It's a TBS with pretty graphics ;). As JIMG said, eye candy is important. It sells games to people who normally wouldn't buy. The sales of CivIV really wouldn't be that great if you still had Civ3 graphics, IMO. Hell, one of the biggest complaints about SMAC was that the terrain was ugly. Eye candy moves product and apparently 64 MB is ancient now (even though I got less).

Though I believe I have T&L.

Yep. I mean, I have 64 MB on my card, but since it's an integrated card, it's not built for the more advanced stuff. I'm not stupid enough to try and run the new Quake game or a fast FPS on my machine... but c'mon, I should be able to run this game without having to shell out $75+ on only a moderate upgrade just for this one T&L feature.

Stupid. A lot of people are a lot more pissed about this than I am, I imagine.

I'd think you could get a card that can run this fine for around $30 or $40.

Hmm ... If I don't even know what "T&L" stands for, I guess there's a pretty good chance I don't have it huh.

T&L = Hardware Transform & Lighting... I had no idea what it was either before this game.

For a laptop? I'd have no clue how to install it. Should I just take it to the shop and let them do it, or is it easy?

Plus another $159 for Geek Squad to do the install, so roughly $200 plus the cost of the game ... plus downtime of ever how many days it'll take to get the install done & get the computer back ... hmm ... think I'll pass on that.

Geek squad chargers more than $20 to do a video card install? Rip off.

I was talking about a desktop, which I thought was what Butter had. I have no idea about upgrading a video card on a laptop or if it's even possible.

Do you have a laptop? For a desktop, you shouldn't need Geek Squad to do it.

That is what I have. I'll probably take a crack at it tonight.

Oh, and also... just on Geek Squad's site... I think Jon was talking about sending it in or having them pick it up. You could just bring the desktop to a Best Buy and go to the Geek Squad part there and pay them $39 to install and set up a new video card.

I didn't see it on my first check of the pricelist, found it on the second try, must not have noticed that I was on the pick-up pricelist.

Jon, it is really easy to install a video card. I'll help you for free if you want to get one. It'll take 10 minutes.

ie. Don't pay someone $40 bucks for something like that.

Yeah, totally. GrantDawg is right. You just pop out your old one, pop in your new one, and install the drivers on the setup disk. Really not that much of a deal at all.

And, besides, I always encourage people to tinker inside their desktops. It's something I miss with a laptop :(.

I don't think you can upgrade your laptop card, unfortunately. I would love to do mine as well, but it is just not an option as far as I can tell.

I'm not upgrading to play a game. Not this soon, anyway, but I understand for those who would.

Seems excessive to me for what I expect from a Civ game, but i guess you have to keep up with the latest tech.

I believe you can upgrade your laptop video card, but it's far harder to do so. And some options for upgrade may be closed to you based on how the laptop was assembled.

I'm wondering if they will be able to put out a patch which enables you to toggle off the stuff that needs the T&L stuff. Or if they even would. Seems like it would hurt sales if they don't, but I'm not sure if it would even be possible.

How do you know if you have the right video card with the T&L? I would like to buy it but I am not gonna try to upgrade my laptop.

Here's a stupid question. How do I find out what kind of video card I have?

For those, like me, who still don't understand T&L, I found this, which may be of some help:

Short for Transform and Lighting, T&L is a type of video technology that takes all the 3D information that used to be handled by the computerprocessor and gives it to the GPU. This enables for a more complex 3D environment by adding a higher polygon count and improving the lighting at the same time it allows the computer processor to handle other tasks. Some computer games may require that users have a T&L compatible chipset, if you are unsure if your video card or motherboard video chipset is T&L compatible or what generation of T&L your computer has please check the documentation for your video card. If you are unsure what video card you have in the computer see document CH000258. If your video card and/or motherboard chipset is not T&L compatible you will need to install a new video card in the computer that is T&L compatible. Buying tips and information on video cards can be found here.

I tried that site, with no luck. Is there some way I can go in the control panel or something and find out?

