First... this is my first post on Civfanatics. I have been active (sort of) on Apolyton since 1999, but their Mac community is dead. Bummer, as I'm a Mac user now. So here I am.

Now for the matter at hand. Aspyr is hard at work on Civ4. Would it be useful for them to know what hardware we are planning on using to play it? Maybe we would even get a feedback on how we can expect our machines to perform.

So, here goes. I will be using:
PowerBook (Feb2005 version) 1.5GHz, 1.25GB, 80GB, 64MB GeForce FX Go5200, 12" 1024x768

I also have a Quicksilver 800MHz, 512MB, 120+250GB, 32MB Geforce2 but that one is way underspecced and won't be bothered by Civ4.

Hello, welcome to MacCivFanatics. I've visited and posted at Apolyton, but it's a Mac-free zone, so I couldn't imagine living there.

There have already been some discussions about hardware specs hereabouts, so you might want to browse some of the other recent threads. I doubt if Aspyr are going to have much freedom to define the minimum hardware requirements, as they have to re-use the software they are given to a large extent. They'll have little choice over graphics standards or the amount of processing done at different points in the turn cycle. So what you see in the PC forums is what we'll get, hopefully with fewer bugs and incompatibilities.

Your Quicksilver comes close to my upgraded 1 GHz G4 AGP/Sawtooth, with 1.12 GB DRAM and a GeForce 4MX. I think mine will be somewhere around the fuzzy edge of being able to run Civ4, but I doubt if playing on it will be a relaxing experience. So Civ4 will depend on me getting new hardware, and anything I choose next year will, I'm sure, be capable of handling Civ4.

Your Powerbook looks like a similar spec to the Mac Mini. Brad Oliver, lead developer at Aspyr, has indicated somewhere near here that he hopes it will run on a Mac Mini (he does own one himself :mischief: ), so I guess your PowerBook will maybe play. How well it will do so is anybody's guess, and the screen might be a little small given the amount of information that Firaxis have crammed into the screenshots I've seen.

It's over year old now, so I'm not sure, but it looks like it'll work:

iBook; Power PC G4 (1.1); 1.07GHz; 512K L2; 768MB Mem; 133MHz Bus; Radeon 9200 (32MB VRAM)

Of course the 12" display is tiny, but I've also given some thought to picking up a mini when January rolls around but it seems like the low end mini is less capable than my iBook...


M@

I converted in August with an iMac G5, 2.0GHZ, 1GB RAM had I known I probably would've waited for the new stuff next year but my stupid PC crashed (I know it's hard to believe) so being desperate for a computer and curious about Mac I went ahead and bought it. Anyway, I dont have Civ for my Mac yet, although I have a sneaky suspicion that wifey bought it for me for Xmas (civ3) and it obviously wont be the complete edition:sad:, but its better than the alternative which is playing on the resurected PC in my Daughters room which is usually used for Simba, and Winnie the Pooh.

iMac, 1.8 Ghz.
should work. . .

Macintosh PPC 2.0 GHz Dual with 1,5 GB of RAM and the ATI Radeon 9650
OS 10.4.3


...it has to work :D

Banthafodder, your post cracked me! Sounds like you might be a perfect mascot for Civplayers Anonymous meetings: "find yourself playing civ in lunlikely places? Tired of sitting next to Winnie the Poo until 4am? Come meet others at a Civplayers Anonymous meeting near you!"

I too converted to Mac after years of PC use. I switched a year and a half ago. I use a single 1.8 ghz Power Mac, 1.5 Gb RAM, and upgraded this week to a Radeon 9600 Pro (256 vram).

I was considering buying a cheap Dell to play Civ4, and I read the release just in time that Aspyr is porting Civ4 to Mac in early 2006 (which I was hoping meant by February, but perhaps it'll be more like March or April?...)

now if only I can figure out a way to conquer Japan quickly enough to take on Persia...

dualcore 2.0 G5 with 8 gigs RAM...and an intel powerbook when they arrive.

It's got to be a mini...

1.42GHz PowerPC G4
512MB DDR333 SDRAM >beefed up mine to 1GB
ATI Radeon 9200+32MB DDR video memory
80GB Ultra ATA hard drive+200GB Iomega Firewire
SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
DVI video output
AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth included
23" LCD Cinema Display

Hope it runs... :blush:

I doubt the current mini's will ever run Civ 4. The game needs 64 Mb video RAM as a minimum. I'm running it--sluggishly--on a 3 Ghz PC laptop with 64 video RAM and 512 RAM.

Certainly I have no hope of running it on my Mac, which is an aging soccer ball Mac with only 32 Mb RAM.

