Disappointing Civ 4 performance

[AlanH]

I think that's a slight exaggeration. It obviously has two sensors and is therefore a two button mouse. But you have to have the left finger down for it to accept a right finger click. Same sort of deal with the latest track pads, but they can so it anywhere on their surface.

 

[jessek]

I'm on a MacBook Pro 17", 2.16Ghz, 7200RPM drive, and 2GB of RAM.

Graphically the game has run well for me so far - large world, 8 AIs, etc - but I'm having the same sound problems as others. I get music, but no battle sounds.

 

[Hellfire]

I think it *is* graphics intensive. Firaxis chose to base the game on a 3D graphics engine that is more at home in a 1st person shooter than in a turn-based strategy game. Aspyr just had to work with what they were given, so that problem, at least, should not be laid at their door.

Not to be picky, but isn't Aspyr the publisher and Firaxis the developer? And the developer who did the port 2k?

Hell I'm just confused, someone just tell me who is who.

 

[JoAT]

Aspyr is a publisher, but also has in-house development personell. Firaxis developed the original game. Aspyr developed the Mac port of the game and also is publishing it.

JoAT

 

[Eio]

And the developer who did the port 2k?

And to close the loop, 2k Games is the PC publisher

 

[Welnic]

If your system is like mine, you can tell who ported it to the mac just by sitting through the opening movies. Aspyr's little blurb is the only one the sound works on.

 

[ovale]

I don't have Civ 4 yet, (I live in the UK). I do read the reviews posted on imgmagazine.com and read the review there on Civ 4 (done it says on a beta copy) The reviewer makes no remarks whatsoever with regard to sound issues or lockups or crashes.

I have emailed the reviewer asking whether he had any problems which were not reported in his review. I did this for research to determine that if he did not have issues, then the issues have appeared in builds after his beta copy.

There must be some beta testers of this game who read these fora. I am aware of non-disclosure agreements. I don't feel that they cover public interest matters. If there are beta teaters of this game, then fess-up and say whether these problems existed in their copies or not.

 

[AlanH]

Aspyr beta tester agreements are lethal weapons. I wasn't a beta tester, as I live outside the US, but I've seen their agreement and I wouldn't want to be caught giving any related information out unless I was seriously independently wealthy.

 

[JoAT]

And to close the loop, 2k Games is the PC publisher

Picky, picky, picky!!!



JoAT

 

[Gatekeeper]

Aspyr beta tester agreements are lethal weapons. I wasn't a beta tester, as I live outside the US, but I've seen their agreement and I wouldn't want to be caught giving any related information out unless I was seriously independently wealthy.

Yeah, well, I'm sure some gamers' lawyers will have a field day, too, if this game was knowingly shipped with all the issues it has.

Hell, maybe that's what gamers need to do: File multiple, class-action lawsuits against publishers who have a habit of selling beta-stage programs as final products to the public. That might put the fear of God into the publishers.

More than anything else, I'm just *stunned* at the issues Civ IV Mac is having. Absolutely, whacked-upside-the-head stunned. My God, even the latest iMacs are having issues handling Civ IV.

Gatekeeper

 

[AlanH]

Sure, beat Aspyr up if the game is really that bad (I still don't have a copy, so can't comment). Just don't ask the beta testers to put their heads on the block for you.

 

[ovale]

well, I have a reply from the author of the review on imgmagazine site. mega up to him.

he tested with a pre-release version on a dual 2GHz G5. (no more details of specs). Quite fairly he says that there were a few minor irritations, but otherwise all was well, and NO sound issues.

I have invited him to let Aspyr know that the version he had had no sound issues. So in a collective spirit of harmony, just as Brad would encourage us to behave, I hope that this will assist Aspyr in locating just where the sound problems crept in.

This is just simple detective work aimed exclusively to assist our friends at Aspyr. Just remember how genuinely honourable Brad has been in his dealings with us in the past, and how we have been positively encouraged by Glenda herself to submit any helpful information we have to assist in solving their problems.

I am sure that Aspyr will want to quickly solve issues with one of their top games.

 

[Gatekeeper]

Sure, beat Aspyr up if the game is really that bad (I still don't have a copy, so can't comment). Just don't ask the beta testers to put their heads on the block for you.

Where did I say anything about beta testers putting their heads on the block, hmm? Oh, yes, that's right: nowhere. I'm talking about people who have dropped $50 or $60 for the game — IOW, the game-buying general public.

That said, I wasn't particularly serious about the lawyer bit (although I'm quite sure some folks have entertained the idea more seriously while trying to play the game). From what I understand of Aspyr and its personnel — particularly the programmers — they're a pretty good outfit. Unfortunately, there are less-savory outfits out there who, IMO, do unethical things to their customers all in the name of meeting deadlines and pleasing stockholders.

