Civ4 in Windows Virtual Machines

[UPDATE]
I upgraded to the new Parallels build 5560. It still doesn't display all the leaderhead faces.

I posted this in another thread, but it seems more appropriate here.

I'll add that I believe I downloaded and installed the 2.0 Beta of Fusion . . . but the version number when I click about still shows 1.1.3 - am I doing something wrong there? I'm very new to the Mac, so it's possible I'm just accessing the wrong install of Fusion, but I don't see another anywhere obvious.

Original post from other thread:

I'm using VMware Fusion on my new Macbook Pro, which lets you run Windows without using the bootcamp partition, you can use the rest of your Mac while also using Windows.

I went through the (literally) several hour process of installing, Civ IV, Warlords and Beyond the Sword, patching all versions, etc..

So I'm finally ready to play, and I get the game cranking and I get the 'black ice' problem mentioned above. Is there any way around this, anything I can do? The movies as the game is loading play fine . . . usually that's a decent sign the game will work.

The one thing I've noticed is that VMware Fusion only seems to give 16 MB of my video memory to Windows - I assume that's the root of the problem, not sure if there's a 'fix' for that or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I jumped through all of those hoops so I wouldn't need to buy the Mac version after I 'converted' from PC to Mac last month . . . but now I might have to anyway, and BtS isn't available, ugh.

Thanks for any help.

If you select the VMWare Fusion app, and do a "get info" on it, what is listed as the Version?

The 2.0 beta is far superior at running Civ then the 1.1.3..

I will check that tonight when I get home - thanks for the help.

Sure thing. Definitely be sure it's the 2.0 beta. Use File->Get Info (⌘I).

I *have* seen Fusion report the wrong version itself at times. Not sure what's up with that. I think that, if you've installed the beta, the version info will be correct in the get info dialog, though.

At the risk of sounding dumb, how do I do the 'get info' thing? I was just going to the "about" off the top menu. What you are describing sounds slightly more complicated.

I was actually a Windows admin at one point, but I'm a very dumb user newbie with Macs (I've had mine for 1.5 weeks and have no command line UNIX experience. Which is why I got a Mac . . . so I'd learn these things. Thanks again for the help.

Highlight the application's file in the Finder, then go to the File menu and select Get Info. It's a close equivalent to the Properties menu option in Windows, and can be reached by right clicking the file's icon in the same way.

Ah you were talking menus, lol - for somereason I thought that was shorthand for a UNIX command line thingy. Like I said, dumb user . . . will check later tonight, thanks again!

EDIT - double post, whoops.

Unix thingies are fun if you are a techie, but the whole point of a Mac is that you shouldn't need to use them. The golden rule when using a Mac is, if something seems to be difficult to do, you are probably trying too hard.

Thanks, good rule!

I'm home on the Mac now, and get info says I'm using 1.1.3. But I KNOW I ran the update file for 2.0 Beta, strange. I'll go out and get it again and try to do update it again . . .

This is crazy, I just downloaded it and installed it, and it's still showing as version 1.1.3, both in the "Applications" part of finder, and under "Macintosh HD, Applications" . . . And I can't just uninstall the old one first, right - because if I do, I'll lose the VM I already created and all of yesterday's work (which included starting out with installing Windows 98, since the only XP version I have is an upgrade), right?

EDIT: I reopened the VM and now it's showing the 2.0 - I guess the version didn't update until I reopened it.

Could this be why you are having slow performance on Fusion 2.0? I got this message when the machine started:

"Debugging performs extra error checking to help diagnose problems, but also lowers performance.

To disable debugging, select the VMware Fusion > Preferences menu and uncheck "Enable debugging checks". You will need to restart your virtual machines for this change to take effect."

Just logging into the VM was MUCH slower than it was on 1.1.3.

Debugging checks are already disabled in my preferences.

I think I know my problem now - I cannot install VMware tools on this VM now, because it thinks the OS is Windows 98, because that what I started with. I keep getting an error that Windows 95, 98, ME or NT 4.0 isn't the OS, so the tools won't install. I think I am going to have to start over - as I can't find any way to change what VMware thinks the OS is.

If you are going to start over anyway, I would go ahead and install Windows in boot camp. After you do that you can tell VMware to use that install, then you can either boot directly into windows or boot it using VMware. The only real disadvantage of doing it this way is that you have to dedicate some of the hard drive upfront to windows.

I have XP installed on my Macbook Pro using boot camp, and I can also run it in VMware. Running it in VMware has it uses, but if I am actually going to play BTS then I boot directly into XP. It runs way better that way.

I have a VMWare Fusion 2.0 Beta already. The BTS doesn't run very well; it's quite annoying unfortunately. I haven't played with it enough to find some feasible settings graphics-wise to see if it helps.

I use to play Galciv II in VMWare Fusion until 2.0 Beta. Once they added shader support, the game which had some font issues and minimap problems became unplayable. It drags way too much.

has anyone had any experience with BTS on the full release of VMware 2.0 (not beta)? it says it's directX9.0 compatible. i'm running a 2.4Ghz 20" imac core2Duo. Should i just run it in bootcamp or are the differences not very noticeable?

I fired up BTS with the release version of VMware 2.0 just to check it out. This is on a Macbook Pro with a 8600M GT 512Mb video card. The normal view in the game looks quite good, but it is sluggish compared to running in boot camp. But when you are in the city window you only see food output for your squares, you don't see the hammer or commerce icons. Even if there was a combination of graphics setting and hardware that worked correctly I would still go into to boot camp to actually play.

Yup. I resigned myself to doing that... and being stuck in a freaking activation cycle with WinXP. Egads.