Brad Oliver has given some hope in a nearby thread that it will run on a Mini, and I don't think he meant one that doesn't exist yet outside of Infinite Loop. Brad may have a personal interest in achieving this, as he has one himself ;)

Does anyone know the exact release date of the Mac version of Civ4!!
:scan:

Someone reported that there's a date of June 1st quoted somewhere.

Someone reported that there's a date of June 1st quoted somewhere.

Any dates you see at this point are being pulled out of thin air. Place no stock in them yet.

I guess I am out of luck with my G4 400 Mhz and 384 MB of ram... oh well, have to keep playing civ 3 complete then.

If all goes to plan, I will be playing Civ IV on an Intel-powered iMac G5 with two gigabytes of RAM, a 256MB graphics card and a 20-inch screen.

You hear that, Brad?! If that system doesn't meet specs, I give up! ;)

Gatekeeper

an Intel-powered iMac G5
That's rather an impossibility.

Maybe Intel make power supplies? :mischief:

600 MHz PowerPC G3

600 MHz PowerPC G3
If that'll run Civ4 Brad will have performed miracles ... and I'll be looking for another excuse to buy a new Mac :eek:

If that'll run Civ4 Brad will have performed miracles ... and I'll be looking for another excuse to buy a new Mac :eek:
Are you telling me I'm going to have to upgrade? To what?

If that'll run Civ4 Brad will have performed miracles ... and I'll be looking for another excuse to buy a new Mac :eek:

Exactly right.

Let's be realistic here. Civ4 has some fairly steep requirements on the PC side. It requires over 1GHz of CPU speed and a medium-range video card - and these are the minimum settings. Comparable Mac hardware will be needed -- at a minimum.

That means no 600 MHz G3s (and probably no 1 GHz G4s either), no Radeon 7500s or GeForce 2MXs or Rage 128s. If you are expecting to buy Civ4 knowing that the minimum requirements are much greater than what you have and you'll tough it out, I would strongly advise you to give that plan up.

Are you telling me I'm going to have to upgrade?
I have a 1 GHz AGP G4 and a GeForce 4MX 32 MByte video card. As Brad has indicated, my system is below the performance threshold where lots of PC players are having trouble. I do not expect my system to be able to run Civ4. If mine won't hack it then yours certainly won't.

I have had this system for six years, and it works fine for everything I do today. Now, I am either going to have to buy a new Mac or ignore Civ4 and stick with Civ3. I have a real problem with the thought of having to replace a perfectly seviceable Mac *simply* to play a game that's a bit of an enhancement to the one I can play today. Heck, I only play Civ3 maybe ten times a year :eek: $50 for the software would be fine, but $1500 minimum for a new Mac makes Civ4 a *very* expensive Civ3 upgrade.

To what?
Depends what else you need the Mac to do, IMHO. I would never let one game dictate what Mac I purchase.

Personally, I think it sucks that a turn-based strategy game has such stratospheric minimum hardware requirements. I suspect the only excuse is that it uses the same software architecture as the fast real-time games. As I've said elsewhere, PC users are accustomed to replacing their video cards and/or complete systems every few months, so maybe Firaxis can get away with demanding high end hardware. However, Mac users tend to keep their more-costly hardware for longer, and I can't believe you and I are the only potential customers that Aspyr could lose because of this.

*IF* I replace my Mac I will get a new Intel-based system rather than a G5 or a faster G4, simply because any new investment I make will have to be as future-proof as my existing one has been, and Intel is Apple's future. But really, Civ4 cannot be my sole justification for doing so, and it's difficult to come up with another at the moment.

If we have to upgrade to what you are suggesting, then Civ 4 must be one heck of a upgrade itself. Is it worth the upgrade? $1500.00 is a lot of money just to play a game. My G3 does everything else I want it to do just fine.

Hmmm... How about a 1.5 G4 with a 64/9700 video card? I've only had the system two years, it would be a bummer to have it shut out...

As someone who has played Civ4 a bit on a substandard PC, I'd say the new game is quite fun (even when I can't see the terrain and it crashes every 1-3 hrs). The civics and religion changes are pretty cool, as are the unit promotions. I think the modability will end up being the best feature- there appear to be some great mods coming down the pipe already. Unfortunately, my impression is that it is the bells and whistles that create the high hardware requirements. Here's what doesn't work on my PC: terrain, leaderheads (sometimes), wondermovies (hello!?- if I could run CtP wonder movies on my old as heck G3 imac, why are they so hard to implement on a computer with 10x the processing power?).

I'm not sure its worth a new computer, but it is definitely worth the $50.

btw- I'm hoping to play on my 15" g4 powerbook- 1.5ghz, 1gb ram, 64mb radeon 9700. My understanding is that this should work, although the game likely won't be blazing fast...

