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pertusis1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 25, 2010
455
161
Texas
I recently downloaded Civ 5 campaign edition. The gameplay improvements are great, but the real kicker is that it plays about 5 times faster than it used to. I fired up my 'activity monitor', and sure enough, the game now uses multicore processors properly. I just thought I'd point this out in this forum as it is an enjoyable game, but was almost completely unplayable before.
 

txa1265

macrumors 65816
Aug 15, 2002
1,030
278
Corning, NY
Awesome ... just reinstalled on my MBP. Hadn't played since last year, wanted to get back to it - looks like I picked the right time! Thanks for the post!
 

pertusis1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 25, 2010
455
161
Texas
Ok, I had a chance to try it on my 2012 mac mini 2.6 with 16 gb ram. Even on a huge map, it performs smoothly.

It begs the question - why didn't they do this before?!

Now to try on my 2010 13" macbook pro (intel 3000 level graphics)
 

Miguel Cunha

macrumors 6502
Sep 14, 2012
387
102
Braga, Portugal
Definitely better!

I've had Civilization 5, from some previous versions, and this update really excels.

I was playing in fast machine. Still, the game wasn't fluid and always made me wonder about the system requirements which the machine clearly surpassed, because they didn't match the actual game experience.
But I had no major problems, I just had to reduce many detail settings.

All that is gone with this update.

Thank you to the developers for their great job and you guys, for this thread.
 

txa1265

macrumors 65816
Aug 15, 2002
1,030
278
Corning, NY
It begs the question - why didn't they do this before?!

Actually it DOESN'T.

It tells you that in a massive strategy game like this it is incredibly hard to develop the engine, the turn-based system with combat and extensive AI personalities, and to get it all running reasonably well. But that once the core content is in place the DLC and expansion guys can work on content while the engine and graphics guys can further optimize things.
 

davecom

macrumors regular
Aug 10, 2009
111
14
I haven't seen the update come up in Steam. How do you check what version you have in Steam?
 

txa1265

macrumors 65816
Aug 15, 2002
1,030
278
Corning, NY
I haven't seen the update come up in Steam. How do you check what version you have in Steam?

Right click the game to get 'Properties', choose the Updates tab, then 'Update History' and you will see the updates. That is as close as it gets ...
 

thekingofnerds

macrumors regular
Jun 26, 2013
153
0
Good news indeed!

As far as why it wasn't done before, there's a mixture of possible reasons:

Lead engineers will get traded around projects all the time. This is especially true with small developers such as Firaxis. I bet they only have one or two people capable of performing low-level optimizations in their core code. You have to remember Xcom was also in development alongside Civ 5. After Xcom they probably had them working on other yet-to-be-released games, etc.

I often run into this problem with my own job. As soon as I get something "working" the powers-that-be move me to another project before I have time to properly optimize it.

Smaller companies are also vulnerable to outside pressures and strict release schedules. ID software is quite similar to Firaxis. If you watch some of John Carmack's keynotes he often talks about the pressure from outside influences forcing them to to get things done ASAP, at the expense of quality. I believe he talked about this extensively at Quakecon last year (or possibly 2011)
 

macgames

macrumors member
Apr 12, 2012
55
0
Brilliant news! Hopefully this means I can now play it without lags & without burning my knees from the overheated Mac!
 

davecom

macrumors regular
Aug 10, 2009
111
14
Right click the game to get 'Properties', choose the Updates tab, then 'Update History' and you will see the updates. That is as close as it gets ...

Yeah been there and it's blank... makes me think they haven't updated the Steam client yet.

----------

Yeah been there and it's blank... makes me think they haven't updated the Steam client yet.

Actually finding the actual Civ 5 app in the application support folder shows that it is version 1.3.1
 

pertusis1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 25, 2010
455
161
Texas
faster indeed

Well, I finally found time to install it on my 2010 Macbook Pro 13" with the '3000' series on board video chip (no dedicated video card). On the largest map size, it was still smooth well into the mid-game. Granted, the computer does have a SSD and 16 GB of ram, but still - pretty incredible given the lack of real graphics card.
 

thekingofnerds

macrumors regular
Jun 26, 2013
153
0
Finally got around to trying civ 5 again and man, what a difference this patch makes. My mac mini's fans didn't kick on once through a game.

Before they would have been screeching after 10 minutes. Turns are much quicker, etc. Very nice.
 

Plutonius

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2003
9,019
8,383
New Hampshire, USA
Well, I finally found time to install it on my 2010 Macbook Pro 13" with the '3000' series on board video chip (no dedicated video card). On the largest map size, it was still smooth well into the mid-game. Granted, the computer does have a SSD and 16 GB of ram, but still - pretty incredible given the lack of real graphics card.

It must be the 16GB of RAM. My 2010 Macbook pro 15" (330M video )with 4GB of RAM has problems later in the game.
 
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