Which computer system should I be upgrading?

[crewcamden]

Hey.

I've been playing Civ 4 for quite a while now. I sold my old computer about six months ago. The specs on that rig were something like this:

Athlon 3200+ (939)
DFI Ultra-D
2 x 512 Corsair 400 2-2-2-5 (DDR)
PNY 7800GT
20 inch NEC monitor

It used to play OK. Towards the end of the game it would chug a bit when there were many armies going at it.

The rig I'm currently playing on is:

Athlon X2 3600+
DFI C51PV-M2/G (AM2)
2 x 512 Corsair 667 5-5-5-12 (DDR2)
Onboard GFX (GeForce 6150)
22 inch ViewSonic widescreen monitor

It seems as though this chugs and stutters a bit more than the old machine I used to play on. I'm planning on giving my current machine to my parents in a couple of months' time. I'll then have to buy a new computer.

What I would like to know is: Is Civ 4 graphics card or CPU dependent? That is to say: Am I better off spending cash on a graphics card or should I be spending that money on a better CPU? Onboard graphics is more than sufficient for my every day computing needs. I want to know if Civ 4 is heavily dependent on the GFX card or CPU (or both).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Looshi]

Civ is graphics dependent to a point.

What I mean is once you have enough graphics power to run the engine comfortably then all the high end cards in the world really won't help you much. CPU, on the other hand, depends on the size of map you play. The really large maps can bottleneck the CPU late in the game, but you're in pretty good shape in that area.

In your case, graphics card would fix your problem, no doubt about it. Onboard graphics and gaming do not mix well. Your old 7800 would eat the Civ engine for lunch, and you would be in good shape with something similar.

 

[crewcamden]

Civ is graphics dependent to a point.

OK, I reckon I'll be buying my next rig in about three months' time. Do you think I should be getting a Radeon 1950xxx series; a GeForce 8800xxx series; or something significantly less powerful (e.g. a GeForce 7900xxx series).

If a cheap Radeon will cover a 20 inch 1600 x 1200 monitor I'm happy with that as I don't do any other gaming.

What level of CPU/RAM beef should I be looking at? I don't like any stuttering at all.

Thanks in advance.

 

[bonafide11]

I hope to get a new computer soon so I can run BTS on it without it slowing down a ton in the late game like it does now... I can't wait to play Civ without it constantly stuttering, it'll be a whole new game experience for me!

 

[enchanter100]

Here are my specs that give no stuttering or issues.

AMD Athlon 3000+
Radeon X850xt (now I have an x1950pro but didn't seem to do any diff)
2 gig of dual channel memory

 

[mjs0]

We play on four different machines in our house. (2 adults, 2 kids, with LAN multiplayer capability) The PCs are all home-built and none of them are top of the line, they vary from an Athlon 2500+ to Athlon 3700+, GeForce 6600 to GeForce 7900GS and 512Mb to 2Gb of memory.
Civ4 plays perfectly graphics wise on all of them for example, on the 7900GS I run 1600x1200 with all settings on max with no problems. They can all cope with standard maps, but the slower machines and the ones with less memory can get really sluggish on larger maps.

Once you have adequate graphics, CPU and memory then my recommendation would be to upgrade, in priority order:

1. Memory...512 is barely adequate, 1Gb is OK, 2Gb is better)
2. Processor...2500+ is fine for standard and smaller, 3700+ seems to handle all sizes well enough to satisfy me
3. Graphics card...6600GT and ATI 9600 are adequate, GeForce 7600 is noticeably better and the 7900GS is not stressed at all.

edit: whoops forgot the summary, so...to summarise, I've found once you have an adequate graphics card there is little advantage to upgrading the graphics card. Upgrading memory and processor are the best way to go. Of course if you don't have an adequate graphics card all the memory in the world will not help.
Good luck.

 

[Artosoft]

OK, I reckon I'll be buying my next rig in about three months' time. Do you think I should be getting a Radeon 1950xxx series; a GeForce 8800xxx series; or something significantly less powerful (e.g. a GeForce 7900xxx series).

If a cheap Radeon will cover a 20 inch 1600 x 1200 monitor I'm happy with that as I don't do any other gaming.

