Laptop Civ 5 help

[Ganhyun]

Hey guys,

I'm wanting to try the Civ 5 emo on Steam. However, both directx9 and directx 10/11 modes freeze on the opening video. Can I run it says I have the specs to run the game fine. I updated my video driver. My laptop has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M. Any suggestions? I dont wanna buy the game if its not gonna work right on my laptop.

   
CPU
Minimum: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz
You Have: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30GHz
      PASS
   
CPU Speed
Minimum: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz
You Have: 2.3 GHz
      PASS
   
RAM
Minimum: 2 GB
You Have: 7.9 GB
      PASS
   
OS
Minimum: Windows® XP SP3/ Windows® Vista SP2/ Windows® 7
You Have: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit
      PASS
   
Video Card
Minimum: 256 MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT or better, 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS or better, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics
You Have: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
      PASS
Features: Minimum attributes of your Video Card
      Required    You Have
   Video RAM    256 MB    1.7 GB
   Hardware T&L    Yes    Yes
   Pixel Shader version    3.0    4.1
   Vertex Shader version    3.0    4.1
   
DirectX version
Minimum: DirectX® 9.0c
You Have: 11.0
      PASS
   
Sound Card
Minimum: Yes
You Have: Realtek High Definition Audio
      PASS
   
Free Disk Space
Minimum: 8 GB Free
You Have: 546.8 GB
      PASS

[Ganhyun]

I will say that its weird its not picking up my GeForce when I run the test from Firefox.

[Van Cruncheon]

the 540m will run it more than fine. however, it is an optimus chipset, meaning that it attempts to detect whether or not the app you are running requires the discrete gpu -- if it fails to detect it, as it will under firefox, it will report it as the intel hd 3000  gpu that is integrated on the core i5. to make SURE the540m gets engaged, go into the nVidia Settings control panel. then, under "manage 3d settings":
 


add each exe you want to run under the "high-performance nvidia gpu". you can also click on the global settings tab and set it globally, but for some reason, divinity2.exe didn't use it anyway until i expressly set both its exe AND steam's. obnoxious, really.
 

[Ganhyun]

thanks for the help, but its still not working. I'll have to take a look at it later on after ive had sleep and class.  Not sure why NVIDIA decided that this optimus technology was a good thing. All I see online are issues.

Edit: I dont need to reboot when making the exe changes do I?

[Ganhyun]

Ok, so I found that my April 2011 driver was replaced by a june 2011 driver. Now I dont even get the E for everyone thing, but I do get a black screen with the civ arrow now in either direct x 9 or 10/11 mode. Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 work. Not sure why Civ 5 wont work.

[Van Cruncheon]

no idea, man. i am running it under a core i7 2820qm + 555m optimus pairing (dell xps17) just fine.

[Ganhyun]

ehh, thanks for helping as much as you did. Im more in line that its a CIV 5 issue. Reviews tell me that its quality is not as good as 4's was.