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I did a search on google and found out how to change the graphics of the game to Retina mode. That made a huge improvement to playability on my 12.9 iPad Pro and screen resolution is now similar to the game on my PC, but it’s really only recommended for iPads with the A10X processor.
I found a Twitter thread and was able to scale down the UI using the debugger, but changing the retina flag didn't allow me to zoom out any further. I still see the same number of cities. Should I see more screen real estate, or only see the current image sharper?
I found a Twitter thread and was able to scale down the UI using the debugger, but changing the retina flag didn't allow me to zoom out any further. I still see the same number of cities. Should I see more screen real estate, or only see the current image sharper?
Edit the Retina line in AppOptions.txt to “Retina 1”, then run the game. To open the debug menu you need a smart keyboard or a bluetooth keyboard connected, press the tilde key, in the debug menu type (without the quotes) "ui scale 2". If your iPad supports full retina resolution you then run the game at 2048 x 1536 instead of the games default 1024 x 768. You now see 4 times as much screen real estate (you can fit four 1024 x 768 rectangles into a 2048 x 1536 rectangle.)
When you type "ui scale 2" into the debug menu it's not saved so if you reboot the game it launches at the default 1024 x 768 resolution and you need to change the resolution at the start of each gaming session. Hopefully Aspyr will give us a option to change resolution in a future patch.
The game runs very well at 2048 x 1536 on my iPad with the new A10X processor.
Please let me know how this goes. I’m also on a Mini 4 and so desperately want to play this... I’ll most likely pull the trigger tonight, but it’d be nice to have more confidence.
Tho my wife says that even if it doesn’t run, I’ll still be able to play it when I buy another iPad in the future. She’s such an enabler.
Please let me know how this goes. I’m also on a Mini 4 and so desperately want to play this... I’ll most likely pull the trigger tonight, but it’d be nice to have more confidence.
Tho my wife says that even if it doesn’t run, I’ll still be able to play it when I buy another iPad in the future. She’s such an enabler.
I say you’ll be fine. I’m now 240 turns into my second game, I have around 650 turns in total in Civ on my Mini 4, that’s quite a few hours. I’ve had one more crash during these last 240 turns.
Turn calculation takes a while, but part from that it’s a good experience. Some scroll lag and animation lag, but it’s not too bad. I say get it, especially if you’ll get a faster Ipad later on. I thought about it, but will settle on my Mini 4, I have computers if I need a fast game. Plus my work paid for the Ipad, so it’s basically free hardware.
I say you’ll be fine. I’m now 240 turns into my second game, I have around 650 turns in total in Civ on my Mini 4, that’s quite a few hours. I’ve had one more crash during these last 240 turns.
That’s awesome, thanks for keeping this thread updated. I’d been looking around for mini 4 reports and then finally remembered this site. My desktop is a 2007 iMac, so even CivV has to be in strategy mode. Never expected to play CivVI this week!
Edit the Retina line in AppOptions.txt to “Retina 1”, then run the game. To open the debug menu you need a smart keyboard or a bluetooth keyboard connected, press the tilde key, in the debug menu type (without the quotes) "ui scale 2". If your iPad supports full retina resolution you then run the game at 2048 x 1536 instead of the games default 1024 x 768. You now see 4 times as much screen real estate (you can fit four 1024 x 768 rectangles into a 2048 x 1536 rectangle.)
That's not what's happening here. I edited the file, but when I type the UI scale, the UI changes but the map doesn't budge. However, the app options file already lists a width and height that match the resolution of a 12.9. Have you experimented with changing those in the text file?
Let me ask the question differently. I tend to space cities at 6-7 hexes for minimal overlap. (I find the building of districts and wonders sucks up too much space already. At this spacing, how many cities should I see? I only see four, two of them not even completely on the screen. But I can shrink the UI to be microscopic.
When you type "ui scale 2" into the debug menu it's not saved so if you reboot the game it launches at the default 1024 x 768 resolution and you need to change the resolution at the start of each gaming session.
So I gave in to my Christmas temptations and bought the game. Ate up all my battery life on it tonight. Oops.
Out of curiosity, am I the only one who actually prefers the scale-up UI? I feel like it makes good use of the iPad screen space and is large enough to make pressing buttons not an annoyance.
I will say the exception is the city attack button, which is incredibly difficult to tap with a unit garrisoned inside. The city attack turn blocker also seems to be absent.
i tried it out on my wife's Ipad Air 2, and it drained 25% of the battery in 45 minutes. so i guess fully charged it would last three hours. that ipad is three years old though, so probably the battery isnt as strong as it used to be.
That's not what's happening here. I edited the file, but when I type the UI scale, the UI changes but the map doesn't budge. However, the app options file already lists a width and height that match the resolution of a 12.9. Have you experimented with changing those in the text file?
Let me ask the question differently. I tend to space cities at 6-7 hexes for minimal overlap. (I find the building of districts and wonders sucks up too much space already. At this spacing, how many cities should I see? I only see four, two of them not even completely on the screen. But I can shrink the UI to be microscopic.
I’ve just experimented a bit more and what’s happening is the UI shrinks to smaller, more normal diamensions, similar to UI of the game on a PC/Mac. So then I can see a lot more of the map which gave me the illusion that I was seeing a larger area. Now that I look more closely I see that the map doesn’t change at all.
