Civ5 to bring my PC to its knees, do not want

[Vympel]

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/08/civili ... -released/

Quad Core PCU recommended. Sheesh.

[adam_grif]

I need a new processor and a new video card just to meet the minimum reqs. Looks like I won't be playing this game until next year.

[Stark]

Wow, the only PC game I've been interested in playing for ages and it'd cost me hundreds of bucks to even make it go.

PC gaming? Dead.

[CaptHawkeye]

What's even the logic in demanding that gamers spend another hundred dollars to upgrade their machine? Chances are Civ 5's features in AI logic could be done just as well on a Duo Core. Anything so complex that a Duo barely fits the minimum requirements really feels more like the developers couldn't be assed to code it properly.

I mean, modders have been known to wildly expand an original game engine beyond its slated performance and specs on more than one occasion. So the idea that developers have to keep making new super engines every year is totally retarded. But, hey, the market probably demands they do it.

[Vympel]

I need a new processor and a new video card just to meet the minimum reqs. Looks like I won't be playing this game until next year.

Video card I'm sorted, processor, well, I ain't. I wonder how permissive the minimum requirements actually are.

I'm upgrading at the end of the year anyway (my PC's four years old in October) so it won't matter, I'm just surprised.

[General Zod]

The recommended specifications wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the quad core nonsense. Looks like I'll be easily passing on this one.

[AniThyng]

For what its worth, I first played Civ III on a AMD K6-2 and it barely ran. Civ IV on a athlon 2000, wasn't quite so bad, but still sluggish.

Now I have a Athlon 64 X2. I wonder...

Oh well, I need to upgrade for Shogun 2 anyway. Might as well...

On the other hand, I can get a brand new 360 for much cheaper...but that would mean no Civ V. Gaaa...

Oh well. At least I'm not debating if I would starve to death.

[Sea Skimmer]

I’d be amazed if it actually uses a quad core at all. Virtually every single game to claim that has been full of shit and many didn't even properly utilize a duel core. Its marketing hype 101 in action.

[adam_grif]

What's even the logic in demanding that gamers spend another hundred dollars to upgrade their machine? Chances are Civ 5's features in AI logic could be done just as well on a Duo Core. Anything so complex that a Duo barely fits the minimum requirements really feels more like the developers couldn't be assed to code it properly.

I mean, modders have been known to wildly expand an original game engine beyond its slated performance and specs on more than one occasion. So the idea that developers have to keep making new super engines every year is totally retarded. But, hey, the market probably demands they do it.

You won't have issues running the game if you bought a new PC in the past 3 years. Minimum Req will run the game just fine on lower settings. You only need to upgrade if you haven't already done so recently and want to play on the higher settings.

Problem for me, of course, is that I haven't upgraded since '06.

[Ubiquitous]

Civ 4 ran like shit as well, especially when it was first released. Firaxis have a track record of shitty/lazy coding. Which is a shame because I'd like to but this game, but I'm not upgrading for the sake of one game. I'll just buy a PS3/Xbox game instead.

[Stark]

You could buy Elemental instead (which runs on anything) but Stardock CEO went insane.

[Uraniun235]

Wow, the only PC game I've been interested in playing for ages and it'd cost me hundreds of bucks to even make it go.

PC gaming? Dead.

[Samuel]

You could buy Elemental instead (which runs on anything) but Stardock CEO went insane.

What did he do now?

On the topic of civilization 5, is anyone here planning to get it? It would be nice to have a review to see if I should get it although I probably will in a couple years after the expansion packs have come out and the price dropped.

[Stark]

I was actually really looking forward to it; it appeared to have good features, ditch stupid mechanics, and maybe be the first good Civ game in 20 years. I can give it a throw for free (lol AU) and let you know.

And crazy old Brad went apeshit when someone criticised the Elemental UI (particularly that it didnt' scale with resolution), ranting about how he doesn't know why he BOTHERS dealing with HATERS and then banned someone who said people in public life shoudl have thick skins.

The beta is pretty nice though. The game lacks a bit of feel (largely because the AI is still really primitive so there isn't that immediate pressure) and their plan to limit city-spam appears to be gone (so it's city-spam again) but it is pretty, interesting and has good ideas.

[scythewielder]

My laptop has a pretty mediocre dedicated graphics card that seems to fall a bit short of the formal requirements in theory, so I'm hoping the game is substantially more CPU than GPU intensive or, failing that, perhaps just requires a bit of tweaking the graphics downward. As long as I can run the game on low settings I won't complain.

Other than that, so far I'm definitely very interested in what this new entry in the franchise has to offer.

[MKSheppard]

Quad Core PCU recommended. Sheesh.

You can get Quad Core entry level PCs for $600-700 now in the US; and Quad Cores have been out since...2006.

