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    Civ 5 on the m11x?

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by LupinTheThird, Aug 28, 2010.

  1. LupinTheThird

    LupinTheThird Notebook Guru

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    do you think this game will run well on the m11x?
     
  2. niithegoat

    niithegoat Notebook Consultant

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    I hope:

    Minimum Requirements

    Operating System: Windows® XP SP3/ Windows® Vista SP2/ Windows® 7
    Processor: Dual Core CPU
    Memory: 2GB RAM
    Hard Disk Space: 8 GB Free
    DVD-ROM Drive: Required for disc-based installation
    Video: 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT or better, 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS or better, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics
    Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
    DirectX®: DirectX® version 9.0c

    Recommended Requirements

    Operating System: Windows® Vista SP2/ Windows® 7
    Processor: 1.8 GHz Quad Core CPU
    Memory: 4 GB RAM
    Hard Disk Space: 8 GB Free
    DVD-ROM Drive: Required for disc-based installation
    Video: 512 MB ATI 4800 series or better, 512 MB nVidia 9800 series or better
    Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
    DirectX®: DirectX® version 11
     
  3. townfries

    townfries Notebook Consultant

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    Those requirements surprised me
     
  4. CapnBoost

    CapnBoost Notebook Consultant

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    More eye candy in this iteration, also more FMV.
     
  5. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    Interested about this too, although I suspect it will be playable...
     
  6. 1201NFTW

    1201NFTW Notebook Evangelist

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    4 GB recommended? wow, this game gave me a reason to up the Ram lol
     
  7. MLM0351

    MLM0351 Notebook Geek

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    Wow, is there a demo we can benchtest with yet? i am sure ill have it a few days early anyways on steam. Hopefully all goes well. I will post immediately the results.
     
  8. LupinTheThird

    LupinTheThird Notebook Guru

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  9. dekude

    dekude Notebook Enthusiast

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    Really hoping this will run well on the R1. Steam says the minimum requirements for the CPU is a Core 2 Duo @ 1.8GHZ, and overclocked we're just below that. I'm sure it will run, I have little doubt about that, I just don't want to play a choppy mess. Guess we'll see in a few days when the demo comes out.
     
  10. vorob

    vorob Notebook Deity

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    See no reason for this game no to run perfectly on our machine. Its a turn-based strategy with primitive graphics, no problem here.
     
  11. MLM0351

    MLM0351 Notebook Geek

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    This game should not be underestimated in graphics potential. it will be very CPU intensive. I expect most will run it at min to med graphics.
     
  12. OblastSRT4

    OblastSRT4 Notebook Evangelist

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    Crosses fingers...Lets all try it tomorrow and give some results. I def want this game.
     
  13. slickie88

    slickie88 Master of Puppets

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    Yeah, I think I'll wait until there's some decent feedback from R2 owners. Hope it's favorable!
     
  14. acshaw80

    acshaw80 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I think I will cry if this doesn't run...
     
  15. kojiro

    kojiro Notebook Guru

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    It better run, I bought it already on steam and it's pre-loaded... tomorrow I'll know...
     
  16. Goethe

    Goethe Notebook Guru

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    That`s what I was gonna say, this game, may not require too much from your graphic card, but to say it`s cpu intensive is an understatement, I can definitely see the old M11x with it`s SU7300 processor having a hard time with this game, let's see how this new i7 640um processor handles it, but i think it can handle it.
     
  17. OblastSRT4

    OblastSRT4 Notebook Evangelist

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    It WILL run, it just depends on how well. I would say our systems should run it medium-high settings. It depends on how well its coded...this will be the first CIV game I will buy, so I dont know how well its coded. Its no different graphically than games we run now with our systems...
     
  18. zarzak

    zarzak Notebook Consultant

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    I'm thinking there might be problem on very large maps unless you're overclocking an i7-640um. I know minecraft and dwarf fortress both give me issues due to the cpu
     
  19. acshaw80

    acshaw80 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Patiently awaiting someone to post the results of your test run today....I think you can play the direct 2 drive version at 10am...let us know how it goes!
     
  20. kojiro

    kojiro Notebook Guru

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    Opened steam at 10h15, it started validating my pre-loaded files. Took about 5 minutes. Everything was good, now it's downloading 1G of data. Should be done in about 8 minutes. Hopefully it'll run! Will get back to you guys.
     
  21. dekude

    dekude Notebook Enthusiast

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    R1 user here. So far it runs fine on the lowest settings (the game set everything on minimum by default), runs at 60fps or more. Of course this is the very very beginning of the game so take it with a grain of salt. Tried changing a few of the settings like texture to High and a few others to medium and got around 22-30fps.

    So yeah, it runs fine at this point just fine, though I was only a few turns in. Later game stuff it remains to be seen how well it will run.
     
  22. kojiro

    kojiro Notebook Guru

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    So I got the game playing.

