I've been lurking here for the past few days, and despite the performance issues, I went out bought the game last night. I've read a lot of the earlier articles, but not all of them so I'll apologize in advance if my question was answered elsewhere. I'm running...

1.83GHz CoreDuo iMac, 128MB ATI Radeon X1600, 1GB RAM
10.4.7 Intel (fixed build a) - QT 7.1.2

The game plays pretty smooth for me at lowest graphical settings, but I have all the sound issues that everyone has brought up already. I have that graphics issue only when I zoom out to planet view. This was all while I was playing the tutorial. I just wondered if there are movies for the great wonders and projects, or if that is a bug? I thought it mentioned it on the back of the box, but I didn't see any in the tutorial. Maybe they are only active in a real game? Anyway, I have to say after playing the tutorial for 2 1/2 hours that I am addicted. I do like the changes to the game play that relieve some of the micromanagement and the religions are a great addition despite the performance issues. I bought the game on the faith that eventually Aspyr will get this all worked out. The last Civ game I played was CivII, so that's all I have to compare too. When the bugs are squashed, this game will be worth every penny minus the extra money I have to spend in rehab for what I think will be a long addiciton...

There are movies for the wonders, it comes up in a little window and it is a 3D animation of the wonder being constructed. The sound doesn't function. The window is the same size as the you founded a religion window. I think you can turn the wonders movies off.

for some reason I don't remember seeing ether the "founded religion" video or wonders videos while I was playing the tutorial. My Romans turned Bhuddist and maybe I was tired or clicking so fast I missed it... Or maybe because Sid was in the upper right corner at that time. Anyway, I'll pay my first real game tonight (even without sound) and see what goes.

i get sound on the wonder movies/graphics when they display and also the planet view mode can get a little unresponsive in particular when lots of cities are visible late in the game.