Direct x8 and Civ 3 - Page 2

steveLRC · October 19, 2001, 01:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The TNT2 is a sad vid chip by today's stardards. I don't understand how you can have a powerful system with such a lousy video card.

Your statement is partially true in that the TNT2 is an old card, but I have a TNT2 in my system and it runs Quake 3 just fine. It'll be more than enough for Civ3.

Swissy · October 19, 2001, 01:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

The TNT2 is a sad vid chip by today's stardards. I don't understand how you can have a powerful system with such a lousy video card.

TNT2 is pretty much standard for a computer intended for a home office setup, GeForce2 MX series is considered high end for a home office computers. So if gramps was looking for a computer to do some surfing and keep track of his finances, the TNT2 is fine. What Col. Bigspear needs is a grandpa that plays Quake, but then I doubt he'd get near the computer.

tuckson · October 22, 2001, 06:45

Quote:

Originally posted by steveLRC

Your statement is partially true in that the TNT2 is an old card, but I have a TNT2 in my system and it runs Quake 3 just fine. It'll be more than enough for Civ3.

It's more than enough for anything at the moment besides maybe to latest heavy 3D **** I'm not gonna play anyway.

Besides, The latest drivers at Nvidia also promise a performance boost between 20 and 50 %.

Steve Clark · October 22, 2001, 11:58

It is the graphics drivers that provide the boost in performance. You have to make sure that you have the proper graphics drivers in order to go to DX8.0a, if you have not done so. For example, I just installed DX8.0a but before I did so, I had to install nVidia 12.41 (I could have gone with 20.8? as well).

GoofyBoy · October 22, 2001, 12:13

From the Civ3.com web site;

System Reqirements;
Pentium II 300mhz
32 megs of ram
400 megs hd
4X CD-Rom
DirectX 8.0a vid. card
1024x768 Req.
Windows

You are not going to need a 1Ghz cpu or the latest video card.

From what I've seen, I seriously doubt that the game pushes your video card. As long as it can do DX8a and 1024x768, I wouldn't worry about it. Its not as if this game is going to require reflexes or anything.

Maccabee2 · November 13, 2001, 22:39

Thanks for the advise, all.

TitanTim · November 13, 2001, 23:39

This thread has been a hoot to read.

My system resembles CyberbugFredrik's system and it still dies on D2 and now Civ3 (I think it's the sound card).

Anyway,
I had DX8 on my system and Civ3 complained I needed DX8a. I remember reading that Microsoft stated that DX8 is better than DX7 except for some areas that were "tweaked" to provide more features (but for people with cards that already had those features, they will see a minor performance drop). This was a rare feature mentioned but I did see the disclaimer.

DX8.1 is now available and DX9 is in beta. Check it out --> http://www.microsoft.com/directx/hom...ds/default.asp

DirectX questions? Check out --> http://www.microsoft.com/directx/homeuser/faq.asp#dx6

I don't like the Alt-Tab capability of Civ3. I wish the game would minimize so I can see my real desktop. I also wish the zoom feature like Civ2 but I guess that's the price you pay for the graphics that Civ3 has.

tuckson · November 14, 2001, 05:17

Quote:

Originally posted by TitanTim

I don't like the Alt-Tab capability of Civ3. I wish the game would minimize so I can see my real desktop

Hmmm... I haven't seen Civ3 yet (should be available here next friday) but I guess that Alt-Tab is captured by Civ, according to your remark?

If so, Try the key combination of [WinKey]-[M] This should minimize all actieve applications.

Also you could use only the windows key. Usually this brings up the start menu and you could do whatever you want (including switching to another application).

Ehhh.... don't tell me civ3 captures (and kill) all keystrokes?