What level of CPU/RAM beef should I be looking at? I don't like any stuttering at all.

Thanks in advance.

In the next 3 months, DX10 graphics card should penetrate market well. Wait for DX10 card (assume you run Vista).

Regards,
Arto.

 

[Thrar]

What's most important is memory. CPU time is basically only required during the AI's turn, so it'll make that go faster, but to me that doesn't seem to be a big problem anyway.
Your video card will allow you to play with high resolutions and detail, and once again, video memory is more important than GPU power. Either way, even with my almost 2-year-old vid card I can run full detail in everything.

Memory, on the other hand, should be at least 2GB for normal endgame play, more if you want to play large/huge maps. This is what you notice during your turn, when things get choppy while scrolling, because the game has to swap memory to hard disk, which is extremely slow to access.
Both your computers had only 1GB, and I'm sure this is your only real problem.

 

[crewcamden]

Excellent replies. Thanks.

 

[Artosoft]

What's most important is memory. CPU time is basically only required during the AI's turn, so it'll make that go faster, but to me that doesn't seem to be a big problem anyway.
Your video card will allow you to play with high resolutions and detail, and once again, video memory is more important than GPU power. Either way, even with my almost 2-year-old vid card I can run full detail in everything.

Memory, on the other hand, should be at least 2GB for normal endgame play, more if you want to play large/huge maps. This is what you notice during your turn, when things get choppy while scrolling, because the game has to swap memory to hard disk, which is extremely slow to access.
Both your computers had only 1GB, and I'm sure this is your only real problem.

No. GPU power is more important than video memory. Main memory is more important than GPU power.

Currently I have 512MB video card and found it doesn't make it any faster than my old 64MB video card.

Regards,
Arto.

 

[GVBN]

OK, I reckon I'll be buying my next rig in about three months' time. Do you think I should be getting a Radeon 1950xxx series; a GeForce 8800xxx series; or something significantly less powerful (e.g. a GeForce 7900xxx series).

I recommend Geforce 8800gts 320mb

What level of CPU/RAM beef should I be looking at? I don't like any stuttering at all.

Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2gb RAM

 

[Nials]

I second the above post. Probably the most bang you can get for your buck at the moment

The 8800GTS also supports DX10.

 

[crewcamden]

OK. Thanks. This info is gold.

A question tho': Should I be forking out on a 8800GTS would that money be better spent on more RAM and/or a faster CPU?

Bear in mind that Civ 4 is the ONLY game I play. Everything else is word processing, surfing the Net, etc. Is a 8800GTS over the top? I used to get by pretty well with a 7800GT. I always felt that it was the CPU or, in hindsight, the RAM, that was letting me down.

Cheers again.

PS: I play on a 20 inch 1600 x 1200 NEC monitor.

 

[AznWarlord]

My computer's off 20 MB of RAM, whe I tried out the demo, I didn't have ny terrain! ONly a black fog with units on top of it

 

[Abegweit]

Civ is graphics dependent to a point.

What I mean is once you have enough graphics power to run the engine comfortably then all the high end cards in the world really won't help you much. CPU, on the other hand, depends on the size of map you play. The really large maps can bottleneck the CPU late in the game, but you're in pretty good shape in that area.

In your case, graphics card would fix your problem, no doubt about it. Onboard graphics and gaming do not mix well. Your old 7800 would eat the Civ engine for lunch, and you would be in good shape with something similar.

Quoted for truth.

The graphics card is the most important component until it is "good enough", which a 7800 certainly is. After that, memory is your best important component, followed by a faster CPU.

 

[GVBN]

Bear in mind that Civ 4 is the ONLY game I play. Everything else is word processing, surfing the Net, etc. Is a 8800GTS over the top? I used to get by pretty well with a 7800GT. I always felt that it was the CPU or, in hindsight, the RAM, that was letting me down.

You should get a cheap DirectX10 card like 8600gt

Core 2 Duo E4300 is probably enough for you

 

[Chose]

Hey.

I've been playing Civ 4 for quite a while now. I sold my old computer about six months ago. The specs on that rig were something like this:

Athlon 3200+ (939)
DFI Ultra-D
2 x 512 Corsair 400 2-2-2-5 (DDR)
PNY 7800GT
20 inch NEC monitor

It used to play OK. Towards the end of the game it would chug a bit when there were many armies going at it.

