Video Card Q+A

[Jove]

Ok, if a laptop has the Intel 829156M - aka the Alviso GM - (claims 400mhz, 4 pixel pipelines), is that the same as the Intel GMA? Should I put it on the list of possible laptop purchases, or is it beneath Civ4 standards?

 

[Gatsby]

I have a 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce 4MX 420 with TVout. Will this be good enough? For some reason, when I run the test at srtest.com it says my graphics/video card has no memory, even though I just installed the drivers to it.

If you meet all the other recommended requirements for CIV4, but less than the recommmended for the graphics card, can you still work the game properly if you perform the recommended install option?

 

[Comraddict]

you'll be able to run with 420MX although you could face some speed issues. Civ is turn based strategy, so it won't be bad even if screen movement isn't the greatest.

 

[lightnng]

Please, does anyone have an inkling of an answer to the question below?

If I have a card that DOES support all the nifty 3D hardware acceleration stuff like T&L, but DOES NOT have the required memory... will I be able to run the game? (assuming, say, lowest resolution and minimum graphic options). My laptop - an IBM X31 - has the Radeon Mobility AGP. Advanced enough to support T&L, but only 16MB onboard, and it doesn't share.

Anyone?

 

[Esperologist]

Okay, I went to the test site provided by Hajmyis and ran it for Civ4.
Here is a quick summary of what it says:

-Minimum- (failed)
CPU: AMD Athlon (pass)
CPU Speed: 989 MHz (pass)
RAM: 767.5 MB (pass)
OS: Win XP Pro SP2 Build 2600 (pass)
Video Card: WinFast A340 (GeForce FX 5200) (fail)
-video ram: 138 MB (pass)
-3D acceleration: yes (pass)
-Hardware T&L: yes (pass)
Sound Card: yes (pass)

I don't really understand how my video card failed if it passed the three little things. Sure, there is something wrong with the driver at the moment (a dll isn't working, so I'm going to be reinstalling the driver to try again), but would that really cause a fail?

Side note:
I didn't find Sid Meier's Pirates! in the tester, would it be a comparable test, as in would pass/fail of one be the exact same for the other?
I purchased Pirates and tried to play it. From what I understood, I met the minimum requirements. Pirates played really slow and a bit choppy, but it ran.
Then, one of my family members managed to fry our graphics card just working in a word document. It was an old card, so we expected it.

I then purchased our current card (mentioned in test info above). I purchased without knowing that I needed hardware T&L (silly me, I thought all new ones would have it).

So, the first time I played Pirates after that, the game ran very smooth and quickly. There was an occasional hesitation, but nothing major. Since then, any time I play it runs fine until I get into a fight, be it with swords or canons.
I contacted Firaxis for help and they told me to update my video drivers, so I did that. Still failing, I asked again and they told me that my graphics card probably didn't have hardware T&L. I tried finding out if I had hardware T&L and what cards might have it and couldn't figure it out... so I asked Firaxis if they could tell me how... that was several months ago and I still haven't heard from them.

Oh well, according to the list supplied near the start of this thread, and that test I ran, I have hardware T&L, but I still can't play Pirates and I shouldn't play Civ4. *weeps*

Sorry about the long post, my first post and I'm already torturing you all with a long post.

 

[Comraddict]

your cad will run it with all little details turned on! maybe time to get newest driver from nvidia.com ?

as for 16MB person- nobody knows! most likely you'll be able as there is AGP Aperture thing - video memory from main memory.

 

[Esperologist]

Yeah, I tried to reinstall the drivers for my video card and it said the whql wasn't signed or soeemthing... so I said forget it and installed one from nVidea's site.
Now the video card passes all of dxdiag's direct draw/3d tests and it passes the civ4 playable test. I don't have time to try Pirates right now, but I'll definetly try it asap.

The funny circle I drew is where I was before...
One question, why does it check to make sure the CPU speed is over 1 MHz? Shouldn't it aim higher?

 

[alamo]

I was advised of a graphics utility called 3DAnalyze that can help older cards run 3D games.

The 3D Analyzer Tool was created and refined to overcome limitations posed by modern 3D Games and other Applications on several current mainstream 3D Cards.

Basic functionality will equip non-T&L cards with a software substitute.

