System Requirments for CIV5!!! Official

Minimum System 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 System 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



I think there pretty steep for a Civ game.

 

"Core i3 or better integrated graphics".....the heck?

In comparison to an HD2600XT or 7900?!

 

What the heck? That's even steeper than Crysis, that's plain stupid.

 

i know, the system requirments for this sort of game is gonna pea alot of the die hard civ fans off

 

Got that right -especially since it's not a known enthusiast series of games. Those people with their old Pentium E2180's and 7600 GT's are going to be REAL pissed.

 

Says a lot on both sides when a new game has requirements that are compared to an almost 3 year old game. I'm sure it will scale well for low to mid systems...it's not like the minimum specs are frightening. What's funny is DX11 is "recommended", but the recommended cards don't support it...regardless, I'm psyched to play it.

 

Guys, you're missing the point: the key statement is "Core i3 or better integrated graphics". The reason they list the HD2600 XT and 7900 GS is that they can't be bothered to test every card in the history of discreet GPUs and these are the oldest they tested. This game will work on every laptop sold this year and every laptop with a discreet GPU sold in the past 4 years.

 

^ exactly what he said. The minimum aren't bad at all, but prob like sc2 if you want to up gfx settings etc then you want a newer gaming rig.

 

I agree, they can't "officially" support every GPU made since 1998. They have to draw the line somewhere. I'm pretty sure we'll see this, and are seeing this, in most all the new games. Standards gotta move up some day people.

 

It's interesting to see that Quad-Core is finally popping up everywhere as recommended. They have been around for quite a while but is still only now catching on...


It does not feel a long time ago, when people advised against quad-core as there was not much performance gain in most games.

 

how'd an ati radeon 5650 do? I think it doesn't hit the recommended GPU level but it should be decent right?

 

The Radeon 5650 is quite a powerful GPU. It probably won't max it out according to the recommended specs, but it should run it at high settings, depending on resolution.

 

The recommended specs include: 1.8 GHz Quad Core CPU.

The Intel Core i7-720QM is only 1.6GHz. Does this mean Civ 5 won't run well on the i7-720QM? (I bought an Asus G73Jh this week and I'm wondering if it's already obsolete since this game is coming out as soon as next month.)

 

It will run very well. I've learned recommended specs are usually higher than what you need to run on med-high settings.

 

Those are some pretty demanding specs. The only other game I can remember that asked for a 48xx was Just Cause 2.

 

Between Turbo Boost (which can boost to 1.73 GHz when all four cores are active) and the fact that that likely means a 1.8 GHz Core 2 Quad or Athlon/Phenom x4, I'm sure that the 720QM exceeds that requirement.

It's good to know that this should be playable on the dv6t I hope to buy within the next month. I've never played one of these games, but I want to at least give it a try.

 

Take a look at Metro 2033. Then you'll know the true meaning of steep.

A lot of people still do. Quite disappointing, to see it hasn't caught on well yet.

 

I used to be a "dual core" only type person before the "i" series came out myself. lol

 

I was always on the quad core bandwagon, myself. I got myself a rig with a Q6600 not long after the chip came out. Strangely enough, it's still a great performing processor, considering that it was the first quad core processor.

I'm not sure that being so biased to quad core was the best decision either. Maybe a point in between would have been best.

 

I still think a dual core i5 or i7 are good options for games now anyhow due to the efficient use of hyperthreading. Almost like a quad core, but not.

 

I can't wait to play this game. Do you guys think it will run smoothly on a machine with a 310m and an i5? I remember Civ4 officially only required 1GB of RAM, but it crashed very often until I finally upgraded to 2GB.

 

I don't know of any games that are coded to take advantage of the i7 / i5 series hyperthreading and I found it made absolutely no difference to performance whether it was enabled or disabled. More titles lately have been listing Quad Core in the recommended requirements as well. Mafia 2 was the latest one I saw after noticing Civ 5.

 

HT is good for encoding mostly, games really don't use it - most are only programmed to see actual cores, not logical. That's why some of the more demanding recent games (gta4, metro, mafia2, bfbc2) seem to perform better/prefer using quads.

Not sure if it's worrying or not that civ5 wants a quad though... it either means it is thoroughly optimized and will run great on one, or it is horribly slow without one / with a low-end one. I can understand modern games offloading some physics calcs to the CPU (see above list), but when you have a civ game which already taxes the CPU more than the GPU...

