Whats running your civ gameplay?

[Pegasus]

I was just wondering what fellow Civ players had operating their Civ gameplay?

My IT systems are in need of an upgrade I feel, and would welcome your opinion on a decent purchase and what to avoid.

Many a moon ago... I used to change my pc's/laptops every 2 years but alas I had to grow up and focus on saving money for mortgages and weddings (apparently). I used to be on the ball with latest pc technology and what was due out and all the technical jargon, but I have no idea nowadays.

I currently have a HP Pavillion zd8000 laptop, P4 3.2Ghz with 1GBmemory and an ATI Mobility Radeon x600, bit of a beast and requires a national grid cable to power the damn thing. I have had it about 5-6 years now and has started to play up over the last 12-18months. It was great for civ as I had the numeric keypad and a big screen to see everything.

Unfortuantely, I now have a nice vertical inch sized white stripe down the screen about 1/3 in and when running civ it tends to overheat within 15-30minutes and decides to turn off.

My desktop is a few years older, and I can't even remember what is in that as I hardly ever use it. It's an Advent, with at the time of purchase their top NVidea graphics card and max memory prebuilt into a machine and was purchased for gaming in mind.

So... should I replace one or both?
Should I buy Apple? (Yes I have succombed to the sleek looks of their systems and big screens). Or should they be avoided at all costs, especially when it comes to playing civ?

[Sareln]

WRT the Apple question. It used to be that you could not play mods that fiddled with the SDK on a MAC. I don't know if this is still true.

[Speaker]

I have a home-built PC with:

Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz, 2653 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
6GB of RAM
2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 running in an SLI configuration

And other assorted bits.

[Sareln]

I've got a custom built desktop running:

Intel Core2Duo 2.67 Ghz, 2 Cores (E6750)
4 Gigs of RAM
1 X NVidia GeForce 9800

Which was built in the summer of 2006.

and a Laptop, which is just an Acer Aspire 6930G that I bought back in 2008.

Both run CIV just fine.

[Lewwyn]

I have my custom desktop, but while in China I've been using my 13" macbook pro. Its pretty much my favorite laptop ever and possibly even computer. I had trouble with Civ Pitboss and no FFH, but I have rectified that problem today! I have windows running on it now and put a Windows version of Civ on the compy. Runs just fine. I may be joining some FFH PBEMs now...

My macbook pro is now 2 years old. The latest 13" model has a lot more computing power. The 15" and 17" macbook pro's have actual video cards in them as well. They run Shogun 2 Total War! That's really a demanding game.

If you're looking for a laptop, buy a macbook pro. They are simply the best laptops IMO.

[Dantski]

Intel Core Quad Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz
3GB RAM
512 MB Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
9 year old chunky keyboard which still works great
6 month old optical mouse which has a scroll wheel that occasionally goes in the opposite direction to what I intend.
21" Acer X233H Monitor

Although not much Civ gets played on it :neenernee

[T-hawk]

Anything you buy or build now will run Civ 4 fine, so there's no need to quibble over system specs for that.

I'd say the big question is laptop vs desktop, and my answer is that I'd never be without a desktop for both serious use and gaming. The big advantage of a desktop is interchangeable components. Video card dies, replace the video card; hard drive crash, replace the hard drive; if the monitor has a white line, replace just that. Laptops turn one component into a serious baby-bathwater problem. I only treat laptops as essentially disposable, buy them on clearance or refurbished for like $200, fine for portable email and pictures and document work but don't put any more eggs in that one basket.

And yes, if you want Civ 4 mods, you can't go Macintosh. The DLL compiles to Windows native only. (A Mac running Windows via Boot Camp may be able to, I can't say there.)

I know many men who are forced into laptops for gaming, for the ability to take it to the shed or garage or commuter train or whatever to work around the demands of a spouse. If that sounds like you, you don't have a computer problem, you have a relationship problem.

[Krill]

Q9550 (one of the last quad cores prior to i7 came out)
4GB
nVidia 260 GTX (one of the early ones)

I buiklt it in August 2008 and frankly it's still going strong. Might need a new hard drive for some more space, but it runs every game I care to play and powers a dual screen fine. Cost £800 back then for the tower and everything, and I'm still happy.

I'd agree with T-hawk that a desktop is by far the best for gaming, but you definitely want to think about what you want to use it for, if you only care about civ and old games, then you aren't going to need to splash that much cash on one...

[darrelljs]

my answer is that I'd never be without a desktop for both serious use and gaming

+1!

Darrell

[Pegasus]

Thanks Guys.

I have a third bedroom that I kitted out as a decent office/study where my current desktop lives. I really need to make better use of the room which was why I was considering a new desktop up there.

Problem is, picking up the laptop and being able to watch the footy downstairs seems far more appealing.

I'm not bothered about splashing a bit of cash on a decent spec, but I don't want to go mad just for the sake of it either.

Ultimately, I need the new purchases to last at least 5 years and be able to play any game I may fancy over that time comfortably, and in "civ terms" not have to worry about getting to the renaisance era on a large map and worry about performance etc. It also needs to be suitable for working from home, mainly Office products and databases. I know I don't need anything too powerful for that, it literally was the spec just for gaming.

I couldn't do without a laptop either.

Based on all of your replies there seems to be a common theme to the standard of desktop pc used, aswell as having some mac supporters out there also.

I think based on the price of a desktop Apple I was liking I could probably cover a PC desktop and PC laptop for the same price. Just need to find a nice big monitor to go with the desktop that looks as snazzy as an Apple.