What would be a suitable video card for Twilight?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I'm debating with myself as to buy the game early or not, to see if I can actually handle the lag. When I first played with Gal Civ II there was no lag, no problem. As soon as Dark Avatar came out, when I zoom out or watch a battle, it's lag fest 2008. Now, I know I have a crappy video card. Extremely crappy. Integrated dell card, in fact. But I don't know if I should go for a new video card or not, because I heard that they are mighty expensive. On the other hand, Twilight looks too cool to miss playing. So, I have a few questions for you kind folk here at the Forums.

1. What would be a good video card for playing Twilight?
2. How much would this card be?
3. Will it work with a Dell Dimension 5150?
4. Am I screwed because I have an integrated?
5. Is Twilight a resource whore?

Thanks a bunch, and thanks to Stardock for making such a kickass game.
2,934 views 1 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When I clicked into this topic before there was a post with images so graphic, gory, gratuitious and horrific I almost threw up. Wow that was so insanely disturbing I'm still bothered by it. The comment disappeared, so I guess I can thank the Mods for that. I'm afraid to click anymore links in this forum though!

To answer you question, You siad you have a Dell Dimension 5150. According to my research, that has a Pci-express slot in it. So you are not limited to your integrated graphics, and can put in any pci-express graphics card.

This link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1069609641&name=PCI+Express+x16

Lists all the PCI express graphics card available from one popular online web store. What you should get depends on how much you want to spend, really.

This 8400 GS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127316

Seems like a pretty good deal at $35 with an additionial $10 mail in rebate. You could spend a little more to get a nicer card, but I'm not sure how necessary it is especially with the memory optimization changes of TA. Perhaps someone with a lower end card can chime in with performance expectations. But to sum up:

1. What's good enough I can't say
2. Probably $30, but you can easily get a decent card for under $100 if the 8400 isn't good enough. Figure $80 tops.
3. Yes.
4. No.
5. Apparently, TA actually uses LESS graphics resources than DA. So if GC2 played fine, you might want to wait till you have your hands on it to decide if it's still too slow. I've read for example that graphical memory is in some cases 1/10th of what was used in DA, and that will effect the performance of your integrated heavily.