    There's 2 options when you start it, DX9 or DX10/DX11. So far, DX10/DX11 has only caused the game to crash. Even force-running it on the GT335 doesn't work. On the other hand, DX9 at medium settings (but no AA) runs very fluid. I started a random game and everything looks nice and fluid. I do wish DX10 would work though. I'll investigate that further, now it's game playing time!
     
  23. slickie88

    slickie88 Master of Puppets

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    DX9 typically has better performance for most games.
     
  24. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    R2:

    Civilization 5 Crashes for me on DirectX 10/11 options.

    Isn't the m11x GPU a DirectX 10.1 card? So what's wrong? It does seem to switch to Nvidia.

    In any case, DirectX9 option works, but I want the DX10.

    I only tested with lowest settings to see if it worked, I'll check back when I have more time, but if anyone figures out a way to run it on DX10/11 let me know! Thanks!
     
  25. OblastSRT4

    OblastSRT4 Notebook Evangelist

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    Just played 1 hour of the DEMO with my M11x R1 (7300, OC'd, 4gb ram). It ran beautifully on dx 10/11 mode. First I started it up on DX9 mode with everything maxed and it ran SMOOTH as butter, but didnt look so good...well it looked OK, but not like the screens I been seeing. Then I switched it over to DX10/11 mode, with everything on Medium (shadows on Low) and it ran SMOOTH, but it kept stuttering every few seconds, not slowdown, it was weird...So I restarted the game, changed EVERYTHING to medium, except Water quality and Textures on HIGH, and it ran SMOOTH as butter. 1366x768 res with no AA. It looks great and runs great...no crashing or anything.
     
  26. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    Well once again I guess Optimus screwed us R2 owners, I can't even enable AA on DX9, but I want DX10
     
  27. jeremyshaw

    jeremyshaw Big time Idiot

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    The Intel GMA HD is a DX10 GPU, also.

    Did you try whitelisting the application? (and steam, too, for that matter).
     
  28. OblastSRT4

    OblastSRT4 Notebook Evangelist

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    I do know that the Civ 5 forums are going nuts because of issues with the game crashing with DX10/11, so I'm not sure this is an Optiumus issue, and more like a intel I' series issue. Go read up on it, theres a ton of threads on teh 2k forums.
     
  29. jeremyshaw

    jeremyshaw Big time Idiot

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    eek!

    I'll just hide until this blows over (since my laptop will take it's sweet time to arrive... :p).
    Hopefully the brave people before me would of ironed things out.

    Thank you for the heads up, OblastSRT4 :) (where is that? Oblast is like a county, iirc).
     
  30. OblastSRT4

    OblastSRT4 Notebook Evangelist

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    haha, Oblast is acutally the color of my last car...Orange blast, SRT4 was the car I had. A little turbo guy.
     
  31. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    Yes, but no dice.

    It really starts to chug after about 30 turns too, in DX9 mode. I think that might be the CPU being taxed tho (i7 R2 version)
     
  32. acshaw80

    acshaw80 Notebook Enthusiast

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    How bad is it chugging? Still playable?
     
  33. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    Yes, playable. Also on mostly high settings. It was very smooth in the first turns but after turn 20 or so it took a harsh turn for the worse. It might do better on medium or low settings, I will re-try this later.

    It also takes a much longer time than Civ4 between turns, when the other civs are making their moves. Clearly CPU taxing.
     
  34. OblastSRT4

    OblastSRT4 Notebook Evangelist

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    That makes no sense, with my dual core the game runs smooth...The i7 should run better...Its got to be a patch problem that can be fixed. I played the entire demo which was 100 moves with 2 cities on screen and tons of units...It was smooth with Medium/High settings.
     
  35. kojiro

    kojiro Notebook Guru

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    Mine is on high on every options that I can control (2 options switch to low no matter what) and running DX9. Everything is smooth, I completed a game with 8 other nations without any lag. Very happy, but I still wished DX10 would work.
     
  36. slickie88

    slickie88 Master of Puppets

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    I had no loss of performance after about 3 hours of playing the demo. Logged FPS never dipped below mid 30s. They averaged much higher than that. I'll check my logs later. All settings on high, other than shadows, with DX9. Haven't tried DX10.

    EDIT: I wasn't really aware of the time between turns taking long. This is my fist Civ game. I can't recall any turns taking more than about 5 seconds.
     
  37. LupinTheThird

    LupinTheThird Notebook Guru

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    Does the real game automatically set some of the settings to low, or is it just the demo?
     
  38. kojiro

    kojiro Notebook Guru

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    It automatically sets everything to low, but you can put it at high and it'll work fine.
     
  39. ripwind

    ripwind Notebook Consultant

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    I had some major performance issues on my C2Duo desktop (8800 512MB G92 GTS) playing it last night as well. However, updating to the latest NVidia drivers (Mine were from April) and disabling VSync in the video options made a HUGE difference. VSync might be causing some havoc with your frame rates, as well. I literally went from 1-2 FPS to 40ish.

