How to make Civ4 for Mac work better
- Thread starter Brad Oliver
- Start date
Skippy_Kangaroo
Prince of Denmark
More information (panic logs galore if you want them and a save game that is at the right place to move some scouts and crash the computer).
I get a kernel panic if the following conditions are fulfilled:
Full screen
AAMS on (4x at the moment)
Scout moving east
Graphic level on high
The thing about the graphic level on high is that if I set graphic level to medium and then push render quality, globe quality, turn off the single unit option and high detail terrain on it is fine. On the other hand, high graphic quality with low render quality and normal terrain detail crashes.
I get a kernel panic if the following conditions are fulfilled:
Full screen
AAMS on (4x at the moment)
Scout moving east
Graphic level on high
The thing about the graphic level on high is that if I set graphic level to medium and then push render quality, globe quality, turn off the single unit option and high detail terrain on it is fine. On the other hand, high graphic quality with low render quality and normal terrain detail crashes.
Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer
wookitus said:
Yeah, I'm sure that's the case. It would not surprise me for Civ4 to peg one CPU at 100%, but on a dual CPU setup, it shouldn't go much higher than 110-115% as it's not really multithreaded. So these reports that it's running at 180% on PowerPC Macs are very disturbing.
Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer
Zaimejs said:
I'm extremely grateful for your patience on this. It's been very helpful.
Skippy_Kangaroo
Prince of Denmark
Brad Oliver said:
Its running at 187.5% on my Intel mac right now.
Pharaohx
Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
Zaimejs said:
Great work and thank you!
Unfortunately, I didn't reproduce the results. I moved one drive back to 10.4.1, but when I started a game, there was no sound, and it went really slowly. However, I did make a custom game and I played a HUGE map... so that might have altered the variables too much to do a real test. When I loaded up an old saved game, I could hear the ambient music again.
Strange. Very, very strange.
Strange. Very, very strange.
gfeier
King
Brad Oliver said:
Ah. Thanks. BTW, I'm at 1535 AD in a huge world on a MacBook and, like the MacWorld reviewer, I find the game to be "fully playable." Not perfect, mind you, but more than acceptable while I wait for the Mac Pro to show up.
ejday
King
I've been playing on my Mac 512 (built-in black and white monitor)...
Kidding, although not by much. It's on a PB 1.5 GHz, 1 GB, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, running 10.4.7 (8J135). While it's jerky, I'm such a CivAddict that I find it's still playable on small maps (until I get my MBP in... who knows). For that... I'm impressed.
Here's another impressive bit: I've had one soft crash. No kernel panics and I just finished a 9 hour game over several days of testing (small map and 6 civs on my gerbil-driven PB).
Here's one oddity: when I dabble in the WorldBuilder, the minimap starts out fine but as soon as I actually mod something, the minimap freaks out with this odd feedback loop. I don't know if this could be indicative of any other problems (or if anybody else on the planet is having this issue as well). Here's a screen grab (note the map within the map within the map...):
Kidding, although not by much. It's on a PB 1.5 GHz, 1 GB, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, running 10.4.7 (8J135). While it's jerky, I'm such a CivAddict that I find it's still playable on small maps (until I get my MBP in... who knows). For that... I'm impressed.
Here's another impressive bit: I've had one soft crash. No kernel panics and I just finished a 9 hour game over several days of testing (small map and 6 civs on my gerbil-driven PB).
Here's one oddity: when I dabble in the WorldBuilder, the minimap starts out fine but as soon as I actually mod something, the minimap freaks out with this odd feedback loop. I don't know if this could be indicative of any other problems (or if anybody else on the planet is having this issue as well). Here's a screen grab (note the map within the map within the map...):
Attachments
gfeier said:
Wow, that's pretty encouraging. How much RAM do you have? It's incredible that Civ 4 may be more playable on a MacBook right now because it doesn't have driver issues related to graphics cards. I have a MacBook too (2.0 with 2 GB of RAM), so I may try Civ 4 when a patch comes out.
gfeier
King
awb said:
2.0GHz, 1GB RAM. I did have an occasional problem with the screen darkening (sorta like night falling) and the game slowing down, but saving and reloading fixes that. Hasn't happened since 1400 AD or so and I'm getting background music now.
gfeier, that's about what I'm noticing. I started a game in 10.4.7 and it had no sound at all. But when I started the game, then opened the saved game, I now have ambient music. Still no sound effects, but the game is running very smoothly. When I load saved games they seem to run better than when I start a new game. Does that make any sense? Anyone else noticing this?
Brad Oliver said:
Josh Wolf said:
Here's what it's doing on my Quad while idling at the main screen... like most programs, it cycles among the processors... i'd have to say, on average, I've got one near 100%, two around 60% and the 4th around 20%... if I average the 4, it works out to about 55-60%... across all four CPUs... so that's in line with what you said above... very glad to hear that it's not to be expected...
Any idea why panning around the display is smooth for the most part but regularly seems to jump (i.e, not smooth transition)... it's all subject to what appears to be a low refresh while panning around... i.e, it's not 100% crystal smooth
Let me know if you need any more information...
Thanks!
dual 1.8 G5, 3GB RAM, Ati X800XT 256 VRAM, 80 GB Raptor (0nly 30% full).
Running game at defaults as set at start up of Civ4. OS 10.4.7.
Music of game is variable; spock's voice overs clear; some sounds start and stop abruptly, others not happening at all. Combat animations abrupt.
No other programs running. Records show CPUs running at 185% making my otherwise very quiet G5 blast up it's fans ! I have never seen both CPUs run like this, and I do multitask on realtime video editing with Final cut studio progs all running together.
but the game is good..............
Running game at defaults as set at start up of Civ4. OS 10.4.7.
Music of game is variable; spock's voice overs clear; some sounds start and stop abruptly, others not happening at all. Combat animations abrupt.
No other programs running. Records show CPUs running at 185% making my otherwise very quiet G5 blast up it's fans ! I have never seen both CPUs run like this, and I do multitask on realtime video editing with Final cut studio progs all running together.
but the game is good..............
jdevo
Warlord
I've been running the game in OS 10.3.9 and have had sound problems from the begining... so I don't thin 10.4.7 is the problem, like I've read in other posts.