The rig I'm currently playing on is:

Athlon X2 3600+
DFI C51PV-M2/G (AM2)
2 x 512 Corsair 667 5-5-5-12 (DDR2)
Onboard GFX (GeForce 6150)
22 inch ViewSonic widescreen monitor

It seems as though this chugs and stutters a bit more than the old machine I used to play on. I'm planning on giving my current machine to my parents in a couple of months' time. I'll then have to buy a new computer.

What I would like to know is: Is Civ 4 graphics card or CPU dependent? That is to say: Am I better off spending cash on a graphics card or should I be spending that money on a better CPU? Onboard graphics is more than sufficient for my every day computing needs. I want to know if Civ 4 is heavily dependent on the GFX card or CPU (or both).

Thanks in advance.

how much money do you plan on spending?
do you plan on overclocking?

If you plan on overclocking and can afford this prossesor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115015 you will not be disspointed. This is the very easy to overclock, Most poeple can overclock it to about 3.2GHz or more.

I think that amd is really good at the lower end, but if you plan on spending over 150$ + on a CPU then intel is the way to go. If you dont want to spend too much then the AMD 3600 is great, and AMDs up through 4800 is good, but once you pass that price range you gotta go with Intel. Here is some interesting stuff about prossesors, its kinda long but you can see how the prossesors perform when put to the test.http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q1/cpus/index.x?pg=1

For a grafix card, once again if you can afford it i would go with the GTS 8800. But if you will only be playing civ 4, it might be alittle to much (unless your resulotion is 5000 by 9000 )

i would recomend getting 2 gigs, I have had good experiences with Corsair so you should stick with them, (muskin and A-data i have herd are good too).

 

[Jerrymander]

I recommend Geforce 8800gts 320mb


Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2gb RAM

Whatever you do, don't get Intel. Get AMD.
The only Intel core I'm partial to is the Quad Core, and that's only until AMD releases theirs. Intel cores are just rip-offs.

As for graphics cards, it really depends on what you play. 256MB cards are becoming really cheap. However, if you're just a "rinse and repeat" computer buyer, you'll not have to worry as much.

Remember, the modern hardware has far surpassed current software demands (and that's from modern games like Supreme Comander, not Civ4). Do not worry about "getting the $900 Intel core or the GeForce 8800 card NOW".

EDIT: Try for higher bus speed RAM. (DDR2/DDR3 are excellent) Try fro RAM with an 833Mhz+ speed.

 

[Abegweit]

Whatever you do, don't get Intel. Get AMD.
The only Intel core I'm partial to is the Quad Core, and that's only until AMD releases theirs. Intel cores are just rip-offs.

That's simply not true. It may have been for many years but the Duo is simply the best processor on the market and there is no sign that AMD will catch Intel any time soon.

As for graphics cards, it really depends on what you play. 256MB cards are becoming really cheap. However, if you're just a "rinse and repeat" computer buyer, you'll not have to worry as much.

Remember, the modern hardware has far surpassed current software demands (and that's from modern games like Supreme Comander, not Civ4). Do not worry about "getting the $900 Intel core or the GeForce 8800 card NOW".

Agreed here. There is no reason to get a Duo to run Civ, although you can get one for a LOT less than $900.

A good AMD processor, 2GBytes, and solid mid-range graphics are plenty for the job. OP's first system was pretty good. It just lacked memory. The second had the additional defect of sub-standard graphics.

My suggestion for a solid machine which will run Civ well for a good price.

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $80
2 Gbytes of memory $80
Graphics card. There are many choices but here's one.
EVGA GeForce 7600 GS / 512MB GDDR2 $100
EVGA delivers good value

 

[Unionfield]

This is my system. It is on the lower rung of good systems, so maybe it'll give you a jumping off point... By the way, Civ IV runs perfectly.

Intel P-4 HT 3.0GHz
2.0 GB Corsair DDR-RAM (4 x 512 MB)
256MB GeForce 7600GS

You can buy this system for 450-500 dollars.