[HN Gopher] Civilization VII recommends 16 cores and 32GB RAM fo...
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Civilization VII recommends 16 cores and 32GB RAM for 4K gameplay
Author : doener
Score : 54 points
Date : 2024-10-04 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| ww520 wrote:
| Yuck. They need to cut the flash and concentrate on playability,
| where performance is a big part of it.
| rjbwork wrote:
| It's for 4k. The lower res settings are far less. If you want a
| premium experience in a premium resolution you should have
| premium gear. Makes sense to me.
| Alupis wrote:
| Previous Civ games seriously bog down mid-to-late game. It's
| not visual candy, it's just all the units/ai doing its thing.
| The more turns you take, the longer each end-of-turn takes.
|
| I could see where suggesting 16 cores and more could be a good
| benchmark for a high-end experience with this game.
|
| > For a playable experience targeting 1080p, Low settings, and
| 30 FPS, Firaxis recommends entry-level CPUs from Intel 10th Gen
| and AMD Ryzen's first generation-- very old processors at this
| point that most PC gamers have likely long upgraded past. The
| graphics requirements of GTX 1050, RX 460, and Arc A380 are
| similarly reasonable. The old game's recommended RAM spec-- 8
| GB-- is now the new minimum spec, probably the most significant
| bump for anyone already using 8 GB or less.
|
| It's also nearly 2025 - for a desktop gaming rig, 32GB of RAM
| isn't really that unusual, and neither is 16 cores.
| int_19h wrote:
| It should be noted that Civ5/6 bog down not because the AI is
| that good, but because the implementation is that slow. It's
| just a very poorly optimized game.
| Alupis wrote:
| I also suspect they do not take full advantage of multi-
| core systems.
|
| Recommending a 16 core CPU might imply that is no longer
| the case with the newest Civ title.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| Steam hardware survey indicates that <10% of the market has
| 16 or more cores. Consumer gaming-optimized CPUs also don't
| typically have that high of a physical core count. Not saying
| it is unfair for ultra settings, just not typical even for
| higher-end game rigs.
| Alupis wrote:
| I would suspect a great deal of the "8 cpus" segment is
| really 8 physical cores with 16 vcores - but I could be
| wrong.
|
| Either way, those playing on 4K are most likely to meet or
| exceed these hardware recommendations.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| Hopefully that is what they mean. I guess we'll find out
| what the actual performance needs are when it makes it to
| reviewers.
| prmoustache wrote:
| OTOH, I understand the GPU requirement but why would 4K
| need extra cores of CPU and larger RAM than 1080p.
| Shouldn't the graphical heavylifting be mostly done on
| the GPU?
| jltsiren wrote:
| And around 10% of the market has a GPU that meets the same
| tier of requirements for Civ 7. The people who buy a high-
| end GPU often also buy a high-end CPU, because it's
| possible.
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| FPS death has also the least !!fun!! way to lose a game of
| Dwarf Fortress, even before it had a GUI.
| prmoustache wrote:
| >It's also nearly 2025 - for a desktop gaming rig, 32GB of
| RAM isn't really that unusual, and neither is 16 cores.
|
| /r/USdefaultism
|
| Plenty of people all over the world can't afford or don't
| want to spend so much money on a new gaming rig every few
| years.
|
| I just upgraded from:
|
| - core i5 2500 (from 2011)
|
| - 8GB of DDR3
|
| - nvidia 9500GT
|
| to the following config:
|
| - Ryzen 5 2600x 6 cores from 2018
|
| - 16GB of DDR4
|
| - Radeon rx570 8GB
|
| - 550W PSU
|
| Cost of the operation:
|
| 80EUR for second hand mainboard + CPU + 650W PSU
|
| 40EUR for new Corsair dimms
|
| 15EUR for a second hand case (went from mini-ITX to microATX
| mainboard)
|
| That is 135EUR in total and there is no way I would have
| spent much more on a gaming computer right now. I have enough
| to spend on a trip on the other side of the atlantic, fixing
| my house, go solar + some bicycle and motorbike parts and
| maintenance.
| Alupis wrote:
| I dare say you are not the target audience for 4K gaming
| then - which is where those recommended specs came from.
| The price of a GPU that can game in 4K is many multiples
| more than your entire system upgrade cost.
|
| Your hardware will dictate what kinds of games you can
| play.
