CivIV Mac vs PC performance

[Machead III]

We all know that it's better to run WoW from your bootcamp partition for significant performances boosts over runnning it on OS X, but is this the case, or the reverse, for CivIV, or is there no real difference?

[topgunn]

The difference in running CivIV using boot camp is much greater than it is even with WoW. Blizzard did a much better job with WoW on the Mac than Aspyr did with CivIV most notably with multi-threaded OpenGL. Not to mention the amount of bugs in the Mac CivIV port. I run WoW in Mac OS because I don't like to switch back and forth but for CivIV, there is not even a decision to be made.

[Yixian]

Wow, I didn't realise! :O

[FleurDuMal]

I've never compared the two versions directly, all I can say is that the OSX version of Civ IV on my 2Ghz CD Macbook w/2GB RAM runs pretty badly, or at least badly enough to mean I haven't played on it for about 8 months.

[Sargiel]

I do know there were some performance issues that were patched a while ago - I would update your install and try again FleurDuMal.

[arkitect]

I have the latest (?) patch installed 1.61 Rev C and towards the mid to end of the game with say 7 civilisations my Mac Pro slows down. In fact the Civ IV "system busy" cursor disappears and I get the Mac spinning Beach ball. Frustrating! I mean this is a machine that eats everything I feed it alive. :p Except Civ IV.

No matter how many processors or RAM or Ghz you throw at this game port it is sloooow. :-(

So I guess I'll have to get a PC version and run it from Boot Camp. Hummpff :(


I do know there were some performance issues that were patched a while ago - I would update your install and try again FleurDuMal.

[Hydra]

WoW runs pretty nicely in OS X nowdays compared to Windows, of course not as good but still I don't even think about booting into Windows.

But CIV4 from what I've experienced runs really horrible in OS X where as in Windows it runs flawlessy. For this game I sadly would have to recommend booting into windows. :(

[FleurDuMal]

I do know there were some performance issues that were patched a while ago - I would update your install and try again FleurDuMal.

I do actually sporadically try with new updates just to see if it's improved.

The worst thing is that I trawled the shops for hours trying to find the Mac version, and eventually found it for £45!! Civ IV (Windows version) is usually going for £15.

I am, from now on, only buying Windows games...

[c-Row]

I have the latest (?) patch installed 1.61 Rev C and towards the mid to end of the game with say 7 civilisations my Mac Pro slows down. In fact the Civ IV "system busy" cursor disappears and I get the Mac spinning Beach ball. Frustrating! I mean this is a machine that eats everything I feed it alive. :p Except Civ IV.

Same here. The game plays nice until the mid-/endgame at which is slows down significantly. It wasn't enough to make me long for Bootcamp and a Windows version, though...

[Sargiel]

What a shame - I'm really disappointed to hear this :( Civ IV was on my list of games to get but I think I'll move it back up the list for a while until these issues are resolved.

Thanks for the feedback!

[c-Row]

If you have a Power PC machine, I would recommend getting Alpha Centauri instead. Won't run on Intel Macs, though... :(

[Sargiel]

If you have a Power PC machine, I would recommend getting Alpha Centauri instead. Won't run on Intel Macs, though... :(

Well .. I do have a 2Ghz G4 Powermac but that's now officially my g/f's so for gaming only my intel iMac is available :)

I'll be getting X3 once I've completed Doom 3 so that will hopefully be enough of a distraction until Civ IV is fixed. I'm actually very surprised at Aspyr - all their other ports I've bought have been excellent.

[chicagdan]

Well .. I do have a 2Ghz G4 Powermac but that's now officially my g/f's so for gaming only my intel iMac is available :)

I'll be getting X3 once I've completed Doom 3 so that will hopefully be enough of a distraction until Civ IV is fixed. I'm actually very surprised at Aspyr - all their other ports I've bought have been excellent.

Yeah, I used to run Civ IV on my G5 iMac, now I run it on my Intel C2D iMac ... it's plenty fast now, but the bugs are unbelievable, worse in the current patch than even the first version and Aspyr is probably NOT coming out with another patch before the next Expansion Pack. It's playable, but late in the game I have to save and restart every five to ten turns because of the crazy screen errors (sometimes the icons go all black, sometimes the screen takes on rainbow shades.)

I'll probably move to the Windows version when the "Beyond The Sword" expansion becomes available next month.

[curiosa863]

I guess this makes my g4 ibook out of the question... guess i'll wait til i get a mbp... and maybe even bootcamp from there!

[dmw007]

I have not yet tried Civ 4 in Windows, but the performance is "ok" in Mac OS X. I have played it on my 2GHz MacBook Pro and performance is alright. System starts out real snappy and goes downhill from there...