Stonegate said:
Are you telling me I'm going to have to upgrade?
I have a 1 GHz AGP G4 and a GeForce 4MX 32 MByte video card. As Brad has indicated, my system is below the performance threshold where lots of PC players are having trouble. I do not expect my system to be able to run Civ4. If mine won't hack it then yours certainly won't.
I have had this system for six years, and it works fine for everything I do today. Now, I am either going to have to buy a new Mac or ignore Civ4 and stick with Civ3. I have a real problem with the thought of having to replace a perfectly seviceable Mac *simply* to play a game that's a bit of an enhancement to the one I can play today. Heck, I only play Civ3 maybe ten times a year
$50 for the software would be fine, but $1500 minimum for a new Mac makes Civ4 a *very* expensive Civ3 upgrade.
Depends what else you need the Mac to do, IMHO. I would never let one game dictate what Mac I purchase.
Personally, I think it sucks that a turn-based strategy game has such stratospheric minimum hardware requirements. I suspect the only excuse is that it uses the same software architecture as the fast real-time games. As I've said elsewhere, PC users are accustomed to replacing their video cards and/or complete systems every few months, so maybe Firaxis can get away with demanding high end hardware. However, Mac users tend to keep their more-costly hardware for longer, and I can't believe you and I are the only potential customers that Aspyr could lose because of this.
*IF* I replace my Mac I will get a new Intel-based system rather than a G5 or a faster G4, simply because any new investment I make will have to be as future-proof as my existing one has been, and Intel is Apple's future. But really, Civ4 cannot be my sole justification for doing so, and it's difficult to come up with another at the moment.