Gatekeeper

 

[Beamup]

I am aware of non-disclosure agreements. I don't feel that they cover public interest matters.

Then you feel wrong. An NDA is a binding, legally enforceable contract. Period.

 

[AlanH]

Where did I say anything about beta testers putting their heads on the block, hmm? Oh, yes, that's right: nowhere.

Sorry if you thought I was attacking you, but I was responding to

There must be some beta testers of this game who read these fora. I am aware of non-disclosure agreements. I don't feel that they cover public interest matters. If there are beta teaters of this game, then fess-up and say whether these problems existed in their copies or not.

 

[ovale]

and perhaps Beamup should read my supportive additional posts.

Simple polite and rather logical investigation by myself has narrowed down the issue for Aspyr within 15 minutes. I have no idea whether this thread will be read by Aspyr, I will not be emailing Aspyr at this time.

I have run and taken part in beta testing for certain publishers with NDA both in the UK and USA. When an issue has arisen, then the coordinator of the test is online to each tester wanting information. It narrows down the problem. The fess-up remark should have contained "fess up to your beta test coordinator right away" information such as "I definitely had no sound problems" or "i had a wonderful gaming experience" is of vital importance. This allows the good build numbers to be known for certain. And to determine exactly which if any OS changes have fouled matters up.

For all we know, Aspyr may already know the causes. Glenda seems to suggest in her posting that the kernel panics are also to be found in other games at certain screen resolutions. (should be a warning then on their website)

I got fobbed off for ages with screen redraw problems related to drivers issues before they were finally acknowledged by Aspyr (I had to "disclose" my full credentials to them to convince them that I ain't an amateur) and I got a personal solution

No sane person would break a NDA. And I would not encourage anyone to do so. I am British, we must all be patient. I have no intention of parting with £45 till the matter is resolved. ( I am prepared to accept a free copy to assist in testing).

 

[Beamup]

and perhaps Beamup should read my supportive additional posts.

I did. Your statement I replied to is simply highly inaccurate.

And if you want to claim you didn't mean what you said very clearly and explicitly, well, I'm not interested in arguing about it.

 

[Brad Oliver]

So I promised myself I'd take some time away from the forums after the Civ4 release to give myself a break, but Glenda mentioned today that there was a lot of discussion about Civ4, so let me address a few things.

First, the sound issues. We didn't have any major problems with sound in the beta, although apparently the final release is suffering badly. Not sure what happened there, but we're trying to figure out a) what happened and b) how it got by us like it did. (FWIW, there were 3 developers on Mac Civ4 full-time - one dedicated to audio, so resist the urge to throw *all* your stones at me.)

Second, performance. I don't suppose this is a real shocker to anyone who has been following the Civ4 discussion from before the release. From what I gather, those running Civ4 in Boot Camp and those again running it on the same Intel Mac under OSX are seeing roughly identical performance (unless I'm missing a thread). This tells me we're in the ballpark with the PC version, so I'm OK with that. If someone is seeing a radical departure from the PC performance, I'm interested in hearing more - brad@aspyr.com.

That being said, Civ4 is a bit of a VRAM hog. If you increase the game resolution and the globe detail, you're going to really stress the VRAM on some cards. When that happens, you'll see a) bad performance and b) a corrupted globe view. We fought with this throughout development, and we'll continue to fight with it as we go forward. Civ4 should default to reasonable (read: low) settings to try and mitigate this.

Third, I've heard that under 10.4.7, some people are seeing kernel panics on Intel Macs with the ATI cards (the iMacs, mainly). We didn't have time to QA Civ4 against 10.4.7 but this is a real issue. For one, the initial 10.4.7 release (the first day) shipped with busted OpenGL drivers, and this was subsequently corrected in a later 10.4.7 re-release. We don't have any reliable feedback from end users on if the problems with 10.4.7 are happening in the "broken" 10.4.7 release or the "fixed" release, so our support guys are trying to nail this one down. We haven't been able to reproduce any of the kernel panics here in the QA lab yet.

One final, important thing: if you are having problems, please mention two things: what version of OSX you are using (remember above that 10.4.7 post-dates our testing so this is important) and what Mac you have (try to be as specific as you can : Intel vs. PPC, iMac vs. MacBook for example).

 

[Brad Oliver]

If your system is like mine, you can tell who ported it to the mac just by sitting through the opening movies. Aspyr's little blurb is the only one the sound works on.

Now that is interesting. The key difference here is that the Aspyr movie is played directly by QuickTime in a different manner than the other movies (which go through the game engine). Even so, the other movies should have sound, they're not doing anything fancy.

What version of OSX are you using?

 

[jdevo]

The big problem for me (besides the sound) is how slow and choppy the gameplay is with all the settings at their lowest and on a tiny globe... even though I have duo 1.8ghz 1gb ram geforce 5200... it seems that this particular video card just isn't enough to run it.