CivFanaticMan
Warlord
i have considered the ipad useless... until now!
Civ on the iPad
- Thread starter fromar
- Start date
I just got Civ 5 yesterday and last night I tried to get it working on my iPad (only a week old itself) with some limited success.
RDP is a way of viewing the desktop from a remote Windows machine on another machine. I use the in-built RDP client on my Windows XP laptop at work to check things on servers all the time. Well, some clever folks have built RDP clients for the iPad and iPhone too. I've found the iTap RDP and Wyse PocketCloud apps (I can't decide which one is better) to be very usable for simple tasks like sitting on my couch and connecting to the Windows 7 machine in my study to read my mail in Outlook. I've tried browsing in Firefox too and found that to be just as easy as using the native Safari app built into the iPad. I haven't tried an extended work session with RDP on the iPad yet -- but I do have the Apple wireless keyboard paired up to the iPad to give this a go sometime.
Anyway, back to Civ 5. Most attempts to run this just had the Civ 5 application start minimised and stay that way. But one time it stayed open, in a 1024x768 window, I think using DirectX 9, although I normally use DirectX 11 on my desktop. I was able to load the small game I already had going, zoom in and out of the map using the awesome iTap RDP finger gestures, and move around the map the same way. I spent roughly 10 minutes playing the game. While the graphics lag was noticable, Civ 5 was very playable at this resolution. Being a very mouse centric application, with nice big buttons to set research and outstanding production orders, it was easy to keep my fledgling civ running. I did have to zoom in on the battles to see the results, but that wasn't hard. I couldn't get the keyboard to work however. Well, specifically, I couldn't use the space bar to tell a unit to do nothing -- that's the only thing I tried. I had to click the unit's Do Nothing button instead.
The whole thing came crashing down when I tried to change resolution, and I couldn't get it working again after several attempts. Overall though, games like this do lend themselves to a touch screen environment. It was simply awesome to sit on the couch and hold my civ in my hands and explore it's wonderful world. If makers of these types of games made their products a little more RDP friendly, we might see people start to use the iPad in new and interesting ways.
Anyway, I may try again in the future to get Civ 5 to run reliably -- if I do I will post the results here.
RDP is a way of viewing the desktop from a remote Windows machine on another machine. I use the in-built RDP client on my Windows XP laptop at work to check things on servers all the time. Well, some clever folks have built RDP clients for the iPad and iPhone too. I've found the iTap RDP and Wyse PocketCloud apps (I can't decide which one is better) to be very usable for simple tasks like sitting on my couch and connecting to the Windows 7 machine in my study to read my mail in Outlook. I've tried browsing in Firefox too and found that to be just as easy as using the native Safari app built into the iPad. I haven't tried an extended work session with RDP on the iPad yet -- but I do have the Apple wireless keyboard paired up to the iPad to give this a go sometime.
Anyway, back to Civ 5. Most attempts to run this just had the Civ 5 application start minimised and stay that way. But one time it stayed open, in a 1024x768 window, I think using DirectX 9, although I normally use DirectX 11 on my desktop. I was able to load the small game I already had going, zoom in and out of the map using the awesome iTap RDP finger gestures, and move around the map the same way. I spent roughly 10 minutes playing the game. While the graphics lag was noticable, Civ 5 was very playable at this resolution. Being a very mouse centric application, with nice big buttons to set research and outstanding production orders, it was easy to keep my fledgling civ running. I did have to zoom in on the battles to see the results, but that wasn't hard. I couldn't get the keyboard to work however. Well, specifically, I couldn't use the space bar to tell a unit to do nothing -- that's the only thing I tried. I had to click the unit's Do Nothing button instead.
The whole thing came crashing down when I tried to change resolution, and I couldn't get it working again after several attempts. Overall though, games like this do lend themselves to a touch screen environment. It was simply awesome to sit on the couch and hold my civ in my hands and explore it's wonderful world. If makers of these types of games made their products a little more RDP friendly, we might see people start to use the iPad in new and interesting ways.
Anyway, I may try again in the future to get Civ 5 to run reliably -- if I do I will post the results here.
Awesome. Did you get a chance to try the Strategic View too? If that works fast enough, that's all I really need.
I managed to get it working it reliably. The trick is to open up Civ 5 on your PC and set the screen resolution to 1024x768 and window mode (i.e. not full screen). Close down Civ 5, move to your iPad and fire up your RDP session. Use 16 bit colour, 1024x768, which is the native resolution of the iPad in landscape mode. Fire up Civ 5 and it will take up the entire screen. You may need to get your taskbar to auto-hide if it doesn't already.
The graphics lag is noticable. I guess my WiFi can't handle the level of graphics detail in Civ 5. I tried lowering all the graphics settings but it didn't seem to help much. Using 8 bit colour doesn't help either, it actually slows down even more, perhaps due to conversion processing. The strategic view is a bit faster than normal view.
No sound either. You may have different results. I have a funky USB sound device on my PC which may be confusing RDP.
Overall it works quite well. Kudos to the interface designers of Civ 5. The game is very playable with just a few mouse clicks each turn, which is great because I couldn't get the RDP keyboard to work with Civ 5 apart from the escape key. I have both iTap RDP and Wyse PocketCloud -- I prefer iTap RDP because of the great finger gestures for left click, right click and scroll. This makes zooming on the map and scrolling build lists easy. The right click gesture is great for moving units and attacking. I haven't tried the keyboard in Wyse PocketCloud yet, or the wireless keyboard for the iPad -- both of which may work.
I have had a number of short Civ 5 / RDP sessions without incident. My one long session of an hour ended with the iPad becoming unresponsive to any touching in any application. The main menu still allowed me to change screens and launch applications however. I had to reboot the iPad, but then couldn't RDP into my PC. I had to reboot the PC as well! That was wierd.
