EA's Sim City for Mac release pushed to August as game quality issues continue
Game makers Electronic Arts and Maxis delivered some bad news for Mac gamers on Thursday, alerting them that the release of the Mac version of SimCity has been delayed until August.
SimCity was originally set to land on the Mac on June 11, giving Mac gamers a chance to experience the gameplay that had garnered EA some three million units sold when the title first released for PCs in March. A post on the SimCity blog, though, dispelled that notion, explaining that the quality of the game was an issue:
Maxis rewrote the entire software renderer for the Mac version of SimCity, using OpenGL in order to make sure it would run smoothly. It allows for competition and collaboration between players, even if one is on a Mac and the other a PC.
Thursday's delay announcement was just the latest in a series of problems for the popular title. SimCity launched to poor reviews and widespread complaints over EA's decision to require a persistent Internet connection in order for the game to function. EA also lacked the server capacity to handle the heavy user load, resulting in many customers being unable to access the game shortly after its release.
SimCity was originally set to land on the Mac on June 11, giving Mac gamers a chance to experience the gameplay that had garnered EA some three million units sold when the title first released for PCs in March. A post on the SimCity blog, though, dispelled that notion, explaining that the quality of the game was an issue:
To make up for the delay, EA and Maxis are extending the availability of the SimCity Launch Park to all players that have purchased the Mac version.[W]e are announcing that we are moving the release date of the Mac version of SimCity to August. We have made this tough decision because we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet. We want to ensure the Mac is a great experience for our players and that is why we are taking more time.
Maxis rewrote the entire software renderer for the Mac version of SimCity, using OpenGL in order to make sure it would run smoothly. It allows for competition and collaboration between players, even if one is on a Mac and the other a PC.
Thursday's delay announcement was just the latest in a series of problems for the popular title. SimCity launched to poor reviews and widespread complaints over EA's decision to require a persistent Internet connection in order for the game to function. EA also lacked the server capacity to handle the heavy user load, resulting in many customers being unable to access the game shortly after its release.
Comments
In every case, without exception, the game runs better under Windows on the same hardware. In some cases, on my hardware, the game needs higher specs than I have for OS X (DiRT for example won't run on my GT330m in my 2010 MBP) but does so just fine in Windows.
I've had twitter exchanges with developers that tell me the issue is with nVidia, offering poor and buggy drivers. However I've also know that Apple won't allow GPU drivers between OS X point releases, and often not even in smaller releases sometimes, so if nVidia ship a slow driver for a particular chipset, you're stuck with it.
Anyway, that was a long was to saying EA are probably finding it very hard to get this game to run acceptably on a Mac. OS X needs to avoid becoming a slouch.
Who wants to play 'Sim City' when 'The Last of Us' for PS3 has garnered over twenty-five "Perfect 10 out of 10's" from numerous game reviewing sites!
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/the-last-of-us
I know which one will be occupying my time in the near future.
I wish Apple would remove the graphics issues from the equation somehow. For the last few decades most of my Mac related hardware problems have been either NVidia cards or their drivers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GTR
Meh.
Who wants to play 'Sim City' when 'The Last of Us' for PS3 has garnered over twenty-five "Perfect 10 out of 10's" from numerous game reviewing sites!
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/the-last-of-us
I know which one will be occupying my time in the near future.
Looks like another stupid zombie game. What is with all this stupid shit about zombies? Resident Evil was the only cool game and now even that is all played out.
Have fun playing your zombie game.
That's the one complaint I've heard about macs. Gaming is just not as good on them. Everyone either has a PC or tries running it in bootcamp.
I'm sure when you get it working though it looks beautiful on the screen
That's funny. All the reviews I've read pretty much trashed it. Even GameTrailers only gave it a 7. It would probably be fine if it were anything but a NaughtyDog game. Depressing story, horrible shooting and cover mechanics, etc bog down what could have been a perfect game.
I play eve online anyway and it runs fine on a intel graphics 4000 macbook. Its a pretty visual intensive game
But have looked for to co oping the new sim city. Will hold out til september
Btw I also played this via VMWARE before the Mac beta. It ran acceptably there on non-recent hardware.
