibility of graphic cards.
- If you consider the criteria price, performance and power consumption, the Intel Core i5 should be exposed as the obvious winner. You can get the considerably stronger Core i5-520M starting at 225 dollars.
player1 fanatic
Fanatic
You don't really "need" expensive gaming laptop to enjoy Civ5. It probably won't be graphics demeaning like modern game, but will need good processing power to make turns pass faster.
As minimum (for a new laptop), I would take Core i3 machine (big leap forward in performance over older Dual Core and Core2Duo processors), and entry level dedicated graphics, like 5470, 5145 or GT 310M.
As minimum (for a new laptop), I would take Core i3 machine (big leap forward in performance over older Dual Core and Core2Duo processors), and entry level dedicated graphics, like 5470, 5145 or GT 310M.
The 5 GB size figure for Portal may include shared assets with Half-Life 2 or other Source engine games. So if Shurdus already had another Source engine game installed, Steam would not be downloading the full 5 GBs as part of it is already present on the hard drive.
Personally I have a 10 Megabit internet connection, and I usually get 500-1000 KB/sec downloads from steam, which is about what I'd expect.
It is standard practice for ISPs in the United States to oversell bandwidth, theres probably not much you can do about it other than switching to another ISP and keeping your fingers crossed.
Personally I have a 10 Megabit internet connection, and I usually get 500-1000 KB/sec downloads from steam, which is about what I'd expect.
Time to go yell at AT&T about how they are ripping me off
It is standard practice for ISPs in the United States to oversell bandwidth, theres probably not much you can do about it other than switching to another ISP and keeping your fingers crossed.
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
I had nothing installed, so I guess the entire package was downloaded.
Also it is common everywhere for ISP's to oversell bandwidth, since their networks are not busy at peak capacity at all times so the companies are somewhat able to deliver reasonable speeds.
Yeah the old coined phrase "Up To" for example I have a "Up To 8mb" Broadband, but the speed you actually get will be less than this unless your lucky. This is to say your speed depends on how far away you are from your local HUB where your broadband is sent to you via telephone lines from there. The futher away you are and the more telephone cable your connection goes through the slower speed you get. Also ISP's always have contention ratios which you should check to find out what yours is. 20:1 means that you basically share your 8mb connection with 20 other people, so if all these 20 people are online and downloading at max bandwidth you have 1/20th your maximum 8mb speed. This is why during "peak" times you get slow connections, because your peers in your neighbour hood take up your bandwidth. So a few things to note there about ISP's. If you live quite a distance from a hub, I live I think 2 miles from one, which isn't perfect but its okay, then your speed will never be perfect. I have a 8mb line but it seems to me to be more like a 2-5 mb line. (Depending on Peak times) with a speed of 200-700 kb's.
If you only ever get 200k'bs from a "30mb connection" then No your not getting what you pay for. It is possible to get ridicliously fast connections, but you have to have the infrastructure. I.e Your Government needs to lay down optic's like veins to a country so that the Internet is SUPER SUPER fast. Then and only then can the Technology of the future with Terrabyte game files be downloaded easily.
As for Physical game requirements, its too early to guess these, but civ have said they are aim'ing to have the game run even on older computers. So though the faster and newer your computer the faster the game will run, you may not need new hardware to run ciV.
If you only ever get 200k'bs from a "30mb connection" then No your not getting what you pay for. It is possible to get ridicliously fast connections, but you have to have the infrastructure. I.e Your Government needs to lay down optic's like veins to a country so that the Internet is SUPER SUPER fast. Then and only then can the Technology of the future with Terrabyte game files be downloaded easily.
As for Physical game requirements, its too early to guess these, but civ have said they are aim'ing to have the game run even on older computers. So though the faster and newer your computer the faster the game will run, you may not need new hardware to run ciV.
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
What an odd metaphor...
Also I think that you might not even need that much computing power at all. My Core2Duo e8500 is of course behind the i-series in raw computing power, it is not behind by that much. I think it should be well up the challenge for civ5, even though the latest quad cores should be able to run the game better. We shall see.
deanej
Deity
I wouldn't. It's generally a bad idea to upgrade your OS without a very good reason. The exception is Vista to 7, but even then I wouldn't do it unless you can get 7 cheap or really want one of its features.
No lillefix no games will ever demand vista or 7 from you, or atleast not for many years, vista isn't good enough to become the main used windows software and I dont know if 7 is any better. Xp will still be around for some time and if game developers want any sales they will make sure its not incompatible with Xp. You should never update your version of Windows, merely accept the newest version of windows currently out when you buy a new PC which you should do ever 3-5 years atleast if you want to keep up with new game's requirements, unless you like to build or upgrade your current PC's. I prefer to buy new ones from a shop.
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