should the new iMacs be able to play civilization IV? UPDATE WITH FIX

[erandall38]

Should the new iMacs have any problems with games?
How good is the card in there. Mine is the 24" 2.4 so the card with 256 vram.

On the civilization box it recommends only 128 vram, but a 9600 or better ati radeon.

How does this compare to the iMacs card. Obviously the iMacs vram can handle it. But for some reason when I play civilization it gets black streaks across it sometimes for small moments it definitely looks like it could be something with the video card.
Would calibrating the screen help, that was a suggestion from someone, but I have absolutley no clue what that means or how to do it to fix my situation.

THanks for any replies.

 

[iW00t]

It is sluggish on my MacBook Pro with a 8600 (256mb)

I think it will murder the 2400 and at best be sort of playable on the 2600 cards.

It is quite annoying to actually try and figure out which computer plays Civ smoothly.

 

[Queso]

My iMac G5 with X600 plays it fine providing I don't go above the Normal world size. Any larger than that and it slows to a crawl in the later stages of the game.

So if an X600 with 128MB VRAM can handle it, I'd say the new iMacs will be fine, although I would suspect Aspyr may need to work with Apple on another "Graphics Update" to remove the glitches.

It's unfortunately not the best ported game out there graphics wise.

 

[erandall38]

so these random choppy black streaks are not a bad graphics card or a bad game its just how it is?

 

[iW00t]

so these random choppy black streaks are not a bad graphics card or a bad game its just how it is?

Ahh... I thought I was the only one..

 

[erandall38]

Well no your not.
But on my MBP is runs smoothly with now black streaks, but I have noticed at times the cities will be black for a little bit when you are a certain distance out.

Are you any good at this game and understand everything?

I just got it bc it looked like the best at the Apple store... wow its hard, I mean there is just a lot of stuff to learn I guess.

 

[RoedeOrm]

Will the windows version of CivIV be more playable? On the new iMac that is, through bootcamp and Vista/XP. CivIV is the only game I care about and I care a lot. But I do not want to buy a PC only to play one game.

 

[Nick012]

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't run flawlessly. Its perfectly playable on my macbook (some slowdown when zooming to places and such but its turn based so that doesn't bother me at all). It does occasionaly go black randomly, until now I thought it was the computer getting hot but perhaps its just a glitch. If the imac can't run it theres something seriously wrong. Good game though, the easiest setting is WAY easier than the easiest in Civ III but once you get 1/3 of the way up the scale its as hard as I remember. Stupid aztecs.... declaring war on me for no reason...its 1470AD..why do you have tanks...ARE THEY HELICOPTERS....*resigns*

 

[kevinbal]

I've got a 2.2Ghz SR Macbook Pro and Civ IV (the latest expansion pack) plays flawlessly under windows. Believe it or not, its the primary reason I installed xp on this machine....

Anyways, the new iMacs should have zero problems under windows and bootcamp, sounds like its just the mac version that is flakey - not really surprised, most of the mac ports aren't that good

 

[erandall38]

Will the windows version of CivIV be more playable? On the new iMac that is, through bootcamp and Vista/XP. CivIV is the only game I care about and I care a lot. But I do not want to buy a PC only to play one game.

I would think you would be fine. My buddy did a little test for me on the this random black streaks and such. After playing for four hours, yes four, he said the black streaks only happened about 5 times and for about 8 seconds at the most. It did not disrupt game play and he could still see everything.

I called Apple care and they said if it was a graphics card problem other things would be acting funny as well. So I should check their website and see if the game company has came out with a patch to fix it yet, which is likely just as other games do this too.

 

[erandall38]

Update

UPDATE:

I found out it was running on the completely wrong resolution. If you go into the game and change the resolution to match what your iMac is running for resolution absolutely no problems at all!!

 

[phillipjfry]

UPDATE:

I found out it was running on the completely wrong resolution. If you go into the game and change the resolution to match what your iMac is running for resolution absolutely no problems at all!!

Anyone else want to confirm this before I get this game?

 

[Queso]

UPDATE:

I found out it was running on the completely wrong resolution. If you go into the game and change the resolution to match what your iMac is running for resolution absolutely no problems at all!!

That's interesting, since I've always found that using +TAB to return to the desktop for whatever reason means that the game does slow down when you bring it back up. I wonder whether the slowdown would also be fixed by matching the resolutions prior to starting the game up.