Alan, Civ4 may not be the *only* reason to upgrade your system.. you may think that your system runs everything fine that you're doing. But I can't help but think about my experience upgrading from dial-up to dsl a couple years ago... I always told my friends "my dialup is just fine"; but once I actually tried dsl, oh my gawd I realized my complacence with dialup was.. well let's just say, I had no idea how not fine it was. I bet if you got a new Mac, you'd be amazed to at the improvements :crazyeye:

iamliberal- very true! I would LOVE to get one of the new intel macs. However, I did upgrade to a new laptop less than a year ago, and the year before that I bought my PC laptop (had to get one for some genetic analysis software). Its now a question of cash availability- I'm finally out of school and above the poverty line and hoping to actually pay down some of my credit cards... My big purchase for this year will likely be a trip to France- I've gotten a bit of money to go to a conference but to make the trip worthwhile will mean staying longer, helping my gf by a ticket, etc...

ps- i'm still on dial-up(!), but if I end up being able to work from home more I will undoubtedly make the jump to something broader of band...

I bet if you got a new Mac, you'd be amazed to at the improvements :crazyeye:
No I wouldn't. I know what a new machine can do. I have installed several iMac G5s for friends recently and they do things about as fast as I can type and think, just like my own existing machine :)

I agree totally about broadband. I'd die if I had to go back. But that's a multiplying factor of 40 in performance, where the dial-up speed to download a 100K web page is 20 seconds - measurable with a stop watch.

I don't run complex Photoshop transforms, and I don't create or view multimedia extravaganzas. Nothing I do locally with my Mac can be measured with a stopwatch.

I have the 1.42 Ghz Mini with 512MB RAM etc. If it will run on this machine at all I'd do the 1Gig RAM upgrade. I'm highly skeptical of this, though. I've seen it run on a 2.4 Ghz Celeron with 1 GB of RAM and it had to have some graphics turned down, and the system bucked and hesitated a bit. The game just really pushes the graphics a lot, a lot of the stuff is moving all the time.

But, I just got C3C and I bet it will take me a year or two to really play through it all, so I'm in no rush to play Civ4, although I'm sure it is a better game. It really does look beautiful, that much is sure.

But, I just got C3C and I bet it will take me a year or two to really play through it all, so I'm in no rush to play Civ4, although I'm sure it is a better game. It really does look beautiful, that much is sure.

I've got both atm, Civ4 for my laptop. I'm still not fully attracted to Civ4. I just get exhausted w/ the 3D engine.

.... Comparable Mac hardware will be needed -- at a minimum.

That means no 600 MHz G3s (and probably no 1 GHz G4s either), no Radeon 7500s or GeForce 2MXs or Rage 128s. If you are expecting to buy Civ4 knowing that the minimum requirements are much greater than what you have and you'll tough it out, I would strongly advise you to give that plan up.

I thought that we were hopeful that we could play Civ-IV on a Mac Mini? I'm most concerned about the "no 1 GHz G4s" comment. I thought that it was fairly well established that the Mac processor speeds were vastly undervalued when compared to comparable PC processor speeds. That is, that a 1GHz PC is in no way analogous to a 1GHz G4.

I was really hoping that I could play it on my (2yo) iBook when it comes out. I was still planning on buying a new computer at some point, but the "no 1 GHz G4s" comment really hurts. That means that it won't run on my iBook and that I would would probably would be disappointed in how it runs on the bottom of the line Mac Mini. I don't really want to spend ~$600 to be disappointed, so maybe I'll just forget about it altogether.

I'll be very interested to see what the minimum requirements are when they are finalized.


M@

Aspyr is currently showing June as an estimated release date, so that gives me a couple more months to think about it and/or save for a new system... Perhaps the 1.5GHz Mac Minis will be sufficient?

http://www.aspyr.com/games.php/status/


M@

Aspyr is currently showing June as an estimated release date, so that gives me a couple more months to think about it and/or save for a new system... Perhaps the 1.5GHz Mac Minis will be sufficient?
Take note...

Any dates you see at this point are being pulled out of thin air. Place no stock in them yet.
Which was originally given as a response to another statement of June 1 that originally came out of Aspyr.

Which was originally given as a response to another statement of June 1 that originally came out of Aspyr.

I should point out that our site says only June 2006, not June 1 2006 (for you optimists). It's all one big guess, and June 2006 is - indeed - one big guess. Frankly, I'm not sure why we're throwing a date out there this early on in development, but that's not my call to make.

Yep, the June 1 statement reportedly came from "Aspyr's sales administration manager" rather than the website, as reported on the CivFanatics front page.

That's rather an impossibility.

I rather suspect you know what I meant. Perhaps the next time I see one of your posts, I'll point out the spelling and punctuation errors?

