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

[Aeson]

Another thing to bear in mind when shopping for a graphics card in that price range is that GT means different things for nVidia and ATI. nVidia's 6600 GT and 6800 GT versions run faster than the 6600 and 6800 respectively. ATI's X800 GT version runs slower than the X800.

[Solver]

Ming, I'd recommend the GeForce 6600 or 6600 GT by far. I have a definite preference for nVidia over ATI, and Civ4 has less issues with nVidia. The 6600 is a fast card, good even for things that are more graphics-intensive.

If you have 200$ to spare, the best thing would be buying a 6600 and an extra 512 MB of RAM. Civ4 is really, really memory intensive. While it runs with as little as 256 MB, 512 MB is required for comfortable play, and having 1GB should make the experience much better on large maps.

[snoopy369]

Ming, my 5200 works wonderfully.

It looks like nVidia is better than ATI in terms of instacompatibility for many games; a quick browse of the ATI support site indicates an awful lot of games (including MOST T+L hard-requiring games) have initial incompatibilities ...

I'm also building a system, and I was going to go with an x800 ... but now I'm not so sure

In terms of 'excellent' performance, however, it looks like there's a huge upgrade at the 6800, and ATI has the equivalent with the x700, although the x800 is probably a better choice (as it has 256mb/s memory bandwidth).

Browse this site for specific information. It lists theoretical peak performance at the bottom of each card, and although small differences probably don't matter, you can see certain trends where a set of cards is significantly improved over another.

[Solver]

As far as I am concerned, ATI cards tend to cause problems far too often .

The 6800 is indeed a big step up from the 6600, but I think that the price difference isn't worth the performance boost. Civ4 won't run much faster on a 6800 because it doesn't use those super-advanced features, it's not so graphically intensive. For a FPS game, yes, the difference would be big. But with Civ4, you'll be much better off buying the 6600 and spending the rest on extra RAM, which will have a more notable increase in performance for Civ.

[snoopy369]

Ming did indicate that he wanted a card for the next few years

I may get a 6600 and I may get a 6800 ... but I'm spending about 1% of my annual pretax income on it

However, a 6600 and a 6800 are both pretty good choices, imo. Just a 6800 is better.

[notyoueither]

Ming, what kind of computer are you going to get? Big name brand from major outlet (or direct) or clone from smaller, local outfit?

My strategy would start there.

[Ming]

I don't know yet... I'm waiting for my wife to go shopping with me (she's the IT consultant) When I go with her, I usually get what she would want... The last time, I didn't go with her, and I have a great machine for business applications, and it SUCKS for games.

The GF 6600 or 6800 seem to be winning the poll for best to buy. Any other thoughts. I just don't want to screw this one up.

[Aeson]

What's the overall budget?

In general, go with an inexpensive CPU and take a better video card and more RAM.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ming
I don't know yet... I'm waiting for my wife to go shopping with me (she's the IT consultant) When I go with her, I usually get what she would want... The last time, I didn't go with her, and I have a great machine for business applications, and it SUCKS for games.

The GF 6600 or 6800 seem to be winning the poll for best to buy. Any other thoughts. I just don't want to screw this one up.

Well... IT consultant.... if she has a local small dealer in her pocket (many do) I would try out the ATI X700 or 800.

If it were me, and my client wanted to see a 'problem child' run prior to picking up, I would do it in a heartbeat. If choice A worked, great. If there were a hiccup, put in the other card and let them see that.

Make sure they go home happy.

If that is not possible (you need a good relationship with a small mom and pop) then I think I would go the 6800 route, simply for your own peace of mind prior to seeing it work.

[notyoueither]

And Aeson is correct.

What is overall budget range?

[nhall70]

Lots of good answers in this thread but I'll weigh in as well!

If you're looking for the "best" card that's available right now, I'd have to say the GeForce 7800GTX which is about $500. I also tend to prefer NVIDIA over ATI but I'll admit that I switch back and forth often.

In fact I'm running an ATI 800XL at the moment and aside from the renderer initialization bug which was easily fixed, Civ4 runs pretty good with all settings on high. The ATI 800XL is about $300 and in my experience is about the best bang for your buck at the moment. It's not the best card...just the best value.

I have a 7800GTX sitting on my desk that I havent even installed yet. When I get around to trying it out, I'll post results.

At any rate, as a graphics programmer, I upgrade my graphics board about every 4 to 6 months so I've tried just about every class of card available at one time or another.

There's not really anything wrong with ATI but in my opinion, their drivers just arent as stable as NVIDIA drivers. A lot of problems which people blame on the game developers (such as Firaxis) are actually driver problems and inconsistancies and I'm sorry but the popular phrase..."but all my other games run fine on these drivers" just doesn't mean squat.

The number one thing you MUST do is make sure that whatever you choose, it supports hardware T&L. It almost seems silly to point that out because it's getting increasingly difficult to even find a board that doesn't support it but surprisingly enough, there seem to be a lot of people in this forum that don't have it (mostly people with the integrated Intel junk).

Hope this helps!

[LDiCesare]

There's not really anything wrong with ATI but in my opinion, their drivers just arent as stable as NVIDIA drivers.

And what about Omega drivers? I had to use these to get GC2 beta to work because no ATI driver would do any good.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Ming
I don't know yet... I'm waiting for my wife to go shopping with me (she's the IT consultant) When I go with her, I usually get what she would want... The last time, I didn't go with her, and I have a great machine for business applications, and it SUCKS for games.

The GF 6600 or 6800 seem to be winning the poll for best to buy. Any other thoughts. I just don't want to screw this one up.

You're buying a STORE computer? I'm sure there are a dozen Apolytoners in the greater Chicagoland area who would be more than happy to help you build, or build you, a computer for half the price with better specs ...

[Civfreak1970]

My ATI 256M 9550 runs great with it! Yet no matter what card you get its going to need a patch this game!

Civfreak1970

Dont listen to the lies about hardware! Game has a Memory Leak!

[Raion]

I running the game on a Geforce FX5200. Except for the sound cutting in and out on the *.bik files, and that is all the game runs fine. I think the game needs a patch though as it is going through memory, and possibly has a memory leak and a few other issues like with the programming to play the *.bik files.

The game just needs a patch, as the game is playing fine, but the longer you play the game, the more memory it uses until --- crash.

I am running the 78.91 Nvidia drivers which really are the same (for my card) as the 77.77 drivers. The game plays fine at first, but then later on (depending on how much memory you have) starts to slow down, until it gets so laggy and unresponsive that one should know that it is going to crash -- sometime soon. I never have had a crash, because I save the game and exit it out of it so far.

I played further on a Tiny World with only 3 players total in the game on a Island map, and that is all I can say, that it will take longer to use up the memory then the same thing will probably happen -- laggy, slowdown, and, next if not saving and exiting a -- crash (no more memory).

I think that is about it, and to me, the game needs a patch for a few issues with the game!

Otherwise the game plays fine for me!
If I go up in resolution then it will be harder for me to play, since my video card is just below recommended spec, while the rest is at least recommended specs.

I have not other game that acts that way, unless it needed a patch!
Even Pirates! right out of the box, played fine, and it is probably more demanding than Civ IV at first and maybe not later, but never ever crashed since I played Pirates!