Your system - Page 3

Tattila the Hun · November 17, 2002, 07:33

Mine is Amd 500, 128 MB, Matrox MG200 8MB, 3G HD, works splendidly. Not on huge maps, though.

candybo · November 17, 2002, 15:27

Umm, let's see...

1.6 ghz p4... 256 ddram... 80 gig hdrive... 4mps dsl... 17 in. monitor... Nvidia GeForce, don't remember which, but was top-line a year ago when I got it... SB Audigy gamer w/woofer, etc... XPHome.. am i forgetting anything? (not at home right now)..... Works ok by me. Slows a little in late-game/big map situations, but nothing terrible.

Mad Bomber · November 18, 2002, 08:38

Compaq, P4 1.5 GHTZ processor, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB HD. Play is fine on small maps. On huge maps, tends to lag after it hits the 1200 unit mark. often crashes when moving naval units. (Need to upgrade the RAM). 16 civ's on a huge map is a pain after industrial age, best when played with 8-10 civ's.

Brizey · November 18, 2002, 19:03

Two platforms:

Home Desktop: Dell 4100, PIII 1 GHZ, 256 MB RAM, 32 MB GeForce 2, ME (I know ME sucks, but so far it ain't broke, so I ain't fixin' it)

Work Laptop: Dell Lat., 750 MHZ, 256 MB RAM, ATI Rage Mobility 128, Windows 2000

Both systems work good for up to large maps. My last trip into hugh map land on my desktop got pretty slow, but I only has 128 MB RAM then. It seems I am pretty average here. Not too bad, my PC is over two years old, and I have only spent about 25 bucks on memory.

I have not tried PTW mulitplayer yet, other than PBEM.

Chemical Ollie · November 26, 2002, 05:52

Finally, my monster machine is up and running!

2.56 MHz P4 CPU
512 MB 800 MHz RDRAM
120 GB HD
128 MB Geforce 4 Graphics
5+1 speaker sound Card
19 inch screen
DVD burner

I briefly tried a saved game in modern age on Marla's world map with all animations on. The AI turn still took 5 minutes, but only because the animations take that long to go through, no matter what. If I turned "See enemy moves" off, it would probably be much faster.

You might not see me around in Civilization for a while, as I have accumlated an urge to play action games that my old CPU couldn't handle. After all, I have played no other game than CIV3 for a year. But I will return to Civilization once in a while. The game is to addictive to quit entirely.

planetfall · November 26, 2002, 11:55

I found 128Mg RAM was a bit too slow with PTW. With animation on, moves across RR tiles were jerky. F3 screen was almost unusuable.

I now have 512Mg RAM and initially looks good. Still in ancient era and slowness does not really jump out until Modern Era.

With specials on RAM now, 256K 100ns ram is $20 after rebates.

== PF

Th0mas · November 26, 2002, 12:40

AMD K6-2 380
380Mb Ram
5Gbytes across 2 reconditioned HD's

....I think of it as the IronMan approach to Civ III

(although I don't seem to have any performance problems on Normal sized maps)

vmxa1 · November 26, 2002, 14:11

When you have say 90 tanks in one stack for the AI and it is animated, it will take some time regardless of your rig. It will determine if it is smooth or not, but it will still take a bit of time to display all of those units.

Jaybe · November 26, 2002, 15:03

Quote:

Quote by Jaybe
HP pavilion 7935 1.3GHz, 30GB HD, 384MB, but NO AGP slot so animations are sllooww. I do NOT like having to turn off animations for battles!
...

EDIT (from page 2): Bought an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI card a few months ago, but it didn't help things at all. Recently I (finally) did a system update and there were NEW DRIVERS!

I am now a happy camper! Battle animations ON -- bombardment animations in PTW are cool and informative.

bongo · November 27, 2002, 04:29

Ah, those drivers

Having old/faulty drivers can give you all sorts of 'funny' problems. The best thing with a thread like this is that you get to know what kind of performance your system is supposed to have.

Dr. A. Cula · November 27, 2002, 05:40

AMD Thunderbird 900 MHz
256 MB RAM
100GB harddisk
32MB Geforce 2
WinME

Qilue · November 28, 2002, 11:08

What I used used to play Civ3 on -
p2-400, 256 ram and a 32mb TNT2.

