Forums | MacLife

Father of the Bar Mitzvah wrote:

I gather that this MS proprietary code is the main reason that many games are now difficult to port to the Mac platform and is the principle reason preventing multiplayer games to be cross-platform (Civ III being a prime example; lack of good cross-platform MP is the main reason I never looked at Civ III). Noting that the PC system requirements for Civ IV specify “DirectX 9.0c”, a video card with DirectX8 support and DirectX7 compatible sound card, how can a Mac developer approach writing compatible code? I gather there is no Mac compatible version of DirectX, so I assume that you have to use something completely different, yet still allow them to talk to each other. Can you explain what a possible approach might be? How was MP supported in Civ II MPG? For me, the best thing about Civ II MPG was the ability to literally play with people all across the globe and also use the King’s Chat window to chat between moves; when I was actively playing Civ II, I played with a group of Australians and some guys in Europe on a weekly basis! I’d love to see this functionality in the upcoming Civ IV. I know that’s a big question and you may not be able to explain it in this setting.

You've asked a question with a huge answer. Lucky for you, I'm recompiling Civ4 now and I've got 90 minutes to kill while I wait for it to finish. (I wish I was joking.) Let me tackle this one in bits.

First, there are many reasons why games are difficult to bring to the Mac. The largest problem nowadays has to do with third-party libraries that game makers use on the PC side. We can license a PC game and get the code for said game, but if it uses a third-party library, we also have to license that and pray that they'll either have a Mac version or let us have the code for it as well. All too often these library makers charge exorbitant fees (which aren't so exorbitant in the view of a million-dollar budget for a PC or console) without realizing the size and costs for the Mac market, so we're priced out. Other times we can license these libraries, but porting them to the Mac in any reasonable timeframe is problematic because of their size and scope. And other times these companies want to bring them to the Mac themselves, but bungle the job badly and give us either a really buggy library or one that's far behind schedule. Those are mainly the games that never make it to the Mac though.

As for the ones that do, we basically have written code that maps DirectX onto the Mac. In other words, we've essentially reverse-engineered it (not unlike the WINE or WINEX libraries). DirectX really isn't that much of an obstacle for us. One stickler though - DirectPlay maps onto OpenPlay on the Mac because we haven't reverse-engineered the over-the-wire protocols that it uses. Microsoft has threatened in the past to sue over that bit and it's a real pain to reverse-engineer anyway, so everyone has been a bit gunshy about it. This is where it affects Civ3, since it uses DirectPlay and thus we'll only have Mac-to-Mac netplay available.

I don't know how netplay was implemented in Civ2 - maybe it used WinSock (which would mean it was cross-platform). I know Civ4 uses a cross-platform network library, although there are some licensing complications there. Still, the hope is that we'll be able to maintain that.

Was it?  It was long enough ago that I've simply forgotten details (I'm really bad about that).  I'd go digging, just to find out for sure, but I'm about to head out the door to head back to IA for the weekend, so I just don't care enough at this second to prove myself wrong.  So, in the spirit of expecting myself to have gotten confused since then (quite likely), I'll admit that you'r eprobably right and apologize to Brad for my confusion.

That being said, still, thanks to Brad for all his hard work and taking the time to stop by and talk to us gamers.

Pssh, we all know that there is really only 1 game developer on the planet.

Brad Oliver wrote:

You've asked a question with a huge answer. Lucky for you, I'm recompiling Civ4 now and I've got 90 minutes to kill while I wait for it to finish. (I wish I was joking.) Let me tackle this one in bits.  ...BIG snip!....

Thanks for the reply; I knew it would be a long answer! I guess this just firms my general distain for all things PC - and a special to the MS monopoly for not playing nice with other children!

Thinking about  other companies, do you ever have "joint ventures" where ownership of the final code (libraries or the game itself) is shared? I would think this would be attractive to PC shops that want a piece of the Mac pie but don't have the in-house expertise to write/port Mac code in a timely or clean manner.

Well, at least you know your efforts are appreciated and you know where the buying public and fan base hangs out!     Hey, now that I think about it, how would one find out about being a beta-tester for Civ III or IV? I'm sure there are no shortage of volunteers!

Last edited by Father of the Bar Mitzvah (2005-11-08 7:28 am)

Just tuning in to say that I'm really looking forward to this game (my first Civ, in fact), and I also hope that a CD version will be available.  Or at least an installer that accounts for the errors in reading a DVD.  I had so many problems installing UT2k4 that I would be glad to never see another DVD installer again.

Also, I find it really sad that such a small gaming market is denied the chance to play with PC gamers.  Thanks, MS.

lord funk wrote:

Just tuning in to say that I'm really looking forward to this game (my first Civ, in fact), and I also hope that a CD version will be available.  Or at least an installer that accounts for the errors in reading a DVD.  I had so many problems installing UT2k4 that I would be glad to never see another DVD installer again.

It's DVD-only. You'll need a DVD-ROM drive to play.

Also, I find it really sad that such a small gaming market is denied the chance to play with PC gamers.

So do I.

I just picked up the game on a whim. When I saw it had come into the Apple Store, I got all excited and bought it right away. I had a touch of buyer's remorse at first, when I was afraid I had purchased Civ III all over again, but it's completely worth it. It's a better feeling port, and the new scenarios are FUN! I'm in love with Civ III all over again.

I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, as I like to take my own sweet time when I'm playing, and that just wouldn't be nice to an opponent, but I probably will pretty soon. My first priority, though, is defeating those damned Ostrogoths and then sacking Rome!

Great job, Aspyr! Keep up the great work!

P.S. Has anyone figured out a way to launch the game without the disc in? My PowerBook's drive doesn't work, so I have to hook up to my external to launch the game every time. Kind of annoying. I tried making a disc image, but the game seems to be too clever to fall for that trick.

Thinking about buying Civ III complete, but haven't seen it or sale locally and Amazon is just showing the old version of Civ III. Any suggestion of where to shop; especially if anyone is selling for less than $50?

Bat wrote:

Father of the Bar Mitzvah wrote:

Thinking about buying Civ III complete, but haven't seen it or sale locally and Amazon is just showing the old version of Civ III. Any suggestion of where to shop; especially if anyone is selling for less than $50?

$49.95?

You're funny guy Bat!

cosmicosmo wrote:

any way to switch out (cmd-tab like) of this one while it is still running?

Hold down the Command key when you launch the game and choose windowed mode. You'll be able to switch in and out at any time then.

You know after playing Civ III :Complete for a while, I don't know something feels like it is missing...  Perhaps the world map to play on to "rule the world"?

In any case I'm looking at the game, I played it for a while, got to a stalemate with 3 out of the 12 bots I plaid against, together we destroyed the rest, and well it is a decent game, but I don't know... The flare isn't there... I couldn't spend hours a day attemping to play the game, the repetitiveness of the game to me seems to remove the ability to really sit down and enjoy the game...

Not to mention it really does seem you need to micromanage the game to the upteetnth degree...