README Last updated 31-October-2005 For the latest support information please visit http://www.civiv.com. System & Operating System Requirements Minimum System Requirements Operating System: Windows® 2000/XP Processor: 1.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent Memory: 256 MB RAM (Windows 2000) / 512 MB RAM (Windows XP) Hard Disk Space: 1.7 GB Free CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed Video: DirectX 9.0c-compatible 64 MB video card with Hardware T&L support (GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better) Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card DirectX®: Sid Meier's Civilization 4 DirectX® Recommended System Requirements Operating System: Windows® 2000/XP Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent Memory: 512 MB RAM Hard Disk Space: 1.7 GB Free CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed Video: 128 MB Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel & vertex shaders) Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card DirectX®: Sid Meier's Civilization 4 DirectX® Supported Operating Systems Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 or higher WITH Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher Windows XP Home or Professional w/ Service Pack 1 or higher General System Issues Optimizing Gameplay on Slower Computers If the game is running slowly on your machine, try turning the detail levels for all graphical options down to the minimum, and then adjusting them one by one until you achieve an acceptable balance between visual quality and game performance. You can modify the graphical options by pressing [Ctrl 0] or via the Options selection in the main menu. Video Issues General Video Troubleshooting. Outdated or incorrect video drivers are the cause of the majority of video issues. Before contacting support, ensure you have the latest production (release) drivers for your video card. * ATI Technologies * Intel * Matrox * NVIDIA * S3 Graphics * SiS I get a message that says "Unable to initialize DirectX" when I try to launch the game. This issue is typically seen on machines that have an ATI Graphics Card. Please follow this link for the complete walkthrough on how to solve this problem: http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/support.htm Sound issues If you are experiencing sound problems, including volume issues, missing audio channels (i.e., no sound comes through your center speaker channel), crashes, or any other audio issues, we recommend switching your sound driver to the default MILES Fast 2D Driver.