Official Civ4 Requirements

[ChaotikVisions]

Hmm, thats good, I nearly meet recommended requirements. As for those with integrated graphics and such and below 64mb, so long as it has hardware T&L and isn't below on the other minimum requirements you'll probably be able to play it. It'll probably be a bit sluggish though. If you're not sure if you have hardware T&L but have been playing games released in the past few years, you probably do. Its gotten to be a pretty much standard thing required for games.

All that said, i'm very glad they didn't go with requiring pixel/vertex shaders(useless graphical fluff) as my crappy GF2 can't support them. Though it will be odd turning down graphical detail in a civ game to make it run faster, I suppose i'll get used to it. The thing I find most interesting about the specs is the processor minimum/recommended, I was expecting higher. I wonder if they've optimized alot of the cpu heavy stuff that used to make Civ3 games take forever.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Re: Laptop with less than 64 Mgs vram

Originally posted by Guildenstern
I know thap people really in the know sometime peruse these forums, and I have noticed that a couple people in previous posts have said that they do not have 64 megs vram, though the AOE III demo runs on their systems. I am in the same boat. I would even wager that they have the popular dell 5/600(m) series of laptops, which have intel integrated graphics.

If I only have the intel integrated, does this mean that I should go get my money back for my preorder version? That would dishearten me most severely.

Actually I got a GeForce 4Go with 32 MB VRam.

Try to download AoE III demo. It's requirements are basically exactly the same as CivIV's. Since I was able to run AoE smoothly (NO JUMPINESS!!), I think I'll be able to run CivIV if it allows you to try to run the game if you have less than the min requirments.

[ColdFever]

Oh no...I have no DVD Rom...

The DVD requirement came from Germany. In the USA I heard it may be released on CD instead. I don't know if this difference is good news, as this probably means different copy protection schemes and different exes/patches. But perhaps there is a magical way to produce one "unified" Civ4 with both copy protection schemes included?

[rumpo kid]

Originally posted by spa


Not really. I haven't ever installed anything myself (in the past I have had access to people in the know, but I moved to Calgary and both of them are still in Halifax). If it's a fairly simple matter of plugging the thing in and running the add hardware and install drivers I might give it a go but we'll see. For $40 more bucks I can get Futureshop to handle the whole thing and that's kind of tempting.

Hi Spa

Putting in a new CD/DVD dirve is not that tricky as long as you have a little experience and plenty of confidence. If you're not that sure about it and losing $40 is not going to cause you a nose bleed then it might be worth getting the shop to do it for you (parts and labour guarantees too, I assume )

Steve

[CiverDan]

I have 1.30 Ghz but only 128 MB RAM..Should I upgrade?

[rumpo kid]

Thinking about all the questions being asked about min specs it might be worthwhile if all those people who aren't sure about their systems wait until after the game is actualy released. I can imagine these forums (fora?) being full of "my system is only X,Y and Z but it Civ4 works lovely on it" style posts in no time.

Cheers

Steve

alternatively you could send your games to me and I'll test them for you

[Mace]

I think I'll wait to get a DVD drive, until I actually get Civ4 into my hands...the media may well be CD's...

[Mao_Tse_Tongue]

I have 1.30 Ghz but only 128 MB RAM..Should I upgrade?

With 128 MB RAM you are going to want to upgrade. Both Win2k and WinXP would be using a significant chunk of that memory as OS overhead. Grab a stick of 512 and you'll be in good shape memory wise.

I am assuming that you are talking about system memory of course and not video memory...

[Alex]

I really really hope they release it in CD-ROM too, because I don't own a DVD-ROM drive and this kind of drive is still pretty expensive here where I live.

I'd say that a CD-ROM version is almost guaranteed, because not everyone has DVD-ROM drives and they wouldn't risk losing potential customers because of this detail.

[publius]

i have a 256MB radeon 6600 and exceed all the other specs. will this be ok?

[Joseph]

When the Sims came out here in the US, it was on both, CD and DVD.

[Wittlich]

Thank god I upgraded my graphics card for when I beta-tested Pirates!

[wesley32]

Originally posted by ColdFever

The DVD requirement came from Germany. In the USA I heard it may be released on CD instead. I don't know if this difference is good news, as this probably means different copy protection schemes and different exes/patches. But perhaps there is a magical way to produce one "unified" Civ4 with both copy protection schemes included?

Well how hard can it be....I mean, why doesn't Firaxis just publically release the US version requirements? Geez! (yes, I'm a little annoyed because I don't have a dvd drive either). The game has to be in the very final stages of development - besides finishing touches and fixing bugs.

[Rogerdude]

I looked at the specs and I'll rank them by their importance, IMO.

First: RAM. 512 is vital, since there will be far less disk swap usage. Of course the game could run with 256, but it would probably be slow.
Second: VideoCard. The game is in 3D, so a good GPU will help. Or maybe one can turn down the graphic details.
Third: CPU. The faster, the better, but I doesn't really count that much. Mostly used when processing computer turns.
Fourth: Disk Space and DVD-Drive. These two don't influence the performance, but are required to install the game.

I'm glad the game comes on DVD support, the installation will complete faster (especially if your dvd drive supports UDMA4, Pioneer drives do).

[inca911]

I need the US requirements so I can go buy a new PC. The game is in manufacturing, so can't someone spill the beans on the official US requirements? They aren't going to change over the next 5 days. DVD vs. CD is a large issue to many. Thanks!