Seriously: WILL CIV IV run in Win2000?

[snoopy369]

According to the topped link, it WILL run Windows 2000.

I doubt it will run on WinME, but ... who knows.

[Targonis]

Ok, here's my thoughts...

With respect to nbarclay, here's my take on the whole issue.

Windows has come a long way, from the old 1.x days to 2.x days, to Windows 3.0, to 3.1 with Windows for Workgroups comming out soon after.

Windows 95 was based very much from the Windows 3.1 design, but with a new look and feel. The "start" button dates from that time, and we started to see a requirement for having an 80386 or better processor from the OS.

It was around that time that Microsoft started looking at the move to a fully 32 bit operating system. Remember, if you can run Windows on a 286, that means the OS is only a 16 bit operating system, with all the limitations that go with it.

And so, Windows NT was developed as a fully 32 bit operating system. It was somewhat compatable with older Windows applications, but DOS applications generally didn't run under it.

So at that point, there were TWO development trees going on at Microsoft for Operating System development. The one that was based from Windows 3.x/Windows 95, and the other from Windows NT.

Windows 95 evolved and eventually became Windows 98, then ME with the different versions thrown together.

Windows NT evolved and became Windows 2000(which was originally going to merge the two trees into one but failed to do so), and finally Windows XP and 2003(for servers).

If a game is designed to run under Windows 98/ME, then it will also run under XP because XP was designed to be compatable. If a game is designed to run under Windows XP, it MAY run under Windows 2000, but it may not. Remember, XP was derived from Windows 2000 so the fundamental design is similar.

Now, if you think about it, Windows XP came out in 2001. It is now getting close to the end of 2005. There are good reasons for some people to run Windows 2000, mostly because it didn't have as much "fluff" thrown in, so doesn't require more than 128 megs of memory to run decently. Windows XP, because of all the fluff really needs people to have 256 megs of memory in their computer to run well.

If you have a computer that dates back to before 2001, then you have to think how well it will run a game in the first place. Sure, Windows 2000 may have some advantages over XP, but at this point, if you have less than 256 megs of memory in your computer, you NEED to upgrade just to play any of the newer games. Remember that many games NEED 256 megs of memory to run properly these days, not counting how much memory Windows takes up.

You can complain about this all you want, but if you arn't running Windows XP at this point, and want to play NEW games, you may want to think about your priorities. 512 megs of memory isn't expensive. A DirectX 9 based video card also isn't asking a lot since they probably cost around the price for a new game on the low end(yes, $50 can get you a DX 9 based vid card).

To upgrade from Windows 98 or ME to XP Home will cost under $100 for a legal copy in retail. To upgrade from 2000 requires Windows XP Pro(the upgrade ver), which is under $150, or you can do a clean install of XP Home onto a Win 2000 based machine and manually re-install and copy over your files. Either way, the cost isn't THAT high since $100 is around the price of two games at this point.

I'm not saying that everyone can afford it, but if you have Windows 2000 on your machine and your machine was built after 2001, then you probably have the income needed to buy a new copy of Windows XP, be it an upgrade or OEM copy. Think on it and go from there. A 5 year-old computer will probably have problems with Civ 4 to begin with, regardless of which version of Windows you have.

A motherboard costs around $100, an Athlon 64 3000+ might cost you in the $150-$175 range. 512 megs of memory only costs $50 for a decent stick(I'm not talking the cheap stuff that isn't reliable). Video card may or may not be available from your last computer if you decide to upgrade. At any rate, even going with a Geforce FX 5200 or Radeon X300 or 9500 or above is fairly cheap. A case can be gotten for under $50, and that leaves you needing a hard drive and MAYBE a floppy drive.

Parts arn't all that expensive folks. Sure you may need to pay someone to put it all together for you, but that shouldn't cost you all that much. I hope this helps put things in perspective for some of you. If your Windows 2000 based machine has the hardware needed to run the game, then the game will PROBABLY run under 2000, but remember that 2000 has a lot of extra security stuff in there that made driver development difficult, and due to the DirectX 9.0c requirement, you may find things not able to run under 2000.

Good luck.

[dearmad]

So, we finally get an answer when they released the info: win2000 is OK for the game. 'nuff said.