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SingularityG

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 7, 2012
338
0
On the Mac App Store! How long has it been there? I imagine everyone but me knew about it.:eek:

Here is my money Aspyr and thanks for ruining my life!:)
 

westonm

macrumors member
Jun 19, 2007
77
50
I just saw it myself. I remember it had several performance issues and bugs back in the day, I hope the App Store version is moderately updated -- as even with the bugs I'm interested in playing it again. Although from what I can recall it doesn't seem the version number has been bumped from whatever it was on discs, back in... '06, or whatever it was.
 

Aspyr-Blair

macrumors 6502
Aug 20, 2012
319
35
Austin Tx
On the Mac App Store! How long has it been there? I imagine everyone but me knew about it.:eek:

Here is my money Aspyr and thanks for ruining my life!:)

Haha, you havent missed anything. Its only been on the store for a few hours, surprise! :apple:

We have been working on this re-release for months. Cleaned up a TON of old bugs, and really pushed on performance increases as well. You can now get a city up to 4-500k pop without any performance hitches.

We also completely scrapped the old fixed resolution option. The game now detects your machine's top 4 available native resolutions for your options. SimCity4 on an iMac at 2560x1440 is really something to see :)
 

SingularityG

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 7, 2012
338
0
I just saw it myself. I remember it had several performance issues and bugs back in the day, I hope the App Store version is moderately updated -- as even with the bugs I'm interested in playing it again. Although from what I can recall it doesn't seem the version number has been bumped from whatever it was on discs, back in... '06, or whatever it was.

I also hope this is a fixed version, or without the serious issues, at least. Downloading now.:)

----------

Haha, you havent missed anything. Its only been on the store for a few hours, surprise! :apple:

We have been working on this re-release for months. Cleaned up a TON of old bugs, and really pushed on performance increases as well. You can now get a city up to 4-500k pop without any performance hitches.

We also completely scrapped the old fixed resolution option. The game now detects your machine's top 4 available native resolutions for your options. SimCity4 on an iMac at 2560x1440 is really something to see :)

Blissful!

Thanks Blair!:)

Now, if you'll excuse me...
 

jeanlain

macrumors 68020
Mar 14, 2009
2,430
933
How can the system requirements be so high for a 12-year-old game? :eek:
The PC version requires à pentium III, 256 MB ram and a DX 8.1 card. The Mac version requires a C2D 2.2 GHz with 4GB Ram and a radeon HD 3870/Geforce 8800. How can it not run on, say, even a radeon HD 2XXX?
 

Dirtyharry50

macrumors 68000
May 17, 2012
1,769
183
How can the system requirements be so high for a 12-year-old game? :eek:
The PC version requires à pentium III, 256 MB ram and a DX 8.1 card. The Mac version requires a C2D 2.2 GHz with 4GB Ram and a radeon HD 3870/Geforce 8800. How can it not run on, say, even a radeon HD 2XXX?

Because it is not a 12 year old game, it was just redone and released with significant changes to it including the mentioned display changes. It is also coded for a different operating system using a different graphics API.
 

saturnotaku

macrumors 68000
Mar 4, 2013
1,978
97
@Aspyr-Blair

I have a boxed copy of this game. Is there some way for me to download the update without purchasing again?

Thanks

Andy

I think if you send their support team an e-mail with a photo of the box and/or CD, they'll send you a code to get the update from their store.
 

Cougarcat

macrumors 604
Sep 19, 2003
7,766
2,553
Can someone who has bought this confirm it works with the NAM mod?

Also +1 for seeing this on Steam at some point.
Edit: looks like the SteamDB is showing a Mac version, nice.
 

westonm

macrumors member
Jun 19, 2007
77
50
Having now sunk a few hours into it...

Performance of the graphics engine still isn't super, somewhat slow panning and whatnot. (late '09 iMac, 4850; not a beast by any means) It's perfectly playable though.

I haven't encountered in crashes yet, which is a rather huge step up from my experience with the boxed game.

No idea on if mods work, I wouldn't know how to go about installing them.

it's SimCity, it's not buggy (thus far) and it's on the App Store. <thumb>
 

andydckent

macrumors member
Jun 2, 2009
59
4
Edinburgh, Scotland
I think if you send their support team an e-mail with a photo of the box and/or CD, they'll send you a code to get the update from their store.

