So how's the game with Dual core?

[Kuciwalker]

Hard drive will have nothing to do with performance in Civ. Assuming you have at least 1GB of RAM you're probably never swapping out, and you barely use any more of the actual resources* than at the beginning, probably. It's all CPU once the memory and graphics bottlenecks are cleared, because 99% of the time between turns is AI.

* by which I mean data files

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Targonis
I've been waiting for the 10,000 and 15,000RPM speeds you see in high-end SCSI drives to make their way into SATA.

WD Raptor X.

[meriadoc]

Originally posted by ColdPhoenix
You can play CIV at work!? You lucky beggar!! I'm guessing you're self-employed or work night shift.

Unfortunately I can't install my own programs at work and work in an open plan office. Also, I reckon my job wouldn't get done if I could play CIV there...

You guessed it, I do work the night shift, and it's a job where most of our time is spent sitting and waiting for things to break.

You're also right, when I do get into a Civ-playing mode, not much does get done around here.

[potoroo]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Of the 4GB, by default only 2 are addressable by programs and 2 for the OS.

The 2GB limit is for memory space per program and it includes virtual memory as well as physical memory. Ditto the 2GB limit for XP. IOW, every program running on XP by default has a theoretical upper memory space limit of 2GB. It has nothing to do with addressing 4GB of physical RAM as system processes can and do get swapped out of physical RAM just like non-system processes. (You can prevent XP from swapping out key drivers and kernel processes by setting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Se ssion Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive to '1'.) Microsoft has explicitly stated that XP supports 4GB of physical memory.

But then this can be configured to reduce OS part to only 1G.

The /3GB boot switch is only useful if you are running applications that support a 3GB space. They are few.

Thus your computer may use up to 4GB RAM, but the OS is using 1 of these. So if you used 3.6GB, the OS was using between 0.6 and 1GB for its own purpose, which is huge.

The issue is the mapping of device memory spaces below the 4GB limit. There is a memory area just below 4GB which is reserved permanently. The reserved area is for the BIOS to put APIC, ACPI Table, PCI Devices', Resources and AGP aperture information. The amount of memory reserved will vary according to actual system use but Windows per se will happily see more than 3GB. The biggest single use of this area is by video cards. If you run two cards each with 512MB of onboard memory then the total amount of physical memory available to Windows, both OS and applications, will be roughly 2.5GB (4GB - (2*512MB) - (other devices)). If you use a single card with 256MB of memory then the total amount of available physical RAM will be roughly 3.5GB.

I think it may be possible to go beyond 3GB but I'm not sure, as it depends on the OS quite a lot, and the solution to that memory limitation is to use 64bits OS instead of 32.

On motherboards that support Physical Address Extention (PAE) the reserved device memory areas can be remapped above the 4GB limit with appropriate OS support. This feature is supported by Windows Server 2003 but not by XP Home or Pro. The /PAE switch in XP is only to support hardware-enabled Data Execution Prevention (DEP).

[potoroo]

Originally posted by LordShiva

Originally posted by Targonis
I've been waiting for the 10,000 and 15,000RPM speeds you see in high-end SCSI drives to make their way into SATA.

WD Raptor X.

I seriously considered the Raptors until I found out they don't automatically deliver the kind of performance increase you intuitively expect from the higher rotation speeds. Bear with me and I'll explain why I still use 7200rpm drives.

For example, consider a Seagate 320GB 7200rpm SATA 16MB cache for AU$125 and a WD Raptor 74GB 10,000rpm SATA 16MB cache for AU$219 on an average PC where you're opening large numbers of smaller files (like starting up a game which has a lot of config files, texture files, map files, etc) that are not guaranteed to be contiguous. That means on average the head has to move around the disk a fair bit.

The 320GB has an average seek time of 8.5ms plus 4.17ms average rotational latency for an overall average access time of 12.67ms. The 74GB Raptor has an average seek time of 4.5ms plus an average rotational latency of 3ms for 7.5ms overall average access time. However (and this is the clever bit), if you partition the 320GB drive into 75GB and 245GB and only put the stuff you use most on the 75GB partition then you quarter the average seek time. Then the numbers become average seek time of 2.13ms plus 4.17ms giving you an average access time of 6.3ms. What you have is a high performance 75GB partition for 2/3 the cost. The 245GB archival partition is just a bonus.

