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k2director · Apr 6, 2004, 07:51 PM

I got an advance copy (totally legit, by the way). Anyone else playing it yet?

Having gone through the single player campaign, I'm looking forward to trying net play. PM if you're "game."

Dex13 · Apr 6, 2004, 08:30 PM

[Yells] Screen Shots [/Yells]

Adam Betts · Apr 6, 2004, 09:02 PM

How's the performance on your computer? Let us know what your setup is too

kpne1home · Apr 6, 2004, 09:15 PM

whens the date for release planned?

Holigen · Apr 6, 2004, 10:50 PM

How did you get it? I ordered mine from Apple a while back. Or are you not allowed to tell us...

Lateralus · Apr 6, 2004, 11:02 PM

SCREEN SHOTS!
SCREEN SHOTS!
SCREEN SHOTS!

Horsepoo!!! · Apr 6, 2004, 11:28 PM

I'll play a quick game with you...but it has to be started before midnight.

k2director · Apr 7, 2004, 12:36 AM

Horsepoo, I emailed you back. 11:30pm would work, Pacific Standard.

Anyway, hmmmm, I thought it would be hitting stores by now. The official date for stores is April 16, I believe, but I often see Aspyr games on shelves before official dates.

I got the game to review for a magazine, so if it's not on shelves, I won't post screen shots, as there's an embargo on a review until the 16th. Not that posting screen shots would constitute a review, but it gets closer. Sorry.

BUt I will say:

I really do like the game. I hadn't played it on the PC, but it looks as good in real time play as the little video trailers on the Aspyr web site indicate. For me, it blows WarCraft 3 away. There don't seem to be as many units to make (which can be overwhelming in WC3), and the play is more focused on all your pieces, and not heroes (I never liked that about WC3). Plus, I just like the semi-realistic military bent.

As for the graphics, they're truly stunning. I'm playing on a 23" Cinema Display at 1600x1000 (I believe it's 1000 or somewhere around there), with all the details on high, and it's phenomenal. Tanks leave little dust clouds as they drive. You can see concussion waves emanate from explosions (if 'concussion' is the right term). Jets trail thin wisps of exhaust smoke as they fly. Green nuclear contamination spreads across the ground. It's beautiful.

As for hardware, besides the Cinema Dispay, I'm running a Dual 2Ghz G5 with 2.5 gigs RAM, ATI 9800 EOM edition. When there's really heavy action on the screen, things can slow down a bit, but only for a couple moments, and it doesn't affect my play. However, there are a couple of very rare special effects, like a Chinese nuke strike, that cause my G5 to crawl--ie, fps drops way down while the effect is on screen. That's been fine with me, because I just sit there in awe of the visual for a moment, but thought it was interesting that the G5 would chug.

My one disappointment so far: I have dual Cinema Displays, and have to put them in mirror mode to play the game properly. Otherwise, my cursor extends off to the other display, and I can't scroll through the game terrain. If you hold Shift down while launching the game, you can choose which display runs the game, but it still doesn't solve the problem.

cszar2001 · Apr 7, 2004, 12:48 AM

I hope it`ll run on my PB17 Rev. A-otherwise I�ll have to kill myself.

nsxpower · Apr 7, 2004, 11:11 AM

... As for hardware, besides the Cinema Dispay, I'm running a Dual 2Ghz G5 with 2.5 gigs RAM, ATI 9800 EOM edition ...

Thats saying absolutely nothing to 90% of Mac gamers

I have one VERY important question though: is it Mac v. Mac only or Mac v. Mac/PC?

FurionStormrage · Apr 7, 2004, 11:48 AM

Originally posted by nsxpower:
Thats saying absolutely nothing to 90% of Mac gamers

I have one VERY important question though: is it Mac v. Mac only or Mac v. Mac/PC?

It's Mac <-> Mac only which is why I bought it for the PC.

As to the mini-review by k2director... I don't know why you're fawning over what this does because that's exactly what the PC version does. If it had any less than the PC version what would be the point of porting it?

Oh, and is this a combination of Generals and Zero Hour, or is it just Generals? If it's a combination, the General's abilities make it a little closer to Warcraft III, IMO, because you can play a style that can give you better superweapons (think heroes) to deal with your enemies.

nsxpower · Apr 7, 2004, 11:57 AM

Originally posted by FurionStormrage:
It's Mac <-> Mac only which is why I bought it for the PC.

That's sad news. I have been playing W3 online for some time now and it is a lot of fun. Mac <-> Mac only will not let me play with my friends that use PCs (everyone who I play W3 with now) ... C&C:G is off my shopping list now.

