I don't know if this is old news, but I just got this confirmed from Aspyr customer service. Hopefully this will help answer some questions about gaming on SR MBPs.
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Civ 4 on 8600M Officially Unsupported
- Thread starter incoherent1
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dunno if this applies but do you think poor performance in COD2, UT2003/4 demos are because of this same issue as Civ4 and Sims2?
if so... my mind will be put greatly to rest
if so... my mind will be put greatly to rest
What a crappy piece of software Civ IV on Mac is ... Aspyr should be ashamed of themselves for the horrendous, buggy software they refuse to patch. Next time guys, just dump it into Cider and make the Intel port work. It doesn't run well on PPC anyway.
dunno if this applies but do you think poor performance in COD2, UT2003/4 demos are because of this same issue as Civ4 and Sims2?
if so... my mind will be put greatly to rest
CoD2 demo is UB, so that might be because of the new hardware, but UT2k3/4 demos are both PPC,so those will understandibly be slower than usual.
I love Civ 4 but it's the most buggy game I ever played. Fortunately most of the bugs are graphic or sound bugs and don't crash the game. It feels like the port was either rushed or very little resources were alloted to the project. A shame, it's such a good game.
Unfortunately, Civ 4 was the first Mac game I ever bought, and will also be the last. A truly awful piece of software. Why on Earth should we pay three times as much for the game and get half the performance. Garbage.
Sorry, should point out that the game is great, its the conversion thats crap!
Sorry, should point out that the game is great, its the conversion thats crap!
Aspy's Response..
Here is the responce I got from aspyr, doesn't look good for all aspyr games.
Hello, Jonathan.
At this time, we are aware of issues that occur on the new MacBook Pros with nVidia GeForce 8600 video cards. This machine was released a very short time ago, with a brand new video card, with a brand new type of chipset, to the Macintosh computer line, and is officially unsupported with all games at this time.
However, we are working to resolve this and to bring affected games up to speed. Though no timeframe is available right now, we hope to be able to provide full support to the new MacBook Pro in the near future.
Have a good day!
If you are affected by this please log a ticket with Aspyr.. Not that they will do much other than close your ticket. But I'm hoping the more people that complain the faster we may get a patch..
http://support.aspyr.com/
Here is the responce I got from aspyr, doesn't look good for all aspyr games.
Hello, Jonathan.
At this time, we are aware of issues that occur on the new MacBook Pros with nVidia GeForce 8600 video cards. This machine was released a very short time ago, with a brand new video card, with a brand new type of chipset, to the Macintosh computer line, and is officially unsupported with all games at this time.
However, we are working to resolve this and to bring affected games up to speed. Though no timeframe is available right now, we hope to be able to provide full support to the new MacBook Pro in the near future.
Have a good day!
If you are affected by this please log a ticket with Aspyr.. Not that they will do much other than close your ticket. But I'm hoping the more people that complain the faster we may get a patch..
http://support.aspyr.com/
Update
A friend of mine posted an update to this problem on my blog. Looks like Aspyr is blaming apple now, but are saying we may see resolution with the Macbook Pro Update that was released yesterday.
excerpt:
TnT
"Email Response #1:
We are currently working diligently with Apple to get these issues resolved. Since none of our titles were ever tested or approved for play on The Nvidia 8600 that is in the new Macbook Pros, we cannot support any of our games on these machines at this time
If you have not done so, you can subscribe to our newsletter (https://www.aspyr.com/news/newsletter_signup), which is sent out via email on a monthly basis. This newsletter is where we announce new projects. We also have a project status page at our website that shows what is being worked on.
With Apple constantly releasing new hardware it is impossible for us to develop games that are guarantied to work on any future hardware configurations. With that in mind, it is a good idea to wait a couple of weeks before purchasing any new software for brand new machines. It is also a good idea to contact the software developer to see if there are any problems with any software you are considering purchasing for a brand new machine.
Again, I assure you that we are working hard with Apple to get these issues worked out. (at this time it appears that this is being caused by errors in the first generation drivers that apple is using)
Thanks for your patience.
