Get the patch!

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

I fired up my new iMac today for the first time and, after getting Safari set up with my bookmarks and whatnot, performed an update via the "Software Update" under the Apple menu.

My machine shipped with 10.4.4, and the updater brought it up to 10.4.7, updated QT to 7.1.2 and also loaded updates for 10 other programs. Last, but not least, it upgraded my firmware to 1.0.

Here's my question: Did I get the right 10.4.7? According to the System Profiler, my version is 10.4.7 (8J2135). I don't want to do anything with Civ IV until I'm sure the OS is the proper version. FWIW, the OS updater was 215MB; I say this because I noticed on Apple's update site that there's another 10.4.7 update that's roughly 133MB. Both were posted June 27. I'm assuming the latter is just a standalone update for the OS, where the one I got updated not only the OS, but other programs as well.

Any insights are, as always, most appreciated!

Gatekeeper

You should have got the right 10.4.7 because the broken one is no longer available.

As you had 10.4.4 it probably gave you the combo updater to get to 10.4.7, and that was never affected by the problem.

 

[monaco27]

Here's my question: Did I get the right 10.4.7? According to the System Profiler, my version is 10.4.7 (8J2135).

Hmmm, you think they would have fixed the version on the Software Update by now. But, IIRC, the good version for intel computers is (8J2135a). That's what I have and downloaded the updater from their website (133mb) when I first heard about the mixup or whatnot.

There's a thread back somewhere where Brad and other people were talking about the version #s.

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

Hmmm, you think they would have fixed the version on the Software Update by now. But, IIRC, the good version for intel computers is (8J2135a). That's what I have and downloaded the updater from their website (133mb) when I first heard about the mixup or whatnot.

There's a thread back somewhere where Brad and other people were talking about the version #s.

It was only given the 'a' if you used the delta updater from 10.4.6 to 10.4.7. The combo updater was always just 8j2135.

 

[naib]

Holy Cow!

Man, that's a serious case of "lurk"!

Well, you saved your first post for a great place.
Welcome! (I guess?) Yes, definitely "Welcome!" (even if you have been for four years!)

Thanks for the welcome.
It's been awhile since I've been here. I used to just come around for the GOTM.

When I registered I was not the proud Mac owner that I am now.
That said, the G5 I'm so proud of is humbled by Civ4.

Anyone with a similiar setup getting decent performance? Even with everything dumbed down it's hard to get into it.

 

[AlanH]

@Alan
per your question I do have blue marble installed, but I think monaco27 has already given you the answer you seek....

It would be really cool to run GOTM with the bluemarble mod installed. I was able to run the American Revolution mod and bluemarble with no problems at all. hmmmm...

monaco27 gave me one half. You've given me the other half, confirming my experience. I can't trust my results alone, being on such a low end system.

Brad is on the case, and has identified what's causing this, so assuming he can fix it for the official patch we should then all be able to play GOTM with Blue Marble.

 

[Gatekeeper]

It's good to know that I appear to have the "unbroken" version of 10.4.7 installed.

Now all I have to do is get StuffIt so I can expand the beta patch from Aspyr for Civ IV. Oh, and also figure out the proper place to install Civ IV. I assume it's the Applications Folder on the actual HD, rather than my home folder. I'm the only one using this computer, which greatly simplifies things.

Gatekeeper

P.S. I *love* the super mouse (or whatever the heck it's called by Apple). The scroll wheel really is nice.

 

[awb]

Brad: I've seen three responses, one on CivFanatics, and two on MacRumors, about playing Civ4 in Bootcamp. All of them were extremely positive and said it ran much smoother than the Mac version, even compared to the Mac version on lower settings and the PC on higher settings. However, these were prepatch so I'm not positive.

My experience with playing on my MacBook in OS X itself has been WONDERFUL. I'm very happy and am even thinking of jacking up the settings!

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

It's good to know that I appear to have the "unbroken" version of 10.4.7 installed.

Now all I have to do is get StuffIt so I can expand the beta patch from Aspyr for Civ IV. Oh, and also figure out the proper place to install Civ IV. I assume it's the Applications Folder on the actual HD, rather than my home folder. I'm the only one using this computer, which greatly simplifies things.

For some reason Aspyr support claimed that you shouldn't install it in your Applications folder because of possible 'permissions conflicts'. They claimed that it's better to install it in a Games folder at the root level or in your home directory. In my case I think they were fishing around for a bit of voodoo to solve a problem they had no idea about. I think their advice was about as useful as the standard 'repair permissions' voodoo (which they also offered). I ignored them and have all my games in a subfolder of Applications called 'Games'.

(My problem is with the popup information you get in the lower left getting stuck and not updating properly - which seems to create some problems for your currently selected unit. I've seem some hints that it is a problem that exists in the Windows version as well - but it's an internal logic problem for the game that should have nothing to do with file permissions.)

 

[Beamup]

P.S. I *love* the super mouse (or whatever the heck it's called by Apple). The scroll wheel really is nice.

Yeah, the Mighty Mouse is pretty nice. Too bad the wireless version is still single-button with no scroll wheel, and therefore sucks quite horribly.

 

[AlanH]

Mine is in /Applications/. No Games folder, not in ~/. It works as well as can be expected on my hardware, and the patch installer found it with no problem.