Gatekeeper

I thought that we were hopeful that we could play Civ-IV on a Mac Mini? I'm most concerned about the "no 1 GHz G4s" comment. I thought that it was fairly well established that the Mac processor speeds were vastly undervalued when compared to comparable PC processor speeds. That is, that a 1GHz PC is in no way analogous to a 1GHz G4.

I was really hoping that I could play it on my (2yo) iBook when it comes out. I was still planning on buying a new computer at some point, but the "no 1 GHz G4s" comment really hurts. That means that it won't run on my iBook and that I would would probably would be disappointed in how it runs on the bottom of the line Mac Mini. I don't really want to spend ~$600 to be disappointed, so maybe I'll just forget about it altogether.

I'll be very interested to see what the minimum requirements are when they are finalized.


M@

I think you're right. I mean the 1.42 Mini I have seems way more than 2 1/2 times faster than the 600Ghz PC I have. Same amount of RAM. But light-years faster.

Hmm - Civ won't run on my PC laptop. Now I'm getting worried about my G5 iMac! I'm hoping it'll run it! (It's the first G5 iMac model, with the wimpy video card).

I agree with other people that it's a shame that Firaxis designed the game to have such high graphic requirements, given that it's PROUDLY turn-based and the graphics don't add to the general gameplay. It's also a game that's very popular with traditional non-gamers. I've played all Net versions of Civ against my siblings and father, all in the 35-65 year old age range (non-traditional gamers). Nobody owns a machine that can run the new Civ, so it's the first Civ we haven't bought... It would have been nice if they included an "ugly graphics" mode that could run on a machine with integrated Intel graphics... Frankly, I just want the improved gameplay - it could look like Civ 1 and I'd be happy...

Does anyone (i.e. Brad) know if it will be possible to play multiplayer against PC users?

The interesting part of the Mac Mini interrogation is that it also applies to later iBooks. Here's hoping...

I've seen it run on a 2.4 Ghz Celeron with 1 GB of RAM and it had to have some graphics turned down, and the system bucked and hesitated a bit.


The 2.4 GHz Celeron is apoor performer. Even a G4 in the low 1 GHz should compete with it.

So a low 1GHz G4 will also experience "had to have some graphics turned down, and the system bucked and hesitated a bit."

Low 1 GHz G4 is where a lot of us are ... Mac Minis, Powerbooks, my trusty Sawtooth. They are all machines that are perfectly suited to most of what we want to do, and they are suddenly to be made obsolete by a $50 game? :eek:

I've been an avid player of Civ3 on the Mac and later, Conquests on my laptop PC and high-end desktop. I can tell you that Conquests stills holds many attractions for me. To the extent that I've turned on most of the 'look-like Civ3 options' in Civ4.

I play Civ4 a lot on my desktop, sadly not on the laptop. Large games run well and look fabulous on a 20" (1680x1050) LCD monitor but there's something missing. Perhaps it's the nasty, cheating AI, or the 2D map display. It just doesn't have the epic feel of Civ3. Also, there's so much information at the end of your cursor as you rollover terrain or units, or make technology choices, that most decisions seem pre-ordained -- this even makes the religion a bit less fun if you'll excuse the pun.

Anyway, make sure you give Conquests a proper go before you give up on that old Mac. I haven't played it on my iMac yet, but I do notice performance improvements in Tiger, so I'll pick up a copy when the price drops a little here in Oz.

I'm having some doubts about Civ 4 on the Mini.

Last night as I reached an endgame the Computer was really not moving that fast through the turns. All I was doing was building my spaceship...I wasn't moving any units around, most of my cities were just on wealth aside from a few pre-builds and a nuke or two. There is just a lot of data to process and while it might run, I don't expect it will be real smooth later in the game when there is a whole lot going on.

Incidently it was my first play at regent level. I scored about 2750 points and launched around 1950. Key points were keeping the Romans away from Iron in the early game, thus no Centurion. Then I built for awile and cleared the continent, erasing the Incas. Then I carefully upgraded all my units in time to repel an invasion by the powerful Iriquois. I counterattacked and razed JS Bach's cathedral and Sun Tzu's Art of War on their continent. At the same time I had neutralized the Byzantines and Carthage-dwellers by signing an MPP with them the turn before the Hiawatha took his shot at me. As soon as the 20 turns were up I signed peace with Hi. He never recovered from those cities I took out and I beat him by about 300 points as well. I killed like 50 hours on this game, sheesh. I'm going to limit myself to playing the GOTM I think, this is ridiculous. Very fun time, but I have a life!

