Will my computer run CIV IV?

[lorifromsf]

I am thinking about finally buying Civ IV, but I am concerned about some of the comments from various sources about difficulty running the game.

I have a Dell Inspiron 530 running Vista, which I bought last August. I have the basic graphics card.

If the program won't run, is there a fix (including upgrading video)?

I have Civ III installed and it mostly runs. The one problem is that if my country is too large when I end, the final screen sequence hangs before I get my final score.

Also, should I buy Civ IV Complete, or Civ IV Gold and then add Beyond the Sword? The second choice is cheaper.

Please, no comments about how I shouldn't buy Dell or use Vista. That ship has sailed for me, and I won't be buying a new computer for years.

Lori

[St Jon]

I had no probs running CivIV on an old celeron based machine I built a few years before the game even came out. Bit slow on launch and exit but it was an antique machine destined for the dustbin shortly after. Don't know about BtS as even Warlords hadn't been released then but I can't imagine there would be a problem other than Vista being.....sorry you asked that noone should mention that.

[Willem]

Civ 4 isn't really that demanding as far as systems go so I suspect your machine will be OK. The only thing you need to be concerned about is having enough RAM, at least 2 gig is recommended for Large/Huge maps, 3 if you're using Vista, and that your video card supports Hardware T&L. Most new integrated video cards do but that wasn't the case when the game first came out. So many people had a problem with black terrain.

[joncnunn]

Hum, your running Vista, the one advantage of that is you can roughly tell before you buy.
Open the games folder in it and right click any game that came with it and look at what it says your machine's rating is.
If your machine's rating is 3.0 or above you should have no problems whatsoever even on highest graphic setting.
If however your machine's rating is only 1.0 (or less), then you'd have almost certainly have issues even with lowest graphic settings. (Frequent graphic card crashes and the like.) At 2.0 you'd probably be okay as long as you kept the graphic settings down on low.

From the wikipedia, if that were a 530X and not a 530 you'd have serious issues but for the 530 itself, as long as the graphics card is something other than the Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 (Intel GMA 3100) Civ IV should be fine at least on low graphics. (There's several different levels of VRAM that came on the 530.)

I am thinking about finally buying Civ IV, but I am concerned about some of the comments from various sources about difficulty running the game.

I have a Dell Inspiron 530 running Vista, which I bought last August. I have the basic graphics card.

If the program won't run, is there a fix (including upgrading video)?

I have Civ III installed and it mostly runs. The one problem is that if my country is too large when I end, the final screen sequence hangs before I get my final score.

Also, should I buy Civ IV Complete, or Civ IV Gold and then add Beyond the Sword? The second choice is cheaper.

Please, no comments about how I shouldn't buy Dell or use Vista. That ship has sailed for me, and I won't be buying a new computer for years.

Lori

[joncnunn]

If the Civ III issue was only on replay, you just weren't waiting long enough for it to compute everything needed. On Civ III that could take several minutes if your map was big enough and the game had gone on a long time.

[lorifromsf]

Thanks for the Vista Info. My graphics score is 3.3 (the lowest of all the scores), so I should be alright. I'm less interested in pretty pictures and more interested in playing the game.

Also the Civ III actually hung. I had problems with the map loading when I first started, so I know what you're talking about. I just fixed the problem by 'running as if Windows XP'.

I guess I'll give it a try.

Lori