Thinking of converting to mac - what Civ V graphics performance can I expect?

[kamex]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of getting an iMac soon, so I'm wondering how well Civ V runs on the current range of iMacs. A comparison of the range can be found here: http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/specs.html

The model I'm leaning towards is the more powerful 21.5 inch, which has:

• CPU: 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with 6MB on-chip shared L3 cach
• RAM: 4GB (two 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 memory
• Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR5 memory

With what graphics settings can I expect to run Civ V smoothly with this machine? How would the game fair with large map sizes etc.?

Thanks.

 

[Mavfin]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of getting an iMac soon, so I'm wondering how well Civ V runs on the current range of iMacs. A comparison of the range can be found here: http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/specs.html

The model I'm leaning towards is the more powerful 21.5 inch, which has:

• CPU: 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with 6MB on-chip shared L3 cach
• RAM: 4GB (two 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 memory
• Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR5 memory

With what graphics settings can I expect to run Civ V smoothly with this machine? How would the game fair with large map sizes etc.?

Thanks.

I have a 3 year old Mac with a W3520 (quadcore i7 Xeon, 2.67 GHz), and a AMD Radeon 4870 512 MB DDR5, and I run Civ5 on high graphics settings, all the way up to huge games. Your new setup should be as good, since you have roughly the same power. You *might* have to pull your resolution down to 1920x1080, but that would be all I would expect, unless your new GPU isn't as good as my three year old one, or the game is more CPU heavy than we think.

(To be clear, the big red flag for a Mac running any game with graphics requirements, is an nVidia GPU. Their Mac drivers suck, and they won't fix them. If you have one of those, run Bootcamp. The ATI/AMD GPUs run much closer to their Windows performance under OS X than the nVidia ones do. Be very leery of Intel GPUs, too. If you want to game on a Mac, get the ATI/AMD model.)

 

[CGPanama]

I agree with Mavfin. About the only thing I would add is you cannot underestimate the value of RAM. When I increased my Macbook Pro to 8 GB everything ran smoother.

 

[Frederico]

You *might* have to pull your resolution down to 1920x1080

1920x1080 is the native resolution of the 21.5" iMac.

 

[Frederico]

See this and this for comments by two users of the 21.5 iMac. But note that the current iMac edition is one year old and is expected to be updated in a while (see http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iMac).

 

[Mavfin]

1920x1080 is the native resolution of the 21.5" iMac.

I was thinking of the 27", which is 2560 by something.

I also have the i3 3.06 GHz 21 or 21.5 inch iMac here, and it runs Civ 5 fine as far as graphics, but it doesn't handle huge games as well as my desktop, only being an i3.

 

[kamex]

See this and this for comments by two users of the 21.5 iMac. But note that the current iMac edition is one year old and is expected to be updated in a while (see http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iMac).

Firstly thanks to everyone for their advice. Especially this. After soom quick reseach it seems that a new range of iMacs are expected June/July, so its probably worth holding off for a while...

 

[Zaimejs]

I have the i5 21.5 iMac with that card you mention. It plays very well. But if you can afford it and hold out for the next generation, I would. I wouldn't mind the next graphics card... whatever it will be.

 

[llamapower]

I have a macbook pro late 2011 with 8 gigs of ram, a 512 MB video card, and i7 quadcore processor.

I can run everything on high in both the mac version and a bootcamp installation with no lag. Hell, I can play everything on medium/moderate on parallels 7 (when I want to stay in OSX but want civ mods) and there's no lag.

Your in for some fun times.

 

[theanimaster]

I have a macbook pro late 2011 with 8 gigs of ram, a 512 MB video card, and i7 quadcore processor.

I can run everything on high in both the mac version and a bootcamp installation with no lag. Hell, I can play everything on medium/moderate on parallels 7 (when I want to stay in OSX but want civ mods) and there's no lag.

Your in for some fun times.

What do "high" graphics look like? Because anti-aliasing isn't working for me and high vs low-medium graphics look pretty much the same.

Did you buy the mac app store version or the steam version?? or the boxed version??

I'm starting to think the mac app store version is castrated ...

 

[AlanH]

I doubt if the Mac App Store version is any different from the Steam one.

I can't see why or how they would reduce performance for the App Store version. It's already limited functionally, of course, in that you don't get access to the Windows version when you buy from Apple.