Civ 7 For Mac

I guess I have the same worries. I have never been able to play Civ 6 through Steam as it crashes after 5-10 minutes and I heard this was a common problem after the August ‘24 update. Are we going to have a similar problem with Civ7? I just don’t want to spend 70 bucks on a game that won’t work and support seems pretty scarce. Anyone else have the same concern?
 
This is a thread about the Mac.
As we don't know the answer I assumed its the same for Mac. Aspyr has handled all the Mac ports so far, and consoles too. I think Behaviour Interactive is behind every port from now on as Aspyr is out. And it is a wonderful thing indeed.
 
The Mac App Store versions were all gimped in the past (didn't have cross-platform multiplayer) so I think this is best in the long run.
Yeah, I would think Steam is actually better in many regards. I regret buying (the no longer functioning) Beyond Earth on the App Store and would never buy a game there again that I can get on Steam or GOG. Steam has al the mods, is usually much cheaper (even now, you can get around 20% off if you buy it at green man gaming for example), allows cross platform multiplayer, allows to play the game on all your machines than can run steam (which for me means, I could also play it on GFN). I can understand that a third party isn't wished for, and it might be preferable to some to have apple as that third party, because we sold our soul and all our data to them anyway when we made the choice to be part of the apple universe. But Steam seems to be rather harmless and has its benefits.
 
My previous experience with steam has been with civ 5 when I had a windows PC. It meant launching steam to play the game - and it was awful. As a mac user, most games, applications, etc., have an installer (.dmg). If I can get an installer from Steam and then never have to deal with steam again, then fine... I guess. But when I say "native", I mean it is meant to be installed like any other application onto the hard drive of one's computer and there it rests. That, to my mind, means it was coded for my specific platform/os. Mac users will be used to Aspyr providing the game, but app store providing the patches and the updates. We've dealt with it one way for decades, so maybe it will change sometime soon.
I’m also a Mac user, and thus a Mac gamer. I do however own a Steam Deck, but I’ll play a lot on my MacBook Pro upon release. That’s another good thing about buying on Steam. I can install on my Mac, on a Windows or Linux PC, and of course my Steam Deck.
 
My previous experience with steam has been with civ 5 when I had a windows PC. It meant launching steam to play the game - and it was awful. As a mac user, most games, applications, etc., have an installer (.dmg). If I can get an installer from Steam and then never have to deal with steam again, then fine... I guess. But when I say "native", I mean it is meant to be installed like any other application onto the hard drive of one's computer and there it rests. That, to my mind, means it was coded for my specific platform/os. Mac users will be used to Aspyr providing the game, but app store providing the patches and the updates. We've dealt with it one way for decades, so maybe it will change sometime soon.
In steam you do get non drm-installers. Changes for mac installers is close to zero. There is no such thing for windows or any platform.
 
Downloaded and played on my M1 iMac (256 GB Storage - 16 GB ram)

Game played well (just antiquity age - 40 turns or so - low graphics settings - small map)

I did notice a bit of choppiness with (natural) wonder videos
 
I did the graphics check with my M1 Pro with 16GB ram, and got 33 fps on average on medium settings.
 
With regard to Steam on a Mac, I've been using it since June 2014 and never had any significant problems. I've had some crashes with Civ5, but I put that down to it being a very old game that was coded long before Apple Silicon was thought of. I've played thousands of hours of Civ5 on Mac via Steam -- including games of over 300 turns -- and it has mostly been fine. True, I don't push it -- I only play Standard sized maps and I turn down the graphics settings, but it's generally OK. I haven't experienced anything that would make me shun Steam. Rather the reverse, really, in that if I should want to play on Windows at some point I will be able to do that.
 
Does anyone else have the problem that pressing any key in the game produces the invalid key sound of the OS? This is quite annoying.
 
Played for a few hours on my MacBook M1 Max and have had a ton of issues. Got one crash for a "Your system has run out of application memory" error (in screenshot below) where it indicated both Steam and Civ were taking up more than 200GB. Haven't had that happen again, but have loads of heat concerns (graphics cores all run right at 100° C). Also the UI issues everyone is complaining about are even worse on the Mac's retina screen, as the interface doesn't seem to scale properly. You end up with some very very tiny text even at the largest font setting (far smaller than even the Steam Deck, which runs it pretty well).

Screenshot 2025-02-05 at 8.10.39 PM.png
 
Played for a few hours on my MacBook M1 Max and have had a ton of issues. Got one crash for a "Your system has run out of application memory" error (in screenshot below) where it indicated both Steam and Civ were taking up more than 200GB. Haven't had that happen again, but have loads of heat concerns (graphics cores all run right at 100° C). Also the UI issues everyone is complaining about are even worse on the Mac's retina screen, as the interface doesn't seem to scale properly. You end up with some very very tiny text even at the largest font setting (far smaller than even the Steam Deck, which runs it pretty well).

View attachment 718303
Agree on the text scaling issue, it’s not good. But performance is very good on my 14” base M1 MacBook Pro. I had one CTD when transitioning from antiquity, but it loaded right up again. I’ve been playing for almost 12 hour on my MacBook Pro, it’s been really smooth and the fans are barely noticeable (in Civ6 it was full blast after 10 minutes). I do default settings and resolution too. I’m really surprised about the performance actually.

I’m on my Steam Deck now and I really don’t like the default controls, but that’s easy to fix. I usually play Civ6 with a Bluetooth mouse on the SD, tried it for 7 and it works great. But I need to configure the controls properly too.
 
Does anyone else have the problem that pressing any key in the game produces the invalid key sound of the OS? This is quite annoying.
Yep same problem on my M4. It’s awful navigating around with constant cluk sounds
 
Put about 6 hours in on my M4 MBP since last night. Have had no issues or sounds, so not sure what is happening there. I only had one crash which came after a save and exit. Love the performance, no noticeable slowdown by the end of the Exploration Age.
 
Thanks, sounds like my overheating issues are an outlier then. That's encouraging and I'll do some more testing to see what's causing the spike.

EDIT: Take that back, just tried it on a Mac mini M4 Pro on default settings and the graphics cores immediately shot up to 104°C. Now that's dangerously hot. I'm going to stop trying on the Mac for now until this gets sorted out.
 
Last edited:
Thanks, sounds like my overheating issues are an outlier then. That's encouraging and I'll do some more testing to see what's causing the spike.
Yea sounds like something is wrong. I made sure to close all other apps and a reboot, then just Steam started. Macs rarely need a reboot and can chug along for months. Hope you get it sorted and can start enjoying the game. Bring the magnifying glass for the tech and civics trees 🕵️‍♂️🔎
 
Back
Top Bottom