[slpdLoad]

For those who are interested:
http://www.macgamefiles.com/detail.php?item=19241

[Chuckit]

The system requirements make my Powerbook cry.

[Helmling]

I know this is nuts, but I'm going to see if it'll run on my MacBook. I got to test out Civ4 yesterday. Sluggish, but playable. I haven't decided yet if I'll buy my own copy or not. I'd like to play on my Mac, but I'd also like it to feel like I'm playing on a Mac. The black bars on the left and right annoy me...would it be so hard to reformat the resolution from the PC version to fit our widescreen Macs? And why the hell don't they support the Intel chip sets if they're in the MacBooks and the Minis?!? Oh well, that's a lot of moaning and groaning about something we can't change. Ports are ports, after all. It's small potatoes and beggers can't be choosers...especially now that they could, in theory, be dual-booters.

Edit: well, I feel stupid, there is a widescreen res. for Civ 4. Ooops.

[stefanicotine]

I have the full version of Quake 4 on my iMac. 2ghz, 2gb RAM, 256mb VRAM. It runs alright. It's a horrible port in my honest opinion. It has a widescreen option, but no widescreen resolutions. so ... it ends up being a vertically stretched 16:9 image. So nasty. I wish we could see some native support for 16:10 like most new games. 1680x1050 would be nice to have. Also, I find that setting the resolution past 1024x768 sets the image off center on my screen. It's full screen, but with black borders around it. And it ends up sitting in the bottom left corner sometimes. Gross.

But as far as the game itself goes, I love it! Incredible gameplay, mediocre storyline. It makes Doom 3 seem like a fairy tale as far as the scare factor goes.

[Helmling]

Just "alright?" Why am I bothering to download it then...huh. CoD2 runs quite nicely on my little MacBook. Methinks maybe the Q4 team got lazy.

[stefanicotine]

Just like Aspyr, they make horrendous ports. I don't know who ported Quake 4 though. It has the same startup logos as Doom 3. Weren't they Aspyr?

[joe]

Originally Posted by stefanicotine

I have the full version of Quake 4 on my iMac. 2ghz, 2gb RAM, 256mb VRAM. It runs alright. It's a horrible port in my honest opinion. It has a widescreen option, but no widescreen resolutions. so ... it ends up being a vertically stretched 16:9 image. So nasty. I wish we could see some native support for 16:10 like most new games. 1680x1050 would be nice to have.

Quake4 supports Mac wide screen modes indirectly. Just open Text Edit and highlight the following lines. Then copy & paste (command C, command V) into Text Edit:

seta r_mode "-1"
seta r_customaspect "1"
seta r_customwidth "1680"
seta r_customheight "1050"
seta r_fullscreen "1"
vid_restart

Save this with a name like "widehi.cfg" and place it in your library/application support/Quake 4/q4base folder. The next time you run Quake 4, open the console with the "Control Option ~" key combination and type:
exec widehi.cfg

It takes several seconds for the game to reset, but you'll end up runnning 1680*1050. These new video settings will hold from now on unless you try to change them from the Quake 4 display settings menu. That will reset you back to the standard resolutions. If that happens it's an easy fix - just repeat the exec command again to get your wide screeen res back again.

You may also want to consider creating a couple of other text files with different resolutions so you can fine tune your iMac's performance while playing the game (no need to quit/restart). I found 1280*800 strikes a nice balance between video quality and smooth game play. Good luck! Let us know how it works out..........joe

[joe]

Originally Posted by stefanicotine

Just like Aspyr, they make horrendous ports. I don't know who ported Quake 4 though. It has the same startup logos as Doom 3. Weren't they Aspyr?

