octagon999 Posted December 3, 2005 Report Share Posted December 3, 2005 Civ has been responsible for a lot of my hardware upgrades over the years. In this case I built a new machine first and then found Civ 4 was out (thanks to this thread!). The Civ 4 site gives a list of minimum and recommended requirements. I would go with recommended as a minimum. I'm running an AMD64 3800+, 1 GB RAM, and a 128MB PCIe graphics card. I have all of the Civ 4 features turned on, but even stripped down to minimal settings it maxes my CPU out at 100%. I have no idea what it must be doing behind the scenes, but it will work your chip hard. My guess is you don't need a top of the line system to run the game quite well, even with max settings, but it sure will use up whatever capacity you do have. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's depressing... I have an AMD 1600+ with a gig of RAM and a decent video card (use it for EQ/EVE/WoW), but it sounds like I would have to buy a new computer to play CIV IV decently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drasn Posted December 4, 2005 Report Share Posted December 4, 2005 Civ has been responsible for a lot of my hardware upgrades over the years. In this case I built a new machine first and then found Civ 4 was out (thanks to this thread!). The Civ 4 site gives a list of minimum and recommended requirements. I would go with recommended as a minimum. I'm running an AMD64 3800+, 1 GB RAM, and a 128MB PCIe graphics card. I have all of the Civ 4 features turned on, but even stripped down to minimal settings it maxes my CPU out at 100%. I have no idea what it must be doing behind the scenes, but it will work your chip hard. My guess is you don't need a top of the line system to run the game quite well, even with max settings, but it sure will use up whatever capacity you do have. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's depressing... I have an AMD 1600+ with a gig of RAM and a decent video card (use it for EQ/EVE/WoW), but it sounds like I would have to buy a new computer to play CIV IV decently. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, I've been having graphics driver problems all along. It works fine as long as I don't run Civ4, but Civ4 crashes it regularly in the late game. Crashes every few turns in fact. I tried getting the latest drivers, but Diamond Stealth had a corrupt file out there, so I tried the ATI drivers. Didn't help. A couple of days ago I succeeded in getting the most recent Diamond Stealth drivers installed. After that it seems my crash problems have evaporated. There are still the very occasional Civ4 app crashes, but it's not crashing because of the video drivers at least. I haven't specifically checked, but it looks like it dropped my CPU load significanly too. My chip has Cool & Quiet, so it runs at 26C idle and about 40C at full load. I've seen the temp drop from the normal 40C after a Civ session to about 31C, so I'm guessing the load has dropped. Maybe my bad video driver was shunting some of the load to the CPU??? I'll run task manager in the background on my next session to confirm it. Regardless, I don't think you need a heavy duty machine to run this, though graphics seem to be fairly high end. If you've got a 128MB graphics card or better, I'd give it a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drasn Posted December 4, 2005 Report Share Posted December 4, 2005 I checked my CPU load last night. It's still at 100% during the game. My new graphics driver must be affecting the timeliness of my temp display. The chip cools from full load temp to idle temp in a matter of a few seconds. On exit from the game I can occasionally see it showing 30C, force a refresh by moving my cursor over it and catch it at 34C and dropping fast. It's bound to be at 40C during the game. I really just don't believe that a 3GHz chip or better is required to run this game. Firaxis knows what they're doing far better than I do. I would trust their minimum and recommended specs. Just be prepared to have whatever cpu you have run at 100% regardless of how powerful it is. Has anyone else had this experience or am I alone? What's the slowest computer someone has run this on successfully? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octagon999 Posted December 7, 2005 Report Share Posted December 7, 2005 Sounds to me like there should be a patch in the works at some point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldred Posted December 7, 2005 Report Share Posted December 7, 2005 Sounds to me like there should be a patch in the works at some point? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep, I believe v1.09 is now posted on the CIV4 site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WKE235 Posted December 11, 2005 Report Share Posted December 11, 2005 Sounds to me like there should be a patch in the works at some point? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep, I believe v1.09 is now posted on the CIV4 site. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have the patch 1.09 installed. Game plays smoothly at the start. But as the number of cities and units grow .. ouch. I play single player, and I still get times when the video freezes for 30-40 seconds .. and then returns. I have NO idea what the game is during that time (especially when all I'm doing is looking at the pretty picture and not touching anything ... yes it will freeze at times like that as well). Definately you will want to play this game with everything else turned off (if single player, that includes the internet connection and any virus software). And get more than the min listed on the box. I exceed (on CPU speed) the Recommended system, and meet the other requirements. And still the game turns into a dog as it goes on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquilonia Posted December 15, 2005 Report Share Posted December 15, 2005 You may possibly find the exe files to run the games w/o cds at this website. I installed Rome:Total War and then exe file, and happily play the game with my notebook no need to carry with me cd. www.gamecopyworld.