Advanced functionality will enable User selectable 3D Features not available in many older Cards. Yet, this is presently achieved not by Emulation but by NUL-Rendering. This means, advanced 3D Features the Card is not capable of, are reported as available in Hardware, but have their calls intercepted and the respective 3D Features will not be rendered.

These functions are based upon the premise and ideas, that :
- 3D Games can be launched, that otherwise would fail due to lack of Hardware support.
- No 3D Game should solely rely on a few, isolated rendering features, and therefor loss of image quality by NUL-Rendering 'should' be minimal and acceptable in most cases.

For the stout-hearted, it can be found here.

 

[theatrus]

I think I'm good....

Athlon64 3500+, 2GB of RAM, and a GeForce 6600 GT. And I don't even play games much. Its my compile and development machine.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Moderator Action: Moved to the Technical forum.

A good thread; shldn't be lost in the mass of GD threads.

 

[alamo]

@IroquoisPlisken - That card isn't listed, but it looks like a fairly new system. You're probably fine. Did you run the system check? You may want to check your drivers (including VGA main board driver).

@sav + bballaust + karlhegna: No Intels have T+L. The DirectX support is a bit fuzzy. They claim to support them all. OpenGL requires their latest drivers. You should update the drivers at least.

@SenshiNeko: Sorry to tell you, but Newegg has that card for $60 before rebate - it's about 3 generations old.

@Jove: Intel gfx do NOT support T+L. Get a real gfx card if the system is for gaming.

@Gatsby: You should be fine! Check your display adapter properties for memory. I would disregard the system test if that disagrees. Will it work w/lame card? We all want to know!

@lightnng: Maybe someone in the technical forum could answer a low memory. My guess is a 50/50 chance. If 16M+ of video textures must load to show a screen then you will have problems.

 

[neriana]

Never, ever, ever buy integrated graphic cards...never. Buy them second hand if you can't really afford them (as I do). I bought a 3 month old 9800PRO for about 60% of new price.

I cannot agree with this enough. Integrated sound is fine. Integrated graphics is like buying a car without tires.

 

[huntunc]

This is what I have, anyone tell me what it means on my Dell Inspiron 1150?

Name Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3582&SUBSYS_017F1028&REV_02\3&61AAA01&0&11
Adapter Type Intel(R) 82852/55 Graphics Controller, Intel Corporation compatible
Adapter Description Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
Adapter RAM 64.00 MB (67,108,864 bytes)
Installed Drivers ialmrnt5.dll
Driver Version 6.14.10.3889
INF File oem4.inf (iMGM section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries Not Available
Resolution Not Available
Bits/Pixel Not Available
Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xE7FFFFFF
Memory Address 0xF6F00000-0xF6F7FFFF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\ialmnt5.sys (6.14.10.3889, 720.58 KB (737,874 bytes), 12/31/1979 10:00 PM)

 

[Jove]

Thanks for all the info everyone. These tech threads have been very useful to me.

If anyone's keeping score at home, I've decided to put off buying a notebook for 8-12 months, as I don't really need one until later anyway and a good one will be cheaper in the future. I'll update my current 1.7GHz Celeron (yes, the wimpy one) with a 128MB 6600GT Ge-force gfx card and 512MB RAM. More gfx than really necessary, but I'm starting to believe the wimpier processor will be just fine with the right support (and not ok with the stock 32MB intel chip). Plus it should be good enough to try some other new games as well. I'm surprised at the number of notebooks out there with hot processors that don't seem to have considered graphics carefully. They cost a fortune and aren't good enough! but if my plan won't work, please let me know...

 

[handyandy]

Has any one tryed the game yet with software T/L? and does it work, and if so is it still enjoyable

 

[Skedastic]

Hi folks,

I would guess the game won't run well on hardware without T&L support; it will likely wither be very sluggish or turn off some of the features of the 3D engine, or both. A perusal of the Pirates forums suggests that even T&L capable cards which are light on performance don't handle that game well.

You will pay too much if you go to your local mall and buy a video card from the computer shack therein. Go to an online retailer, such as Newegg (www.newegg.com), or an enthusiast's brick+mortar, such as Fry's.

