Will a no-T&L-required patch be released?

[neriana]

You don't need to overclock to play this game. You don't need to have a great computer, or even a gaming rig. You just need a video card that's been made in the past five years!

They aren't going to keep making games with ancient technology, and a computer without a T&L video card is ancient technology. Far too many gamers -- not hardcore gamers, not people with dual-thread technology and PCI Express video cards, simply people who play more than one game -- would scoff at a game with Civ 3 graphics nowadays. Actually, I don't demand top-flight graphics, but I would scoff at it as well.

They do know their audience. They are playing to it by having such INCREDIBLY LOW specs, AND by having the game actually move into 3D, which is an old technology now.

If you want to play Civ 4, you are a gamer, whether you want to admit it or not. If you want to continue to be a gamer, just knuckle under and spend $40 (if that) on a video card. If you don't want to do that, fine, keep playing old games, nothing wrong with that. But don't try to hobble the rest of us because you refuse to move forward even a baby step.

I'm really getting very frustrated at the idea that the game requirements are steep, or only for hardcore gamers. The Sims 2 requires T&L, and that community accepted it more easily than this one is. Last year. The SIMS community. Eesh.

 

[Ybother]

You don't need to overclock to play this game. You don't need to have a great computer, or even a gaming rig. You just need a video card that's been made in the past five years!

They aren't going to keep making games with ancient technology, and a computer without a T&L video card is ancient technology. Far too many gamers -- not hardcore gamers, not people with dual-thread technology and PCI Express video cards, simply people who play more than one game -- would scoff at a game with Civ 3 graphics nowadays. Actually, I don't demand top-flight graphics, but I would scoff at it as well.

They do know their audience. They are playing to it by having such INCREDIBLY LOW specs, AND by having the game actually move into 3D, which is an old technology now.

If you want to play Civ 4, you are a gamer, whether you want to admit it or not. If you want to continue to be a gamer, just knuckle under and spend $40 (if that) on a video card. If you don't want to do that, fine, keep playing old games, nothing wrong with that. But don't try to hobble the rest of us because you refuse to move forward even a baby step.

I'm really getting very frustrated at the idea that the game requirements are steep, or only for hardcore gamers. The Sims 2 requires T&L, and that community accepted it more easily than this one is. Last year. The SIMS community. Eesh.

my intel 855 laptop can run sims.../.its cannot run civ4. From most analysis, its not a hardware problem. the black terrain is probably a software bug that can be solved easily( i believe in Firaxis+ i m sure intel side has some Civ4 players as well). so i m just going to sit tight and pray that there is a void of darkness patch soon.(E.g. Intel and developers of TRON2.0 worked out something for the 855 users).

Well i could just play on my home pc, but that would mean i have to fight with my brother. i would really like to play Civ4 on my lappy as well.

 

[Craterus22]

That is what I keep trying to get across. This is viewed as if it was Doom 3 or Battlefield 2. The sad truth is this is a bottom-rung game hardware requirement wise. Stuff that is easier to run than this is below the ladder!

... but I do NOT buy this argument that 3D is some arch-enemy that cannot exist with good gameplay.

I agree that it is not the arch enemy... my point is that ALOT of people play games like this on laptops... to make graphics weed out potential audience - when it is not the driving force of a game like this (whereas it IS the driving force in a FPS) seems strange to me.

To me it is as if they released a chess game that had the same requirements.

BTW - I have a smoking laptop - 1gb ram and a 32mbT&L graphic card - I am extremely bumed that this is below minimum requirements. Also, no thanks - I am not going to buy another computer to play the game - I wouldn't even buy a card for a desktop to play this game... a cutting edge FPS - sure I would buy a new hot card - for chess? FOR CHESS?

absolutely not

 

[Milan's Warrior]

i think that's exactly where a lot of people are at. a lot of civ players only play civ, and they just aren't going to go out and get a desktop just to run civ on it. a few will, but most won't. i'm sure the game maker has their demographic all figured out, but i just can't imagine that your typical civ player is the same as your typical gaming geek. i mean i'm sure there are a few over-clocking "fear" players out there who just couldn't wait to get their hands on civ iv, but i'd be willing to bet there were a lot more teachers, engineers, and corporate executives excited about the release. and a lot of those "normal" folks are using laptops, desktops with integrated graphics, etc, i mean how many regular folks actually go out and buy a gaming video card. and i'm doing the same, i'm just playing age of empires iii instead. i'd rather play civ iv, but what the hell ... i didn't leave them, they left me ...

Yes, that is exactly my view. If they make no patch, I just won't buy it until I upgrade my laptop in a couple of years.
My laptop is top of the line in processor/ram, not ancient; it is a "light" laptop, so it has an integrated card

 

[Xeos]

BTW - I have a smoking laptop - 1gb ram and a 32mbT&L graphic card

Sound like my laptop, only twice as much ram. My laptop runs Civ4 just fine in my tests so far(I don't play large maps, so it may be an issue there). Only 2 problems afaik. The map tiles all show yields as 2 food(mouseovers are fine), and the wonder music is choppy.