Aspyr ported both. I personally think they did an incredible job with Doom 3 which is why I bought it. They added a startup menu to Doom 3 that makes it easy to access Mac wide screen modes. Just hold down the command key when starting up. You can select any screen res your Mac supports (wide and standard) without having to mess around with text files. You also have the option to run the game in a window on your desktop! Pretty sweet! Aspyr also managed to squeeze out as much performance as possible given the differences between Mac and PC. There's an excellent write up of this on Barefeats:
http://www.barefeats.com/doom3.html

I don't have an overall opinion on Quake 4 yet, I just downloaded the demo. So far so good. It seems to play smoothly and the graphics and sound are impressive. The opening video is especially impressive IMHO. I noticed the duct tape/flashlight mod from Doom 3 is now standard in Quake 4 -a nice touch. The demo lacks the startup menu from Doom 3 tho which makes it a little inconvenient to access wide screen modes if your not familiar with Id games. But once activated the game looks truly impressve in widescreen on my 23" Apple display

[The Jesus]

Originally Posted by stefanicotine

I have the full version of Quake 4 on my iMac. 2ghz, 2gb RAM, 256mb VRAM. It runs alright. It's a horrible port in my honest opinion. It has a widescreen option, but no widescreen resolutions. so ... it ends up being a vertically stretched 16:9 image. So nasty. I wish we could see some native support for 16:10 like most new games. 1680x1050 would be nice to have. Also, I find that setting the resolution past 1024x768 sets the image off center on my screen. It's full screen, but with black borders around it. And it ends up sitting in the bottom left corner sometimes. Gross.

But as far as the game itself goes, I love it! Incredible gameplay, mediocre storyline. It makes Doom 3 seem like a fairy tale as far as the scare factor goes.

You didn't configure your settings right. You need to make an autoexec with the commands listed in the post above.

That said, I think it's a great port. It has ****ing SMP support! Even doom3 didn't have that, hwich makes Quake4 miles and miles and miles ahead.

[The Jesus]

Originally Posted by joe

Aspyr ported both. I personally think they did an incredible job with Doom 3 which is why I bought it. They added a startup menu to Doom 3 that makes it easy to access Mac wide screen modes. Just hold down the command key when starting up. You can select any screen res your Mac supports (wide and standard) without having to mess around with text files. You also have the option to run the game in a window on your desktop! Pretty sweet! Aspyr also managed to squeeze out as much performance as possible given the differences between Mac and PC. There's an excellent write up of this on Barefeats:
http://www.barefeats.com/doom3.html

I don't have an overall opinion on Quake 4 yet, I just downloaded the demo. So far so good. It seems to play smoothly and the graphics and sound are impressive. The opening video is especially impressive IMHO. I noticed the duct tape/flashlight mod from Doom 3 is now standard in Quake 4 -a nice touch. The demo lacks the startup menu from Doom 3 tho which makes it a little inconvenient to access wide screen modes if your not familiar with Id games. But once activated the game looks truly impressve in widescreen on my 23" Apple display

The flashlight is only on 2 weapons... the MG and the blaster.

Sucks.

Doom3 is horrid. Bleh game with a new grpahics engine, that's it. Story is boring, and you can tell when things are going to pop out at you. I dunno.... plus Q4 has SMP support! SMP support is HUUUUUUUUUGGGEEEEEEEEEE. I bought it because of SMP support alone, it allows my dual 1.33ghz G4 with a 9800 to play it at 1680X1050 max everything with only minor slowdowns.

[robfarri]

Originally Posted by The Jesus

The flashlight is only on 2 weapons... the MG and the blaster.

Sucks.

Doom3 is horrid. Bleh game with a new grpahics engine, that's it. Story is boring, and you can tell when things are going to pop out at you. I dunno.... plus Q4 has SMP support! SMP support is HUUUUUUUUUGGGEEEEEEEEEE. I bought it because of SMP support alone, it allows my dual 1.33ghz G4 with a 9800 to play it at 1680X1050 max everything with only minor slowdowns.

Hate to sound stupid guys but what is SMP? Also, does this widescreen mode using text edit work on other games?

[mikochu]

I'm impressed with the performance of Quake 4 versus Doom 3. I guess Q4 _does_ have SMP (symmetric multi processing), my G5 really benefits from it. It runs good at 1680x1050, but I also found a better visual/playability balance at 1280x800 with 8xAA.