Being Real for a Second

[Liberater444 11]

Okay, I want a totally straight answer out of some SC4 MacOS vets...

Is feasible and realistic to go through the processes for SC4 to work on MacOS if I am a college student that would be playing off of a MacBook Pro?

From what I've heard, SC4 on Mac is glitchy, lacking nightlights, and CTD's too much. I lack the money to buy the Mac version of the game itself, and cannot readily find a Windows installer disc.

As it is, I do not have a whole lot of Mac OS experience, and although I'm more adept at Windows file editing and infrastructure, I'm no where near experienced enough to do simple stuff such as lotting.

My question is...is it really worth it? I do wish to play SC4 on such a wonderful machine with the great res and graphics that my MacBook has, but I doubt it's reasonable given the circumstances.

[Danoz 0]

Okay, I want a totally straight answer out of some SC4 MacOS vets...

Is feasible and realistic to go through the processes for SC4 to work on MacOS if I am a college student that would be playing off of a MacBook Pro?

From what I've heard, SC4 on Mac is glitchy, lacking nightlights, and CTD's too much. I lack the money to buy the Mac version of the game itself, and cannot readily find a Windows installer disc.

As it is, I do not have a whole lot of Mac OS experience, and although I'm more adept at Windows file editing and infrastructure, I'm no where near experienced enough to do simple stuff such as lotting.

My question is...is it really worth it? I do wish to play SC4 on such a wonderful machine with the great res and graphics that my MacBook has, but I doubt it's reasonable given the circumstances.

I'm not going to lie, the game on Mac is buggy. Occasionally I get weird graphical glitches that I can't explain, but they usually go away. All in all, I'd prefer playing on my Mac than switching to my old PC. What the game doesn't seem to do is completely freeze or die on me, and THAT was something that occasionally did happen to me on my old PC. Worth it? Yeah, it's inexpensive and it's a great game--- but it is also a huge time suck .

Sim City 4 is a brilliant game, but it's a very buggy and incomplete regardless of your OS. This is slowly being corrected it seems, thanks to mods, but I have yet to try any of them! I would argue the game is buggy because it's one of of the most (if not THE most) complex, multi-variable games every created.

[Hamish 1,369]

Yeah, it is buggy, but so too is the PC version.

I am able to get mine to run fine though. It works when I want it to, and thats enough for me. A few graphical errors start to pop up once you have been playing in a city for a few hours, but they are minor, and usually change depending on zoom level, so to me they are not a problem.

Your other option is to make a windows partition, but then you have to buy the windows OS that costs a lot more than the game does.

There are some good things that come with the mac version though. Changing resolution is far easier than the PC version, we just hold down a button when loading the game, where as they have to type strings of code into something and hope they get it right.

There aren't many night lights, but we do have a few packs on the STEX. All of my buildings work on a mac, an there are also Mac Packs, these have various buildings by various people all able to show nightlighting in our game.

In my experience, the crashes aren't too bad. I don't have many at all. Remember to save, just incase though. And it may be that there are more PC users, but I hear that theirs crashes an awful lot, I don't see mine doing it as much. But that could just be me...

Anyway, I recommend it, but its up to you if you are willing to spend that much on an 8 year old game.

[Sky Guy 163]

I run simcity on my mac with on a windows/parallels partition. Of course there is glitches and things, but for the most part, I enjoy having nightlights, and more access to BATs and tools like LE. But like Hamish said, it wouldn't be as cost effective. On either version, you will have to learn to save often, and make backups frequently. (I learned that the hard way.)

Anyway, I thought I would just give you an insiders look at that little area. good luck.