GeForce 4 440 32mb
512 mb ram
AMD Athlon 3000+ 1.6ghz

 

[warpstorm]

In short, no. T&L has been around since the GeForce One and is pretty much assumed to be there for Gamebryo to work.

 

[Willem]

i'd rather play civ iv, but what the hell ... i didn't leave them, they left me ...

No your laptop manufacturer left you. The technology that's required has been around for 5 years, there's no reason why your machine should be stuck with a video card that is obsolete. Don't blame Firaxis for using a technology that almost all game developers are using as well, they're just trying to be relevant. Go complain to the people who stuck with you a laptop that uses standards that are ancient in the computer industry.

 

[Comraddict]

No your laptop manufacturer left you. The technology that's required has been around for 5 years, there's no reason why your machine should be stuck with a video card that is obsolete. Don't blame Firaxis for using a technology that almost all game developers are using as well, they're just trying to be relevant. Go complain to the people who stuck with you a laptop that uses standards that are ancient in the computer industry.

Exactly- blame intel and its monopoly. You intel gfx owners are so ignorant, what you have is not a graphics card, but a joke. Any recent first person shooter would play on intel as a slideshow (in case you manage to start game).

 

[move_quietly]

Exactly- blame intel and its monopoly. You intel gfx owners are so ignorant, what you have is not a graphics card, but a joke. Any recent first person shooter would play on intel as a slideshow (in case you manage to start game).

i'm starting to tire of all these fanboy posts.

i'm not going to blame a laptop that runs basically everything else without a problem, including plenty of games. and it does run first person shooter games too, it just doesn't run civ 4. and besides, civ iv isn't even a first person shooter game, it's not that graphics intense.

when it comes down to it, you just have to admit that microsoft ... yes, that's right, the evil company and it's leader ... are able to distribute a more graphically intense game (age of empires iii) that runs on my laptop, and civ iv couldn't manage it. hardware t&l required ... fine, nobody without hardware t&l can run it, that was civ iv's first mistake, to depend on that. it's not the game makers fault, they don't have control over the graphics engine ... fine, then they made a mistake going with that graphics engine, it's still their mistake. age of empires iii somehow manages to run without HW T&L, and here's what they say in the minimum requirements section of their manual ....

you can improve your game's video performance by installing a more powerful graphics adapter. the minimum recommended hardware is a 64MB graphics adapter with HW T&L (Hardware Transform and Lightening[note: yes it actually says Lightening lol]). HW T&L technlogy offloads some of the graphics processing from your CPU. This enables the CPU to process additional instructions, which causes the game to execute faster.

see, they managed to write a game that would benefit from T&L in such a way that it would run without it, just not as well. age of empires iii runs fine on my laptop. microsoft is doing it better. you can try to BS yourself and others if you want, but thems the facts. they went to the extra effort to make sure they reached the largest number of users possible. civ iv simply isn't doing it, it's not running on some very popular platforms that a lot of people have ... just go through the posts and look at all the people who are having trouble. you don't even have to do that, you can go to www.circuitcity.com, or www.staples.com, or www.bestbuy.com or any of the other places that sell mom & pop computers and see how many brand new machines are not going to run civ iv based on it's requirements. you can say oh it's because of their lousy graphics cards or whatever makes you feel special inside, but it's all BS, and anyone brave enough to admit the truth knows it.

 

[Goombaz]

i'm starting to tire of all these fanboy posts.

i'm not going to blame a laptop that runs basically everything else without a problem, including plenty of games. and it does run first person shooter games too, it just doesn't run civ 4. and besides, civ iv isn't even a first person shooter game, it's not that graphics intense.

when it comes down to it, you just have to admit that microsoft ... yes, that's right, the evil company and it's leader ... are able to distribute a more graphically intense game (age of empires iii) that runs on my laptop, and civ iv couldn't manage it. hardware t&l required ... fine, nobody without hardware t&l can run it, that was civ iv's first mistake, to depend on that. it's not the game makers fault, they don't have control over the graphics engine ... fine, then they made a mistake going with that graphics engine, it's still their mistake. age of empires iii somehow manages to run without HW T&L, and here's what they say in the minimum requirements section of their manual ....

you can improve your game's video performance by installing a more powerful graphics adapter. the minimum recommended hardware is a 64MB graphics adapter with HW T&L (Hardware Transform and Lightening[note: yes it actually says Lightening lol]). HW T&L technlogy offloads some of the graphics processing from your CPU. This enables the CPU to process additional instructions, which causes the game to execute faster.

see, they managed to write a game that would benefit from T&L in such a way that it would run without it, just not as well. age of empires iii runs fine on my laptop. microsoft is doing it better. you can try to BS yourself and others if you want, but thems the facts. they went to the extra effort to make sure they reached the largest number of users possible. civ iv simply isn't doing it, it's not running on some very popular platforms that a lot of people have ... just go through the posts and look at all the people who are having trouble. you don't even have to do that, you can go to www.circuitcity.com, or www.staples.com, or www.bestbuy.com or any of the other places that sell mom & pop computers and see how many brand new machines are not going to run civ iv based on it's requirements. you can say oh it's because of their lousy graphics cards or whatever makes you feel special inside, but it's all BS, and anyone brave enough to admit the truth knows it.