Apparently the PC version of CIV has problems with 32 MB or less video cards. Mini and iBook owners shouldn't have much hope then. :(

Apparently the PC version of CIV has problems with 32 MB or less video cards. Mini and iBook owners shouldn't have much hope then. :(

Frankly I don't care. I 'waste' enough time on this game already.

I suppose it's fair to say that we may not be playing CIV comfortably on one of the new Intel-based Minis due to the Intel GMA950 video chip in those machines.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3361790&postcount=196

So which Mac Mini going to play CIV better?

1.42GHz G4, ATI 9200 w/ 32MB VRAM

1.50GHz CoreSolo, GMA950 w/ 64MB VRAM

Hey All, I am biting the bullet and buying a new Mac. I have an old Power PC from 1998 so it has been a long time coming. I have been waiting for the new Intel based Macs and now is the time. I am getting the iMac 20' with the 2.0 Ghz intel processor. In addition to upgrading the graphics card to the 256 mb ATI Radeon card I will definately be upgrading the memory (it only comes with 512 MB RAM). What I want to know is it worth the extra $200 bucks to get 2 GB of RAM or will upgrading to 1 GB be plenty. I am definately going to get Civ4 when it comes out but that will probably be the most graphic intensive program that I use. I am one of those Non-Gamer types who is just plays Civ. What other benefits will I see with 2 GB of RAM instead of just the 1 GB?

thanks

Hi

I have 1 GByte on my G4 Sawtooth, and i find it's plenty. I suspect an extra GByte would not get a lot of use on my system, and it sounds like you have similar requirements to me. If you do decide to up the memory I would recommend checking out Crucial's prices compared with Apple's. Apple tend to be very pricey for extra RAM.

Hi everyone. I'm having a girly attack :blush: and can't remember what everything means in the system specs. :confused: System Profiler says:
Machine Model - iMac G5
CPU Type - PowerPC G5 (3.0)
CPU Speed - 1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU) - 512 KB
Memory - 1 GB
Bus Speed - 600 MHz


Memory: DIMM0/J4000:

Size: 1 GB
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC3200U-30330


GeForce FX 5200:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Slot: AGP
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: nVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0329
Revision ID: 0x00b1
ROM Revision: 2103

Display:

Type: display
Display Type: LCD
VRAM (In Use): 64 MB
Resolution: 1440 x 900
Depth: 32-bit Color
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes


k2-sata-root:

ATA Bus:

Name: k2-sata

ST3160023AS:

Capacity: 149.05 GB
Model: ST3160023AS
Revision: 3.42
Serial Number: 3MT0BGXY
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ATA
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Serial ATA
OS9 Drivers: No


Macintosh HD:

Capacity: 148.92 GB
Available: 117.53 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /

And I run OSX 10.3.9.
Could some kind person tell me which of these stats are important? And ... will I be able to play [civ4]?

The stuff in the top section is most important, and the GeForce FX 5200 section is also relevant.

Overall, you're likely OK, I'd guess. Your video card may be marginal.

I think the video card may be saved by the fact that it can overflow to the system RAM, of which there is 1 GByte. Let's face it, if that spec is marginal, the overlapping set of people who want to play Civ4 and those who can is going to be rather small.

Thank you both .... fingers crossed. :)

Hello, everyone! Even though I don't have nearly enough time to play Civ lately, I really enjoy the Civ III expansion and I'm looking forward to buying Civ 4 when it's released!

It would be especially nice if I'm able to play Civ 4 when I buy it, though. My current computer is a 800 MHz G3 iBook with a ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 w/ 32 MB VRAM. Since you're all worried about whether it will run on a G4 mini with a Radeon 9200, I think I'm out of luck.

However, there is an upgrade in my future (not just for Civ, at least that's what I tell my wife. ;) ) But here's the big question of the evening --- I like the price of the iBooks, and was planning on waiting for an intel iBook to upgrade to. But the integrated graphics in the new Intel Minis are scaring me, since they may end up in a consumer-grade portable like an Intel iBook.

(I'm making the assumption that when the full line of Intel portables comes out, whether or not the name "iBook" is still around, there will be a consumer 12" which will fit in my price point, and a professional 12" which will not, but probably have dedicated graphics.)

So, I have two questions for the peanut gallery:

1) How do you think Civ 4 might play on a current or future Intel Mac with the integrated graphics? Am I being too pessimistic about that Intel GMA950 chip?

2) A more general question: Refurbed and Used 12 PB's with 64 MB VRAM show up occasionally on the Apple Store and other places. The Apple Store has what appears to be the current 12", with a Combo Drive and a 60 GB HD instead of SuperDrive/80 GB, for $1100, right now. Am I better off with a current 12" PB, or should I wait for an Intel-based laptop for around the same money?