The 150GB Raptor (AU$319) comes out a little better. Average seek time 4.6ms + average rotational latency 3ms = 7.6ms. Partition the 320GB into 150GB + 170GB, and for the 150GB partition you get average seek time 4.25ms + 4.17ms = 8.42ms. Is 0.82ms (8.42 - 7.6) worth paying 2.5 times the price though? Not for me.

The Raptors will pay off in certain situations, like if you're editting raw video files that might be hundreds of MB or even larger. As long as the file segments are contiguous the head movement is minimal after the first seek and then the higher sustained transfer rates pay off.

However, I suggest that for most people the first scenario is more common. And that's why I ended up not buying the Raptor.

[LDiCesare]

potoroo, since you seem to know what you're talking about, how would you compare hard drive speeds when it comes to raid? RAID0 for instance. I have no idea whether the files are put in the same topology over various drives for instance and what the figure for the net gain is when you use two slower disks in raid instead of one.
(Not that I know of laptops that have the space to put two hard drives inside and wome with a raid controller)

[potoroo]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
potoroo, since you seem to know what you're talking about, how would you compare hard drive speeds when it comes to raid? RAID0 for instance. I have no idea whether the files are put in the same topology over various drives for instance and what the figure for the net gain is when you use two slower disks in raid instead of one.

That's an interesting question, but not one I can answer definitively (I do not run RAID myself and therefore cannot test it). I suggest, however, that the results would be much the same, since we are dealing with average access times. On the face of it, two 75MB partitions (on two 320MB 7200rpm drives) should still be faster than two Raptor 74MB drives even in RAID in the circumstances I assumed (accessing many, smaller and discontiguous files). In certain more proscribed situations, like accessing fewer, larger and contiguous files, the higher sustained transfer rates of the Raptor's would come into effect since the assumptions about average seek times are no longer applicable. If you minimize head movement between tracks then the Raptor's lower average rotational latency (3ms v 4.17ms) becomes more important and you would expect the Raptor(s) to be faster.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Cheers everyone for the recommendations and info. It has been most helpful, and it seems certain now that, as long as it is coupled with at least an adequate graphics card and nice amounts of memory, a Core Duo/Core 2 Duo processor should work wonders with cIV. Performance under Vista, however, seems to be more of a crap shoot.

Incidentally, I have narrowed my new-laptop choices down to two - a fully tricked out Dell Inspiron 9400 (I think it's an e1705 in the US), which is as good as a Dell XPS 1710 bar the screen resolution, or an Asus G1.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Core 2 Duo processors, to be precise

I guess the game could benefit even if it doesn't use both cores, as long as many of your background processes do. FWIW the game screams on my E6600.

Pah, this is an E6700

No problems running it whatsoever and it has been a lot more stable on this system than on my previous, although saying that my last one has been retired because I think the processor has had it - even with the cooling working effectively, the processor was still running at nearly 90C and hence didn't last very long with a session of civ 4 This is ever since the previous PSU blew on the system. I am going to pass it on to my nephew, but I will have to get the system a new processor first.

[Solver]

How'd you get your CPU to run at 90C?

[potoroo]

Originally posted by Solver
How'd you get your CPU to run at 90C?

Intel had problems with many heatsinks on the early Conroes. They were not machined properly and their surfaces were slightly concave instead of being flat so thermal transfer was inadequate and the CPUs ran far hotter than they should have. I believe this problem has been fixed but if the E6700 in question is an early one I'd be looking at the heatsink as the most probable culprit.

[potoroo]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Incidentally, I have narrowed my new-laptop choices down to two - a fully tricked out Dell Inspiron 9400 (I think it's an e1705 in the US), which is as good as a Dell XPS 1710 bar the screen resolution, or an Asus G1.

