Two tiny points that show I'm eagerly awaiting CiV

[@nthony]

1) I bought a new graphics card last night, an upgrade from my GeForce 7800GT, just to be the safe side.

2) I noticed that Steam has the release date as 1st September 2010.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Me, will buy a new computer when the game gets realeased!

 

[Shurdus]

My core2dua e8500, 4Gb RAM and GeForce 9800 GT should do the trick just fine so I am not worried in terms of system requirements.

 

[Tarkhan]

I woulda got an 8800 at least...the 7000's are a few years old now.

I have a GTX 250, but my system should be good enough - if Civ4 taught us anything it's that processor > GPU when it comes to speeding up large games. It's processing the AI turns that eat up the time, not the graphics.

 

[@nthony]

Tarkan

I got a MSI Radeon 4670 1GB DDR3 as my replacement, my original card was a 7800GT (and it's so outdated now!). My processor is an AMD X2 4400 with 3GB menory- should be good for at least another 2 years of gaming I would have thought.

 

[Quintillus]

Tarkan

I got a MSI Radeon 4670 1GB DDR3 as my replacement, my original card was a 7800GT (and it's so outdated now!). My processor is an AMD X2 4400 with 3GB menory- should be good for at least another 2 years of gaming I would have thought.

It depends on how large of a map you like to play, really. Standard size and you'll be fine. Civ4 Huge, and you'll probably notice the in-between-turn times with your CPU by the late ages. Civ3Huge (which is much huger than Civ4 huge - about 1.5 times as large in terms of tiles), and you'll definitely notice the in-between-turn times. Civ3Mega (roughly 3 times the size of Civ4 huge), and you'd have already purchased a faster CPU and stuck with the 7800 GT. Granted there's a lot of variables - how many civs, how developed the cities are, etc., but a mega-scaled Civ3 can make turn times noticeable on a 3.33 GHz Core 2 E8600 - which is not only 1.5 times as fast as your CPU in clockspeed, but is faster per clock as well. The only reason Civ4 can't be as demanding is that it gets memory allocation faults if you try to play such a large map.

So if Standard, or even Large, is your preferred map size, you ought to be fine with that CPU. If you love gigantic maps of epic proportions, you'll probably find the Athlon X2 4400 more limiting than the 7800 GT would be. But it also is more difficult to upgrade to a recent model - you'd have to upgrade the entire motherboard to really get a good boost - so the GPU was almost certainly a more economical upgrade.

 

[@nthony]

Quintillus

You are dead right sir. That was exactly the thought process that went through my head when I ordered the new graphics card instead. I prefer standard to large maps. I really haven't got the spare time for huge maps or marathon settings (unfortunately). I just wanted to future proof my machine for CiV arrival.

 

[Herrhals]

guys, its civ, not GTA. GTA have always been hardware whores in terms of requirements, civ...no. The only thing that you might need is more memory, but that crap is dirt cheap and easy to install.