GlendaA · Apr 7, 2004, 01:06 PM

We just released the C&C Generals demo, so give it a try if you are unsure how it will run on your machine. We set the system requirements very realistically, maybe even conservatively, so I think people will be happy with performance. i5works did a LOT of work on optimizing.

And even if you think Mac to PC play kills the game for you, give the demo a try. Single player and play against Mac friends is still a blast.

Glenda Adams
Aspyr Media

IonCable · Apr 7, 2004, 01:09 PM

Thanks Glenda,

To bad it takes so long to download from Macgames.com. Wish there was a better mirror.

I can't wait to get my hands on this one.

mrwalker · Apr 7, 2004, 02:29 PM

Originally posted by GlendaA:
We just released the C&C Generals demo, so give it a try if you are unsure how it will run on your machine. We set the system requirements very realistically, maybe even conservatively, so I think people will be happy with performance. i5works did a LOT of work on optimizing.

And even if you think Mac to PC play kills the game for you, give the demo a try. Single player and play against Mac friends is still a blast.

Glenda Adams
Aspyr Media

Any chance of a bittorrent for this?

-mrwalker

Vash · Apr 7, 2004, 03:53 PM

The demo is awesome! Runs very well, unless there is a huge explosion of some sort, then the FPS takes a sharp dive, like in the giant explosion in the first Chinese mission. I had to manually up the resolution in the .ini file to 1600x1024, still ran fine except with that giant explosion, which doesn't matter because you aren't actually playing during it. Amazing game, beautiful graphics, almost no lag. Well, this was a on Dual 2ghz G5 Radeon 9800 Pro...

k2director · Apr 7, 2004, 04:13 PM

I actually tried it out on my 1.25 Ghz Powerbook last night.

800x600 resolution plays very smooth, but the game isn't done justice at that res. So I upped it to 1024x768 and still found it playable. You definitely encounter some slow downs (for instance, when I sent about 15 troops, 4 tanks and 4 missle launchers up into GLA nest of machine guns and missile bunkers), but it didn't really affect the fun factor for me.

gperks · Apr 7, 2004, 05:00 PM

Still looking for a torrent or other download... it's gonna take literally hours otherwise!

blizzard · Apr 7, 2004, 05:08 PM

Oh no! Not hours!

Sorry, after living with dialup for most of my life...well...suck it up!

Tulkas · Apr 7, 2004, 05:27 PM

The demo is going to take several hours, so will it run decently on a brand new eMac (1Ghz, 640mb ram)? Im not one of these people who freak out if the fps drops by 0.001 but it would be nice if it were playable at the lowest settings.

macintologist · Apr 7, 2004, 05:50 PM

The 32MB Radeon 7500 in your eMac is quite dated. Good luck

I have a 32MB Geforce 4 in my Powerbook 12". I wonder how well it will run. I always run games at 1024x768, the native resolution of the PB screen because I cannot stand the fuziness of the lower resolutions. I hope it runs ok.

Another vote for a BitTorrent download of the demo.

Vash · Apr 7, 2004, 06:03 PM

The demo is taking several hours...ouch. Using the extremesim.com mirror I got in 18 minutes, 365kb/s rate the whole time.

Hiei69 · Apr 7, 2004, 07:04 PM

On my 12" Powerbook Rev B at 864x640 (whatever it is) with 768 ram, I was able to play it just fine. Graphics were turned down but, it was completely playable. I also used to tinkertool to quit the finder before I played.

Frumpy · Apr 7, 2004, 07:27 PM

Well, the specs are truely the minimum you want to play with. An iMac G4 800 w/ 768ram chokes like crazy on the lowest settings. Guess i'll have to stick to the UT 2004 demo. Woohoo!!!

IonCable · Apr 7, 2004, 08:12 PM

So far its crashed my 1Ghz Superbook 3 times at the beginning of the Training mission. Not a Good sign in my book. I got nothing special going on, no themes, no mods, nothing straight OS X 10.3.3 install. When it is running it is pretty smooth at 1025 x 768. Wish it wouldn't crash.

Frumpy · Apr 7, 2004, 08:18 PM

Originally posted by IonCable:
So far its crashed my 1Ghz Superbook 3 times at the beginning of the Training mission. Not a Good sign in my book. I got nothing special going on, no themes, no mods, nothing straight OS X 10.3.3 install. When it is running it is pretty smooth at 1025 x 768. Wish it wouldn't crash.

Is that a 12" PowerBook you're talking about there? What are the specs?

