Windows switch

[lvdz]

Hi,

I'm seriously considering installing windows on my mac to enjoy a few mods that requires custom .dlls, and I was wondering: does any of you feel like switching from MacOs to Win for the same kind of reason? Did someone already change, fed up by the limitation of the mac version?

I'm also wondering if the game may run faster and smoother on windows, I don't feel like Mac OS is really a decent OS when it comes to games...

[z0wb13]

check my guide again. i just added pictures, which will make it easier to follow.

i wouldn't install windows for any other reason than games, but with a little work you don't have to. saints row 3, and some other more graphics intense games and newer games won't work under this method, but most of my favorites (sim city, portal 1 & 2) will.

[lvdz]

I've installed win7 with bootcamp instead as apparently multiplayer is not quite stable with this method.

Also installing windows with bootcamp is fairly easy, and I must admit civ runs faster on it - a very good thing as I intend to play ressource demanding mods like RI, or k-mod to prevent OOS.

[AlanH]

I thought I'd give z0wb13's recipe a try. The instructions are very clear, and it seems to work pretty well.

My only gripes are that the fonts are very poor, and I don't seem to have much choice about the window size to play in. I don't run full screen because I want to be able to access my Mac's apps and features on a second screen.

[lvdz]

Originally Posted by AlanH

I thought I'd give z0wb13's recipe a try. The instructions are very clear, and it seems to work pretty well. :good job:

My only gripes are that the fonts are very poor, and I don't seem to have much choice about the window size to play in. I don't run full screen because I want to be able to access my Mac's apps and features on a second screen.

Your feedback will be more than welcome.

[AlanH]

Originally Posted by lvdz

Your feedback will be more than welcome.

Umm. That's it, really. I installed it according to the instructions above; I launched it; I tried to find a setting where I could read the on-screen text without squinting; and I quit.

I don't actually play Civ, I just try to provide support for Mac users here, and I help prepare games and manage the competitions in the Game of the Month arena.

[z0wb13]

lvdz: I've installed win7 with bootcamp instead as apparently multiplayer is not quite stable with this method.

this is probably the best way to do it, the obvious drawback being that you have to reboot or use window;p

multiplayer is working, but for now only vanilla bts is what i'd call reliable. running mods and playing multiplayer is admittedly sketchy. for instance, the LAN lounge works when the computers are running vanilla, but it doesn't with mods installed. to use mods, i had to connect with direct IP, launched the map and crashed the game. i said to save it for later, and then when i loaded and reconnected, after relaunching civ, everything seemed to work. my guess is that there is something going on with the cache, and that it might take an apple script to actually fix* it.

*delete automatically

if you want to play single player, i would say that it works perfectly in windowed mode, and is much better than the mac version.

lvdz: Also installing windows with bootcamp is fairly easy, and I must admit civ runs faster on it - a very good thing as I intend to play ressource demanding mods like RI, or k-mod to prevent OOS.

i don't know if this is true, but i heard that civ runs faster on vmware than it does using the official aspyr port. i would expect that on the same hardware, the windows code is going to be faster, although i haven't run them side by side.

that said, the performance seems good using my method. the early game is smooth. mid game is smooth. on a regular 7 civ map, late game turns take 2-5 secs for the computer to move. but the map scrolls around fine, you can zoom in and out to the earth view, leader heads load in a timely manner (~1 sec). on an earth18 map ai turns take about 10 secs (late game 20th century), but not more than 15. unit selection seems fine.

the weird part is that these times don't seem to have much to do with the hardware i'm running; a core 2 due and a core i5 both seem to have similar performance. i'll bet that overclocking would really improve civ4 performance, more than adding a quadcore or even a better gfx. this is all just wild conjecture as it's impossible to do with an apple;p

AlanH: Umm. That's it, really. I installed it avoiding to the instructions above; I launched it; I tried to find a setting where I could read the on-screen text without squinting; and I quit.

thanks for the props. which fonts were you unhappy with? there are additional fonts that you can load using winetricks (same way you load .dll's like gameux.dll or msxml3.dll etc). the instructions that i based mine on suggest installing some of these, especially corefonts. but i thought that these looked too big, and actually outran their menu boxes in some cases.

are you playing on a 27" display? because that could explain the squinting. i did all of my tests on 21" and smaller, like an 11" macbook air. you should* be able to adjust the resolution normally under the options menu. if you have a 2560 x 1440 desktop, them i could see how that could be a problem if you are running civ in a 1920 x 1080 window. i was generally running a 1280 x 800 window on a 1920 x 1080 desktop.

but if you could be specific about which fonts (where and when) i would appreciate it. i can actually test this out on a 27" in my down time at work, but i think i can fix it, and even add a note on how to make it playable on bigger screens, if in fact that is the problem;p

[AlanH]

Sorry about the "avoiding" - it was supposed to be "according". Lion/Safari auto-correction can be a bit of a pain sometimes!

My main Mac is a Mac Pro with two 17" screens. Their native resolution is 1280 x 1024, and that's how I run them.

When the game first launched, it blacked out one of the screens and filled the other with a 1024 x 768 image scaled to 1280 x 1024. The fonts were clearly bitmapped ones, and scaled badly to my screen res. I looked at the graphics options, and tried a few of them in windowed mode. I only have a few resolution options - see screenshot. The only one that looked at all readable was 1024 x 768 in a small window, which makes poor use of screen capacity. I didn't try installing any fonts, as you indicated that they didn't work for you. Maybe I should try.

[z0wb13]

ooh that is bad. let me try some stuff out and ill get back to you.

if you want to try it out yourself, try adding corefonts using winetricks. im thinking the dual display could possibly be an issue, too. but i dont know why. it works with different resolutions when i have extra virtual desktops in mission control. you can also force resolutions that aren't listed in the CivilizationIV.ini file.

[AlanH]

Ahah! Installing core fonts makes a dramatic improvement. I've also set height and width in the .ini file, and it all looks good.



Grrr!. Crashed when launching a game

[z0wb13]

shoot.

if you right click show package contents on the wrapper, you will see Contents, c_drive and Wineskin.app. click on wineskin, then advanced, then tools. if you try running under Test Run, it will generate an error report. maybe you could post it?

did you try changing anything else? like loading a mod or something. i just ran the corefonts.dll and rebooted and it's all working, and i really don't think that adding the fonts should crash things anyway.

hmm......

[z0wb13]

okay, try unloading your mods, running a map under normal, and then reloading mods.

also, there might be a problem with the wonder movie for stonehenge. it switches to some sort of starry night background, then the map goes black and i can't see anything.

[AlanH]

I have no mods loaded. I think I'd have to reinstall everything to get it to run again.

As I think I've said before, I've never had much luck with Wine/Crossover stuff, and this seems to be no exception. Since I have Parallels, and I don't need this version, and I am pressed for time, I am going to have to pass on trying very hard to get it to run.

I'm sure others will be able to use it, and the instructions are clear and simple to follow.

[z0wb13]

it freaking crashed on me too. wah wah. i think i need to work in this a little more...

[AlanH]

It ran OK the first time I launched it after I installed the fonts, but I couldn't launch it again after that. I wonder if the fonts are causing the problem.

[z0wb13]

its not the fonts. lacking msxml3 is the problem. i need more winetricks. illupdate soon