|
| People who enjoy AAA titles and want everything on max
| settings - 32GB of ram and 16 core systems are not
| abnormal. On the high end, some folks are even starting to
| use 64GB of RAM.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Fair enough I have been staying off hidpu on purpose on
| all my devices[1] and don't necessarily look for the
| newest games: I only recently bought Red Dead Redemption
| 2 for instance and haven't launched it yet.
|
| When you don't want to spend a lot of money on gaming, it
| is better living in the past and play games from several
| years or a console generation before. If you don't try
| the new ones and only keeps being loosely aware of new
| releases, you never feel frustrated and actually benefit
| from games that are finished and fully patched, decent
| offers for games + DLCs and sometimes well made mods.
|
| [1] funnily enough except my mobile phone which has the
| biggest resolution of them all
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| But then why would anyone upgrade to Civ N+1?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| It sounds like they've done a fabulous job on scalability.
| Minimum specs is 4 cores, 8GB RAM and a 1050. That'd have been
| a mediocre machine 8 years ago.
| miohtama wrote:
| Civ 1 had FPS of 5 frames per sec.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Why would 4K be so ram intensive like that? Isn't it usually the
| VRAM (and disk speed, to some extent?).
| loufe wrote:
| I'm surprised to hear there are high core count requirements. My
| understanding was that grand strategies were always going to be
| performance-limited based on single core performance, given the
| interlinkedness of all game variables.
| johnklos wrote:
| It really isn't tough to come up with scenarios where the game
| can schedule off lots of independent threads to work on various
| things, then collect the data when ready.
|
| But 16 _cores_? Not just 16 threads, but cores, where the total
| number of possible simultaneous threads is 32? Or is this them
| hedging for the total number of cores where cores could also be
| Intel e cores?
|
| Either way, I'll be interested to see CPU utilization when
| people test out the game :)
| extr wrote:
| If I had to guess, the actual calculations for the logic of the
| game itself are completely trivial and are not bottlenecked by
| any modern processor or any number of cores. They're not
| exactly doing MCMC to simulate outcomes.
| momoschili wrote:
| this definitely isn't the case in my experience. I run Civ VI
| on a relatively high end desktop (5950x + 3080 Ti) and there
| is a very noticeable slowdown between turns with lots of
| Civs/city states on large maps
| toyg wrote:
| Yeah that is the case with V as well, even when you turn
| off all the bells and whistles.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Isn't that more the AI than the game mechanics?
|
| With zero knowledge of how it works, I would also expect
| that each tick is some trivial calculations to determine
| yield per square for each city (plains square starts at +1
| * 3 workers * 1.2 improvement modifiers) and combat
| resolution. Deterministic calculations that should complete
| instantly.
| marshray wrote:
| Real-time competitive online games need the strategy part to
| work well on the lower-end systems which tend to be extremely
| common among the player base. A player shouldn't be able to
| upgrade their way to a significant competitive advantage, i.e.,
| let them argue about 10ms worth of vsync rates rather than
| 100's of ms of cpu lag.
|
| But for turn-based offline games, players with fewer cores can
| substitute a bit of patience. They can use the time to think as
| well as the computer.
| ysofunny wrote:
| I worry that they're pulling a Bethesda patented "starfield"
| fiasco.
|
| I'm pretty sure all they really want is for us to buy newer
| hardware (that's the bethesda way)
|
| may I eat my own words and may we have a nice civ 7 (won't hold
| my breath tho)
| Alupis wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure all they really want is for us to buy newer
| hardware (that's the bethesda way)
|
| What would a video game developer/publisher get out of you
| buying new hardware?
| buffington wrote:
| New hardware justifies new software, etc. Eventually, they'd
| like to sell you another game. You're more likely to buy that
| game if you've "kept up."
| Alupis wrote:
| Usually PC Gamers buy the games first, and then if they are
| not satisfied with their current GPU's performance, they
| might upgrade - maybe... or lower the settings a little.
| Unlike console gamers - pc gamers have a lot of
| adjustability at their disposal.