What is surprising is that something like Civilization needs it -- must be the increasing amount of 3D detail they want to show in the world map.

[MKSheppard]

some guy on usenet bitching about wing commander

Yeah; Wing Commander was pretty much made to run on high end 386s and the first 486s. Then Wing Commander III was pretty much made for Pentiums with fairly fast CD drives.

[Solauren]

Dual Core or better?

WTF?

I'm sorry, unless the game maps and environmental details (i.e 30+ resource types, multiple resources development in 1 square, etc), have increased by a considerable amount, I can't see why you'd need that kind of processing power to run what is basically a glorified war game.

Even making the AI considerably smarter and more skilled shouldn't require that, unless it's very, very, very, very lazy script coding. (I.e Brute Force writing instead of figuring out some nice nested loops and If statements)

What are they writing the thing in, Pascal?

[Stark]

You can get Quad Core entry level PCs for $600-700 now in the US; and Quad Cores have been out since...2006.

What is surprising is that something like Civilization needs it -- must be the increasing amount of 3D detail they want to show in the world map.

Are you pretending to know about computers again? It's almost certainly the ambitious AI that 'requires' quad core. Nothing else about the game is going to tax a CPU, certianly not stuff handled by the GPU. The hilarious is that the 'requirements' are higher than that of significantly more demanding shooters, rather than largely static turn-based game.

If the AI doesn't suck, it'll just show that Firaxis can steal an idea but still can't code.

Yeah; Wing Commander was pretty much made to run on high end 386s and the first 486s. Then Wing Commander III was pretty much made for Pentiums with fairly fast CD drives.

Are you pretending to know about computers again? Claiming WC1 was 'made to run' on a 486 is fucking absurd. If U really wanted to be 'witty' he would have used the example of Strike Commander, a game that actually did represent a step in performance requirements (and would render about one frame a second on a 386).

[Uraniun235]

The point is that PC gaming has never been cheaper. But PC gaming is dead, so any upgrade for a game wouldn't be worth it.

[Stark]

LOL You really ARE butthurt! Sorry, buying a $250 processor to play a fucking Civ game is just not going to happen. Like I said, if the AI is even at Galciv2-level (ie, runs on any piece of shit) I'll be pleasantly surprised.

PC gaming's poor state is a result of poor titles and declining marketshare, not hardware price. C64 hardware is pretty cheap, too.

[Starglider]

Even making the AI considerably smarter and more skilled shouldn't require that

Why not? Lots of AI techniques soak up exponential amounts of compute power for linear improvements in capability, just look at the history of computer chess (solved by brute force more than anything else). I don't know what techniques the new Civ games are using, but essentially you can use local heuristics, a classifier plus strategy database, search in action/state spaces (move trees in chess, something more abstract for worlds like Civ) or exotic techniques (e.g. NNs, hardly ever used in games). All but the first will soak up all the CPU power you throw at them.

In any case I don't see why people are getting worked up, if you have an ancient or cheap and nasty PC it will still run the game, just with longer pauses between turns. It's not like an FPS or even RTS that becomes unplayable at low frame rates.

[Stark]

In GC2 they eventually introduced an option that basically let the AI routines use all the processing power available (I have no idea how this works technically of course). On slower computers it just made turns take longer, but on better CPUs it 'improved' AI performance (from the perspective of being more 'human-like' in decisions).

[MKSheppard]

Are you pretending to know about computers again? It's almost certainly the ambitious AI that 'requires' quad core.

My first statement was an off the cuff remark.

Thinking about it some more, I can see some drivers for the tick upwards:

1.) Going from square to hex grids is going to tax the AI computational cycle, particularly now that you can have on-map ranged attacks -- something that Civ did not have before.

2.) Average resolution of monitors has gone up since 2005; you can now get a full HDTV monitor for pretty decent prices now.

3.) And most likely that they moved requirements upwards to take advantage of advances; Civ 4 needed 256 MB RAM minimum, Civ 5 will need 2 GB; which is what a lot of computers have shipped with since whenever.

[MKSheppard]

Are you pretending to know about computers again? Claiming WC1 was 'made to run' on a 486 is fucking absurd.

It's been so long - but from what I understand, you could "sort of" run WC1 on a 286, but you really needed a 386.

I started in the WC universe with WC2 on a 386 (It's been so long that I can't remember the exact pedigree of 386), and I do remember the slowdowns at certain points in the game.

WC3 was really the game with two types of reviews - one if you had the minimum requirement of a 486 and the other if you had one of those new Pentiums.

If U really wanted to be 'witty' he would have used the example of Strike Commander, a game that actually did represent a step in performance requirements (and would render about one frame a second on a 386).

Hey now! I played Strike Commander; the original floppy version; and it was not THAT bad on a low endish 486 if you turned down enough of the details. However, the CD version that was released effectively doubled frame rates.