Do you play Civ3 on a laptop?

G'Kar · December 19, 2003, 15:09

I'm planning on buying a laptop (or notebook) pc soon and Civ performance would be important to me. Many things about laptops are quite different from desktops so I'm curious as to what experiences people have had playing Civ3 on a lap.

For instance, has anyone played it on the Intel Centrino Penium M?

Are there any display problems, especially with "widescreen" monitors?

What's the interface like if you don't have a numeric keypad? (actually, I'm thinking of getting a widescreen just because some of them have numerics)

If you could mention specific models that would be nice.

Snotty · December 19, 2003, 15:24

I've got a dell smartstep, its a P4 2.4. I don't have any performance problems, but I don't play on huge maps anyway.

The lack of numeric keypad was a pain, but I have got used to moving my units by click-dragging to bring up the movement circle. I've got used to this now and can't really remember what using the num pad was like. I play Sim moves MP where click speed is important and I tend to be faster with my mouse than others with their keys.

I dont know about widescreen display problems, just make sure it can handle the civ3 minimum resolution (1024x??? I think).

My experience has been a very positive one . Civ anywhere, anytime. Live the dream

vee4473 · December 19, 2003, 16:35

yes, the main drawback is the lack of keypad. that almost made me hate playing on a laptop. try not using your keypad on the desktop for a while.

even click dragging with the circle isn't as nice with a laptop touchpad. but you can indeed get used to it.

vee4473 · December 19, 2003, 16:37

oh and i would mention my laptop, but it is so ancient that it wouldn't do you any good. it's a celeron 600mhz

it's a trailblazer...

Kazzyliciouz · December 19, 2003, 16:51

i have a toshiba laptop and have no problems w/playin civ3 on it. huge maps experience some slowdown but i think thats pretty much the norm in the late game. if you didn't know, you can use the home, pgup, pgdown, end keys instead of a numeric keypad for moving units

smellymummy · December 19, 2003, 17:09

I've played on one many times, and the biggest help i've found was to plug in a external mouse.

SirOsis · December 19, 2003, 19:07

Quote:

Originally posted by vee4473
oh and i would mention my laptop, but it is so ancient that it wouldn't do you any good. it's a celeron 600mhz

it's a trailblazer...

That is fast enough. I use a 400Mhz PII.

Dis · December 20, 2003, 04:07

I can't imagine not using the num-pad. It's well- natural

Plotinus · December 20, 2003, 08:55

I use a Toshiba Celeron laptop too, and it's fine. I've never played Civ3 on anything else. Moving with the mouse was a little odd at first, because I remember moving with the keypad in Civ1 on my dear old Amiga, but it's fine.

WarpStorm · December 20, 2003, 09:01

I use a laptop and I have no major problems. I use a real mouse (spend the money and save yourself the pain of the that stupid touchpad) and there is a button to remap the keys to a numpad (not perfect, but quite usable).

Solver · December 20, 2003, 09:26

Heh, I don't use the numpad when playing civ, usually...

On a laptop, get an external USB mouse. Touchpads are a pain in the butt, and will be even more for Civ.

Also, try to get a monitor that supports 1024x768 resolution - some laptop monitors still don't. There's a 800x600 tweak for Civ 3, but using that isn't as convenient as actually playing under a supported resolution.

vee4473 · December 20, 2003, 09:29

ah, yes...as warpstorm says..i forgot to mention that on my dell laptop, you can toggle the keyboard so that a group of letters on the right (in a somewhat square keypad like formation) can be used as a keypad. see picture

The only trouble is that the keys are a bit skewed so that takes a little getting used to and if you want to use say the "i" button for irrigation hotkey, then you have to constantly toggle on and off this function.

maybe i'm just lazy?

vee4473 · December 20, 2003, 09:37

oh, and regarding touchpads, they can be annoying for games, but I was amazed at the level of customization you can have for them for use in other applications.

such as using the touchpad software to program different zones of the pad to do different things.

I particularly like the way you can program a narrow strip along the right edge of the pad so that while browsing the web or any document, all you have to do is slide your finger down the right side of the pad and the page scrolls down.

i remember thinking that i would have to give up the mouse wheel function when using the touchpad..but no!

vee4473 · December 20, 2003, 09:41

and one last thing..sorry for the multuiple posts.

my dell inspiron is finicky when it comes to ound and video on some games.

for smac, i still can't get the sound to work, and for some games the video craps out.

maybe it's because it was an old graphics and sound chip, but i have found that on board audio and video in laptops don't behave that well all of the time for games.

maybe that's fixed for today's newer models.

sprudl · December 20, 2003, 12:22

Civ3 runs fine on an Acer Travelmate 430 (2.66 GHz, 512 MB RAM). The resulotion is 1400x1050, which is really nice.

I don't mind missing a keypad, I just use the arrows, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys.

