Civ IV G5 Performance

[comradeTJH]

I'm a bit curious about the most comments here on the board that state the Mac version of Civ IV as a 'more than playable experience' and so on.

I started playing Civ IV on my PC just when it came out and I became addicted immediately as I did since the very first version of Sid Meiers Civilization - and that was on a Mac.

Unfortunately, as Civ IV came out I had to play it at the office after work as I haven't got a WinXP-PC at home so I was eagerly awaiting the Mac version and visited Aspyr's website frequently just to see when a port can be expected.

When I finally got the OS X Version I was so disappointed about the 'performance' that I really got angry and started to google for fixes as I was sure that this must be something with my configuration or I'm missing something. Here I found other people complaining about the same issues I experienced and found out that a patch is already imminent.
I installed the beta patch.... very slight performance update and some sounds were appearing... the final patch came and brought along all sounds but no further performance improvements. And I must say, it IS REALLY unplayable.

Here's my Mac-config I use (and yes, it's more than supported):
PowerMac G5 5 Dual 2.5 GHz, 3 GB RAM
ATI RADEON 9800 XT, 256 MB VRAM
10.4.7

Playing CIV at 1024x768 (windowed)

Switched all graphic options to low (of course no antialiasing enabled), enabled single units, disabled effects.. and so on and so on and started a small map with 3 opponents. It runs OK for some turns where I only own one city... but after the 3rd, 4th city, some improvements and owning some units and revealed some territory the game really begins to run awfully slow... I'll get up to 4 frames per second at max and the delay between turns makes me feel the game is in realtime... (!!)

My PC Config at the office:
Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM
ATI RADEON 9800, 128 MB VRAM

Playing CIV at 1280x1024 (windowed)

I usually play with 2x antialiasing with medium graphic settings and of course 3 units and all the other things turned on and it runs like a charm until late end-game (where it begins to show some small performance downgrades to the one-settler and one scout niveau of the Mac version). Everything is just snappy and it's a real joy navigating all the units, managing your cities and so on...

I just can't believe that on my theoretically lower performance (and of course older and far cheaper) WinXP PC Civ IV runs THIS MUCH better than on my G5!!

Don't get me wrong though, I don't want to blame Aspyr for releasing a bad Mac port - I rather think Apple is to be blamed for this... more and more my so thought Super Performance state-of-the-art Apple-flagship super dual-PPC G5 turns into a $3'500.-- bumping-icons and picture-viewing toy... and even this is faster on a PC....

My apologies - I'm usually not as emotional on posts but I have grown up with Macs and got nearly everything from Apple II to the G5 only to realize the Mac just gets worse all the time.... :-(


desperate regards from Switzerland
Thomas

 

[wiglaff]

Apple is to blame for your machine being so much more expensive than the PC counterpart. Even now, Mac Pros retail for $850 more than an equivalent Dell workstation.

But given your hardware, I'd say this particular problem is aspyr's fault. Admittedly the graphics card is over 3 years old, but it should do better than "unplayable."

 

[ainwood]

Apple is to blame for your machine being so much more expensive than the PC counterpart. Even now, Mac Pros retail for $850 more than an equivalent Dell workstation.

You keep making that point, but the real issue is that people don't make purchasing decisions on $/'power' alone!

Personally, I would never touch a Dell.

 

[wiglaff]

of course there are other reasons for buying macs . but for 3d graphics work or games, they are severely underpowered.

this naturally is not a problem for most casual users, but for those looking for intensive 3d modelling or games, it can become an issue. the amount of extra money you need to bring the power up to the PC standard has become even larger with the newest Mac Pros.

 

[5150]

I'm calling BS on this one. Either the guy is a troll, or he's terribly misconfigured his system.

I've been very critical of Aspyr. They've botched this release, and I'll never buy another one of their products. That said, I've got a system that's one step down from the OP's, and I find the game to be completely playable. I play in full screen, at 1920x1200 with the graphics turned up to high. That was with a 9800 Pro in my 2x2ghz PM.

There's something rotten in Switzerland.

 

[comradeTJH]

Admittedly the graphics card is over 3 years old, but it should do better than "unplayable."

Yeah... but that one in my PC is even older...!

I find the game to be completely playable

so... is this completely playable for you?:

http://prosecco.tjh.ch/civ.mp4
Edit: Here's a higher-res movie: http://prosecco.tjh.ch/civ640.mp4 (25fps)

(early stage game, small map, everything set to low)

I'd rather compare this experience to writing an SMS on an extremely tiny mobile with my mitt on...

I'll show you how this runs on the older PC with everything turned to high on Monday....

 

[Beamup]

so... is this completely playable for you?

The resolution is so incredibly low it's impossible to tell with confidence, but it sure looks like it's performing very well.

 

[5150]

If that's what you're getting in a tiny window, then yes, you've got a problem with your system. What's going on in Activity Monitor?

