New Mac for Civ incoming...
- Thread starter GianlucaG
- Start date
Well, the short answer is the best iMac you can afford.
- Mac Mini's shouldn't be touched for gaming, unless you're willing to spend a lot of extra money on after-market, warranty-breaking customizations.
- MacBook Airs are pretty bad too. Not built for graphic performance.
- The 15"+ MBPs (with the AMD cards) are passable.. I'd go with the 15" with the 6770M if you wanted a laptop specifically. The 17" has the same card but higher native resolution, ergo lower performance or needing to run in non-native resolution (which can result in "fuzziness"). MBPs, in general, can also suffer from heat issues that end up lowering graphics performance.
- The iMac's where you want to be. Preferably with SSD, and the 6970M.
- The Mac Pro is desperately in need for a refresh, and current rumor is they might kill it off instead.
If you can wait a few months, this is supposed to be a big year for Apple refreshes.. some redesigns are suggested.
- Mac Mini's shouldn't be touched for gaming, unless you're willing to spend a lot of extra money on after-market, warranty-breaking customizations.
- MacBook Airs are pretty bad too. Not built for graphic performance.
- The 15"+ MBPs (with the AMD cards) are passable.. I'd go with the 15" with the 6770M if you wanted a laptop specifically. The 17" has the same card but higher native resolution, ergo lower performance or needing to run in non-native resolution (which can result in "fuzziness"). MBPs, in general, can also suffer from heat issues that end up lowering graphics performance.
- The iMac's where you want to be. Preferably with SSD, and the 6970M.
- The Mac Pro is desperately in need for a refresh, and current rumor is they might kill it off instead.
If you can wait a few months, this is supposed to be a big year for Apple refreshes.. some redesigns are suggested.
It's not the VRAM, it's the chipset. Although I didn't realize one came with the 6630M... Wonder how it benchmarked. There's more factors to consider as well, bus speed etc.
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I just got one for my entertainment center and it plays the game quite well. It's a dramatic improvement over my MBP, which is Core Duo with 330M.
Now, obviously a well-loaded MBP or iMac would be better, but you can definitely enjoy Civ 5 on a mini (I was doing it until 1AM last night).
Found this interesting:
CPU/BUS/Disk benchmarks:
http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/
Graphics benchmarks:
http://www.macworld.com/article/161414/2011/08/mac_mini_mid_2011_review.html
Unfortunately the MacWorld article didn't include other Mac models in the same chart. The moral of the story seems to be that the top i5 mini is underperforming the top 21" iMac by about 10-15%. This probably puts it in "acceptable" range. Just don't touch the low-end Mini.
CPU/BUS/Disk benchmarks:
http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/
Graphics benchmarks:
http://www.macworld.com/article/161414/2011/08/mac_mini_mid_2011_review.html
Unfortunately the MacWorld article didn't include other Mac models in the same chart. The moral of the story seems to be that the top i5 mini is underperforming the top 21" iMac by about 10-15%. This probably puts it in "acceptable" range. Just don't touch the low-end Mini.
Sadly, CIV 5 doesn't perform well on macbooks of any size and label. I have a 2010 17'' macbook pro with a Nvidia card and it chugs so badly halfway through the game it's literally unplayable. It performs okay under boot camp but temps hit about 85 C the entire time, which makes me wonder just how much damage i'm doing to the internals having the gpu and cpu's run that hot for the long periods of time that CIV seems to require...
I believe the difference between the 2010's with nVidias and the 2011's with ATIs is roughly the same as the difference between bicycles and motorcycles.
Hi, welcome. 
That's a bit of a generalisation. While MacBooks undoubtedly perform less well than iMacs and MacPros, I understand the more recent ones with ATI cards are not too bad.
That's a bit of a generalisation. While MacBooks undoubtedly perform less well than iMacs and MacPros, I understand the more recent ones with ATI cards are not too bad.
Hi, welcome.
That's a bit of a generalisation. While MacBooks undoubtedly perform less well than iMacs and MacPros, I understand the more recent ones with ATI cards are not too bad.
Yeah. It's a driver issue, plain and simple. Nvidia just isn't interested in Mac gaming, and Apple figured this out when Starcraft 2 came out. No accident that they don't sell Nvidia in Macs anymore.
The driver issue is bad enough that a box the same as my quad-core 2009 Mac Pro, except with a higher-end (in 2009) Nvidia GPU, still can't play SC2 well, but mine with an ATI 4870 (again, 2009 model) runs it on Ultra. And I run Civ 5 w/o any graphics slowdowns. The game is very CPU-intensive, so the hyperthreaded Xeon helps.
What's your actual currency?
Civ V can only use four cores, more is irrelevantYeah. It's a driver issue, plain and simple. Nvidia just isn't interested in Mac gaming, and Apple figured this out when Starcraft 2 came out. No accident that they don't sell Nvidia in Macs anymore.
The driver issue is bad enough that a box the same as my quad-core 2009 Mac Pro, except with a higher-end (in 2009) Nvidia GPU, still can't play SC2 well, but mine with an ATI 4870 (again, 2009 model) runs it on Ultra. And I run Civ 5 w/o any graphics slowdowns. The game is very CPU-intensive, so the hyperthreaded Xeon helps.
That's weird. I play on my 15" MBP. It slows down on Huge maps, sure, but it's playable. I usually watch TV or a movie while I play, though, since there's a serious wait between turns.
But, the system can use another two threads for graphics system-side, and other threads for system functions, so it does help.
could indeed be the case. The moral of the story though is to buy it on Steam so you can use it on windows if need be.
If it chugs on Mac, boot into Windows and it'll work fine minus mega heat generation.
Still wish there was a way/Option to get CIV III style graphics, Strategic view just doesn't cut it (IMO)
It's funny though because CIV IV works just fine in OSX...
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