Video Card Q+A

@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.

That's my thought, but this should imply that by turning off certain effects - such as shading - should help, no?

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.

Yeah, I can see the cube in all three modes (directX7, 8, and 9). This is expected as the card does have the hardware accelaration features.

Well, according to Amazon I have about 2 weeks to wait. Hopefully someone by that time could tell me whether my setup is feasible or not... :)
 
i have a rage 128 pro ultra gl apg... will it work
i cant play roller coaster tycoon 3...
but can play civ 3 with no probs
 
Would an Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controler that has 64MB of Ram and 3D acceleration be able to run Civ4? The rest of my computer passed the minumum requierments except for one thing on the Video Card feature, which was that I dont have T&L.

I dont want to waste my money on a game that I cannot install or just wont run on my computer. I mean I have played Call of Duty and it required T&L and it ran fine without T&L. But I became more cautious after buying Star Wars Battlefront when it failed to install on my computer just because I did not have T&L (In the middle of the installation, it just stoped and prompted me that I did not have the video card for it :mad:). I realy dont want the same thing happening to me with Civ4 :mad:.
 
CivGeneral said:
Would an Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controler that has 64MB of Ram and 3D acceleration be able to run Civ4? .

I've got the same exact card. I also don't know yet if it would work. That's why a demo version would be great. If one of us find out for sure, we can let the other one know, deal?
 
I pass and exceed all requirements except one....I only have 16mb of memory on the video card (I'm on a laptop). If I can run Command and Conquer: Generals on medium setting with no lag, Civ4 should run fine right? What do you guys think? I really want to pick this one up this weekend. I've played every version of Civ and they just keep getting better.
 
Any thoughts/parsings on this exchange from the link to the chat with Firaxis?
_________________________________

CivGeneral: How would Civ4 Handle in computers on a non-T&L video card?

Gogf: total failure to work, or just poor graphics?

FIRAXIS_Trip: T&L... don't know personally I bought a new computer with integrated Intel graphics and the game ran perfectly it was a new computer though, it probably also has T&L
 
Michelangelo said:
I've got the same exact card. I also don't know yet if it would work. That's why a demo version would be great. If one of us find out for sure, we can let the other one know, deal?

Same here. Let me know too.
 
Why do Intel video cards seem to be so useless? I've got a pretty good Gateway computer (1.8GZ Pentium 4, 356 MB), but the Intel graphics card is CRAP. I've been wanting to buy Sims 2, but the card isn't supported. I did buy a new Radeon 9500 or something, but I haven't been able to get it to work because the Intel stupid card is wired into the motherboard and I'm afraid to mess the wires to figure out how to disconnect it. So I've got a good $120 video card sitting in my computer that doesn't work. Grrrr, I hope some of you have luck with getting this to run anyway. I don't care if the graphics are slightly sub-par, I just don't want to spend $50 on a game that doesn't work. Please keep us updated!
 
Miss Scarlett said:
Why do Intel video cards seem to be so useless? ...
They aren't "cards," they're just chips which can do limited video processing on the motherboard. They aren't good for gaming because they're designed largely for office use.


I did buy a new Radeon 9500 or something, but I haven't been able to get it to work because the Intel stupid card is wired into the motherboard and I'm afraid to mess the wires to figure out how to disconnect it.

You don't have to rewire anything! You should just be able to plug the new card in and that ought to automagically disable the onboard video. At worst you have to change a setting in BIOS, which is very easy. Just follow the instructions that came with your card and it should work.
 
Wow - I was sick for a day and look what happened...

It looks like there are plenty of problems, and I have no hope of keeping up with all of this. I don't know how the moderators do it.

Basically, the minimum requirements were REALLY minimum. People w/o T+L are having major problems.

the graphics of the advisors (and Sid in the tutorial!) are headless teeth and eyes floating by themselves in the air.

I guess it's off to see the wizard...
 
I was reading all this stuff about directx 7 and 8 capabilities. I have Direct x 9 on my cpu right now and the direct draw test went fine. Is that a good sign or am I grasping at straws?
 
there is difference between having card that is directx 9 compable and that has full hardware support of it.
For full hardware support of dx9, you need radoen 9500 and higher, geforce 5fx and higher.
 
