My Civ4 Experience on a MacBook

[awb]

I just wanted to put up my comments and experiences so far with Civ 4. I'm playing on a MacBook 2 GHZ with 2 GB of RAM and with the patch. I just finished my first game on a small map with relatively few problems. I know that the MacBook is not officially supported, but it seems to run fine on those settings (though it does take a definite hit on a standard map in terms of speed).

I had the same bugs everyone else had: in the course of playing my game (maybe 8 hours?), I had one crash, one instance of all the units turning black (but resolved by quitting and restarting), and some typical sound problems. The mouseover seems to get stuck semi-frequently, and in some areas, don't ever work (like in starting up the game, in the select a shoreline screen, or the ocean level, etc.). I couldn't figure out how to do a click over a unit or item to bring up its civlopedia entry either.

Some general concerns: The game did not feel very snappy and not as customizable as perhaps I'd like, and I don't believe it is a consequence of my computer (people have reported having very good experiences speed and compatibility wise running Civ4 in Boot Camp). Do I really need to autosave every turn? Do I really need a sword cursor? Do I need every single animation? I'd like to be able to have more options to speed up the game to my liking.

I'm happy overall, but the beta patch still has some ways to go. I'm disappointed that Aspyr released Civ4 in the state it was in, but glad to see them moving quickly to resolve it. The game is great and I have no complaints about its features!

 

[marksable]

thanks AWB

I'm looking into buying a macbook (it would be my first mac) and whether it can play civ iv is a factor

anyone else have macbook civ iv experiences to share or links to threads/other sites with them? I've been scouring the web but they're hard to come by

 

[AlanH]

Do I really need to autosave every turn?

The autosave frequency, and number of autosaves kept, are parameters you can change in the Civ4.ini file in ~/Documents/Civ4/ I believe the default frequency is one every four or five turns. Zero would turn it off. I set it to one per turn, being a pessimist!

 

[Beamup]

It defaults to every four, to be precise.

 

[Helmling]

awb, what graphics level were you playing at?

 

[awb]

Helmling: I played on both the medium and lower levels. Both were more than playable on the small map. Less so as you would expect proportionality on the standard map size. I think this may also been affected by my selection of less ocean and pangae (so more land mass / terrain), though I am not positive. I am trying to test it out as best I can.

Alan: Thanks! Do you see a decrease in playing speed from having it up to 1 per turn?

 

[Helmling]

No hope for me, then. I play on huge maps with max players. Oh well...it's not like I haven't know this for awhile, but you gave me hope for a second.

 

[Macintosh]

The autosave frequency, and number of autosaves kept, are parameters you can change in the Civ4.ini file in ~/Documents/Civ4/ I believe the default frequency is one every four or five turns. Zero would turn it off. I set it to one per turn, being a pessimist!

Quite interesting. What else can you do/manage in this Civ4.ini file ?

BUT - among other things - aren't we using Macs for not being forced to do such things like changing *.ini files, and *.bat files, and all this stuff.

I expect from a Apple Macintosh software that there is, for example, a startup dialogbox where all this options can be changed just by clicking. Am I wrong?

Brad: maybe something for the next patch?!

 

[ancestral]

The autosave frequency, and number of autosaves kept, are parameters you can change in the Civ4.ini file in ~/Documents/Civ4/ I believe the default frequency is one every four or five turns. Zero would turn it off. I set it to one per turn, being a pessimist!

I expect from a Apple Macintosh software that there is, for example, a startup dialogbox where all this options can be changed just by clicking. Am I wrong?

I believe you can customize this in the game too (options I think).

 

[Beamup]

I believe you can customize this in the game too (options I think).

Nope.

What else can you do/manage in this Civ4.ini file ?

Far too much to list. Take a look - almost all the options are well-named so you can tell what they do.

 

[pipertangerine]

Hello awb.

My first post, thought I'd add my experience.
MacBook 2Ghz. Graphics on medium, medium map, 7 opponents. Haven't finished a game yet but plays pretty smooth into the 100s of ADs - not much different from C3C. 2Gb Ram is noticeably better than 512Mb. Will post more when complete a few games.

 

[gfeier]

No hope for me, then. I play on huge maps with max players. Oh well...it's not like I haven't know this for awhile, but you gave me hope for a second.

Not exactly. I just finished a game on a huge map (but with only 7 other civs) on the lowest graphics settings with 1GB RAM in a 2.0GHz MacBook. As a strategy game it was just fine. The only problem was the "black screen" issue - see the "Black Death" thread. The graphics were jerky, but the game was fun. If you're into strategy games it's not bad at all. If you need all the eye candy, you will want a machine with a real graphics card, otherwise just go for it!

 

[awb]

By the way, I think I found a solution for the black death which is just to scroll all the way out and then scroll back in.

 

[gfeier]

By the way, I think I found a solution for the black death which is just to scroll all the way out and then scroll back in.

From what I've heard from others, that's correct. The first to report the fix, AFAIK, was bnew. Ever since I saw his post, I've been wanting to try it, but I have hardly seen the problem since the patch.

 

[AlanH]

By the way, I think I found a solution for the black death which is just to scroll all the way out and then scroll back in.

Since that just forces a redraw, I suspect toggling the tile grid (Command-T) will do it as well. It works for the globe view problem.

 

[Zaimejs]

I just played a small map on a PowerBook G4 1.33 ghz with only a 64 mb Radeon mobility card. It was sluggish, but I was really impressed that it could play the game at all. At the start of the map, it actually ran very smoothly. Then as my nation grew, it slowed down. I agree with what someone wrote a few days ago that this game needs a snap to option. Instead of doing the scroll to units which is slow, there needs to be an option where the screen just jumps from one unit to the next. This would make the game much, much more playable on slower systems.

I also noticed what a HUGE difference the patch made. I started a game without the patch, and it was unplayable with one settler and a scout. Then I installed the patch, and it ran as well (albeit on lower settings) as my dual G5 tower. (Until I built a few cities).

Keep the patches coming!

 

[stuabear]

So far I have played around 200 hours of CIV IV on my Macbook Pro and the only time I ran into any problems was when I set all the rendering to its highest levels. Dropping the quality settings down again cured all my problems, and the Graphics are still excellent.

The computer is a dual Core Intel Macbook Pro with the 256 Mb ATI vidcard and the 2.6 Ghz options as I use Apple's 30" monitor when I am at home.
The OS is is Tiger (10.4.7) Ram is 2 Gb the drive is 160 Gb. I have not tried multiplayer yet as I am really only a Civ beginner. I would feel pretty certain that the regular Macbook would work just as well maybe even better if that is possible. I have the 1.61 version of CivIV and 1.22 for CIV III.
Both incredible games I am Glad I tried them out.

 

[awb]

I just installed the patch, and though Civ4 now informs me that I'm on an unplayable system, Civ4 goes absolutely fast! Sounds work (mostly) and the speed of the game is a lot better (snappier too)! So I'm happy!