Overall, the game is much better played on a PC. I find the graphics lag slows down the game too much for me. If you don't mind a bit of extra time for thought, or you can play in strategic view, you may love Civ 5 on the iPad. I like that its possible, and that I can fire up Civ 5 and check on a detail about my civ when I'm away from my PC. For long playing sessions however, I prefer my PC.
The graphics lag is noticable. I guess my WiFi can't handle the level of graphics detail in Civ 5. I tried lowering all the graphics settings but it didn't seem to help much. Using 8 bit colour doesn't help either, it actually slows down even more, perhaps due to conversion processing. The strategic view is a bit faster than normal view.
No sound either. You may have different results. I have a funky USB sound device on my PC which may be confusing RDP.
Overall it works quite well. Kudos to the interface designers of Civ 5. The game is very playable with just a few mouse clicks each turn, which is great because I couldn't get the RDP keyboard to work with Civ 5 apart from the escape key. I have both iTap RDP and Wyse PocketCloud -- I prefer iTap RDP because of the great finger gestures for left click, right click and scroll. This makes zooming on the map and scrolling build lists easy. The right click gesture is great for moving units and attacking. I haven't tried the keyboard in Wyse PocketCloud yet, or the wireless keyboard for the iPad -- both of which may work.
I have had a number of short Civ 5 / RDP sessions without incident. My one long session of an hour ended with the iPad becoming unresponsive to any touching in any application. The main menu still allowed me to change screens and launch applications however. I had to reboot the iPad, but then couldn't RDP into my PC. I had to reboot the PC as well! That was wierd.
Overall, the game is much better played on a PC. I find the graphics lag slows down the game too much for me. If you don't mind a bit of extra time for thought, or you can play in strategic view, you may love Civ 5 on the iPad. I like that its possible, and that I can fire up Civ 5 and check on a detail about my civ when I'm away from my PC. For long playing sessions however, I prefer my PC.
I've posted a short video on YouTube for those who are interested in what it looks like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpPQi61E4AI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpPQi61E4AI
It's just specific to Civ 5. iTap RDP is great -- I use it all the time for short work sessions on Windows machines. The keyboard works and I usually have sound. I wouldn't exactly say it's a bug. I don't think anyone builds a RDP client for games, or a game for RDP either.
Last night I tried Wyse PocketCloud for an extended Civ 5 session. After a very slow start it eventually came good with snappier graphics and a working keyboard. I even had sound but I had to turn it off -- it was very stilted. WPC doesn't use finger gestures, it has an on screen mouse that can be moved around. I think the gestures are faster but the mouse is easy to use and reasonably quick with right-clicking and scrolling. Overall a great experience. I can't explain why the graphics were much snappier. Perhaps because I had specifically turned sound off and freed up more WiFi bandwidth -- but that would imply iTap RDP is trying to stream sound but it isn't coming through. Perhaps WPC uses better graphics caching. Perhaps I was just sitting in a better reception area. I might do another video to show the improvement -- I would almost say it was very playable for long sessions.
Last night I tried Wyse PocketCloud for an extended Civ 5 session. After a very slow start it eventually came good with snappier graphics and a working keyboard. I even had sound but I had to turn it off -- it was very stilted. WPC doesn't use finger gestures, it has an on screen mouse that can be moved around. I think the gestures are faster but the mouse is easy to use and reasonably quick with right-clicking and scrolling. Overall a great experience. I can't explain why the graphics were much snappier. Perhaps because I had specifically turned sound off and freed up more WiFi bandwidth -- but that would imply iTap RDP is trying to stream sound but it isn't coming through. Perhaps WPC uses better graphics caching. Perhaps I was just sitting in a better reception area. I might do another video to show the improvement -- I would almost say it was very playable for long sessions.
AkulaReloaded
Chieftain
Interesting idea... it would be oodles of fun. I don't think it would be $500 worth of fun tho...
BUT...
I'd gladly spend $500 on the iPad and an drum synthesizer app... hehe that would rock.
BUT...
I'd gladly spend $500 on the iPad and an drum synthesizer app... hehe that would rock.
LumpenProle
Chieftain
So, I just bought one of these tablets... what are the options for Civ on the iPad? I hear Revolution is not very deep and a waste of money (for a die-hard fanatic, who still likes civ5), is this true?
How does java work on the iPad and could freeciv be adapted?
Are there emulators for civ1? It's all I really want to try.
What was this post mentioning Citrix? and how would that work? Use the iPad as a giant remote control for civ5?
Missed BeerKeg's posts before posting this. Sounds pretty cool, if only the older more keyboard centric but low graphics versions could have their controls put to the mouse like Civ5.
How does java work on the iPad and could freeciv be adapted?
Are there emulators for civ1? It's all I really want to try.
What was this post mentioning Citrix? and how would that work? Use the iPad as a giant remote control for civ5?
Missed BeerKeg's posts before posting this. Sounds pretty cool, if only the older more keyboard centric but low graphics versions could have their controls put to the mouse like Civ5.
LumpenProle
Chieftain
If anyone is curious, I got pretty close to playing freeciv dot net from the iPad browser, upfortunately something stopped me from founding a city.
Took a look at the CivRev iPhone free version, I'd consider it if the price was a bit cheaper, I have pointlessly been gifting Civ5 to my friends on steam whenever it's on sale despite the lack of MP, but maybe I can save up some or wait for a CivRev appstore sale.
Took a look at the CivRev iPhone free version, I'd consider it if the price was a bit cheaper, I have pointlessly been gifting Civ5 to my friends on steam whenever it's on sale despite the lack of MP, but maybe I can save up some or wait for a CivRev appstore sale.
