Which Video Card for Civ IV

[ericgorr]

I will be upgrading my old Mac soon to a MacPro and wanted to make sure I purchased a video card that would allow me to take full advantage of what Civ IV was capable of displaying.

The Apple Store provides three different video card options:

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI)

If my best option was to go out and purchase another card not listed here, I can just get the GeForce 7300 without paying extra and upgrade it.

I noticed that at the Aspry CivIV page the only supported cards listed are:

NVIDIA GeForce 5200, 6600, 6800, 7800
ATI Radeon 9600, 9650, 9700, 9800, X600, X800, X850, X1600

and I noticed this list does not include any of the three available via the Apple Store, but I am assuming this doesn't mean anything with respect to the cards offered on the Apple Store.

If it matters, I do not play any real-time games. I would only consider getting something better then the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 if it would improve the look of the game or game play.

Would the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 suffice?
Is the Radeon X1900 a better choice?
Is the Quadro FX 4500 512MB overkill or would it be just vastly superior?

Any recommendations or comments would be appreciated.

 

[AlanH]

Hello, welcome

Civ4 was released before the Mac Pro, so the list of supported cards only relates to pre-Mac Pro products.

The Geforce 7300 GT works fine for me. The others may do better, but only you could judge whether the difference is worth the extra cash.

 

[wiglaff]

i think all those cards are fine

make sure you have a large amount of ram...civ demands 1 gb for huge maps at the very least.

 

[Welnic]

If you aren't going to be playing FPSs, I think the 7300 should work fine. I would go with the X1900 if you were going to be playing those. The FX 4500 is a pretty specialized card for high end scientific displays, it would not actually be better for gaming.