IonCable · Apr 7, 2004, 08:29 PM

15 inch orginal 1Ghz Powerbook with a Super Drive, 768 Ram, 64MB Video card.

Holigen · Apr 7, 2004, 08:31 PM

Orinally posted by someone:
Well, the specs are truely the minimum you want to play with. An iMac G4 800 w/ 768ram chokes like crazy on the lowest settings. Guess i'll have to stick to the UT 2004 demo. Woohoo!!!

On the extreme lowest settings, the game is very playable for me on my iMac G4 700mhz w/256mb.

IonCable · Apr 7, 2004, 09:17 PM

That it, 10 crashes. Fresh reboots, nothing going on except the system. No mods, Themes, no nothing that should make the game crash. To bad I was really looking forward to purchasing and playing this game. But I can't find a single thing that gives me any reason for the crashes.

derekn · Apr 7, 2004, 09:30 PM

Originally posted by IonCable:
That it, 10 crashes. Fresh reboots, nothing going on except the system. No mods, Themes, no nothing that should make the game crash. To bad I was really looking forward to purchasing and playing this game. But I can't find a single thing that gives me any reason for the crashes.

Yeah, same here. 1.2Ghz SP MDD, 768MB of RAM and a stock Radeon 9000,running a couple of haxies, Fruitmenu and Shapeshifter. I've thrown the settings down and it still crashes after about 10 minutes, seems to be when a lot of action is going on or if I scroll around too much. *sigh* I've wanted this for so long, so even if it does crash, I'm still buying it. From what I've played of it, it seems VERY good, worth the $50.

Glenda, everyone at Aspyr, thanks for putting a demo out, all I've seen are movies, it was great to finally play the game.

IonCable · Apr 7, 2004, 09:38 PM

Aspyr,

I'll gladly send you the crash reports, just let me know where.

k2director · Apr 7, 2004, 09:42 PM

I also had a few crashes on my G5 in the early missions of the USA campaign, including training. My first thought was "uh oh".

But since those first couple of missions, it's been smooth sailing--ie, many hours played in the GLA and Chinese campaigns, as well as "skirmishes' against computer opponents on multiplayer maps.

Frumpy · Apr 7, 2004, 09:57 PM

Sooo, i've only tried the traning board. Are you telling me that the other boards run better than training?! Because.....i'd try it out again......even though i'm running it on an iMac G4 800. Hahaha.

gperks · Apr 7, 2004, 10:47 PM

Crashed in the only time I've run it, during training. Just after the video "build your forces then go and take out this base".

Also the video was a little jumpy, most obvious on the title/menu screen.

I don't see anything in the system logs.

Looked like fun, but it didn't last long. Back to UT2004 for me too

(And that's only $40. $50 for a game always seems $10 too high to me.)

PB, 15", 1.25GHz, 1GB.

waxcrash · Apr 8, 2004, 01:25 AM

Originally posted by gperks:
Crashed in the only time I've run it, during training. Just after the video "build your forces then go and take out this base".

Also the video was a little jumpy, most obvious on the title/menu screen.

I don't see anything in the system logs.

Looked like fun, but it didn't last long. Back to UT2004 for me too

(And that's only $40. $50 for a game always seems $10 too high to me.)

PB, 15", 1.25GHz, 1GB.

Same here. Just downloaded, installed on my TiBook 1 GHz, and started the training and it crashed.

Come on Aspyr???

PacHead · Apr 8, 2004, 03:33 AM

I downloaded the demo at macupdate and it took all of 12 minutes to retrieve the whole file.

Ive only tested the training mission just briefly, but everything seems to run really smooth on my QS 933, and the graphix are really nice, and the game looks like its very well done. I was running it at 1024 x 768 with medium settings for the detail etc.

I first got into Command n Conquer on a PS1 back in the day, so it would not be an exaggeration to say that CnC Generals is a drastic step up from that one.

What more can I say ? The game looks pretty damn cool. The only small minus, is the lack of crossplatform play, which has already been mentioned. But otherwise, Its looking very nice.

Its not everyday that a game like this gets released for Mac, so Im happy.

Nice job.

IonCable · Apr 8, 2004, 07:46 AM

Ok, I'm at work now. Tried C&C on a Dual 867, 1.5 GB, all stock MDD. Runs great. I love it, what a great game. I could get seriously addicted to it. To bad it keeps crashing my Tibook which is my home mac and where I can play games the most. I got a 800 MDD and 1.8 Single G5 here that I'll try it on later and give you guys an update. Maybe I'll throw it on the Xserve for giggles.

nsxpower · Apr 8, 2004, 09:03 AM

Will download the demo when I get home. Have to try it on my TiBook (pls see sig for specs), will report how it runs and whether you need to set your setting to the absolute minimun to be able to play.

xi_hyperon · Apr 8, 2004, 10:08 AM

Downloaded and tried it out on my dualie 1.25 G4. Unfortunately it was crashing whenever I got about 5 minutes into the game. No haxies, just a clean 10.3.3.