 

[thanar]

Brad,

I believe I have some information regarding the Globe View bugs...

I noticed it by accident, but here's how to make Globe View look like it's supposed to look (apart from some latitude/longtitude dashed lines that appear here and there over sea squares):
Fire up the Civ, load your game and just toggle "Show Tiles" on and back off. Globe View works as expected from then on... At least for me (iBook G4 1.2)...

We all hope you and you team will soon be able to squash them bugs and focus on optimizations (low-vertex objects, remember?), and later on, on... gameplay! Needless to say though, the game is quite enjoyable!

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

...and later on, on... gameplay! Needless to say though, the game is quite enjoyable!

I have been incredibly frustrated with the key combination to open a file being cmd-L. It is so wrong. I still haven't managed to stop opening the options screen every time I want to load a save game. AAArgh! And, for empahsis, aaargh!

I reckon that's a bug worthy of patching. Either that or putting a patch in to give players some way to change the key bindings themselves.

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

Is there a memory leak problem with Civ IV?

The reason I ask is that I have noticed my memory usage, swapfile usage and pageouts climbing significantly the longer I play. I have 2GB of RAM and would think that was enough. It used to be rare that I would have even one swapfile at 64MB in size. But I currently have over 1GB in swapfiles. The change in my memory behaviour is noticeable.

Anyone else seen signs of this?

 

[thanar]

Yes, I have also seen extensive VM activity while playing Civ 4. I'm on 640MB, so you could easily understand why after a few hours of play I ended up with more than 5G of a swapfile.

About my previous post regarding the Globe View bug; yes, the view breaks later on (when doing extensive negotioations with other leaders), but toggling tiles on and off does the trick all the time! Seems like something has gone a bit wrong with caching of certain textures, and looks like toggling tiles forces the problematic cache to refresh...

 

[Gatekeeper]

Mine is in /Applications/. No Games folder, not in ~/. It works as well as can be expected on my hardware, and the patch installer found it with no problem.

That's where I plan on putting my copy of Civ IV: The applications folder found on the hard drive. Every other program I buy or download will likely go there as well.

One question: Where does the custom assets folder end up if the Civ IV app is in the app folder on the HD? Does it end up in my home folder somehow? Heh. Mac OS X newbie talking here!

Gatekeeper

P.S. And, boy oh boy, does this iMac start up fast! Five seconds at most!

 

[kayle]

I Brad,

Finally, I had my own Civ IV copy last night...

Let me tell you my experience. So first of all, here is my Config :

iMac G5 1.8GHz, 1GB, GeForcefx5200, 20" screen

I started the "Out Of Box" Civ IV Version and run the tutorial game juste to see how slow it was, and it was...

Quickly, I applied the BETA patch to see changes :

Start videos where faster, and my very first game seems to be playable (14~16 fps) using all low graphics prefs, inside a middle screen res of 1280x800.

And things goes right, while the player (me) stays close to units and cities. But since I'm building an empire, I must see things from the top.

I finaly found the "zoom out" command that allows me to see more than 1 city at a time (Remember, the normal view in civ 3, 2 ... 1)

And here, I see how poor Civ IV 3D engine is ! My frame rate drop to... I don't now, but so low.

I think that being able to see and interact with our empire from a far top position is one of the most important functionality we must have in Civilization game play.

So please, do something to simplify graphics rendering while we zoom out.

 

[AlanH]

That's where I plan on putting my copy of Civ IV: The applications folder found on the hard drive. Every other program I buy or download will likely go there as well.

Except for special things I'm playing with all my apps go in /Applications/. I don't have a subfolder for Word Processing, or Graphics, so why have one for Games? Utilities so go in /Applications/Utilties/

One question: Where does the custom assets folder end up if the Civ IV app is in the app folder on the HD? Does it end up in my home folder somehow? Heh. Mac OS X newbie talking here!

There's a Civilization IV folder created in ~/Documents/. That's where CustomAssets and all your saves are placed. ~/ is your home folder, which is a special place that any application can find via the OS.

 

[cheesewhiz]

Ok, applied the patch... sounds work pretty well now.

BUT I'm still having issues with the rollover popup info. As in, when you roll over an object (technology, build icon, foreign ruler, etc.) the popup info does not appear. Also, when this happens the scroll stops working (as in wehen looking at a city build list). The scroll works fine for zooming.

Additionally, this is intermittent. It will work fine, then stop for awhile, then start working again. However, it is a sure thing that at some point it will stop working.

Obviously, this is kind of a PITA. The game is still playable, but often the lack of info causes problems. This game is incredibly dependent on those rollovers. Scrolling through lists is less of a problem, I can just manually scroll.

Anyone else seeing this?
Otherwise, no crashes, speed is ok.

 

[monaco27]

Yes, the rollover info gets stuck on something and won't update when you rollover a new object... a lot. I find that clicking on a unit will get the rollover info to update again.

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

Yes, the rollover info gets stuck on something and won't update when you rollover a new object... a lot. I find that clicking on a unit will get the rollover info to update again.

Let Aspyr know. When I reported this issue they said they had never heard of it. For something that seems to be a regular feature of Civ IV I think they should know about it. And even better if they can fix it.