I emailed Aspyr but unfortunately they won't update the game. :(

*******, Apr 11 11:32 AM: The Release of SimCity4 Deluxe marks the first digital release of the game since the original release in 2003 (more than a decade ago).
Since a considerable amount of Development time and effort went into making this game available on the AppStore, we cannot give out free or replacement downloads for people who own the disc version of the game.

Thank you.
Aspyr Support
 

Cougarcat

macrumors 604
Sep 19, 2003
7,766
2,553
I emailed Aspyr but unfortunately they won't update the game. :(

Too bad, but it's understandable. It's $5 on Steam all the time, I'll get it then.

No idea on if mods work, I wouldn't know how to go about installing them.

Mods go here: ~/Library/Containers/com.aspyr.simcity4.appstore/Data/Documents/SimCity 4/Plugins

To install NAM you have to use a tool like http://www.kekaosx.com/en/ to unpack the .exe
 

Aspyr-Blair

macrumors 6502
Aug 20, 2012
319
35
Austin Tx
Yes, the Steam release will be in May!

To those who have the old version, apologies for not being able to supply you all with a key. The original boxed release was over a decade ago, and as you all know was coded for the PowerPC, a completely different architecture from what we have now. We spent months on the new compatibility and improvements. In short, this isnt a patch...but a completely new port. The best analogy I have is PS3 to PS4 or similar. Sure, some of the codework can be reused, but its actually a whole other effort to make the jump. I hope you will understand.

Thanks for all the support folks. We are super pumped for this release. My weekend was completely lost to this game. If you have a small child like I do...make sure they are good and fed before launching ;)
 

davecom

macrumors regular
Aug 10, 2009
111
14
Thanks for publishing this. I will purchase it when it comes out on Steam for sure!
 

Aspyr-Blair

macrumors 6502
Aug 20, 2012
319
35
Austin Tx
How can the system requirements be so high for a 12-year-old game? :eek:
The PC version requires à pentium III, 256 MB ram and a DX 8.1 card. The Mac version requires a C2D 2.2 GHz with 4GB Ram and a radeon HD 3870/Geforce 8800. How can it not run on, say, even a radeon HD 2XXX?

Partly because those are the baseline specs for the modern machines available that run the game. Partly because the game is actually quite the hog. Once you get a big city going, that is a LOT of stuff happening on the screen at once.
 

emio

macrumors member
Mar 3, 2014
34
5
How is this new version of Sim City running on a iMac Late 2012 with GeForce 650M (2.9GHz, 8GB RAM)? The Aspyr website says:

Supported Video Cards:
NVIDIA GeForce® 8800, 9400, 9600, GT 120, 320M, 330M, 640M, 650M, 660M, 675MX, 680MX, 750M, 755M, 775M, 780M
But how is the performance? It's fully playable with no stuttering?
 

Aspyr-Blair

macrumors 6502
Aug 20, 2012
319
35
Austin Tx
How is this new version of Sim City running on a iMac Late 2012 with GeForce 650M (2.9GHz, 8GB RAM)? The Aspyr website says:


But how is the performance? It's fully playable with no stuttering?

Performance is of course always subjective, but we think its quite good...especially on the newer iMacs.

SC4D has always been a bit of a resource hog, especially when panning across a large city. We've done a ton of work to tweak performance and the difference between the old version or even the current PC version vs. this new release is night and day. :apple:
 

emio

macrumors member
Mar 3, 2014
34
5
Performance is of course always subjective, but we think its quite good...especially on the newer iMacs.
More RAM ist better, isn't it?

On which Mac do you play SC4? Playing SC4 on a iMac 27" must be delightful. :D
 

Aspyr-Blair

macrumors 6502
Aug 20, 2012
319
35
Austin Tx
More RAM ist better, isn't it?

On which Mac do you play SC4? Playing SC4 on a iMac 27" must be delightful. :D

More RAM never hurts, but this isnt a 64bit app, so the effectiveness of RAM is essentially capped at 8GB.

Yes, me and the publishing team have our own 27" rig we play on in the office :p

I took that same machine out to MacWorld to show an early build to press folks, and everyone came away really impressed. Its just stunning on a screen that size in that resolution. :apple:
 

Cougarcat

macrumors 604
Sep 19, 2003
7,766
2,553
People on SimTropolis are reporting that NAM doesn't work, which is a deal breaker...hopefully it or SimCity can be updated. I'll stick with the Wine version for now.
 
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