If you get the Dell then you will need to get one of the two graphics card options to run Civ4. The built-in Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 is utterly inadequate to run 3D games.

The Mobility Radeon X1400 HyperMemory option should run Civ4 reasonably well, but note that ATI's HyperMemory (like Nvidia's TurboCache) has only 128MB fast video RAM and will use up to 256MB system RAM if necessary. System RAM is slower than dedicated video RAM and obviously whatever system RAM the card uses will not be available to either the OS or your applications. In short, this style of design is a compromise.

The Geforce Go 7700 on the G1 is very close in performance to the Geforce Go 7600GT, which puts it in Geforce 7600GT territory (a decent mid-range desktop video card) and it has 512MB video RAM. It should comfortably outperform the Mobility Radeon X1400 and I would expect it to play Civ4 well.

If you can afford the Geforce Go 7900GS option on the Dell then you'd have a laptop screamer that would probably make a decent fist of playing Oblivion, much less Civ4, even with only 256MB. Having more video memory is mainly useful for loading more textures, an issue with some later games (like Oblivion) but not so much for Civ4.

The T7200 CPU (standard on the G1, optional on the 9400) is faster than an E6300 and close to the E6400 except on memory benchmarks. This is because the Intel mobile CPUs ('T' series) run a 667Mhz FSB whereas the desktop CPUs ('E' series) run a 1066Mhz FSB. (I don't think Intel have released the new mobile CPUs with an 800Mhz FSB yet.) The T7200 should run Civ4 comfortably.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by potoroo

If you get the Dell then you will need to get one of the two graphics card options to run Civ4. The built-in Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 is utterly inadequate to run 3D games.

The Mobility Radeon X1400 HyperMemory option should run Civ4 reasonably well, but note that ATI's HyperMemory (like Nvidia's TurboCache) has only 128MB fast video RAM and will use up to 256MB system RAM if necessary. System RAM is slower than dedicated video RAM and obviously whatever system RAM the card uses will not be available to either the OS or your applications. In short, this style of design is a compromise.

The Geforce Go 7700 on the G1 is very close in performance to the Geforce Go 7600GT, which puts it in Geforce 7600GT territory (a decent mid-range desktop video card) and it has 512MB video RAM. It should comfortably outperform the Mobility Radeon X1400 and I would expect it to play Civ4 well.

If you can afford the Geforce Go 7900GS option on the Dell then you'd have a laptop screamer that would probably make a decent fist of playing Oblivion, much less Civ4, even with only 256MB. Having more video memory is mainly useful for loading more textures, an issue with some later games (like Oblivion) but not so much for Civ4.

The T7200 CPU (standard on the G1, optional on the 9400) is faster than an E6300 and close to the E6400 except on memory benchmarks. This is because the Intel mobile CPUs ('T' series) run a 667Mhz FSB whereas the desktop CPUs ('E' series) run a 1066Mhz FSB. (I don't think Intel have released the new mobile CPUs with an 800Mhz FSB yet.) The T7200 should run Civ4 comfortably.

Cheers, potoroo. I've done a lot of research on these recently and am pretty well updated on mobile GFX cards as well as the CPUs. If I go for the G1 then it will have the 7700, as you say, which sounds fine. However, I have been thinking of the Dell because I can get it for cheaper than the G1, and I would get it with a Go 7900 GS, which sounds awesome.

At no point in my search was I looking for a card less than the Go 7600, and I am painfully aware of the limitations of an integrated card - it's because of my ATI Mobility 200 whatever-it-is that cIV is barely playable on my current laptop - and even then I have to reveal the map to see ANYthing in the game due to lack of T&L!

[LDiCesare]

I bought a G1 myself and Civ IV runs nicely on it. One keypoint for my choosing of Asus rather than Dell was that I already had an Asus which lasted 5 years without a problem and remains usable, whereas my experience with Dell has to do with customer support and not a very good one at that.

[Provost Harrison]

No, I am on about my old system, the P4 3GHz...actually my current processor runs very cool...

The graphics card on this one is an 8800GTS 640Mb so it manages fine with Civ 4