What's the "BEST" Video Card for Civ IV

[Ming]

Ok... Civ IV doesn't run on any of my machines because I have cheap intel video cards...

So I'm biting the bullet, getting a new computer, and I want to make sure the video card I buy for it is going to work and be able to play the game at its best.

So... for max speed, best graphics... WHICH VIDEO CARD WILL RUN THIS GAME PROPERLY.

Thanks in advance for your answers... I'm going to wait to buy my machine until I think I know for sure what video card to buy.

[James]

Good call, looking forward to this intel.

[2manyusernames]

I'll be happy with a video card that will play the game at all. applying a fix isn't a problem, doesn't take long at all. I'll even accept slower play. (better than no play, which is what I am stuck with now)

I do know that hardware T&L is important.
Look here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133278

Other than that it appears to be a toss-up. Some have acceptable results with card "x" and some with the same card can't get the game to run. Very odd & frustrating. Oh well, hopefully a patch will solve the problem.

[Ming]

I'm praying to get a good answer...
I've been reading through all the threads once I saw the problems I was having... and it seems most video cards won't work.

So I don't want to make a mistake on this one.

[James]

Paddy and I spent some hours reading the bug thread the other night. That thread almost warmed our beers

[Ming]

And that's why I started this thread... I've been reading through all the threads, and I'm afraid of buying the wrong video card. And by the sound of things, that's not a hard thing to do. It seems MANY, MANY video cards just don't work. And I've yet to see which is truely the best.

I just want to buy a video card where I don't have to patch a fix, settle for less than the best, change to crappy settings, play at the proper speed, and finally...

I just want to load the game and play it like it's meant to be played! I don't think that's asking too much.

[BleckLord]

This is the card that I am using:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814123150

The game defaulted to 'High' graphics setting and its not laggy playing a large map with 6 or 7 AIs. I haven't had any graphical coruption problems or 'shards' as they've been described in the forum. I did have the ATI renderer issue, but thats fixed. I'm also having the game crash to the desktop, but I'm fairly certain that has little or nothing to do with my card.

It might be a good option if you want to go AGP instead of PCI Express.

TnL is important, but every Nvidia and ATI card since the Geforce 1 had TnL. The grey area occurs in the 'off' brand chipsets like SiS et al. I can see why the staff over at CFC were peeved enough to put up that sticky. A GeForce MX 4x0 does have TnL and people are still posting that it's incompatible because of TnL

[vee4473]

It would be hard to recommend a card since I have been reading that the same card will work on one persons system, but some other guy will have a problem wit it..

it seems as if something else is at work here..

[vee4473]

by the way, I had a geforce4 mx440 64mb and the game ran sluggishly on low settings with one graphical glitch (the floodplain glitch)

I decided to go out and buy a new card. I bought a geforce 6200 128mb 8x agp (and 256 more MB of system RAM)and I can now play where I can at least see the combat animations. Before, the 2 units would just stand there and the loser would just disappear. Boring.

And the floodplain glitch is gone.

The opening movie still skips every 3 or 4 seconds, but wonder movies are ok.


One new glitch is that when the map is zoomed out to the level where clouds appear, there are blue streaks, but oddly enough they disappear if I turn on and off the map grid tiles.....


weird stuff.

[Qwertqwert]

You're getting a whole new PC?

Well how much do you want to spend? The BEST card would be the 512MB 7800GTX or the X1800XT when they come out. Each will be at approx $700. I wouldn't buy eigher though, I'm running a 6600GT, they're like $150 right now and they run most games great, though I havn't gotten any of the new super-high graphic games like F.E.A.R. yet.

[Ming]

I hope I don't need to buy a $700 card to run a $50 game.

150 - 250 seems reasonable to me since I will have my new machine for a few years.

[Qwertqwert]

Originally posted by Ming
I hope I don't need to buy a $700 card to run a $50 game.

150 - 250 seems reasonable to me since I will have my new machine for a few years.

Well you asked what the best cards for gaming were so I told you them. If you are willing to go for $250 a 6800GT is an incredable card, will run any games out today on max settings perfectly, and is just slightly above that $250.

How much are you looking to spend on the whole computer?

[Paddy]

The things we do unto ourselves for the sake of Civ.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Paddy the Scot
The things we do unto ourselves for the sake of Civ.

So true... and while the topped thread is ok, it clearly doesn't tell me what the best is... just "what works after some tweaks"

So again... right out of the box... best speed, no problems... which card is it

[Aeson]

The 6600GT handles CIV well and can be found for around $130 (for AGP at least). If you're going to go up to $200, probably a X800PRO is the best card in that pricerange.

(If you have less than 1GB RAM, upgrade there first before spending that extra $70 on a graphics card.)