G'Kar · December 21, 2003, 23:21

Thanks for the responses, it's good to know that the keyboard and touchpad are that programmable. Now I just have to hope for some nice after Christmas sales on laptops.

Dis · December 22, 2003, 04:44

Quote:

Originally posted by vee4473
and one last thing..sorry for the multuiple posts.

my dell inspiron is finicky when it comes to ound and video on some games.

for smac, i still can't get the sound to work, and for some games the video craps out.

maybe it's because it was an old graphics and sound chip, but i have found that on board audio and video in laptops don't behave that well all of the time for games.

maybe that's fixed for today's newer models.

I'm sure you know this, but SMAC is one of those weird games to get the sound working for many systems.

Even on my PC I had to go in the ini file to get my sound working correctly.

Cookie Monster · December 22, 2003, 11:34

Quote:

Originally posted by vee4473
ah, yes...as warpstorm says..i forgot to mention that on my dell laptop, you can toggle the keyboard so that a group of letters on the right (in a somewhat square keypad like formation) can be used as a keypad. see picture

The only trouble is that the keys are a bit skewed so that takes a little getting used to and if you want to use say the "i" button for irrigation hotkey, then you have to constantly toggle on and off this function.

maybe i'm just lazy?

Exactly how my dell is. Yes it's a pain to hit numlock everytime you wanna mine or irrigate but you get used to it.

Shogun Gunner · December 22, 2003, 11:38

numeric keypad is a must. If I played on a laptop, I would buy a USB external numeric keypad....okay, no i wouldn't but I would think about buying a numeric keypad

steven8r · December 22, 2003, 11:54

I use an older model Compaq, P3 500MHz. It seems to work just fine. For awhile I used the 'toggle' for the Num Lock. Since then, I did purchase a numeric keypad and that works great! (I also use an external mouse instead of the 'eraser' mouse)

Cookie Monster · December 22, 2003, 11:56

Yeah an external mouse, especially the new optical ones, is a must.

Mickeyj · December 23, 2003, 08:13

I play on a wide screen laptop and have a few problems that I’ve come to live with.

Firstly the native resolution 1920x1200 is too small to see units clearly. I therefore have to reduce the resolution every time I fire up C3C, which is a pain. The laptop screens are only crystal clear at their original resolutions, which is why I don't use the reduced resolution all the time.

Secondly the game was initially stretched to the wide screen making it seem as you were playing on an oblique plain, interesting, but the advisor screens became almost unmanageable. I corrected this by changing the keepres setting in the .ini file, which worked well. The advisors are now on a 1024X768 resolution within the wide screen and when on the main screen I get a larger map area to monitor.

If you do go for a laptop I recommend you go for the biggest screen available with a reasonable resolution that doesn’t have you squinting at the screen.
I’ve never used the num-pad and never felt the need to BUT I would recommend getting a USB optical mouse (NO DEBATE).

There’s nothing better than firing up a game of civ while lazing on the couch with your laptop on your lap, watching a game of cricket (or whatever sport) in the background, sucking back a few ice cold beers.

Zevico · December 23, 2003, 09:09

Quote:

There’s nothing better than firing up a game of civ while lazing on the couch with your laptop on your lap, watching a game of cricket (or whatever sport) in the background, sucking back a few ice cold beers.

No, only cricket can be boring enough to do that.

Mickeyj · December 23, 2003, 10:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Zevico

No, only cricket can be boring enough to do that.

I'll pretend I didn't hear that

But seriously the laptops great you don't have to be stuck at your desk and you have the advantage of being able to play on long train journey's etc.

Inverse Icarus · December 23, 2003, 15:05

IBM Thinkpad T30.

no problems at all.

Cerbykins · December 23, 2003, 16:04

Old second-hand Compaq Armada 1700. Under-spec, and a bit juddery - but still works. Besides, if it ticks me off enough, I can run it off the main machine, and use VNC to remotely access it. Civ in bed beats breakfast in bed anytime

Besides, actually having the picture from corner-to corner is SOOOO IMPRESSIVE

I may be shallow, but it bothers me not

kettyo · December 25, 2003, 12:28

I have no problems at all. (i use 2 different notebooks)
Just make sure to get a good external mouse.
Maybe you could also get an USB numeric keypad but it's not that important for Civ3 (The 'go to' mechanism of civ3 is really great) though it's thankful when you often calculate with your notebook.

G'Kar · December 26, 2003, 20:49

Okay, one more question: does anyone have experience playing Civ3 with "integrated" graphics on a laptop or desktop?

There's a Toshiba laptop I like but the only problem is it has Intel graphics with 32MB of the "shared" memory. I don't know how graphically demanding Civ3 is vis a vis other games.

Kuciwalker · December 26, 2003, 21:17

no

damianj · December 27, 2003, 02:37

P3 800mhz 500 -odd ram, runs great!