1) How do you think Civ 4 might play on a current or future Intel Mac with the integrated graphics? Am I being too pessimistic about that Intel GMA950 chip?
I'd agree with you - I doubt it'd work. In particular, IIRC the GMA950 doesn't do hardware textures & lighting - and that, again IIRC, is a hard requirement on the Windoze side. But my opinion is hardly authoritative.

2) A more general question: Refurbed and Used 12 PB's with 64 MB VRAM show up occasionally on the Apple Store and other places. The Apple Store has what appears to be the current 12", with a Combo Drive and a 60 GB HD instead of SuperDrive/80 GB, for $1100, right now. Am I better off with a current 12" PB, or should I wait for an Intel-based laptop for around the same money?
Assuming you don't have an immediate need for the new system and don't mind waiting a few months, I'd advise holding off. I've never liked buying right before a major product line update, and this one is a particular issue. A G4- or G5-based system purchased now will have a shorter than normal time before developers stop making software that will run on it, due to the extra costs involved in testing a Universal app.

That is to say, I'm fairly confident that there will be in the future a significant number of apps that such a machine could handle specs-wise, but they will be Intel-only because it wasn't worth the extra testing time to make it Universal to run on GMacs. This may or may not be an issue for you personally depending on how often you upgrade, of course.

1) How do you think Civ 4 might play on a current or future Intel Mac with the integrated graphics? Am I being too pessimistic about that Intel GMA950 chip?

I don't think you're being too pessimistic. Doing a brief scan of the PC CIV forums tells me that people are playing it with the GMA950, but very very poorly.

Knowing how Apple like to differentiate their product lines with faster/slower processors, the new iBooks will probably end up with processors near the mini's. If the new iBooks end up with the integragted graphics too, then God help us all. :mischief:

As an aside, here's what the lead programmer for the Mac version of CIV had to say about the new minis with integrated graphics...

I honestly don't know. My hunch is that it will push any 3D card pretty hard, and the 3D chip in the new Mini is weak in all the areas that Civ4 needs (hardware TCL, vertex shaders and lots of VRAM). We'll have to wait until one arrives at Aspyr World Headquarters and Civ4 gets closer to release. With that said, I would not buy a Mac mini with the sole expectation of playing Civ4 (or really any modern 3D games) - that way lies sorrow.

Made me laugh out loud with that last part.

JoAT

Sadly, I don't think the MacMini can play this game either. It will become very frustrating very fast.

I just purchased (and took back the next day) a Solo core MacMini. 1.5ghz 667Mhz FSB, 512MB ram. (I havent had an Apple/MacIntosh since my Apple IIe and Apple IIgs days <---still may favorite all time computer. Hey, no hard drive, but it had color graphics & sound :lol: ) Anyway, I wanted to be able to at least play 2 games on it. WOW and Everquest. I loaded and tried Everquest and it was unplayable. I'd rank it a 3/10 on playability. Now, I know I should have had at least a gig of ram, but I turned everything down, and it was still unplayable. Heck, Everquest was released in 1999 7 years ago and the MacMini still couldnt handle it well. The MacMini for the price I paid just wasnt up to par and didn't do justice for what I expect a Macintosh to do in 2006. Great for a 2nd computer, attaching to your TV as a media device, or for children to learn with etc..but no way for 3D games. It might be possible for the dual core MacMini 1.66mgz to give it a go, but I'd say that would be the bare minimum.

After returning the Solo, I decided to get a laptop/macintosh combo which were 2 things I always wanted anyway. So I got the MacBook Pro 2.0ghz (Funny, the lower priced 1.83ghz wasnt avail. Apple thought everyone would buy the 2.0 instead so they shipped plenty of them. Yeah right, its $500 bucks more). Specs: MacBook 2.0g, 1gig ram, 667 mhz FSB and ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 128mb GDDR3.

It plays Everquest fine and I'd rate it a 7/10. Just a touch of lag but playable. I think this would handle Civ IV good enough. (Haven't gotten to try Wow yet, the servers were down this morning).

My main computer currently; 3.0ghz Hyper-Thread IBM comp, 800mhz FSB, 1gig ram, ATI x850xt 256mb GDDR3, plays Civ IV very well and I'd rate it an 8.5/10. It gets a little boggy/choppy later in the game but very playable.

CIV IV is a beast of a program. Its harder on my machine than some 1st person shooters like HalfLife 2. No joke. CIV IV will expose your machine if it's lacking in any way by today's standards.

Heck, Everquest was released in 1999 7 years ago and the MacMini still couldnt handle it well.

Does Everquest have a universal binary?

No Mas, It doesnt.
Being new to the Mac World I wasnt aware of the Universal Binary code that can increase the performance of these intel chips, so Everquest probably wasnt a fair test, especially since I only had 512 megs in which the integrated graphics chip used 80 of that.

