[1.0.3.31] UI/system freezes when selecting next unit (macOS catalina)

[footballciv]

My late-2019 MacBook Pro freezes randomly when playing Civ 6 (all DLCs except NFP). I'm on 1.0.3.31 (198979) Metal. macOS version is 10.15.6.

It happens mostly when I try to select the next unit, either by pressing the big acclimation button at the bottom or pressing the dot key. When it freezes, the display of the entire system freezes, but I can still hear the music, use cmd+tab to switch apps (I can tell from the touch bar). A hard reboot is needed when this happens. Sometimes, between all the flashing, I can try to force quit steam and civ 6, but it doesn't resolve the issue.

Other than happening when selecting next unit, I don't see any pattern and it's NOT reproducible. I can always proceed to next turn when I restart, relaunch the game, and load the autosave from the start of the turn. However, it always freezes again some turns later.

Some people mention OpenGL mode as a fix, but that seems to be removed now. I don't see that as an option. I've also tried playing with and without an external display, in a window and fullscreen, but the game freezes all the same.

It happens usually in early game (50~100 turns). And it happens just as frequent with very low graphics settings, so I doubt it's performance issue. I have 2 other older macs (2013 Macbook Pro on macOS High Sierra and 2017 iMac on macOS Sierra) running the same game version and same set of mods with no problem.

Dumps and logs:
-dxdiag.txt and CivilizationVI.exe.dmp seem to only apply to windows. Please kindly let me know if they have mac counterparts. (Besides, the game doesn't really crash, but rather freezes, so I'm not sure if a dump would be created.)
-Logs. Will post later. I restarted the game to check the version number so logs were overwritten.

Based on upvotes on reddit, I'm definitely not alone. Anyone else running into these issues? If we could find a pattern, Firaxis or Aspyr might be able to come up with a fix.

My mac:
16-inch MacBook Pro - Space Gray
With the following configuration:
2.6GHz 6‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
AMD Radeon Pro 5300M with 4GB of GDDR6 memory
512GB SSD storage
16-inch Retina display with True Tone
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports


Images of freezing and game version and mac configuration.
https://imgur.com/a/DCRvfc2

 

[pingwing]

Yep, seems what ever I do in Catilina/Metal the game KO's

Raised a ticket with Aspyr about it again as it worked fine prior to the new frontier pass, just seems to be limited interest in fixing it

 

[footballciv]

Yep, seems what ever I do in Catilina/Metal the game KO's

Raised a ticket with Aspyr about it again as it worked fine prior to the new frontier pass, just seems to be limited interest in fixing it

I also submitted a ticket to Aspyr. Guess that's all we could do: let them know as loud as we could.

 

[LFRANK]

Apple seems to be getting reports of graphic issues on the new iMacs according to the AppleInsider article Display lines on 27-inch iMac may be Radeon Pro 5700XT GPU issue .

Interesting that all the graphics of the glitch have Civ VI running when the issue occurs.

Nor does it mention MBPs are also experiencing problems as well.

 

[footballciv]

Apple seems to be getting reports of graphic issues on the new iMacs according to the AppleInsider article Display lines on 27-inch iMac may be Radeon Pro 5700XT GPU issue .

Interesting that all the graphics of the glitch have Civ VI running when the issue occurs.

Nor does it mention MBPs are also experiencing problems as well.

That's interesting. The line in the post doesn't look like my glitches even remotely though. I still suspect it's more of a civ issue, as like you said, glitches only happen with Civ running.

 

[Martinus]

Having exactly the same issue.

 

[KenSu]

Have the same issue with a Macbook Pro 16". Total freeze of the game, with graphic glitches. Occasionally I can switch to finder and force quite Civilization and get back to "regular" macos, but sometimes I am forced to hard boot the mac to recover.

I have a (cloud) save file that regularly freezes whenever I try to move any unit. Tried the same save on an older (2017) Macbook Pro 15" and the game runs perfectly. So the issue definitely seems to be related to the graphics card in the more recent Macbook Pros. I filed a bug report to Aspyr.

And no, does not appear to be fixed in the September update. Same freeze still.

 

[Martinus]

Looking at older threads, this issue seems to be reported as early as May 2020. I have the recently released iMac 27', so this seems to affect newer machines the most. Another thing is that the game did not allow me to set one of the higher resolutions (the highest was 2400). Weird and disappointing. The game is literally unplayable.

 

[Jmad55]

Same issue here on my 2019 MacBook Pro. Radeon Pro 5500M, 32 GB ram.
I was really hoping it would be fixed with the latest version. It’s been like this all year.

 

[footballciv]

Having exactly the same issue.

Have the same issue with a Macbook Pro 16". Total freeze of the game, with graphic glitches. Occasionally I can switch to finder and force quite Civilization and get back to "regular" macos, but sometimes I am forced to hard boot the mac to recover.

I have a (cloud) save file that regularly freezes whenever I try to move any unit. Tried the same save on an older (2017) Macbook Pro 15" and the game runs perfectly. So the issue definitely seems to be related to the graphics card in the more recent Macbook Pros. I filed a bug report to Aspyr.