    -Rip
     
  40. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    After more testing, this seemed to be an overheating issue for me. It just gets too hot after a couple of hours. In one instance it even shut down my machine without warning.

    The game is absolutely playable, just not in high settings. And compared to a desktop Q6600 it is very slow between turns.

    Also still no solution for the DX9/10 issue. Turning off Aero and whitelisting the .exes doesn't help.

    With Civ games, remember the endgame is very different from the beginning, simply because there's so much more stuff going on. I'm about 200 turns into a game and things do get slower, but not unplayable. It's decent performance but the m11x requires mid to low settings.
     
  41. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    Oh and for what it's worth, Civ 5 is an excellent game despite a few niggles with the m11x graphics performance. Recommended.
     
  42. slickie88

    slickie88 Master of Puppets

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    I'm about 70 turns in and I'm not seeing /any/ delay between turns. I started paying attention to it during play today and at most it's 4 seconds. Maybe there's a lot less going on in the demo. I think the game looks great with DX9 high settings. Not sure what I'm missing with 10/11.

    I think I'm going to have to buy this game. :mad:
     
  43. d3br34k5

    d3br34k5 Newbie

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    Game looks and runs great in DX9 mode, but I'd really like to see the problems worked out with running it in its proper DX10 mode with my 335M.

    Maybe there's a new driver coming out soon to address this issue.

    Civ5 looks much better on my Q6600/4890 desktop in DX10 mode.
     
  44. hikarate

    hikarate Notebook Consultant

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    That's probably because it's the demo, take a look at this video from a Let's Play:
    YouTube - Civ 5 Let's Play Babylon Part 7

    He's around turn 60 and it takes 15 seconds between turns. Check about minute 1:30 when he clicks "Next Turn".

    I can personally confirm it takes up to 30 seconds between turns on both a Q6600 and my m11x when you get to the mid game/end game.

    BTW, are you running it on DX10? My M11x just doesn't want to, it crashes and forces me to run on DX9.

    Anyway, again as I said, quite playable, but slow, and gets much slower between turns. Graphics actually very smooth when you pick lowe-medium settings, and the game looks good.
     
  45. slickie88

    slickie88 Master of Puppets

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    I've been playing the heck out of the Steam version. I'm on round 295 with 5 other countries and loads of city states still around. I've circumnavigated the globe so that virtually the entire map is visible except for certain parts of the interior continents I haven't smashed yet. I'm not really sure if I'm mid/end game yet. EDIT: Actually I'm half way.

    The longest turn I've clocked so far is 16 seconds.

    I've got everything but shadows at max settings and it's running flawlessly. And yes, DX10/11 crashes if you have the 335 forced. I haven't bothered installing on my gaming rig yet, so I'm not really even sure what I'm missing. DX9 looks great and for a turned based strategy game, do you really need more?
     
  46. d3br34k5

    d3br34k5 Newbie

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    It's not about whether or not I need more than DX9, it's the fact that my 335M is DX10 capable and I want DX10.

    I'm still playing the heck out of it in DX9 mode on my M11X though and making use of the SteamCloud save feature.

    DX10 looks much, much better than DX9... for this game anyways.
     
  47. acshaw80

    acshaw80 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Just wanted to throw my two cents in now that I've got the computer and the game.

    I'm running it on an R2 with 4gb memory and the i7 overclocked at 166. I've got everything set on high, and it handles it quite well. There is a drop in fps between turns, but this tends to happen further on in the game as the civs grow and have more units to move around. Someone posted earlier that it is taking a long time for turns to complete once you get into turn 100 or so. I completely agree with this statement. Civ 1 through 4 never took this long to grind through the AIs turn. Some people on the Civ 5 fourms claim it is taking over two minutes for the AI to complete it's turn. I don't think I have had it that bad, but it certainly does get frustrating. However, I'm thinking it isn't a hardware issue. I think its a gameplay issue as the drop in FPS I mentioned before isn't horrible. Hopefully it is something that can be fixed with a patch...but we shall see. In the meantime...bring a magazine to read between turns!

    EDIT: I'm on a huge map with 8+ Civs compared to Slickie's 5. This evening I'm going to start a new game on a smaller map with fewer civs to see if this helps at all. I'm guessing it will.
     
  48. capsule_gang

    capsule_gang Notebook Enthusiast

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    Are you able to run it in dx11 mode? If so what drivers are you using?
     
  49. slickie88

    slickie88 Master of Puppets

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    I'm just about done with my 5 AI run civilization Earth map game - around turn 360. It's continued to slow down between turns, but it's still not any more than about 30 - 40 seconds. I would think the number of civs has to be the biggest factor.
     
  50. acshaw80

    acshaw80 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I tried it once with dx10 and it wouldn't start. I'm not terribly concerned about this...it looks pretty great with dx9.
     
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