Then I upgraded to play morrowind.
p4-2g, 512 ram and 32mb TNT2. (can't afford a new graphics card yet.)

HAND · November 28, 2002, 16:49

Celeron 533mhz, 256MB Ram, Radeon 8500 64mb, 60gb Maxtor HD (New), Win98/Win2k (dual installation)

Runs fine on standard map until the industrial age with all those tanks and infantry running around..Huge maps are incredilbly slow....

I found my new hard drive made the game run about 3 times quicker during the AI moves

! Upgrading to 256MB ram helped a bit too..

Th0mas · December 2, 2002, 05:23

Quote:

Originally posted by HAND
Celeron 533mhz, 256MB Ram, Radeon 8500 64mb, 60gb Maxtor HD (New), Win98/Win2k (dual installation)

Runs fine on standard map until the industrial age with all those tanks and infantry running around..Huge maps are incredilbly slow....

I found my new hard drive made the game run about 3 times quicker during the AI moves

! Upgrading to 256MB ram helped a bit too..

...excellent I have just aquired 2 30gb SCSI disk drives, Lets is if that will improve my woefully lacking system.

Mad Bomber · December 2, 2002, 05:27

Quote:

Originally posted by HAND
Celeron 533mhz, 256MB Ram, Radeon 8500 64mb, 60gb Maxtor HD (New), Win98/Win2k (dual installation)

Runs fine on standard map until the industrial age with all those tanks and infantry running around..Huge maps are incredilbly slow....

I found my new hard drive made the game run about 3 times quicker during the AI moves

! Upgrading to 256MB ram helped a bit too..

I think that the RAM was the difference maker, not the HD.

Th0mas · December 2, 2002, 05:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Mad Bomber

I think that the RAM was the difference maker, not the HD.

What are you doing awake at this time in the morning?

metalhead · December 2, 2002, 12:17

Quote:

Originally posted by metalhead

Not so fast there, Randolph. Get a load of this:

Dell Dimension
Intel Celeron at 333 MHz, 64 MB RAM, as for audio/video cards, I really have no clue.

Runs standard maps w/8 civs perfectly fine - even in the modern ages, turns rarely take more than 20-30 seconds, but large and huge maps are impossible - the first turn alone on a large map takes 2-3 mins. Didn't quite stick around for the industrial era lag

Update - I'm now using a brand new 2 GHz Dell

I only have 128 MB RAM, but that is soon to become 1 Gig, so I'm running with approximately 6 times the processor speed, and 16 times the amount of memory. Civ3 runs a bit faster on my new system.

Mad Bomber · December 2, 2002, 20:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Th0mas

What are you doing awake at this time in the morning?

I was getting ready to go to work but I always check my e-mail before leaving.

And what were YOU doing awake at that ungodly hour?:

Th0mas · December 3, 2002, 07:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Mad Bomber

I was getting ready to go to work but I always check my e-mail before leaving.

And what were YOU doing awake at that ungodly hour?:

I know my collegues at work might scoff, but I am normally awake at 0930, certainly in body if not necessarily in mind

however for you it would have been 0430hrs? That is a shocking time to have to get out bed and go to work.

I complain when my alarm goes off @ 0600.

Mad Bomber · December 3, 2002, 19:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Th0mas

I know my collegues at work might scoff, but I am normally awake at 0930, certainly in body if not necessarily in mind

however for you it would have been 0430hrs? That is a shocking time to have to get out bed and go to work.

I complain when my alarm goes off @ 0600.

I work in building security for first shift which starts at 0600. I usually wake up at 0200 and play a little CIV 3 before going into work

Th0mas · December 4, 2002, 06:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Mad Bomber

I work in building security for first shift which starts at 0600. I usually wake up at 0200 and play a little CIV 3 before going into work

Cool

Asterothe · December 8, 2002, 01:15

P3 - 600
TNT 2 - 32 MB
512MB Ram
Win ME (sucks)
works OK.
the other comp (roomates)
in the house
is much better

Cyclotron · December 8, 2002, 02:07

All I know is it's XP, has an Athlon, and a sub-bass unit four times the size of my head.

