Performance on G5

[prof_hoop]

I just upgraded to a dual 1.8 G5, and I have to say, Civ III finally plays as fast as it did on my PC. On tiny or small maps, it's just lightning quick, and the map scrolls so fast I have to be careful not to flick the mouse too much.

With only 512 ram, standard and larger maps still bog down later in the game, though.

Anyone have any experience on how Civ plays on a Mac with 1 or 2 gigs of ram?

 

[Vista]

I run it on large map with a dual G5 2ghz with 512MB and it is quick but slows down later in the game considerably.

 

[Alpha9]

my iMac G4 800 has 1024MB of Ram and I must say, the game runs pretty damn good, real smooth, real fast, no lag really.

 

[Trabpukcip]

The things is at the end of the game that there are so many units and so many civs with so many citys that no matter what computer you use, you'll experience a slow down. I have a killer pc and it to slow down at it the end on huge maps. You can add lots of ram but it will only help a little.

 

[gfeier]

I'd definitely recommend upgrading to at least 1GB of RAM - even if it doesn't help Civ all that much, you'll see a huge improvement in other areas.

 

[tao]

I "only" have a dual G4 but IMHO much more important to a great Civ III experience is playing it with 1600x1200 resolution on a 20" LCD screen.

 

[prof_hoop]

Well, I went ahead and upgraded to 1 GB ram, and standard size maps now seem to play much better.

I tested it on the standard map Earth scenario, and it's now playable (which I'm defining here as no more than a 10-15 second lag between turns) all the way through retirement. It slows down a bit when there are a lot of wars going on, but this is the first time I've played a standard size map on a Mac all the way to the end of the tech tree without getting frustrated at how slow things were.

I'm tempted to order another gig just to see what happens. Anyone know if there's an upper limit to how much ram Civ can take advantage of?

 

[Trabpukcip]

dude you got money... another gig!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!