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EternusIV Posted December 15, 2005 Report Share Posted December 15, 2005 You may possibly find the exe files to run the games w/o cds at this website.I installed Rome:Total War and then exe file, and happily play the game with my notebook no need to carry with me cd. www.gamecopyworld.com <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Dang craziness some of you going through. I havent had any issues like these Good luck in sorting them out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldred Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Version 1.52 now available for download...it is believed to fix the memory usage issues mooted earlier in this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WKE235 Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 Sounds to me like there should be a patch in the works at some point? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep, I believe v1.09 is now posted on the CIV4 site. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have the patch 1.09 installed. Game plays smoothly at the start. But as the number of cities and units grow .. ouch. I play single player, and I still get times when the video freezes for 30-40 seconds .. and then returns. I have NO idea what the game is during that time (especially when all I'm doing is looking at the pretty picture and not touching anything ... yes it will freeze at times like that as well). Definately you will want to play this game with everything else turned off (if single player, that includes the internet connection and any virus software). And get more than the min listed on the box. I exceed (on CPU speed) the Recommended system, and meet the other requirements. And still the game turns into a dog as it goes on. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Addendum: With the most recent patches, and, following some advice from a chat with someone from a Civ4 forum, I adjusted all the graphics levels down from the highest detail levels (default from set-up) to the level just before. I haven't really noticed any difference graphics wise on my screen. But all the slow downs and video freezes went away. I was even able to play an 18 player Noble game (I as India vs 18 computer AI's). Ran smoothly. Just like my troops did when the Americans came pouring over the border, upset at Philly revolting and joining my empire (hey, don't get mad at me if my culture is so vastly superior that your people leave). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drasn Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 I'll have to look for the new patch, but 1.09 is working for me now. I solved all of my problems by stopping all of the unnecessary background processes. I don't know which was causing the problems, but running unneeded services and programs in the background caused regular crashes in the late game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clan Elder 'Keen Posted December 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 I'll have to look for the new patch, but 1.09 is working for me now. I solved all of my problems by stopping all of the unnecessary background processes. I don't know which was causing the problems, but running unneeded services and programs in the background caused regular crashes in the late game. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I didnt ever get lag/hanging until Huge maps. Been trying Monarch on Huge, and had a couple decent early runs with Russian but havent made it to endgame at that difficulty level yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octus Imperium Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 Just gave CV4 to my son this Christmas (but he was informed he had to share!) and it is up and running on a dual Pentium IV with the latest patch. We have not had time to get up to huge maps or the more difficult settings, but there have been no issues. Better not be, since the game is one of the reasons I bought the new machine! The real problem is his mother gave him Dawn of War (Gamer's Workshop has become a regular hang out for my son) and he is blocking my access to CV4! Don't think my wife knew that the blood splatters on the screen in that game look so real..... Octus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athonian Posted January 7, 2006 Report Share Posted January 7, 2006 ROFL. I'm not touching CIV4, I've been a big fan of civilization for a long time. I do have civ 3, but honestly I feel that a game such as civilization shouldn't be so graphics intensive. The game has gotten way more complex than necessary. I have an AMD 2800+ and a Radeon 9600 pro. It could even run Doom 3 when it came out. You have no idea how shocked I was when I installed Civ4 and found to my horror it barely runs. I can even run Call of Duty 2 on this thing. Unreal Tournament 2k4, Battlefield 2. Graphics intensive shooters are not a problem, but I can't run Civilization 4? Sid Meier got a little carried away methinks. Oh and I have a cracked version. That too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobknob Posted January 7, 2006 Report Share Posted January 7, 2006 Have you patched it? The patch is supposed to fix a problem with AMD processors and a memory hole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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