ChaotikVisions · December 8, 2002, 02:31

P41.6ghz
512mb PC2100 DDR RAM
80gb Seagate hdd
GeForce4 MX 440
SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
WinXP Home

Runs it pretty well, used to play Large map, 11 or 12 civs for Civ3 and turns never got to more then two to three mins. Started playing Huge maps and 16 civs and turns were only a bit higher. Now playing Huge/24civs, and turns are 6-7mins, heh. Takes a little while now, but with more civilizations its funner. And I figure we'll wipe some out soon. Its 1355 in game, almost into Industrial age. 95% of map is settled(map of Earth), only bits of Australia, parts of Canada, and the tip of South America is left.

Worthingtons · December 29, 2002, 10:11

Well, It seems i'm still in the Dark ages with My PC, but i've been looking into my options recently.

I have an old AMD K6-2 500mgh comp with 56mb of ram, shoot graphics,tiny hd ect , and Civ III has always crawled on it, Scrolling takes forever in the modern age!!

The other day me dad gave me 64mb sdram , so i put it in, and the boost to 120mb seems to have really improved things, but it still takes the pish between turns.

I'm not sure what to do now. It seems i'm using an ol' Socket 7 board so chucking in a new processor doesnt seem an option, unless anyone knows any Socket7 friendly processors better than the K6-2 ???

It seems to quick fix to upgrade would be to buy a new basic socket a motherboard with all inclusive(graphics,sound,lan ect) , chuck in a load of (old sdram) memory along with 1.3ghz athlon. That lot would cost me £115, and i imagine make a whopping difference.

However, methinks this is still going to be as dinasoured as my current PC by next christmas.

The Other option is to go all-out and buy a new PC with an Athlon in, is this worth it??? will i buy this just as socket A is made redundant as like when i got my last one with socket 7, I could expect to pay at least £500 for that lot

Will beefing up the Ram even more on my current machine solve anythigng!??!?!

Help plz!
Cheers
Matt

alva · December 29, 2002, 10:22

@matt,
my guess is, your using win98 or at least something similar. If you are, don't go overboard with the mem.
Anything more then 256 is a waste, and can even slow down your machine, yeah I know

.

Upgrading is still worth it, but you will have to buy new DDR mem (well, you don't have to, but then it will be a waste of proc.)

Why not try to pick up something second hand (especially now the new nvidia cards are going to come along, Geforce4 prices are dropping very fast)

Romanus · December 30, 2002, 01:29

Im running a Compaq Presario, 600mhz, 256ram, geforce 2

It has done well running most games up until the last 6 months or so, a few have brought it to a crawl.

As for Civ3, I keep it at Standard to Small maps, no more than 6-8 civs........very playable

bobbo008 · December 30, 2002, 02:26

Intel Celeron 500 mhz. 96 RAM, i believe. Voodoo 3 if that matters...

Runs like a b*tch. I play huge maps, though, with about 400 military units. Takes 2-3 minutes to load the game and 2-3 to exit, too. Loads for a minute or more between turns.

Krakan · January 2, 2003, 04:37

My current system ( in a state of transition )
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ running at 1.6ghz ( axp 2400+ on order )

1024 megs pc2100 ram
2 80 gig maxtor 8meg cache drives running RAID 0
1 40 gig WD Special Edition for random files

Radeon 8500 ( all in wonder 9700 on order )

Giga-byte GA7VAXP mobo

Thermalright SLK-800 heatsink with delta HO fan.

24x cd burner ( all the speed i need, don't burn much )
16 x dvd rom drive

mag 19 inch monitor ( about to be replaced because it has insane flicker on any refresh rate or resolution )

erm.... that's about it I think.

TheStinger · January 2, 2003, 06:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Krakan
My current system ( in a state of transition )
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ running at 1.6ghz ( axp 2400+ on order )

1024 megs pc2100 ram
2 80 gig maxtor 8meg cache drives running RAID 0
1 40 gig WD Special Edition for random files

Radeon 8500 ( all in wonder 9700 on order )

Giga-byte GA7VAXP mobo

Thermalright SLK-800 heatsink with delta HO fan.

24x cd burner ( all the speed i need, don't burn much )
16 x dvd rom drive

mag 19 inch monitor ( about to be replaced because it has insane flicker on any refresh rate or resolution )

erm.... that's about it I think.

Impressive, how does it play huge maps