Civ on Mac

[mkorin]

Has anyone tried using the parellels software to run Civ on a Mac. I'm going to try it, but I'd appreciate comments from any who have gone there before.

Mike

[Blaupanzer]

Not a big fan of the Mac, but the company seems much more adaptable than MS.

[wodan11]

I believe CIV was released for the Mac.

[Jaybe]

BtS was not released for Mac, and it has been declared that it WILL not be. Besides, the only modding you can do in the Mac version is with the xml (those dll libraries just aren't done), and there is no SDK for the Mac either.

For civ, it is just better to go with (to me) the inferior platform. From what I've read (at Ars Technica, for instance), Parallels Desktop and Fusion work fairly well UNLESS you are playing games. Boot Camp would probably work much better, but since I have a decent PC I have not taken the plunge ... I'm just not the computer hobbiest that I used to be. I got a new iMac (2.33GH dual core/4GB/ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256MB) about 4 months ago.

[Blaupanzer]

New iMac and you haven't tested it for Civ? You are falling off in the computer hobbyist category. It's okay, real life imposes on all of us.

[wodan11]

When I had a Mac, CIV was one of the few good games that was released for it. In general, I would think that a windows emulator is a bad idea. Games have a hard enough time running in real Windows, let alone an emulated OS.

The best solution for gamers is to buy a PC purely for gaming.

[mkorin]

I have about 2.5 hours on the train everyday and play Civ on my work laptop during this time. Since I'm thinking of moving the company to Mac Books, I am going to test the parallels software and will report on performance. If not, I'll just buy the Mac version of IV and loss out on BTS.

Mike

[wodan11]

Yeah that was pretty much the reason I played CIV on my Mac back when, as well. It was a "time filler" on a work machine.

[Boracks]

Buy the macs, the latest version of the Mac OX (Leopard, or 10.5) comes with Bootcamp. This lets you install windows (I recommend XP 32 bit version) and have a dual boot machine. Run CIV on the windows side, everything else on the mac side.

[mkorin]

You mean I don't need parallels?

Mike

[Jaybe]

No, you don't need Parallels Desktop or Fusion, either of which would allow you to run Mac OS and Windows at the same time.

With Boot Camp however, you boot up whichever OS you want, and you have to restart the computer to switch from one to the other.
ADDENDUM: But as I mentioned earlier, it will be much better for your game playing AND YOU ALREADY HAVE IT; just use Boot Camp Assistant (located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder). Of course, you have to provide your own Windows OS.

[mkorin]

I am happy to report that BTS works perfectly (so far) on parellels. Took a little getting used to the different mouse commands, but so far I'm loving my Mac book and I still have BTS to play.

Mike

[Jaybe]

AWESOME! Describe the game size & speed please, mkorin ... along with a note of how it went after the game was finished.

[mkorin]

Epic, Huge, Maze 2 tiles wide. I've only played for a couple hours so far, but everything works and I haven't had any problems. We'll see what happens when I get to the 1 gig save point.

[mkorin]

I almost had it finished and my scratched up disk no longer is recognized when I try to play. So I will probably just buy the Mac version. However, for the sake of anyone else moving to a Mac, using Parrallels, BTS and the latest patches (official & unofficial). It worked fine.

Mike