 

What do you mean? Hyperthreading is transparent to the user. It is enabled depending on number of threads, whether virtual "cores" or real cores. Starcarft 2 and Bad Company 2 show using all four "cores" quite evenly that I've noticed with my i5-520m.

I doubt it would make a difference with your quad core, since most games don't take advantage of more than four threads to begin with.

I also see no way to disable hyperthreading in Windows or BIOS either.

 

You can disable Hyperthreading, enable Raid and add some overclocking functions for the Extreme processors by using the Mysn Bios XMG7CGH.12 on my model or the 17'' one but maybe I never noticed any difference because I already have four threads like you say. When I tested GTA IV with the mobile i7 620M with hyperthreading enabled, it still performed really poorly compared to a lower clocked Quad but that game is so poorly coded so I don't draw too many conclusions. I think Mafia 2 would be a better test since it does make use of the extra Cores and is more optimised so would be interesting to see if Hyperthreading allows it to perform better on a Dual Core.

 

I can't understand how anyone could call the Recommended Specs steep, in 2010. Plus, keep in mind that the min specs are over 5 years old.

It's completely acceptable to recommend a generation old 4800 series GPU.

On the Hyperthreading front, it makes little difference in games, and doesn't gain any ground on a proper quad-core.

Test a Core i5 vs a Q9000, in GTA IV.

 

And it's still that way. Show me "most" games getting a performance boost with a quad-core. I've seen about 4 listed in this thread. I have over 20 games installed currently on my machine, and that's only because I don't have enough space for the others.

That's not to say quad-cores aren't good CPU's. They're definitely faster than my dual-core. But you need to understand the tradeoffs. If you're getting a Sager or an Alienware DTR that you never have to move and the battery is basically just a UPS, sure, go with the quad-core. But a dual-core will give you 80-95% the same framerate as a quad-core depending on the game, while using 2/3rds the power. Much better for those of us who use our laptops on battery often.

 

Exactly. As much as I loved my Sager, it just was too big and heavy to consider taking with me. And when I had the M11x for a short while it was clear to me that I needed something that could last a long time on battery, even gaming for a while. I can still play my favorite games on my HP Envy 14, details reduced a little bit, but still very playable, and I can actually pick the thing up with me without the power cord and run with it.

 

Good news. Check out this tidbit:

Civ 5: Scalable System Requirements

"This model also allows Civ 5 to run on integrated graphics including most modern notebooks and computers that do not have an independent graphics card, at an acceptable framerate. The game has been extensively tested and tweaked for these lower end systems, so it should run out of the box."

 

Really looking forward to this game, how will it run on my system.

Intel i3 M @ 2.1 ghz
3 gb RAM
Radeon HD 5650
Windows 7 64 bit

Thanks in advance.

 

What do they even mean by Core i3 integrated graphics?

You can only use integrated graphics if your CPU is a Core i3 or better?

They know it's not 2003 and integrated graphics can run basic games now, right?

I have it preloaded on my 1810T and fully expect it to be playable.

 

I'm sure they mean the power of the i3 integrated graphics or better.

The core iX GPU architecture is probably a bit faster than GMA 4500MHD because it is directly on the core, but probably not by much. But read my other quote:

"...allows Civ 5 to run on integrated graphics including most modern notebooks and computers that do not have an independent graphics card, at an acceptable framerate."

By modern notebooks I hope they mean 4500MHD because that's basically the most recent before Core i3/i5/i7 hit the market only recently.

 

When they mention the 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS, they mean only the desktop version, right? My notebook has a 256 MB nVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS. I was looking forward to buying this game but I guess I shouldn't. Actually, in my experience Civ games usually need a couple patches before they run smoothly.

 

The main problem I see with these requirements is the fact that Civ is generally not for the power gamer crowd...most people who make up the community are not the same as for some hyped up FPS...they are older, more mature and don't have all the time of the world to play games...so they want a game that will run on their normal (not gaming rig) notebooks.

Civ4 used to run on a notebook with integrated i910 back in 2005!!! It was not fast, but it was fully playable. A 2003 vintage p4 with a Radeon 9600 made it possible to play with all graphics settings on high.

So, if civ5 is not playable on a 2009 era integrated (X4500) even with lower settings, or on a 3 year old middle class rig (GF8600, 9500), that means our friend Sid has screwed up something, and wants to cater a different crowd, which will not work for such a game.

 

Looking at the system requirements, I'm pretty certain that Civ5 will run with little issue at low settings on older systems.

 

Relax guys, despite listed system requirements, their comment about it working on laptops with integrated graphics is comforting.