O.k. I'm confused. Would you say that it is a good sign though ? I ran that program to see if you meet the sys. requirments and I passed everything even the T&L but I have an intel card and I have not heard good things.

Thanks
 
OK, I checked the ATI card when I got home and it is actually a 9250. However, since many people are having huge issues w/ ATI cards, I think I will wait a while before I try and buy the game.

Skedastic said:
You don't have to rewire anything! You should just be able to plug the new card in and that ought to automagically disable the onboard video. At worst you have to change a setting in BIOS, which is very easy. Just follow the instructions that came with your card and it should work.

I got this card for my birthday (last December) and haven't really tried to mess with it for a while b/c I got so frustrated. When I plugged the card in and disabled the Intel driver, I could only get a black screen. I tried a few things but I'm not very good with hardware problems. For some reason it wouldn't work and I read "somewhere" that I had to manually disconnect the Intel graphics controller from the motherboard. I am going out of town for a few days, so maybe I will try to mess with it again when I get back. I really hate the Intel graphics controller anyway. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this I would appreciate it! Again I've got Windows XP, 381 MB RAM, 1.8 GhZ Pentium 4, Intel 82845/G
 
according to the check thing my video card is not good enough (t&l - after i specifically asked the person about the video card when i got the computer this year)
But then people it doensn't really matter if you got a good processor and losts of ram.

So my question, like everyone elses - will it run?
3 GHz
1 G ram
videocard: SiS 661FX
 
My graphics card hates me.

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop that meets all (recommended) space/speed specs, but the graphics card is NVIDIA Geforce4 420go with 32MB of ram.

Civ4 opens fine, but some leaders look wonky -- Saladin and Louis are super white and glossy (without textures), and most of the other leaders have "shine" to the textures. Others, like Gandhi and Isabella look more cel-shade flat.

The movies chunk out, and Leonard Nimoy's little ditty with every new game nearly freezes the computer. AND I have black screen of death (i.e., no land textures when zoomed in) once I'm playing.

Any assistance, or do I basically need to buy a desktop computer? Blah.
 
Just thought I would say thanks here. I dont have the game yet probably will today. I had no idea about anything of video cards or the like so this has Really helped me. I upgraded my drivers which I dont think I have ever done since I bought the comp about 3-4 years ago. oh my vid card is a NVIDIA GeForce4 mx440 so Im lucky I guess that card just meets the requirments I belive so ya thanks for the help.
 
Update

For a mere 100 gold I have acquired an ATI Radeon 9550 128MB AGPx8.

The only seriously 3d game I have is Treasure Planet (that runs on XP). I could run it before, but I expect it to be perfect and smooth now.

I'm still waiting for the game...
 
Okay, I test played the games I have to see if the new nVidea drivers for my video card fixed all the bugs.

First, I found that Pirates! functioned fine and couldn't stop playing at any free moment I had for a couple days... hence why I haven't posted in a bit, lol.

Just now, I tried AoM. Most of the graphics had been blanched white when I got the new card, now it works fine.

Then, I went to my favorite game, civ3.
I've been having trouble with hotseat color assignments, the trouble being that the game would freeze.
It didn't fix that problem, so I'll be searching for a thread where a similar issue has been discussed and try and get some help with that.

So, good news and bad news.
Good news is that my computer can handle Civ4.
Bad news is that I don't have an income, so I can't buy Civ4 yet. *sigh*
 
Hello everyone-

I too am the "proud" owner of a laptop bearing the accursed Intel graphics card... upon loading CivIV I noticed several odd things:

1. (the bad news first) Leaderheads are absent, instead displating disembodied eyes and mouths (the most mobile potions of the heads, I suppose)- very disturbing. Still no workaround for this.

2. (now the good news) I discovered that the AmRev scenario displayed everything properly, while regular gamplay blackened all terrain and created odd lighting effects. So I loaded a regular game, opened modmaker and toggled the entire terrain to visible, then saved as a scenario. Not a beautiful workaround, becasue it gave away the terrain... but at least I can play with more or less normal terrain viewing (except the cows and elephants remain spectral, coming and going at will, though their shadows remain...)

Eric.
 
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