However, reading the reviews from MacWorld supports the inability of the MacMini's to play 3d games unless you play in very low modes like 640x480 and everything turned off.

IMHO, knowing Civ IV like I do, playing it with MinMacs are out of the question. :(

Being new to the Mac World

Maybe you already know by now, but Ill say it anyway: it has to do with the fact apple only recently switched from PPC to Intell-core. Applications that do not (yet) have code for the Intell will run on a PPC-simulation on Intell.

But the simulation is pretty efficient, and with the Intell-cores from 2006 being way faster than the PPC's from 1999 It shouldn't be a problem.

So my question was probably moot anyway.

Sorry for bothering. :)

Any dates you see at this point are being pulled out of thin air. Place no stock in them yet.
Just to put in a flash of optimism, pulling a date out of thin air is so much better than where so many developers seem to pull their dates from...

I will hopefully be able to play it on my newish 14" ibook G4 1.47Ghz with 1GB RAM and measly 32M vidcard.

if not, then I'll whine until my wife lets me buy a macbook pro to play it on. heh

break19

Does any one know if a G4 Powermac with Dual Processor 533 Mhz will be enough for me to rule the world!!!! Night after night after hour after hour.:scan:

Does any one know if a G4 Powermac with Dual Processor 533 Mhz will be enough for me to rule the world!!!! Night after night after hour after hour.:scan:

Assuming you're not joking - no, Civ4 will not run on that type of hardware (well, it might, but it would perform horrifically).

Will there be mods for the mac version? And will the PC mods work on the mac?:scan:

Will there be mods for the mac version? And will the PC mods work on the mac?:scan:

Civ4 for the Mac should support all the PC Civ4 mods, yes. You should also be able to create them on the Mac.

Civ4 for the Mac should support all the PC Civ4 mods, yes. You should also be able to create them on the Mac.
Will it also support mods with custom dlls made with SDK, or will you have to recompile it for mac...?

Will it also support mods with custom dlls made with SDK, or will you have to recompile it for mac...?

If it works like I suspect, you'll have to recompile mods with DLLs.

If it works like I suspect, you'll have to recompile mods with DLLs.
That is what I expected... that means that it will be problematic to play multiplayer games between PC and MAC with mods that contains modified DLLs.. since the checksums for the DLL will differ on PC and MAC.

That'll put a crimp on any cross-platform play where we might want to create a common 'approved' mod set with a DLL, including GOTM and SGOTM :eek:

Well,

My first MAC was a 1998 Power PC. When that became really outdated 3 years ago I switched to what I could afford at the time, a generic Wintel machine that I could pick up for $400 at Fry's. This computer became out of date quickly and my wife and I used our tax return to finally purchase a new MAC. Of course I bought it with the coming of CIV 4 in mind. I got an IMac 20' and upgraded the memory to 1GB (up from the stock 512MB). I also purchased the upgraded video card to the 256MB (up from the stock 128MB). Since this was the top of the line available (for and IMac at least) I am confident that is should be able to play the new CIV4 when it comes out. You wouldn't think the designers would create a game that only people with the huge MAC machines can play. The only trouble will be that I now am CIV-less until the new game comes out. It doesn't really seem logical to plunk down the $50 for C3C when CIV4 is so close around the corner. Here's hoping my withdrawl symptoms aren't too distracting that I can't function in normal life until the MAC release date.:cry:

That'll put a crimp on any cross-platform play where we might want to create a common 'approved' mod set with a DLL, including GOTM and SGOTM :eek:

You are right. I may have a solution for this though; let me investigate it a little more.

Edit: won't be a problem. :)

20" iMac, Intel Dual Core, 1.5 GB RAM

Dual G5 2.0, 1.5 GB Ram.

It's my fist post in this forum, I found this forum today actually. I own CIV III Gold edition for Mac and I will be getting CIV 4 as soon as it comes out (I beleive this week). I will be playing this game on this machine:

MacBook Pro 2GHZ, 2GB RAM 100GB HD, Iogear Bluetooth Mouse GME225B with this video card: ATI, RadeonX1600 with 256MB RAM.

I have one quick question I was wondering if CIV display will be widescreen to fit my laptop? I was a little bother by the square display of action on CIV III, and yes I will search the forum to see if I can find any info regarding this question.
Thanks
Thierryr

Hi, welcome :wavey:

I'm 99% certain that Aspyr will have designed the game for the wide screens that come on all Macs (except minis) these days. Rather few Macs that were sold without wide screens even meet the minimum CPU/video requirements.

I guess I am out of luck with my G4 400 Mhz and 384 MB of ram... oh well, have to keep playing civ 3 complete then.

