Civ 5 on MBA?

[marcperrot]

I'm looking to get one of the new 13" MacBook Airs with 2.0Ghz processor, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD. I'll mainly be using it for basic tasks, with a bit of web development and graphic design. However, I do like to play Civ 5 on occasion and I was wondering if anyone could tell me if the MBA with the specs I'm planning to get will be able to play it, and approximately how well.

Thanks in advance!

 

[dcorban]

Intel video is not officially supported, but I am not sure if that is "it won't work" unsupported, or "it may work, but don't call us for help" unsupported.

 

[acastic]

I'm looking to get one of the new 13" MacBook Airs with 2.0Ghz processor, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD. I'll mainly be using it for basic tasks, with a bit of web development and graphic design. However, I do like to play Civ 5 on occasion and I was wondering if anyone could tell me if the MBA with the specs I'm planning to get will be able to play it, and approximately how well.

Thanks in advance!

It works and works pretty well at that. I also have the Gods & Kings expansion. Currently have everything set in the medium range. No slowdowns so far.

 

[darkheroz]

I finished it on my MBA 2O11

 

[elchorizo]

I'm looking to get one of the new 13" MacBook Airs with 2.0Ghz processor, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD. I'll mainly be using it for basic tasks, with a bit of web development and graphic design. However, I do like to play Civ 5 on occasion and I was wondering if anyone could tell me if the MBA with the specs I'm planning to get will be able to play it, and approximately how well.

Thanks in advance!

I have played a bit on my new 11" Air. It played fine but the graphics were set on pretty low settings. However, I haven't yet got into one of those huge games with many civs in late game where its starts to have crazy slowdown between turns. I'd assume that kind of thing would be worse on the Air.

 

[njp]

I have played a bit on my new 11" Air. It played fine but the graphics were set on pretty low settings. However, I haven't yet got into one of those huge games with many civs in late game where its starts to have crazy slowdown between turns. I'd assume that kind of thing would be worse on the Air.

In my (Windows-PC) experience, the big thing with Civ is Ram, because of what you said - huge maps, lots of units, and that sort of thing. Graphics should always be more or less the same because you always have more or less the same amount to display. But I could of course be wrong.

 

[Nova Sensei]

Does it play okay through OSX? I'm not too keen on dual booting....

 

[njp]

Intel video is not officially supported, but I am not sure if that is "it won't work" unsupported, or "it may work, but don't call us for help" unsupported.

Don't forget that Civ5 is not a game that came out yesterday, and that the old Intel graphics chipsets were absolutely terrible, often lacking features taken for granted in graphics cards. From what I understand the HD3000 is quite okay and HD4000 is actually pretty good - just not very high performance.

Whoever wrote the specs for Civ5 two years ago probably didn't have the hd3k/4k in mind.

 

[Smartie]

I play Civ 5 on my ultimate 13" (only diff from yours is the ssd size and that doesn't matter). It plays great on medium/low settings. Turns can take some time at the end of the game (20 seconds or so if you have many opponents) and some lag in graphics (low fps) if you have everything on medium. In addition, it runs hot with high fans, because the game is heavy on the CPU. I love playing the game and wouldn't hesitate going for the specs you mentioned if you like Civ 5. Have fun!

 

[dcorban]

Even on blistering fast Windows PCs it can take 20-30 second between turns later in the game. The game just isn't that speedy.

 

[Smartie]

I've now got the Gods & Kings expansion and that has not affected the performance in any negative way. Love it.