Boot Camp vs. Mac Native Civ 5

[JeffNebraska]

I took it for granted that the Mac native Civ 5 would run faster and better than playing the PC version on Boot Camp with Windows 7. Is there any chance I was wrong? Have others here done a lot of comparing?

 

[Xyth]

It will run better on Bootcamp due to Windows having considerably superior 3D graphics drivers than OSX (Direct 3D 9 -11 vs OpenGL 2.1/3.0). This is true of all modern 3D games.

 

[AlanH]

Bootcamp makes your Mac into a higher-than-average performance native PC. Firaxis designed and optimised Civ5 for Windows, so Bootcamp is very likely to provide the best experience of Civ5 that you can have.

Aspyr has recompiled the Firaxis code with translation layers of software to convert it to run in Mac OS X. It would be remarkable if that could perform as well as the native original software, even if the OpenGL graphics drivers were comparable in performance to DirectX 11. So it should come as no surprise that it can't ...

 

[JeffNebraska]

Wow. Didn't know this.

Given the free dual-copies from Steam, I guess I need to start shopping for a copy of Windows 7.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

On my MBP 2.8, 8g of ram using the 9600m graphics card, I would say that the performance on OSX is similar to that on Windows 7 except I can go to a little higher graphics setting so the appearance is a little nicer. Some other details like hex boundaries and borders also render a little more distinctly in Windows 7.

The biggest difference is the how often the game would randomly quit in Windows. Steam and Civilization V were the only thing outside of Microsoft Security Essentials that I installed. I could count on every 2-50 turns having the game randomly quit. I had to set the number of turns on the autosave to 3.

It's sluggish for me on both platforms, but much more stable in OSX. The only big thing I'm missing right now is suffering with pre-patch Puppets.

 

[Apachechef]

Just my experience... I have a MacBook Pro, i7 2.66, 8GB, 512MB Nvidia 300m. I've got about 27 hours played according to Steam, I'd say 23 of those were played with BootCamped Windows 7 x64. Both sides played at the native 1440 x 900 fullscreen. The Windows side plays much better with higher graphics options turned on. The OS X side is sluggish especially when scrolling around the map. I'm really looking forward to the patch for the OS X side and hoping for performance improvement there.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

I have been playing a pirated wineskin port version of Civ5 (just to test out the game, I can't patch it, download mods or connect to steam) on my MacBook 2GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (below minimum system requirements). The game runs fine and I have noticed no problems except for no intro video (instead a white screen) because its a port done by an outside source. Frame rate drops a bit when the screen jumps. All graphics settings on medium except fog of war which is on high. Turns take about 2-3 seconds in the early game; long considering that in civ4 a turn in the early game took about 1/2-1 second. I am considering buying the game. Just waiting for some patches for the Mac version to come out.

 

[Helmling]

I'll second Aoxomoxoa's remarks about the Windows version's stability. The other night, I had to load one Win save game three times in a row because it kept crashing. With my very limited play on the Mac side, I haven't seen any such instability, but I heard from someone that the Aspyr code has somehow inherited the late-game deal-breaker crashes that affected the Windows version right out of the gate and has since been patched.

I'm still playing through Bootcamp, though. The patch features and especially my two DLC civ opponents just add too much for me to step backwards--same reason I can't go back and play Civ IV now. Besides, it only takes a minute to reboot...