|
| Anecdotally, most PC gamers I know unintentionally go in
| 2-3 year cycles for upgrades - usually the GPU. It's not
| planned, it's just when things start feeling
| underperforming. Often after upgrades, people binge old
| games they already owned but now at higher settings or FPS.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Minimum spec is a Steam Deck so you can put down the pitchforks.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| It's incomprehensible how much more excellent and accessible
| gaming is with food scaling tech like FSR and XeSS. I long
| resisted, but after my old GPU put up a terrible showing (on
| WH40K Darktide) I gave it a go and became a convert.
|
| Steam Deck sets such an excellently low target for games, that
| they have to make possible, but it also does it at such a
| perfectly not-excessive resolution. So games need to target
| this pretty modest system, at modest resolution.
|
| Beyond performance, it also encourages games to be considerate
| for low res gamers, fitting the elements on the screen and
| making everything readable & usable. It's amazing to me that
| info dense games like Last Spell (what an excellent squad town
| defender) have gotten ported & play well!
|
| Deck has brought about such a fantastic renormalization of what
| PC games need to be able to do.
| mihaaly wrote:
| The high detail rendering and animations (especially the idle
| characters and scenery with seagulls and alike) are the least
| important in this game and adds exactly zero to the joy of turn
| based strategy. A schematic view is way enough for this kind of
| game. I am a bit sceptical about this version (just like most
| before with supefluous graphics) if this is what gets the time
| and energy of the developers.
| marshray wrote:
| It's almost certainly a different set of developers working on
| graphics/animation than gameplay/strategy.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >The high detail rendering and animations (especially the idle
| characters and scenery with seagulls and alaike) are the least
| important in this game and adds exactly zero to the joy of turn
| based strategy.
|
| Au contraire, as a kid playing these games I really liked
| taking a moment to pause and zoom in and imagine the kinds of
| lives my people would be having.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| Not being playable at 4k/60fps on a 7800x3d with the best
| consumer graphics card on the market is a pretty interesting
| choice. Hopefully it means they've improved the AI.
| Saris wrote:
| That's why specifying core count is a dumb way to do system
| requirements.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Sounds like a great candidate for cloud gaming. It looks like
| this would require the $20/mo GeForce Now tier. It's a shame that
| Stadia flopped.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Eh cloud gaming's a bit of a hard sell...it's targeted at the
| cash strapped...don't have 2k for a gaming rig? Here spend 240
| a year on a subscription... but you also need a 100+ buck a
| month internet connection... and some expensive hardware to
| utilize it.
|
| Which is way more dough than a cash strapped players got.
| That's the kinda service for rich kids. Especially when you
| could just buy a used Xbox or Playstation in the current gen
| for a few hundred and a lower tier internet connection. Once
| it's saved and paid for its not a monthly drain like these
| subscription services...which if your tight on money a few
| months of the year because say work is sporadic and your low
| income can be a nightmare.
|
| Inherently broken product/price platform. There's a reason it
| doesn't take off at the pace they expected to. It's marketed to
| poor kids but it's priced for the rich.
|
| If your rich enough to afford game streaming and all the
| baggage it requires you just buy a gaming pc or console
| outright anyways. Folks like owning things, game streaming you
| own nothing and pay forever. Lose lose proposition.
| Lammy wrote:
| They have to push this kind of thing to have a reason to sell a
| Civ VII at all considering their biggest competitor is
| themselves. I would consider myself to be a "Civ fan" but still
| haven't even bought VI. I was waiting for it to be complete and
| on discount, but I can't say I'm interested in spending $80 on it
| even though it is now both of those things:
| https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/12218/Sid_Meiers_Civil...
| toyg wrote:
| I bought VI with a humble bundle, and just didn't like it. V
| was fine, people just wanted some flexibility when decorating
| cities; but developers built an entirely new set of mechanics
| on top of that request, and made the game more complicated that
| it needs to be. With VII they seem to have doubled down on that
| concept, so I don't think I'll buy it anytime soon.
| driscoll42 wrote:
| It has been as low as $5 - https://isthereanydeal.com/game/sid-
| meiers-civilization-vi-p... and it's $10 at Green Man Gaming
| right now - https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/sid-meiers-
| civilization...
| Lammy wrote:
| Thanks for the GMG link!
| momoschili wrote:
| sounds like the game will be perfectly playable on mid-tier
| hardware, and you only need better hardware for "ultra" 4K. Bit
| of a poor clickbait headline by Tom's which has unfortunately
| become the norm :(
|
| I'm happy that there are some higher fidelity graphics that will
| be available for those that can use it
| stiray wrote:
| I bet they did 3d rendering in browser with javascript and every
| character is in separate iframe to achive compartmentalization
| while the logic is architecturally separated and written in
| prolog + llama + logo, like latest design trends require.
