Civ V on a MacBook Pro?
September 4, 2010 3:40 PM Subscribe
I have a MacBook Pro and want to be able to play Civilization V. Will one of the virtualization programs like BootCamp or Parallels work for this? Also, can the MBP handle the graphics for Civ V?
Thanks!!
Well, first, BootCamp isn't virtualization. It allows for a full-on native installation of Windows for dual-booting.
Parallels and VMWare Fusion are virtualization, which will run Windows inside the Mac OS. Last I checked with this debate, Fusion handled multiple processors better than Parallels, but they're constantly going back and forth in terms of which is best. You'll need a copy of Windows for each to work. You can download 30-day demos on their websites and see which one you like better.
You may consider Crossover Games. Civilizations: Colonization used this for their Mac version of the game. Basically, it's a front end for Wine. I've used it myself, and it does its job well. The easiest way to tell if Civ V will work in Crossover is to wait for the demo, and try it with Crossover. The caveat to that is that I have a few older Windows games that use some pretty intense DRM, and will not work despite me having the legit media at hand.
posted by gc at 3:53 PM on September 4, 2010
Parallels and VMWare Fusion are virtualization, which will run Windows inside the Mac OS. Last I checked with this debate, Fusion handled multiple processors better than Parallels, but they're constantly going back and forth in terms of which is best. You'll need a copy of Windows for each to work. You can download 30-day demos on their websites and see which one you like better.
You may consider Crossover Games. Civilizations: Colonization used this for their Mac version of the game. Basically, it's a front end for Wine. I've used it myself, and it does its job well. The easiest way to tell if Civ V will work in Crossover is to wait for the demo, and try it with Crossover. The caveat to that is that I have a few older Windows games that use some pretty intense DRM, and will not work despite me having the legit media at hand.
posted by gc at 3:53 PM on September 4, 2010
Some version of Civilization is available on Steam, which in some version is available for Mac. Maybe you're lucky.
posted by oxit at 4:00 PM on September 4, 2010
posted by oxit at 4:00 PM on September 4, 2010
I'd love to play Civ V on my Macbook Pro (mid-2007) but even after beefing up the RAM it still has a hard time keeping up with Civ IV, and that's playing it in Boot Camp (i.e. It plays okay, and mostly smooth, but my MBP gets incredibly hot). I'm not optimistic about how Civ V will run. I'm guessing not well.
IMHO, get Steam (free,) buy Civ IV ($20) on Steam, and play that (runs native in OS X now!) to get your fix of Civilization.
posted by InsanePenguin at 5:08 PM on September 4, 2010
IMHO, get Steam (free,) buy Civ IV ($20) on Steam, and play that (runs native in OS X now!) to get your fix of Civilization.
posted by InsanePenguin at 5:08 PM on September 4, 2010
Civ V will probably be coming to Mac (as previous Civ versions did):
Even though I really only went to see this game because I'm such a huge fan, I did get to ask one question for you: when is this game coming out on the Mac? The rep was noncommittal, as you might expect, but he did say that every single previous version of Civilization has eventually come to the Mac, and that Civ V would probably not be an exception.
Civilization V probably Mac-bound (eventually)
posted by mnemonic at 5:08 PM on September 4, 2010
Even though I really only went to see this game because I'm such a huge fan, I did get to ask one question for you: when is this game coming out on the Mac? The rep was noncommittal, as you might expect, but he did say that every single previous version of Civilization has eventually come to the Mac, and that Civ V would probably not be an exception.
Civilization V probably Mac-bound (eventually)
posted by mnemonic at 5:08 PM on September 4, 2010
FWIW, my MBP is 2.33 Core2Duo, 3 gigs RAM, and and ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card. Like fairytale said earlier, if you have a late-model MBP, Civ V may run great; but until we know what you have, we can't really help.
And go the BootCamp route. Virtualization like Parallels won't be doing the game any favors because it won't be able to take full advantage of your hardware.
posted by InsanePenguin at 5:12 PM on September 4, 2010
And go the BootCamp route. Virtualization like Parallels won't be doing the game any favors because it won't be able to take full advantage of your hardware.
posted by InsanePenguin at 5:12 PM on September 4, 2010
Some version of Civilization is available on Steam, which in some version is available for Mac. Maybe you're lucky.
Civ V will not initially be available for Mac on Steam. Presumably once a Mac version is released on disc, it will also show up on Steam, but I am not that patient, personally.
The system requirements for CivV aren't all that intense, and I expect to be able to play it on my 2009 MacBook with a WinXP install via BootCamp. Not so sure if a virtual machine would be a great playing experience, given how the game tends to slow things down as you play for a while.
posted by briank at 5:15 PM on September 4, 2010
Civ V will not initially be available for Mac on Steam. Presumably once a Mac version is released on disc, it will also show up on Steam, but I am not that patient, personally.
The system requirements for CivV aren't all that intense, and I expect to be able to play it on my 2009 MacBook with a WinXP install via BootCamp. Not so sure if a virtual machine would be a great playing experience, given how the game tends to slow things down as you play for a while.
posted by briank at 5:15 PM on September 4, 2010
You might not want to plunk down money yet for a program like crossover games or parallels, because wine runs on mac too. There's also this neat wine bottler program that can make .apps from windows programs. It might not work on wine right away, though, but I imagine it will be sorted out quickly because Civ V is a pretty high-profile game. There's no way to tell until it comes out, though.
posted by wayland at 6:17 PM on September 4, 2010
posted by wayland at 6:17 PM on September 4, 2010
Civ V is in fact available on the Mac version of Steam, as of a few weeks ago I believe.
posted by Aversion Therapy at 7:26 PM on September 4, 2010
posted by Aversion Therapy at 7:26 PM on September 4, 2010
Civ V is in fact available on the Mac version of Steam, as of a few weeks ago I believe.
I think you mean Civ IV. Civ V isn't out yet.
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:04 PM on September 4, 2010
I think you mean Civ IV. Civ V isn't out yet.
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:04 PM on September 4, 2010
For what it's worth, and from what I remember, the Civ IV engine was horribly un-optimized for "modern" hardware with multiple cores, etc. I'd expect Civ V to handle even slightly older computers better than IV if they did their work well.
posted by kcm at 7:13 AM on September 5, 2010
posted by kcm at 7:13 AM on September 5, 2010
FYI, if anyone is still following this thread:
The Porting Team has released a CXZ wrapper for the Windows Steam client. I've used it to successfully buy, install, and run Civ V on my Mac Mini- surprisingly well, in fact.
I have had ZERO luck getting it to run on my 2010 MBP, which unfortunately seems to be par for the course.
Given how smoothly the game runs, I would not be surprised to see a native Mac client in the near future. But, if you're like me and totally jonesing, this should tide you over- a purchased Win license should carry over to a future Mac release on Steam.
posted by mkultra at 9:26 AM on October 4, 2010
The Porting Team has released a CXZ wrapper for the Windows Steam client. I've used it to successfully buy, install, and run Civ V on my Mac Mini- surprisingly well, in fact.
I have had ZERO luck getting it to run on my 2010 MBP, which unfortunately seems to be par for the course.
Given how smoothly the game runs, I would not be surprised to see a native Mac client in the near future. But, if you're like me and totally jonesing, this should tide you over- a purchased Win license should carry over to a future Mac release on Steam.
posted by mkultra at 9:26 AM on October 4, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
(Apple menu, "About This Mac," More Info..., "Model Identifier" on that first pane.)
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 3:44 PM on September 4, 2010