Insane Civ IV System Requirements announced

[Hellfire]

I hope some brave souls with G4's will give this game a try (and post their experiences here!). My impression from the PC version was that it was a) the video card, and b) amount of RAM that determined how well the game functioned. Are the g4 and g5 chips really so different that we'd expect the game not to run at all on a g4?

If anyone tests, try turning off any fluffy, blinky things and sound. Turn off as much of the glitz as possible. Perhaps it runs fine without any extras. Plus some of us may just want to try it for the new government and strategy elements.

And someone has to try it with a dual G4 card with a nice high MHz rating.

All suggestions for anyone who wants to give it a shot. I'm not spending $50 now if I can buy it for $20 later after I get a bigger computer.

 

[Gatekeeper]

*shrug* Well, FWIW, I still plan on buying Civ IV. My current iMac is circa 1999, 333mhz, OS 8.6. I *really* need a new computer.

Gatekeeper

 

[Dalmuti]

I have a friend whos a programer over a Alias (now Autodesk), the company that makes Maya. He's been there for 5 or 6 years now and when he picked up CivIV for his PC his first comments were that the game seemed to have some serious flaws when it came to the core programming.

He tempered his comment with the fact he had not seen the code but that from his experience with building a very complex, very high end graphics programs (Maya, Sketchbook, and AliasStudio) it looked like whomever was in charge of this part of the game made some serious mistakes. His guess was that the core graphics engine was built without a good plan to interface with the game engine, and was also rushed more than is normal. The result was when they started to hook things up, rather than the game handling the graphics and other information smoothly, its going through a very convoluted process with the graphics constantly trying to catch up. He believes that the graphics themselves are not the major issue but how the core game engine passes the information on to the graphics engine. He cited how in the first rev. it took forever to lay the grid down on the map and even longer to count things like relative military strength, both of which should be fairly easy operations. The game should not have to work as hard as it does to do what it does.
All in all he believes that along with generally poor technical direction, the process was probably plagued by unusually large number of changes and revisions that just didn't allow for the programming team to build a good product. Basically no one on the programming side pushed back hard enough (Is Sid going Lucas on us?)

Anyway there isn't much we can do about it, but this is likely to be the real problem behind the high minimum specs.

D

 

[ejday]

Hmm...

No Brad comment yet.

I get the vibe that he's well-cloaked, looking to see how many complaints/flames/defending heroes will chime in on the subject. I'm also guessing that this flaming buzz is finding its way back to Glenda in some filtered way or another (all while Brad shakes his head at this latest sign that the "Mac gaming apocalypse" is upon us).

Brad?

 

[imadork]

Or maybe he's just insanely busy....

 

[Gatekeeper]

Perhaps. But something like this would definitely have Aspyr folks perusing major forums, et al., in an effort to gauge reaction from potential buyers.

Gatekeeper

 

[AlanH]

It looks as if Apple have my new Mac planned for August

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0605intelxserves.html

Apple's Power Mac systems, meanwhile, are expected to make the transition to Intel processors with the Core 2 Duo, code-named Conroe, for which Intel is targeting a July release. It has been widely speculated that new pro systems will debut around Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference, which takes place in early August.

 

[Faijer]

I should be getting a 20" iMac once I head off to university around October, so I'll just get it then

w00t for student discounts at the Apple Store!


EDIT: Just ran a search on "Core 2 Duo" and found something else: Core 2 Extreme - http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2170

 

[Earthling7]

Guess I'm out of luck on Civ for the first time since 1991. I have bought all versions up to now, but CivIV will be the first one I skip. I bought a PowerBook 15 months ago and judging from it's otherwise fine performance, it will serve me well into the latter half of the decade. It seems to meet all CivIV requirements except the CPU, so if the sysreqs will lower or people report a decent G4 performance, I might change my mind. On thing I will not be doing is buying a new computer for this, or any other, game until I feel the general performance of my system is starting to lag.

People have been comparing CivIV with first person shooters, but I don't buy that. It is a strategy game and the people playing it are interested in strategy first. Eye-candy is fine to sweeten the experience, but it should absolutely not be the main goal of the game. Sid going Lucas on us? Quite possibly. Civ3 was a drama, it was unfinished when it came out and failed to challenge Civ2 after two expansions. There was a reason for that, with Brian Reynolds leaving Firaxis half way through, but that just makes it that much more important to get it right with CivIV.

