Multi core support in Civ5

[CanuckSoldier]

This question has been asked on many Civ fan sites, but just tonight many game blogs are posting that Firaxis and Intel are giving a Case Study at GDC.

"Firaxis, 2K Games, and Intel are pleased to present the world premiere game engine and technology sneak peek of Civilization V, launching this fall! You'll learn how Firaxis developers have used the newly released GPA 3.0 PC platform tools and Threading Building Blocks to offer Civ V playability on a myriad of systems; from the rapidly expanding mainstream mobile gaming market, all the way up to the multi-core high-end enthusiast demographic. Millions of Intel(R) Core i3, i5, and i7-based systems are ready to play - will your title scale?"

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD10/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=10981

Now for those that don't have a computer geek background, GPA is an intel developer tool to optimize C++ code for intel video chips and DirectX video.

http://isdlibrary.intel-dispatch.com...Guide_4209.pdf This is a technical document for those that are having problems sleeping tonight :P

Even better the "Intel Threading Building Blocks" is a C++ tool for building code that using multicore CPU's

There is a whole opensource community for TBB here http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/

This is great news that Civ5 will be optimized for DirectX and use all the cores on our modern CPU's something Civ4 didn't do.

CS

[BigFree]

Wooohooo! That IS great news.

[Chibiabos]

It sounds like -- even more exciting -- it will also support low-power hardware such as that found on mobile devices, meaning it could run on lower-end hardware than Civ IV ... like, perhaps, my low-end laptop!?

[CanuckSoldier]

It sounds like -- even more exciting -- it will also support low-power hardware such as that found on mobile devices, meaning it could run on lower-end hardware than Civ IV ... like, perhaps, my low-end laptop!?

I could see it working on slightly lower hardware than Civ4, but if your CPU is on the low side, I'd want to have a discrete nvidia or ATI video chip to help out in your laptop.

CS

[Chibiabos]

Considering its at the Intel GDC, I hope it means it might even run on an integrated Intel graphics chip.

I do have a Radeon HD3200 on this laptop, but my point isn't what I have or anything, but the possibility ... an Intel game developer presentation boasting about "scalability" to me means its a very real possibility that Civ V might run well on even an Intel integrated chipset, which is pretty bottom-of-the-line for a PC. I'm not a developer and not sure whether that's possible, but given the conflux of an Intel game developer's conference on scalability, it seems reasonably possible it could be just that!