I just bought Civilizations IV and found out that it won't work on my computer because my video card is NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro and i have to have at least a GeForce 2. Can someone please recommend an inexpensive video card that i can buy just to play Civilizations IV? I don't need anything fancy. Just something basic. This is the only game i'll be playing so i don't want to spend alot of money. And i don't know a thing about computers. I'd really appreciate the advice. Thank you.
You might want to looking at getting something used for pretty cheap as the price of AGP cards is increasing due to their limited availability. The cheapest they have on newegg are the FX5200 which are pretty poor but I'm pretty sure would still be a decent upgrad of what you currently have.
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John H.
Testing/OC Team
@iBuyPower.com Custom Built Pc's
how would i know what kind of slot i have? i'm sorry but i really have no clue. the civ tech guy sugested a 6600 agp or a vx1650 ati but i have no clue what either of them are. and the guy that i talked to when i called best buy said something about a PCI and said i would have to spend at least $100 but the tech guy said i shouldn't spend more than $30 to $40.
You have an AGP and 3 PCI slots although it says 1 PCI free so I would assume there are some cards installed from the factory in the other 2 slots. Also it looks to me like one of those HP mini towers which might present some problems.
it's a pretty big tower. there's something in the bottom slot then the next slot is empty there's something in the next slot and then is the agp slot where my video card is. i don't think it's a mini tower. it's about 6 years old.
i was looking at newegg but i had no idea what the Core clock, PixelPipelines, Memory Clock and all that stuff was for. and i didn't know what works with Windows XP or not since i don't have vista
No, you don't need the wrist strap. Just ground yourself before touching your card or anything else on the inside of your computer. And don't shuffle around on carpet while you're installing it.
Even with the card, your civ experience might be pretty rough. The game gets pretty ram hungry on larger map sizes. Even with 1gb of ram and the normal map size, I used to find the game would slow down quite a bit by mid game once all the civs had built up a lot of units.
Have you ever touched something metal and gotten a shock? it was because you grounded yourself. Touch metal and you release any static charge that has built up.
--------------- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
I am having an issue similar to geno's. I really want to be able to run Civilization IV on my computer smoothly. Right now my specs are:
2.6 Ghz processor
1500 MB RAM
Crappy Integrated Video Card
I bought a new GeForce 7600 AGP Video Card the other day but after opening it I realized it was too big to fit into my machine. I returned the video card and I guess I need a low-profile card. However, the salesperson basically told me there's not much hope in getting a decent quality low-profile AGP card. Is this true? I'm not bent on playing the newest and greatest games. As I said, I'm content to just be able to run Civilization IV smoothly. If I could get a card that will also run games like Call of Duty 2 or the new Starcraft II (when it comes out) that would be great too.
I'm willing to pay a decent dollar for a good quality AGP low-profile video card. What would be the absolute best card? And, what would be the best $100 or less card?
The salesperson is right. You can get an HD3650 in low profile, and it's quite a decent card, but it is PCI-E only for the low profile version. The fastest AGP cards that were also low profile that I could find were quite ancient.
It was nVidia's 1st generation DX9 card from 2003 and it was notorious for poor DX9 performance. I don't know if performance was improved by driver updates.
My recommendation is the Radeon X1050. Saving $75 (a nice chunck of money) is just not worth it in this