Have a nice day."
Sounded a little annoyed to me - I imagine they have had many, many complaints about this already. Although this does shed light on some new information. Aka - It's Apple's fault.
Email #2:
"Apple just released this update that supposedly adresses some driver issues for your computer:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookprosoftwareupdate10.html
Maybe it will help!"
At least they are enthusiastic about telling me to PFO. I will be definitely checking up on this update today!
I'll test tonight when I get home and let you guys know.
A friend of mine posted an update to this problem on my blog. Looks like Aspyr is blaming apple now, but are saying we may see resolution with the Macbook Pro Update that was released yesterday.
excerpt:
TnT
"Email Response #1:
We are currently working diligently with Apple to get these issues resolved. Since none of our titles were ever tested or approved for play on The Nvidia 8600 that is in the new Macbook Pros, we cannot support any of our games on these machines at this time
If you have not done so, you can subscribe to our newsletter (https://www.aspyr.com/news/newsletter_signup), which is sent out via email on a monthly basis. This newsletter is where we announce new projects. We also have a project status page at our website that shows what is being worked on.
With Apple constantly releasing new hardware it is impossible for us to develop games that are guarantied to work on any future hardware configurations. With that in mind, it is a good idea to wait a couple of weeks before purchasing any new software for brand new machines. It is also a good idea to contact the software developer to see if there are any problems with any software you are considering purchasing for a brand new machine.
Again, I assure you that we are working hard with Apple to get these issues worked out. (at this time it appears that this is being caused by errors in the first generation drivers that apple is using)
Thanks for your patience.
Have a nice day."
Sounded a little annoyed to me - I imagine they have had many, many complaints about this already. Although this does shed light on some new information. Aka - It's Apple's fault.
Email #2:
"Apple just released this update that supposedly adresses some driver issues for your computer:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookprosoftwareupdate10.html
Maybe it will help!"
At least they are enthusiastic about telling me to PFO. I will be definitely checking up on this update today!
I'll test tonight when I get home and let you guys know.
I know this doesn't help much after the fact, but I've heard that it's better to buy the PC version and run it on Windows (on your Mac, of course), because it gives you access to all the PC mods and such. It's also available through Steam, which I'm a huge fan of.
Just my two cents.
Just my two cents.
I really don't understand this crap. Either you support OpenGL, or you don't. If Aspyr is not calling OpenGL correctly, or otherwise using hardware specific hacks, shame on them. If Apple has not provided a completely 100% solid OpenGL implementation in its new MBP video drivers, shame on them. But SOMEBODY needs to take the blame here.
I agree, Civ 4 is a great game...if only it were not for the bugs that plague the Mac OS version.
The update helps a great deal with stability on Civ IV, but I am still experiencing random crashes during different parts of the game. Also, there has been some random screen flickering at different parts.
As for CoD2, the update has made it a little more responsive. The frame rate monitor is more accurate now, but it still seems sluggish. Reducing the resolution, etc, helps somewhat, but the performance is not what I expected of with such a video card. It's sad when the ATI x1600 in the old MBPs beats the new NVIDIA 8600m card.
Totally agree, COD2 used to work great on my ATIx1600 card, now even with the Firmware 1.3 update, it still has a jerkyness to it, even at low resolutions. I have run it in Bootcamp too, and even in native XP, it runs bad. Seems Apple have fully skimped on writing the drivers properly! My kingdom for an ATI card again with drivers written by the maker, and not built crappily by Apple
Well, if CoD2 runs pretty badly under XP, I doubt it's completely a driver issue. The drivers were only written by Apple for the OS X portion. The drivers included with BootCamp were pretty much stock NVIDIA drivers. Hmm, seems like we have a case of some bad cards here.
Hang on, I thought that the drivers were custom written by Apple with source from NVIDIA? Thats why, for all the mobile cards, NVIDIA tell you to get the drivers from the PC maker? Therefore I'd say that it was Apple that hadn't spent enought time compiling the drivers properly....