I wouldn't be suprised it the coding theory above is correct. My PowerBook plays SimCity4, it races ahead with C&C Generals. True, both games are a couple of years old, but they still look gorgeous. Fancy graphics or not, it seems that Firaxis (as I'm not blaming Aspyr) has lost the plot on Civilization. Shame that ActiVision and others are out of the game.

So, one final question. Is there another game for the unlucky 90% of the Mac community?

 

[AlanH]

So, one final question. Is there another game for the unlucky 90% of the Mac community?

You might want to try the Europa Universalis/Hearts Of Iron/Victoria series if you haven't already. They are complex strategy games, with more realistic system reqs. I don't have time to explore them myself, but I believe they are highly thought of.

 

[MAS]

People have been comparing CivIV with first person shooters, but I don't buy that. It is a strategy game and the people playing it are interested in strategy first. Eye-candy is fine to sweeten the experience, but it should absolutely not be the main goal of the game. Sid going Lucas on us? Quite possibly.

So, one final question. Is there another game for the unlucky 90% of the Mac community?

I think It is not just the eye-candy, 3D engiens also have other advantages. As far as eye-candy is concerned, 2D often still looks better, but the other advantages may tip the balance.

 

[AlanH]

I think It is not just the eye-candy, 3D engiens also have other advantages.

A 3D engine provides perspective, animated 3D sprites, and the ability to view the scene from different directions and distances. The animation usually includes physical world simulation to represent ballistics, friction, collisions etc.

Those features are clearly important in a real time shooter, but as far as I am concerned they are simply superfluous eye candy in a turn-based strategy game. No doubt they sell the game to those who spend their lives running around simulated real time worlds, but most of them run PCs, not Macs.

What real advantages does a 3D engine offer in a TBS game that can outweigh the impact of a massive reduction in available market?

 

[Padma]

The only value-added I can see is the time-savings the artists get. Consider that Civ3 art was done with 3D tools, then meticulously converted to 2D for the actual game. By using a 3D engine, they can skip the conversion step. (The problem is, you can't get good 2D modelling tools - everybody jumped on the 3D bandwagon, so it is actually faster and easier to do it in 3D, and then convert!)

For actual gameplay, all that pretty 3D stuff is superfluous.

 

[lateralis]

I'll chime in to say that I'm happy my dual 2.5 G5 with GeForce 6800 ultra is safely within the requirements. (if only I could stretch the game to use both of my 23" monitors...)

However, my "portable to replace the ibook G4 which will be passed down to my wife" may not be the black macbook I was hoping it would be

on the "why 3d?" discussion, having an actual globe on which to play is the biggest value added proposition as far as I'm concerned. I never much liked how there were an equal number of arctic tiles as there were equator tiles.

 

[ejday]

...on the "why 3d?" discussion, having an actual globe on which to play is the biggest value added proposition as far as I'm concerned. I never much liked how there were an equal number of arctic tiles as there were equator tiles.

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that maps are essentially the same as Civ3, with similar ratios and layout –*and the globe view was simply a graphical shoehorn of a flat map rather than any new spherical algorithm.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still like to see a map as a globe –*but I don't think it affects gameplay.

Can anybody whose actually played CIV chime in on this?

 

[AlanH]

Even if it's real, I'm not sure that a spherical game space quite cuts it as a response to "What killer benefits does 3D engine bring to offset an 80% reduction in market capacity?".

 

[ChiefSparkY]

At a slight tangent to the current discussion but it occurred to me earlier today that while there were some people on this forum questionning Aspyr for doing C3C (instead of putting all resources into Civ 4), maybe Aspyr knew the sys requirements were going to be insane and that Mac people would still want their Civ fix...

 

[ejday]

...maybe Aspyr knew the sys requirements were going to be insane and that Mac people would still want their Civ fix...

Hmm... Normally, I would agree with this but then it would be painfully ironic that C3C doesn't have an editor.

Two swings, two misses.

 

[Gatekeeper]

Thank God there will be an editor for Civ IV ... it's built into the game, so they can't leave that out (again!).

Gatekeeper

 

[ejday]

Thank God there will be an editor for Civ IV ... it's built into the game, so they can't leave that out (again!).

Gatekeeper

Yes, and both Mac users will be able to use it.