Civ3 Complete and Not-2-Spec-Macs

[Matto the Hun]

Hey there.

New to the forums, though I've been lurking for dog's age...maybe even a dog a cat's age, I've lost track.

My wife and I have struck up a deal. I get Civ3 Complete if we get in shape by end of March and get a few other projects under way. I'm not concerned about not making it. I'm worried about my Mac.

I've got a G4 450 (Sawtooth) running Jaguar. Sooooo close to the requirements for C3CMac. (I've recently updated my video card so thats fine)

I've read a couple posts reagrding people who are playing the new game on macs "not quite up to snuff". I recall one poster saying they had a G4 400 cube that was running well.

This gives me some hope.

What I'm looking to find out, and I haven't read any other specifics in the forum, is there anyone else playing on a mac thats not up to spec? Has there been any performance problems since you started playing.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[AlanH]

Hi, Welcome

I don't think you'll have too much problem. You may find it's a good idea to turn off Quartz text smoothing (checkbox in the startup screen), and cut down on animations of your own units.

My current Mac was a 350 MHz Sawtooth before it had a treat in the form of a 1 GHz upgrade. I used to run the MacSoft product on it in its original state, and it was OK. Complete may even be more efficient, as Brad's had time to learn a few tricks, compilers are getting better, and it even has an 'economy' mode that may help with CPU requierments.

I'd say the most cost effective enhancements my G4 has had over the years, though, are a RAM boost to 1.12 GBytes and an OS X upgrade from Jaguar. It's on Tiger now, but Panther was the big leap in performance. You don't say what RAM you have, but if it's under 512 MBytes I recommend adding to it, and you won't regret finding a copy of Panther or Tiger.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Okay, nobody laugh:
450mhz g3, 768mb, ATI 9800, 10.3.9
with quartz off and the other economizing measures it seems to play fine, albeit slower and slower as the game advances; I usually play while listening to talk radio, so waiting a few seconds just lets me shift focus.

 

[Matto the Hun]

Okay, nobody laugh:
450mhz g3, 768mb, ATI 9800, 10.3.9
with quartz off and the other economizing measures it seems to play fine, albeit slower and slower as the game advances; I usually play while listening to talk radio, so waiting a few seconds just lets me shift focus.

That's awesome, man,... a G3, I love you!

I'm glad it works pretty well for you. Both of your guys' comments have me reassured, and i appreciate that.

I have 1025mb RAM installed so I think I'm good to go on that account.

When I eventually get C3C I'll probably still try and run it on Jaguar. If it doesn't work i'll see about upgrading my OS, otherwise.... Hey what can I say, I'm a cheep bastard (on somethings) Couple that with the fact that Apple seems to pump out OS X updates on an almost regualar basis; I'm paranoid that if I bought Tiger they's announce Lion, or Bobcat, or Orange Tabby, a month or two afterwards.

spanks for the replies and the welcome

 

[Brad Oliver]

When I eventually get C3C I'll probably still try and run it on Jaguar.

It requires at least 10.3 or higher. It definitely won't work on 10.2.x.

 

[AlanH]

Apple releases chargeable upgrades to OS X at about 18 month to 2 year intervals. You can expect 10.5 (Leopard) to arrive around the end of 2006 to compete with/upstage M$ Vista.

 

[Blue Monkey]

I'll probably still try and run it on Jaguar. If it doesn't work i'll see about upgrading my OS, otherwise.... Hey what can I say, I'm a cheep bastard

It's totally not recommended, and I don't recommend it myself for people who don't understand the consequences, but if you want Panther really on the cheap, the grey market is full of the "full install" cds with the grey labels; most of these are designed and labeled for the emacs, but will install the basics on other machines. I'm sure others (Alan?) can tell you the pitfalls of doing this. It is about half the cost of a retail version.

@AlanH - what's a chareable upgrade?

 

[AlanH]

It's totally not recommended, and I don't recommend it myself for people who don't understand the consequences, but if you want Panther really on the cheap, the grey market is full of the "full install" cds with the grey labels; most of these are designed and labeled for the emacs, but will install the basics on other machines. I'm sure others (Alan?) can tell you the pitfalls of doing this. It is about half the cost of a retail version.

Just make sure you are not buying a pirated copy.

@AlanH - what's a chareable upgrade?

A typo Now corrected. Upgrades that you have to pay for as opposed to the free maintenance updates that come along overy few months, sometimes including feature enhancements.

 

[Matto the Hun]

It requires at least 10.3 or higher. It definitely won't work on 10.2.x.

Then it looks like I'll be upgrading... thanks for the confirmation