 

[AlanH]

I don't remember where, but I seem to recall, at one point, that *increasing* graphics settings in this sort of configuration actually improved performance. Is that worth trying? Or is my memory playing tricks ... again

 

[jdevo]

I get the same performance with my x800 at the lowest settings.

 

[jdevo]

From what I've tried, changing the setttings doesn't really make that big of a difference. The only time that it does is during a war- changing to single unit graphics helps a bit

 

[Macintosh]

I...or he's terribly misconfigured his system.

agree.

It is fully playable on a Dual 2,0 GHz with the Radeon 9650 256 MB with all eye candies turned on.

 

[comradeTJH]

Well, I tried to increase the graphic settings and it indeed didn't make a big difference - just slightly slower - as an interesting matter of fact, enabling FSAA multisampling doesn't have an effect - no antialiasing at all.

What's going on in Activity Monitor?

Well, usually I don't have any CPU intense Apps running at the same time and the most processes are sleeping... so Civ is the only App saturating my CPU's:

home:~ tjh$ ps caux |grep Civ
tjh        657  96.8 -5.2  1545244 108004  ??  RN   12:15AM   2:16.56 Civilization IV

I indeed have some OS X experience but even though I decided to try a fresh installation (10.4.7) on a FW drive and tried to play Civ in a 'virgin'-environment... but the performance was the same...

Thank you guys for your tips probably I'm appearing to be whining too much .. but compared to the PC performance I just can't get any joy playing it on my mac :-(

 

[Brad Oliver]

Well, I tried to increase the graphic settings and it indeed didn't make a big difference - just slightly slower - as an interesting matter of fact, enabling FSAA multisampling doesn't have an effect - no antialiasing at all.

Try running it fullscreen at a lower resolution (1024x768) and see if that has any impact.

 

[Josh Wolf]

First of all, I run a Dual G5/2Ghz with 1G RAM and an ATI 9800, and the game runs OK. Not great, but I've never seen it run great on a PC, either.

Second, running fullscreen really increases performance. Unfortunately, it highlights the one glaring problem with this port- lack of a true "Pause" function, which works like the one in Civ 3 did.

Apple is to blame for your machine being so much more expensive than the PC counterpart. Even now, Mac Pros retail for $850 more than an equivalent Dell workstation.

That's just wrong. Equivalent configurations have been shown to be cheaper from Apple.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Second, running fullscreen really increases performance. Unfortunately, it highlights the one glaring problem with this port- lack of a true "Pause" function, which works like the one in Civ 3 did.

Use Cmd-H (OSX's Hide command) from within fullscreen. Cmd-Tab does the same thing, FWIW.

 

[wiglaff]

That's just wrong. Equivalent configurations have been shown to be cheaper from Apple.

Really? Check this out (courtesy of Asher at Apolyton)

Originally posted by Asher
It looks like the Dell only costs more if you don't know what the hell you're doing.

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore...BP_DT64BIT&fb=1

Dell:
Dualcore Intel Xeon 5050 3GHz x 2
2GB DDR2 RAM
256MB PCIe x16 ATI FireGL V7200 [note: better workstation card than GeForce 7300]
16x "Superdrive"
250GB SATA HD
$3,394

Apple Mac Pro: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...2riqJijR/1.?p=0
Dualcore Intel Xeon 5050 3GHz x 2
2GB DDR2 RAM
256MB Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT
16x "Superdrive"
250GB SATA HD
$3,599

BTW, for an idea on the difference in quality of video cards:

The ATI Fire GL V7200 sells for $829.99 USD: http://www.superwarehouse.com/ATI_F...05121/p/1483885
The GeForce 7300 GT sells for $89.99 USD:
http://www.superwarehouse.com/p.cfm?p=1484099



So....why am I wrong, again? Keep in mind the Dell has excellent world-class support for its workstations.

I understand Apple tells you that the Mac Pro is cheaper. The problem is that they are lying.

 

[wiglaff]

Well the session timed out but here is the dell page link http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=ca&CS=CALCA1&l=en&oc=OCPRSN490_RBP_DT64BIT&fb=1

 

[comradeTJH]

Try running it fullscreen at a lower resolution (1024x768) and see if that has any impact.

Looks like it brings very minor improvement... but running 1024x768 fullscreen on a 23" Cinema Display of course looks very funny ;-)

And as a very interesting matter of fact - it runs equally on full (1920 x 1200) resolution... !

 

[Brad Oliver]

So....why am I wrong, again?

Tell Asher that he's picked the wrong CPU. ;-)

The Mac Pro uses a Xeon 51xx class, not the 50xx in your Dell quote. They are fairly different CPUs - the 51xx being faster and more advanced. The point being made was, like-for-like, the Mac is cheaper. This is why you could include a more expensive video card in that quote - to make up for the cheaper CPU. When I do a like-for-like comparison, the Dell is several hundred more than the Mac.

Regardless, it seems to me that platform advocacy is wildly off-topic for this forum.