|
| Reminds me of working with cloud...
|
| p.s: rolling my eyes to the point where they fall out and I am
| blindly forced to search for them around the floor)
|
| p.p.s: you need to be 45+ to understand this post
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Yeah but look at these graphics. The term "cinematic" is overused
| but wow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3_EO6Bj2M
|
| I put hundreds of hours into the original Civilzation and Civ2
| but I haven't played in years. This might actually draw me back
| in.
| deciplex wrote:
| They've yet to top Civ4 but third time's a charm I guess.
| init2null wrote:
| I always find it interesting that Civilization (especially 5+) is
| basically a board game with added fog of war. These specs seem a
| little extreme given that fact. That being said, anyone who's
| played older versions knows that the AI needs every cycle it can
| get. I'd love to see smarter multithreaded strategy for the AI.
| Its combat skills border on embarrassing.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| Yes, difficulty scaling in CIV just equates to giving the AI
| unfair starting points and making it super easy and cheap for
| the computer controlled players to build advanced, OP units.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Try V with the Vox Populi mod. While it's also changing tons
| of mechanics, it vastly improves the AI by a ton.
| vizzier wrote:
| Not just starting, the AI gets significant overall resource
| multipliers as you increase the difficulty. [1]
|
| https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Difficulty_level_(Civ6)
| germanjoey wrote:
| Simply increasing processing power for the AI isn't enough.
| Gameplay mechanics are intimately related to the capabilities
| of the AI.
|
| For example, when they redesigned combat around the 1-Unit-Per-
| Tile (1UPT) mechanic for CIV 5, this crippled the ability of
| the AI to wage war. That's because even if a high-difficulty AI
| could out-produce the player in terms of military, they were
| logistics-limited in their ability to get those units to the
| front because of 1UPT. That means that the AI can't threaten a
| player militarily, and thus loses it's main lever in terms of
| it's ability to be "difficult."
|
| Contrast this to Civ 4, where high-difficulty AIs were capable
| of completely overwhelming a player that didn't take them
| seriously. You couldn't just sit there and tech-up and use a
| small number of advanced units to fend off an invasion from a
| much larger and more aggressive neighbor. This was especially
| the case if you played against advanced fan-created AIs.
|
| I'm hoping they get rid of 1UPT completely for Civ 7, but I
| have a feeling that it is unlikely because casual players (the
| majority purchaser for Civ) actually like that 1UPT effectively
| removes tactical combat from the game.
| jltsiren wrote:
| 1UPT added tactical combat to the game. Before Civ 5, the
| lowest level of warfare was operational. If you got your
| units close to the enemy, they were in position to fight. You
| didn't have to worry much about battlefield formations,
| terrain, coordinating the actions of different units, and so
| on.
|
| This addition of tactical combat crippled the AI, because it
| doesn't understand the situation on the battlefield, and it's
| not good at making and adjusting plans.
| me_me_me wrote:
| I am not sure if I buy this resoning. While doom tile army is
| much easier to create, I found it hard to imagine major AAA
| game dev making same game for ever unable to create proper Ai
| that handles strategy and tactics with multi-tiled armies.
|
| There are plenty of small games that handle complex armies
| fight with plenty units, choke-points and strategical and
| tactical views. Especially since the unit roaster in Civ
| games is quite limited in comparison to other strategy games.
| pornel wrote:
| They probably plan for the game to be on sale for a long time, so
| they don't want the game to look dated too soon, and aimed for
| future hardware. The specs won't seem so high in a few years.
|
| Games are long overdue to use the full CPU instead of
| bottlenecking of single-core performance. I hope they've actually
| designed for multi-core CPUs, and made as many things data-
| parallel as possible.
| hyperluz wrote:
| Maybe it's time to use GPUs for doing AI calculations.
| moribvndvs wrote:
| 10th gen Intel is a "very old CPU"?
| serf wrote:
| even on a monster machine the turn-times get exhausting at the
| end of a large-map game on VI..
|
| Maybe they're focusing on graphics so that we have more pretty
| things to stare at while awaiting the 45s turn end while it
| calculates the other civs.
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