All integrated graphics solutions -- "cards" built-in to your motherboard -- have very poor performance (except to some extent a small number of enthusiast solutions such as Nforce motherboards). Your graphics are integrated if your system info shows "Intel" as the video card manufacturer (and in some other cases).

Briefly: there are two major players in the video card market: Nvidia with their "Geforce" line and ATI with their "Radeon" line.

Major Geforce series can be determined from the first digit in the model number: Geforce 2, 3, 4, 5xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx. The Geforce 3 and 4 Ti (but NOT MX) series are the minimum you would want for this game. The 52xx and 62xx cards are poor but may be sufficient.

Major ATI series are 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx, and, well, Xxxx (and "Rage" cards, which were awful even in 1997 and now belong in museums -- the poor soul in this thread with a Rage Mobility card is, I'm afraid, very much SOL). The minimum you would want for this game is the 8500. The 91xx/92xx and X300 cards are poor but may be sufficient.

A useful display of graphics card performance can be found here:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-04.html#3dmark_2003

for slightly older (and now inexpensive) cards. Cards around the middle of that pack can be easily had for $50-$75 and will provide MUCH better performance than integrated solutions or the execrable Geforce 4MX line. For example,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Range=1, 1&description=Radeon&srchInDesc=9600

This is my first post here. Very much looking forward to Civ 4.

- C.

 

[Conroe]

A most helpful post. Thank you!

Once you know your card specifics then you can check it here: Video Card Specs

These properties are equivalent to T+L:

Vertex shader version (best) = Not Null (-)
Overall DirectX level = 7 (or better)

Unfortunately, my card is not listed at the above website. It is an SiS 651 w/ 32mb. Any ideas?

Your dxdiag includes some 3d diagnostics. Simply run the command 'dxdiag', go to the Display tab and click Test Direct3D. If you don't see a spinning cube then you have problems. Also, the first dxdiag page will show your main board make and model, which is good for looking up docs.

I saw the spinning cube. Thats good, right? It says I passed DirectX3d 7 and 8. It could not test DirectX3d 9 because my driver did not support it. Can I assume that since I support 7 that I have this T+L business?

 

[Skedastic]

Unfortunately, my card is not listed at the above website. It is an SiS 651 w/ 32mb. Any ideas?

Unfortunately, that's an integrated chipset, and not a good one. According to this site:

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/desktops/0,39023846,39116998,00.htm

that chipset scores about 1500 in 3DMark 2001, an old benchmark which rates DX7 performance (you want DX8 performance for Civ4). To put that in context, here's rankings of 3D cards circa 2001,

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20020418/vgacharts-05.html

the SiS651 doesn't even reach the performance of a TnT2, which is a 1999 part. The cards at the very top of that chart are now $40 parts and would give you five to ten times better performance, if indeed the game will run at all on the SiS651.

 

[Conroe]

Unfortunately, that's an integrated chipset, and not a good one. According to ...

Well, the only game that I ever play is Civ. And, to date anyways, it has been just fine in the performance department. I cannot imagine that a turn-based strategy game would be all that taxing on the video subsystem. I'm just not sure if the game will even load/run without this T&L support. Unfortunately, I cannot determine if I have it or not. The dxdiag program showed the rotating cube just fine. But, does that use/require T&L support?

 

[Skedastic]

Well, the only game that I ever play is Civ. And, to date anyways, it has been just fine in the performance department. I cannot imagine that a turn-based strategy game would be all that taxing on the video subsystem. I'm just not sure if the game will even load/run without this T&L support.

You don't have hardware T&L, and you have an exceptionally slow video system even among those without T&L. You could just try the game and see if it works and, if so, if it runs acceptably. Tough call on buying a new card if Civ is the only game you play because you won't notice any difference at all in other computing tasks.

Note, though, that playing Civ 3 "just fine" doesn't tell you anything about how Civ 4 will run because the latter but not the former is 3D. Also note that being a turn-based strategy game is more or less irrelevant: the engine must still draw a 3D world, and it has to do so at a frame rate such that scrolling doesn't grind the system to a halt (which is why the engineers are exploiting hardware T&L capabilities). Of course, it's not critical you get 60 FPS like it would be for a shooter, but it isn't going to be fun to play at one frame every two seconds.