They do write generic drivers for their graphics cards, you know. There's not really much to be changed from the reference drivers NVIDIA writes for the 8600 line and the drivers Apple distributes, if anything. In addition, the MBP is pretty much a stock Intel board/NVIDIA graphics machine. As such, Apple changed very little, and it's highly unlikely that the reference driver base Apple used would be seriously flawed. NVIDIA has a reputation to protect with its mobile cards, so they test their drivers much more than Apple ever could. Combined with the fact that you're dealing with two completely platforms, the problem seems less of a driver problem and more of a hardware.
But as we all know, anything is possible.
Am I the only person who has never had any issued with Civilization 4 or the Sims 2? The only Aspyr game I ever had trouble with was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Oh and SimCity 4, which worked alright on my old PowerBook, but can't run for crap on my MacBook Pro, and that crappy Universal Patch made it worse.
I've experienced no "bugs" in Civilization IV, but I've indeed experienced super-bad performance in general. The game slows down to such a halt that sometimes I don't even see animation during gameplay; just units moving from one square to the other. I'm running on a 2Ghz Core Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM. Inexcusably bad performance for a machine of that technical prowess.
@gwohl
I'm seeing similar issues, but on my MacBook--are your graphics settings on high? I've found that turning everything off doesn't actually make things look worse--a lot of the Civ IV graphic/performance stuff doesn't impact the way I play at all. I'd strongly suggest turning off pretty much everything. I guarantee it'll run better and you'll be surprised how little you miss the other things, like "Combat Zoom" and such.
Wow. 5 Days after I happily buy the CivIV and CivIV Warlords games, 1 month after happily buying my macbookpro and thinking "well, good thing that games such as Quake 4 and Age of Empires III are coming out for Mac, and good thing that this baby here under my arm is a blast in gaming, because, look at this damn video card and this RAM! 8600m gt, 2GB, i dont need anything else to play some games in high settings! whoohooo", i find out that the bastards let the game buggy like this....
I had no time for 5 days, i only read the manuals. The day before yesterday I finally installed the game. And guess what? I don't see the faces of the Leaders, when much I can see the teeth or clothes. When I found a wonder or a religion or whatever and those short animations come with a close up in a city, the bible support is incorrectly displayed or a candle's flame is burning a couple of centimeters away from it, or those black shadows appear instead of... something else! I try to see if i can get some drivers for the graphics card and find out im such a newbie, theres no such thing for mac os, we dont need this stuff! i go to aspyr support and open a ticket explaining the problem. and then i look for a forum. i come here and i see many people have the same problem, and have had it for a while. wow, this really cheers me UP!
Damn! Open tickets everybody, I didn't pay 80 for a game which is full of bugs and made by people who just won't patch it already!
man, im eased up cause i know my macbookpro aint banged up, but im so pissed off at aspyr now.... even APPLE should press them to patch and fix everything, the biggest triumph from Windows against Apple is the gaming advantadge, and I don't see anyone but Asypr, EA, or even Microsoft doing games for Mac...
thank you for the post!
I had no time for 5 days, i only read the manuals. The day before yesterday I finally installed the game. And guess what? I don't see the faces of the Leaders, when much I can see the teeth or clothes. When I found a wonder or a religion or whatever and those short animations come with a close up in a city, the bible support is incorrectly displayed or a candle's flame is burning a couple of centimeters away from it, or those black shadows appear instead of... something else! I try to see if i can get some drivers for the graphics card and find out im such a newbie, theres no such thing for mac os, we dont need this stuff! i go to aspyr support and open a ticket explaining the problem. and then i look for a forum. i come here and i see many people have the same problem, and have had it for a while. wow, this really cheers me UP!
Damn! Open tickets everybody, I didn't pay 80 for a game which is full of bugs and made by people who just won't patch it already!
man, im eased up cause i know my macbookpro aint banged up, but im so pissed off at aspyr now.... even APPLE should press them to patch and fix everything, the biggest triumph from Windows against Apple is the gaming advantadge, and I don't see anyone but Asypr, EA, or even Microsoft doing games for Mac...
thank you for the post!
What about every Blizzard game made?
Wish they made any games I wanted to play but nontheless.