To Upgrade Or Not?

[Broncos1988]

I Currently have the following computer:

AMD XP 2000+ CPU (1.68 GHZ)
512mb DDR 266Mhz Ram
GeForce 4 MX 440 64mb AGP Video Card

What i am looking at upgrading to is a:

AMD XP 64 3000+ Venice CPU Socket 939
1GB DDR 400Mhz Ram
GeForce 6200 128mb PCI Express Video Card

I on a bit of a budget. I guess my main concern is the video card for the
new system. Does anyone have any suggestions for another model which doesnt cost to much more?. Also would you suggest Nvida or ATI for video card?

Any other suggestions welcome.

 

[Zanmato]

I would suggest sticking to nvidia to start with. I don't see any problems with running that spec although I would prefer the 256mb of video RAM rather than 128. As with all those kind of questions about spec all I will say is that Civ4 'should' work to a fairly decent degree. Sadly, with this game it's like 'you pay your money and take your chances' as to if it will run at all on some systems. I do also remember some users having issues with Civ4 on 64-bit systems and I don't know if this issue has been resolved or worked around.

 

[senwiz]

None of that upgrade will hurt you any place but the checkbook.

I, too, would stick with the Nvidia. You will find fans of both ATI and Nvidia here everywhere. LOL Personally, I have only owned two ATI cards, my laptop and another card, and both have given me fits at times. But, I have owned 6 Nvidia cards now, and the only reason I replace them is cuz they get WAY too old to be servicable, i.e. driver updates and such.

I would defintely say that the more video ram you can throw at this game, the better your performance will be.