Try the link in the article I posted a couple of posts up, the one that says "document CH000258."

Yeah, I'm looking through it now. Some of it I've already tried, and some of them I'll try to figure out when I get home and can look at it.

Is it possible that I have no video card? Or is a video card necessary to see stuff on the monitor?

If I tried to answer that, it would be the very definition of "the blind leading the blind." :D

Question 1: It's not possible.
Question 2: It's necessary.

I am equating "onboard video" with "video card" in this case.

Wow.

srtest says "Your system will ROCK this product."

I never would've guessed.

From srtest:


Congratulations, you can run this game because your system meets the Minimum requirements. If you want to see how you meet all the Recommended requirements to make this product really fly, look at the Recommended section below.


I guess I will give it a whirl and see how it plays...

Well, I'm glad I didn't rush out and buy this. My 3 month old computer's video card doesn't support pixel shading, which is apparently what's causing SkyDog's problems. Someone forget to tell these guys that they were making Civ, and not Doom3?

hxxp://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133278

FYI.....the Firaxis support team already said in another thread that pixel shading support or lack thereof does not have anything to do with the problems. Only the T&L is required.

I was going to get this, but if it won't run on my new laptop, then forget it.

ditto.

Same for me probably.

I'm definitely interested in this game, but worried about all the video problems. I have a feeling my interest will outweigh my worries!

Why is it again that game companies have concentrated on console games and are largely abondoning the PC market?

Eh, I don't think I have that either.

Oh well.

This is why I buy console games mainly. I've had a dozen games in the last ten years that wouldn't work on the computer I had when I bought it, almost always because of little things like this you don't notice when you're picking it up.

I'll toss a video card on my Christmas list. Maybe someone will love me enough to give me a $100 gift card to Best Buy to cover part of one or something. I'm certainly not going to shell out over $100 to play a new game.

what video card do you have?

Intel 8 followed by many, many numbers and letters. Color me mildly annoyed that apparently an old video card came with my new computer. Turns out my roommates 2 year old computer can (barely) run Civ 4.

You should be able to easily turn off lighting in the game (w/ an options patch) ... of course how it looks without the lighting is in question.

As far as the 'T' part, I would think that like in DirectX you should be able to run a software renderer (if the code allows) if you don't have the hardware avail .... however, it will DRAMATICALLY slow you down.

That is how many companies are selling computers cheaper these days. They are using Intel intergrated video cards that absolutely suck.

Intel cards probably won't be good for running many, if any, recent games. CivIV is definetly on a low end of system requirements these days and T&L seems to be almost a requirement for games that have come out the last few years.

Eh, it'll keep me from spending money on PC games for the immediate future.

(Yes, I'm looking for a silver lining, dammit!)

Well, despite this thread saying that my card works (GeForce 4 MX 420), I've seen too many reports saying that it doesn't work properly. Oh well.

I still have Civ II Gold if I really need a fix. I'm not upgrading this computer for one game.

Don't worry, I highly doubt you'll need a decent graphics card for Jim's next game. :D

S3 Graphics Savage/IX 1014 -- is that a type of video card?

Yes, it is.

So just got the game last night and only played with it for about an hour. I'm actually pretty dissapointed. The graphics are super. The audio is excellent. Problem is I really don't care about these but I do realize this is what sells the games. The new implementation of religion and civics are a nice improvement but, of course, I have already found what appears to be a major AI trading problem. Yes I was playing on one of the lower levels but again, just like in Civ 3 the AI doesn't improve as you go up in levels the AI just "cheats" a little more with free units and quicker tech advancement and such(or so says the instruction book). I can't believe that they couldn't take their AI algorithms and refine them a little for each level you go up. That way instead of having to resort the the AI getting free stuff you would have to actually adapt to new things that the AI does not the same pittfalls that you encounter at the lower levels :rolleyes:

but but but it's civilization iv "now with ai" :( :( :( :eek: :( :confused: :( :) :( :mad: :(