The "fanboys" aren't the ones that are getting all nasty. So far it's been the detractors that have been saying stuff like "makes you feel special inside".

 

[grzelakc]

This T&L discussion is moot. This game fails to run adequately on my GeForce4 4400 Ti which was absolute "top of the line", "best card money can buy" piece of gear three years ago.

I run Doom III on that card with a couple of options turned down (mostly AA stuff) and it runs acceptably at around 20-30 frames per second. It runs Civ IV, at 1-3 FPS. I think this speaks volume about the competence of Firaxis engineers.

The previous posters were right. This is a glorified chess game. It should not require a rendering farm to run acceptably.

Even if Firaxis wanted to do eyecandy... do you know how much eye candy you can squeeze out of the venerable Geforce Ti? Boatloads, that's how much. Just look at AoE III. Runs great on my PC as well.

The Engineering team of Firaxis really dropped the ball here. The do not have a competitive product right now, as far as the graphics performance goes.

 

[loler]

My question is in the topic: Will a no-T&L-required patch be released?

time to upgrade your pre-2000 computer dewd

 

[Willem]

This T&L discussion is moot. This game fails to run adequately on my GeForce4 4400 Ti which was absolute "top of the line", "best card money can buy" piece of gear three years ago.

Well that's the key isn't? Three years is ancient in computer terms. Based on Moore's Law, which I suspect also applies to video cards, you're two generations behind state of the art. Time to upgrade.

 

[grzelakc]

Willem, tell me why this "tow generations old" architecture runs Doom III, HalfLife 2 and AoE III much better than it runs Civ IV?

There is something very wrong with the performance tuning of Civ IV. Lots of people notice this, some have better gear than I do.

Spin this whichever way but this game is SLOW. Very SLOW. Abysmally SLOW... or are you trying to tell me that it actually has better graphics than either Doom III, HalfLife II or AoE III?

 

[Willem]

Willem, tell me why this "tow generations old" architecture runs Doom III, HalfLife 2 and AoE III much better than it runs Civ IV?

There is something very wrong with the performance tuning of Civ IV. Lots of people notice this, some have better gear than I do.

Spin this whichever way but this game is SLOW. Very SLOW. Abysmally SLOW... or are you trying to tell me that it actually has better graphics than either Doom III, HalfLife II or AoE III?

I wouldn't know, I've never played any of those games. I haven't even played Civ 4 yet for that matter, I can't afford to buy the game right now. I do know however that one of the beta testers had the same card as you do, and after he upgraded the game played very smoothly for him.

Regardless of whether you can play other games well or not, any computer component that's been around for 3 years is getting old, bordering on obsolete, and should be considered for upgrading. 5 years and it most definately is obsolete, working or not.

 

[grzelakc]

Willem, I know a thing or two about 3D graphics. Civ IV does not appear to be using any of the cutting edge, latest and greatest features of modern video cards. Given what 3D features they use in the game, anything above GeForce should be an overkill for this game.

Oh yeah, before you try to deflect it towards engine peculiarities, my computers run Pirates! just fine.

Once again, something is very wrong with Civ IV's performance and Firaxis should get to the bottom of it, lest they alienate hardcore fans of their series such as myself.

 

[Fredric Drum]

Can someone tell me exactly which criteria my video card falls short of (see pic)? I fail to spot it... I also find it odd that I fail the minimum reqs but pass the recommended

 

[Willem]

Willem, I know a thing or two about 3D graphics. Civ IV does not appear to be using any of the cutting edge, latest and greatest features of modern video cards. Given what 3D features they use in the game, anything above GeForce should be an overkill for this game.

Oh yeah, before you try to deflect it towards engine peculiarities, my computers run Pirates! just fine.

Once again, something is very wrong with Civ IV's performance and Firaxis should get to the bottom of it, lest they alienate hardcore fans of their series such as myself.

That maybe so, I'm not a programmer. I guess in a way my responses have become reflexive, since I've been seeing so many people with old equipment complaining because computer technology is leaving them behind, and they're not willing to accept that things change. There was one person that even insisted that the game should play well on a P3 900 mhz. I've just ended up becoming an advocate for accepting change. People can't expect their gear to be functional forever, yet that seems to be a common attitude with many of them here.

 

[Shakes]

my point is that ALOT of people play games like this on laptops...

Then if they want to play games on laptops they should buy appropriately. There are laptops designed for gaming. If you want to play games and you didn't spend the extra cash to get a laptop that's suitable then you've only got yourself to blame.

 

[Neomega]

If you are having slowdown problems and have a T&L card... turn off the grid, it greatly enhanced my performance... I don't know why something as simple as the grid caused so much slow-down.


If you do not have a T&L card, sorry. It is not unreasonable fo rmodern games to require graphics cards with T&L.