So all this talk of GPU drivers is way off the mark for this game.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s!ke
Looks like another stupid zombie game. What is with all this stupid shit about zombies? Resident Evil was the only cool game and now even that is all played out.
Have fun playing your zombie game.
Are you accusing me of not having any braaaaaaiiiins?
That's funny. All the reviews I've read pretty much trashed it. Even GameTrailers only gave it a 7. It would probably be fine if it were anything but a NaughtyDog game. Depressing story, horrible shooting and cover mechanics, etc bog down what could have been a perfect game.[/QUOTE]
I think you need to start reading better review sites.
Or maybe start reading.
Apart from the fact that you appear to bitch and whine about everything, I'm starting to see a pattern in your behaviour.
It's definitely not worth the wait. Even with the the online issues going away, the basic mechanics of the game are incredibly flawed. It simply isn't a very good game under the pretty graphics.
I agree with GTR, the Last of Us is a very very good game though. Worth checking out if you own a PS3. Its Metacritic score is a ridiculous 96 at the moment.
I would love to play rome total war 2... But I bet no current mac will be able to handle the prick (hypothetical mac version).
I just checked out the Gametrailers review and they quoted, "This is one of Naughty Dogs finest. We're not going to put a number on this. I just want to give it the highest accolades I can."
I wish you would stop posting your imagination online. It's taking up space that could be used by genuine interwebz.
The platform performance disparity with most EA games is due to their use of Crossover, which translates DirectX commands on the fly. So you're basically running EA games through a low-level Windows emulator.
I am impressed they are rewriting Sim City in OpenGL, but it would have been easier to make it OpenGL on Windows in the first place. That's what Blizzard does with all their games, which sometimes run smoother on similarly specced Macs.
GTR
Meh.
Who wants to play 'Sim City' when 'The Last of Us' for PS3 has garnered over twenty-five "Perfect 10 out of 10's" from numerous game reviewing sites!
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/the-last-of-us
I know which one will be occupying my time in the near future.
On what planet is that helpful or relevant? It's worse than the Mac-heads who troll PC support forums:
"This DLL file keeps corrupting after I launch the program in windowed mode. How can I fix it?"
"Get a Mac!! LOLOLOL"
Originally Posted by GTR
Who wants to play 'Sim City' when 'The Last of Us' for PS3 has garnered over twenty-five "Perfect 10 out of 10's" from numerous game reviewing sites!
You realize those are paid reviews, right? The game isn't good.
Originally Posted by s!ke
Looks like another stupid zombie game. What is with all this stupid shit about zombies? Resident Evil was the only cool game and now even that is all played out.
Have fun playing your zombie game.
"STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!" Seriously, man? Come the heck off it.
Originally Posted by iRoeBUC
Lets hope WWDC brings Mac OS 11 fixes for gaming and graphics cards.
WWDC will not bring OS XI, nor will it bring "fixes for gaming".
Originally Posted by Vorsos
The platform performance disparity with most EA games is due to their use of Crossover, which translates DirectX commands on the fly. So you're basically running EA games through a low-level Windows emulator.
Thought they used Cider.
Not that you'd want to play an EA game in the first place.
Tallest Skil
Vorsos
The platform performance disparity with most EA games is due to their use of Crossover, which translates DirectX commands on the fly. So you're basically running EA games through a low-level Windows emulator.
Thought they used Cider.
Not that you'd want to play an EA game in the first place.
Cider, that's what I meant. Crossover is what EVE Online used for OS X. Either way, it's a big detriment to Mac gaming quality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorsos
Cider, that's what I meant. Crossover is what EVE Online used for OS X. Either way, it's a big detriment to Mac gaming quality.
Too many "emulation" layers where things can go wrong. God I miss the days of where game devs would port games to obscure platforms like SGI Irix just for the fun of it (re. Doom).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorsos
On what planet is that helpful or relevant?
My planet, baby. My planet.