Tulkas · Apr 8, 2004, 10:31 AM

Btw, are there any keys to scroll the map? I really don't like using the mouse to do that.

itai195 · Apr 8, 2004, 11:04 AM

Tried out the demo at 1024x768 with graphics/details on high on my G5 1.8GHz (not dual CPU), Radeon 9600, 1GB memory and it ran great.

FurionStormrage · Apr 8, 2004, 11:29 AM

Originally posted by IonCable:
15 inch orginal 1Ghz Powerbook with a Super Drive, 768 Ram, 64MB Video card.

Same crashing here, though I have what you have with the exception of only 512 MB RAM.

GlendaA · Apr 8, 2004, 12:35 PM

Just wanted to keep you all updated, we have received a bunch of crash logs, and 99% are Radeon 9000's. We did have one from a 9600 too. The good news is all the crashes are in the same place, so once we fix it, it should fix the 9000's and the rare other ATI models that are crashing.

We're also going to fix the multiple monitor cursor control issue (this one definitely should have been caught before it went out, that's our fault).

The other reported bug we're looking at is the graphical glitches where lighting gets funky and shows black bars or obvious triangles. This one does appear to go away if you lower your detail settings.

We had done testing on both Powerbooks and the 9000 in a desktop machine, so I'm not sure how this crash slipped through. But we're on it and will get a fix in the works. It's going to take a few days, so we can make sure it's 100% fixed, but we will definitely be fixing the demo and rolling all of those changes into a retail patch as well.

Thanks,
Glenda Adams
Aspyr Media

IonCable · Apr 8, 2004, 01:21 PM

This what I like about the Mac community, you get to "Know" the people, even the developers and programmers. Mac users are truly a community. Thanks Aspyr, I've been playing on my Dual 867 MDD and I love this game can't wait to get the retail version. WooHoo.

Adam Betts · Apr 8, 2004, 01:47 PM

Originally posted by IonCable:
Thanks Aspyr, I've been playing on my Dual 867 MDD and I love this game can't wait to get the retail version. WooHoo.

What video card are you on? I'm on QS 867 w/ Radeon 8500 64MB and C&C:G ran at around 10 fps for me

IonCable · Apr 8, 2004, 02:32 PM

My work mac is a Dual 867, Geforce4 MX w/ 32 and 1.5 GB ram. The Training mission was fast, the China a little slower and the GLA slow. Yes, slow but certainly playable. But that's my opinion, I don't need all the details or lots of speed, just make the game playable. I'd tell you the FPS, but I don't know how to get that info.

waxcrash · Apr 8, 2004, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by GlendaA:
Just wanted to keep you all updated, we have received a bunch of crash logs, and 99% are Radeon 9000's. We did have one from a 9600 too. The good news is all the crashes are in the same place, so once we fix it, it should fix the 9000's and the rare other ATI models that are crashing.

We're also going to fix the multiple monitor cursor control issue (this one definitely should have been caught before it went out, that's our fault).

The other reported bug we're looking at is the graphical glitches where lighting gets funky and shows black bars or obvious triangles. This one does appear to go away if you lower your detail settings.

We had done testing on both Powerbooks and the 9000 in a desktop machine, so I'm not sure how this crash slipped through. But we're on it and will get a fix in the works. It's going to take a few days, so we can make sure it's 100% fixed, but we will definitely be fixing the demo and rolling all of those changes into a retail patch as well.

Thanks,
Glenda Adams
Aspyr Media

Thank you for such a fast response. I look forward to playing/purchasing when the patch is available.

derekn · Apr 8, 2004, 03:42 PM

Another thank you to Glenda. Thank you for resolving this so fast, not only for the retail version but the demo as well. You guys rock!

cszar2001 · Apr 8, 2004, 04:30 PM

I need that game!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Demo runs fine on my 17 Rev. A.
This is exactly the game I�ve been waiting for.
What better way to spend one`s free time than blowing stuff up?

redJag · Apr 8, 2004, 09:41 PM

sweet finally getting it downloaded, will post results (crappy computer tho: 733G4 w/ Radeon 8500, 1 Gb RAM)