Hmmm, well the whole point of 'not' overclocking is that i don't have to worry about all that crap,,, but since i have to worry about it anyway.... may as well overclock!

Doesn't make sense that there would be any issues making it run on Vista if 64bit and Dx11 are the requirements, the (windows) OS itself shouldn't be important it's just the Dx11 and 64bit part that matter. I'm hoping it was an oversight on the FAQ, since it's so unpopular maybe whoever typed up the FAQ forgot about Vista or that it was Dx11 or had 64 bit versions.

It doesn't really matter what's at fault, there are lots of laptops out there that can generate more heat than they can dissipate f you run them flat out. It tends to be less of a problem with desktops, just because they are easier to cool. 

If things work properly, there is no heat issue. after a year when fans are dusty... You hope the Cpu and GPU can under clock themselves gracefully and not just crash. 

So we definitely need DX 11 and DX 10 no go?

I vaguely remember hearing stories that DX 10 was better than DX 11? So should i try to update to DX 11?

The FAQ says 10 or 11, but in the Q&A somebody said it was 11 in a question and they weren't corrected. I don't know beyond that.

I said DX 11 and win 7/8 (not referencing 64 bit though, assuming it was known at this point) in my question mainly because I wasn't being as specific as what I could have been.  Mainly poking for system information that wasn't provided in Q&A, as I was mainly looking for memory requirements and other suggestions such as...

required  /  suggested

4gb ram  /    8gb ram

2 core     /    4 core

1 monitor /   2 monitor

1gb gpu   /   3gb gpu

so on...  

Unfortunately they weren't willing to go more specific until later in the Alpha/Beta testing   Although I'm assuming my new PC will handle it

With my old case, which was too small, my gpu card could go up to 96 C and the the computer would crash and switch off. After I changed to a roomier one, hey presto, all was well. And I wasn't overclocking, hence my posts.

To get back on thread, I suspect a five year old computer that was state of the art back then would probably run the game (as they said in the Q&A that they would like it to play on a 2 year old laptop). Don't expect to play it at the highest settings though!

A mid range from 5 years ago might have some difficulty...

My computer has all the minimum requirement, which is not too bad for a five year old computer!

So any recommendation i should try to update to DX 11?

Hope you know everything I wrote is purely speculation and not based on anything stated by Stardock, I was just posting examples I was hoping for, which they stated they won't know until alpha/beta.  All my current computers are old,

10 year old win xp upgraded to win 7 32 bit won't work.

4 year old win 7 laptop possibly would work but doubt it

2 year old win 7 laptop maybe would work

*new* that I'm building will work

DX11 isn't as big an improvement over DX10 as it was over DX9, but it's still a pretty sizable upgrade if you play games with lots of multi-core support. Make sure you get Windows 8.1 to get the latest version

The only reason i would have windows 8.1 is if i had ordered it with a new computer - I would never throw money away buying it on its own, that's just crazy talk! Currently i only have Vista 64 bit.

Based on a similar original investment, a 2 year old laptop would likely be equivalent of a five year old desktop! That means investing in a gaming laptop you will get less than half the useful life as a desktop for the same money,,, On the other hand, given the popularity of laptops, i would expect that improvements in laptop technology is probably exceeding that of desktops??

If you go to windows 8 or 8.1 you loose the ability to play a lot of the older games. I have already ran into this problem.

"Windows 7 is vastly superior to Vista" - Everyone Ever

Windows 8.1 is marginally better over 7, and much better than 8. Seriously though, at least get Windows 7; there're already programs being released that require "Windows 7 or higher".

EDIT; I said Windows 8.1 was worse than Windows 8. lol

DDos Box error?

No. And for those that are really old, only run on DOS, I am using DOSBOX. Even there, some run fine, others show small glitches that make then unplayable.

Non DOS types, some will not install because "the OS does not support it" (probably because Win8 doesn't have XP support, so I am told), others install but won't start (click icon, nothing but air), some show small glitches that make them unplayable.

Compatibility is an interesting topic..., say anyone know if the windows backwards compatibility options are actually connected to anything? Or are they just pretend/placebo to give people something useless to play with? Since i have never actually had it work for any older games??

I've had it work on my windows 7 home 64 bit to play win xp games such as mall tycoon, where it wouldn't work in win 7 but running in compatibility for xp did work.

Not really. I have Vista on my desktop and 7 on a laptop (I never use), I have zero interest in upgrading my desktop to 7. Doing so would just require me to once again go through everything and strip out all the useless crap I don't want. I'd still be using windows 3.1 if it was possible, I don't need my OS doing a lot of pointless stuff, I just want explorer to manage my files and shortcuts on my desktop. Vista was pretty easy to strip down and has worked flawlessly for me, there's nothing about 7 that makes it better in anyway for me. I just hate 8 and will never use it, ever, in any form.

I could upgrade my desktop to 7 (64), I have the disk, I know I wont have to do a clean install and can keep everything, but I don't want to. My Vista is adequate and familiar. One game, even this one, probably wont make me change my mind.

Not going to lie, you're literally the first person I've seen saying this. Everyone reviles Vista for being useless garbage.

I dunno', maybe it's a bias of the community, but Windows 7 is considered to be a considerable improvement over Vista

Oh ok, so it is actually 'doing something', that's good to know.... i think??

How important will cores and graphic cards be? I just have a dual core, and upgrading that is going to be expensive. I.e can a good graphic card compensate somewhat for just 2 cores or will it just be for prettiness mostly? 

Vista was useless garbage out of the box, hence all the "reviling". With SP1 and some config tweaks it works fine. People get too emotional about software sometimes when it does not work properly right away

I wasn't overly impressed with Vista when i first started using it,,, never used Windows 7? Then i got a new work laptop recently with Windows 8, the most immediate and obvious fuxxup being no desktop and no start button!! It is blatantly obvious Microsoft are just changing things that don't need changing just to make it a 'new' operating system. Then in my first week using Windows 8 i have to knock off work half an hour early each day so i can scroll through the forest of options to finally get to the shutdown option (slight exaggeration, but necessary to make the point how stupid it is). So i installed a third party shutdown button in the toolbar menu, occasionally i accidentally click on it!!

Get 8.1, it's a large improvement over the default and as the plus of actually being made for desktops

Been there, done that, don't like it. It still doesn't have XP emulation.

The AI in Galactic Civilizations 3 will have multiple threads for each AI, all of which can be relegated to other processor cores for better performance. That being said, games historically are pretty bad at utilizing more than 4 cores.

If you're looking to upgrade and want the best performance for the dollars you spend, you're probably better off getting a Quad-core AMD chip, or if your mobo is incompatible, get an equivalent Intel. You're looking at a $185-230 price tag on Newegg :3 That being said, hexa and octuple cores will offer better performance, but they suffer from diminishing returns in cost.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899 < This is the one I just installed, and it should be sufficient for basically anything if you overclock it (It runs Crysis 3 at above 60 FPS with max settings when coupled with my GTX 780). Previous generations are almost as good however and should be more than sufficient for this game.