... what’s happening is the UI shrinks to smaller, more normal diamensions, similar to UI of the game on a PC/Mac. So then I can see a lot more of the map which gave me the illusion that I was seeing a larger area. Now that I look more closely I see that the map doesn’t change at all.
.
too bad. reminds me of my experience upgrading to a UHD monitor for the Windows version of Civ 6. I thought i would see a lot more map, but no, it just enables shrinking the UI at the edges. and you see a little more map. It is better, but not WAY better.
i have a five year old ipad which is too old to run Civ6. i was thinking of getting the latest, biggest ipad Pro, but now i'm not sure its worth it.
So what changes when you flip the retina flag? Are cities rendered in greater detail? (That's what happens on a retina Mac, you don't see for times the stuff without an app like Display Menu.) Something must be happening, since the Twitter poster claimed reduced framerates.
And what happens when you change the UI size while retina is set to 0? What happens if you change the height and width in the init file?
Apparently you can take the benchmark file from the Mac app and install and run it in the usual fashion. That will keep me up for a while when I finally get home.
If you get the 12.9, it's a pretty sweet platform. Even on the prevous gen, the map zooms from unit to unit at least as fast as on my friend's gaming PC, and so fast I can't even see my poor little guys being bombarded by pirate ships. I would like to see more cities on the map, though.
we tested it a bit. But no MP option that's a no go. Also no mods, at least we didn't see how to install them. Mods is at least 90% that justifies the price for civ.
Some consider it the other way but for me without mods any civ version is useless and no fun. It's the mods that make the game really fun because firaxis
themself never produce a "more civ" or "realistic civ" they always start from scratch and produce a "limited edition sell for max profit" so I pay because they
create the "modding platform" and not really for the game which is pretty boring and simplistic without mods.
Just my opinion of course. But it's the modding community that makes this game alive.
So what changes when you flip the retina flag? Are cities rendered in greater detail? (That's what happens on a retina Mac, you don't see for times the stuff without an app like Display Menu.) Something must be happening, since the Twitter poster claimed reduced framerates.
And what happens when you change the UI size while retina is set to 0? What happens if you change the height and width in the init file?
Apparently you can take the benchmark file from the Mac app and install and run it in the usual fashion. That will keep me up for a while when I finally get home.
I experimented a bit by editing the AppOptions.txt file and switching between retina 1 and retina 0. I took screen shots of the game so I could make some comparisons.
UI resolution is the same with retina on and off. UI elements (top bar, tech/civics menu, mini map, city name tags, grid details, etc) are exactly the same size and obscure the same amount of the map, The size of the map and how much you can zoom out is also unchanged with both settings.
The game looks better with retina on. Details, particularly fonts are sharper and clearer when retina is enabled, but the difference is minimal and probably not worth doing if it increases turn times and battery power consumption or decreases frames per second. What makes a big difference is reducing the size of the UI elements so that you can see more of the map. To reduce the size of UI elements attach a Smart Keyboard or bluetooth keyboard and open the debug menu with the tilde key. In the debug text box type without the quotes "ui scale 1". You can adjust UI size by varying the number you enter. Whatever changes you make reset back to the default when you exit the game.You will need to re-enter your preferred scale at the beginning of each session.
The game looks better with retina on. Details, particularly fonts are sharper and clearer when retina is enabled, but the difference is minimal and probably not worth doing if it increases turn times and battery power consumption or decreases frames per second.
I wish this for the regular game too... I want to zoom out far enough to see my entire empire, usually 8-10 cities, spaced far enough apart to have no overlap. WANT.
Again, I agree with you, I also play on really big maps (with mods, so REALLY big maps), and fewer players so there is room to expand. But for the iPad version, I think I'd play smaller, quicker games. It'd be nice to play while watching nonsense on TV with my husband.
Question for those with the game... the no barbs option is there right? If I can't turn those [bleep] off I won't play. (still waiting for a no-war mod)
On my iPad Pro 10.5, I feel enabling retina makes a substantial difference. However, several of the assets (mainly textures) are still lower quality and somewhat blurry. IMO, for anyone who prefers looking at text at native resolutions, having retina enabled is a must.
Some news about mods testing !^^
It seem that I'm right about version (1.0.0.129), so if a mod is made for DLCs and the winter/spring/summer patches who accompanied them there is a small chance that the mod don't work but it depends on what is modified by the mod and has been modified by the patches.
The second observation is that most of the assets added by mods don't work, sukritact's resources for exemple don't make the game crash, the new resources are placed on the map but don't have icon and 3D models, that's because BLP files (which contain assets) depend of the platform.
On the other hand mods that use originals game assets like UncivilizedGuy's buildings mods work because it don't add new assets. ( except for txt icons I don't know why )
When I go back home where my PC is I will look into the SDK if there a way of import assets for iOS platform (or "metal" platform named by the new Apple graphics API) but 2 points :
- It will probably need an SDK update (Something that I don't know if that's already the case because I'm not at home since the release)
- As the ipad adaptation version is not the same as PC/Mac versions, in certain cases modders will probably need to made a specific version for iPad, so not sure all modders will take time to made that mostly if they don't own an iPad.
I'm not sure about all my observations, I did not invest too much in civ 6 before that so maybe I did not get everything about civ 6 modding, but I keep looking at the logs and will continue to do tests with the SDK when go back home tomorrow.
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