And no, does not appear to be fixed in the September update. Same freeze still.

Same issue here on my 2019 MacBook Pro. Radeon Pro 5500M, 32 GB ram.
I was really hoping it would be fixed with the latest version. It’s been like this all year.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Wondering what we could do besides creating tickets with Asypr. The fact that they don't even acknowledge this makes me a bit angry. The game is unplayable for people like us. I think I'm going to post negative reviews on steam to raise awareness. I really like Civ 6, but that is my last resort.

 

[John Tungri]

I hoped that the update to version 1.3.4 an the update to Catalina 10.15.7 would solve the problem, but to no avail.
I deselected "True Tone" and "Automatically adjust brightness" of the setting of the "Built-in Display" in "System Preferences" and selected "Light", thus deselecting "Auto" of the setting "General". After that, the game still freezes. But the terrible screen glitches disappeared. And I was able to force quit Civilization and to shut down the computer without a hard reset by pressing the button.
I’m using an iMac 27-inch, 2020 with AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB graphics. The graphic issue, the horizontal white glitches on the display, mentioned above by LFRANK, seems to have disappeared by the Catalina update 10.15.7.

 

[LFRANK]

Installed the 10.15.7 update and can now play Civ6 fullscreen on my iMac (5700 gpu) for more than 110+ turns without any major problem. However, when I quit the game and tried to return to the Finder I encountered a spinning cursor and long delays in selecting menu items. In the end I had to force quit the machine to get my performance back. I've since run several diagnostic routines, cleared caches, etc. using the Onyx utility to ensure the update left behind no issues. Have yet to run Civ6 but will do so soon and report back.

While it appears the major graphical glitches have been fixed for Civ6 there may still be some underlying issues yet to be documented. Also, I've yet to try Civ6 on my MPB 2019 which also encountered graphical problems.

At least I don't have to launch into Bootcamp to play anymore, maybe. More testing will tell.

 

[LFRANK]

Guess I spoke too soon, Civ6 crashed on turn 142 with the same graphic glitch as before. Forced to hard restart yet got no error log from the OS to send to Apple or Aspyr.

As mentioned elsewhere I think I'll go back to Aspyr support and update my bug report.

Guess I'm going back to Bootcamp to play, blech!

 

[John Tungri]

I managed to play for a long time, also after using the Onyx utility. Everthing seemed to go quit well. There was still some flickering on the units. But one day I forgot to deselect "True Tone" and "Automatically adjust brightness" of the setting of the "Built-in Display" in "System Preferences" and selected "Light", thus deselecting "Auto" of the setting "General" as mentioned in my post of Friday 25 September. And it went again terribly wrong. I had to restart the entire game completely from the beginning after using Onyx utility and adapting the mentioned settings. I suppose that the saved games are also containing the causes of the crashes. That’s why I can’t use them anymore. I guess that the setting "True Tone" emphasizes one of the main issues of the graphic incompatibility with Civ6.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

I have this same issue. It happens with more than just unit selection, occasionally this will happen during an era score announcement or a volcanic eruption. One solution I've found is to play on the strategic mode view. It's an annoying way to play, but it prevents any crashes.

 

[Mirage007]

Sorry... first post... ashamed that it's b/c of issues with the game... but just want to play. Also sad that i have this great Mac and it can't run Civ! . I'm experiencing the same issues as above.

Imac
3.8ghz i7
32gb ram
radeon pro 5700 xt 16gb
1 civ vi that constantly crashes... graphics tear, system freezes... hard shutdown only.

hoping a fix is coming...

 

[footballciv]

There are so many of us now on this very low traffic subforum. We should all complain to Firaxis/Aspyr/on steam. I've posted negative reviews on steam. The game is truly literally unplayable.

 

[John Tungri]

Got the update 1.3.5 on steam. The game still crashes but less severe. The crashes appear now often without glitches or the glitches are at least less intens. Still unplayable. The videocard radeon pro 5700 16 GB is not recognised by the game. So the graphic settings must be set manually. How knows, maybe the game will become playable with the update 1.3.6 ! But then Mac OS 11 Big Sur will be released, and the game will even fail completely to start up. Congratulations Aspyr for your rip-off!

 

[emahyar]

Just found this thread. Graphics have been freezing for me on Civ 6 on new 2020 iMac with 32 gigs of ram and AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (8 gigs VRAM). I started a new game with no mods installed, yet it keeps happening. Running macOS 10.15.7. I've submitted a report to Aspyr. Not sure if my issue is that same as yours. The sound still plays, and I can click and hear responses from units, etc., but get no visual representation of what I'm doing. Can't even force quit, the image on the screen starts tearing apart.

 

[John Tungri]

@ emahyar. The issue is exactly the same. Aspyr remains deaf and thumb about the issue. So I play civ VI now on Windows 10 Pro. I suppose that the issue exists on all the software of Aspyr. So if you're a shareholder of Aspyr, sell immediately your shares.