I don't think that computer even reaches the minimum system requirements for Civ 3 Complete, does it?

In any case, I'll be playing this game on my 1.67 GHz Powerbook. I have 1 GB RAM & a 128 MB video card. Won't run it perfectly, but it'll run :D

It's my fist post in this forum, I found this forum today actually. I own CIV III Gold edition for Mac and I will be getting CIV 4 as soon as it comes out (I beleive this week). I will be playing this game on this machine:

MacBook Pro 2GHZ, 2GB RAM 100GB HD, Iogear Bluetooth Mouse GME225B with this video card: ATI, RadeonX1600 with 256MB RAM.

I have one quick question I was wondering if CIV display will be widescreen to fit my laptop? I was a little bother by the square display of action on CIV III, and yes I will search the forum to see if I can find any info regarding this question.
Thanks
Thierryr

The PC version (using BootCamp) has a graphics option that fits the MBP display so it seems very likely the Mac version will also have this option

Good news, Thanks both.
I just pre-order the game from Amazon.com. There web site stated that the game will be available June 30. There e-mail confirmation said that the shipping date will be between July 09 and July 16 for an arrival between July 14 and July 24 (I got free shipping) for a total price of $49.99.
It's a long time considering that Aspyr ship the game yesterday to the merchant, but I suppecting that Amazon is playing it safe, the game will probably arrive before that, will see.
Thierryr

I sure hope so. :(

I just pre-order the game from Amazon.com. There web site stated that the game will be available June 30. There e-mail confirmation said that the shipping date will be between July 09 and July 16 for an arrival between July 14 and July 24 (I got free shipping) for a total price of $49.99.
It's a long time considering that Aspyr ship the game yesterday to the merchant, but I suppecting that Amazon is playing it safe, the game will probably arrive before that, will see.
It's because you chose the free shipping, I expect. That not only ships by a slower method, it gets a much lower priority in packing it up and sending it out. My copy, for example, is supposed to ship by Thursday - via 2nd day air.

It may also be that you're going to get a copy from a second shipment, but IMX the Super Saver shipping is ~2 weeks slower than anything else. Which is quite consistent with your report.

I preordered the game on June 7th, and my copy's expected to ship June 27th--July 5th. I *always* choose super saver shipping, as I find my package ships in a day or two, and I get it three days after that. Amazon's delivery estimates are way too conservative.

I just chage to standart shipping, the estimate shipping date is 07/05 to 07/12 with arrival on 07/07 to 07/17. I'm suspecting that this game might be popular sale that's why it will ship so late. Amazon rank is impressive:

"Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4 in Computer & Video Games (See Top Sellers in Computer & Video Games)
Yesterday: #6 in Computer & Video Games"

May be they are going to sale a lot (I hope).
Thierryr

I preordered the game on June 7th, and my copy's expected to ship June 27th--July 5th. I *always* choose super saver shipping, as I find my package ships in a day or two, and I get it three days after that. Amazon's delivery estimates are way too conservative.
My experience is very different. Several times I've ordered something super saver from Amazon, and had to wait literally weeks while everybody else was getting their copies - including people who had ordered from Amazon much later than me. It's near universal IMX - their estimates have also been spot on 100% of the time I've ordered from them. (Aside from them making up release dates, of course.)

And in this particular case, going from super saver to 2nd day moved up my estimated ship date by more than a week - and arrival time by more than two.

It's because you chose the free shipping, I expect. That not only ships by a slower method, it gets a much lower priority in packing it up and sending it out.
That's true. In my experience, if you choose free shipping, it usually takes 3 or 4 days before they start to ship the item. For faster shipping options such as 2 day, they usually pack it the same day or the next day.

If you buy stuff often from Amazon.com, their Amazon Prime program is a great deal. The membership costs $79 a year and you get free 2 day shipping on most things and reduced cost overnight shipping. You can also share the membership with 4 other members from the same household.

I just chage to standart shipping, the estimate shipping date is 07/05 to 07/12 with arrival on 07/07 to 07/17. I'm suspecting that this game might be popular sale that's why it will ship so late. Amazon rank is impressive:

"Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4 in Computer & Video Games (See Top Sellers in Computer & Video Games)
Yesterday: #6 in Computer & Video Games"

May be they are going to sale a lot (I hope).
Thierryr

I usually don't quote myself...
I check my order at Amazon and the ship date change to June 30 for an arrival between July 07 and 10.
I'm getting excited :dance:
Thierry

Primary Machine: Dual 1.8ghz G5, 2.5gb RAM, Radeon 9600xt

Secondary Machine: GigaDesigns Upgraded dual 1.6ghz Digital Audio G4, 1.25gb RAM, Radeon 9600xt