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SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Could have been great if it worked...

Written by KW from Kitchener

Nov 10, 2007

I had this game for my pc (pentium 4 2.3 GHz 512MB ram) and it worked great and was a blast to play. I love building cities and trying out different terrains and strategies. However I just got a new MacBook (the 2.0GHz version) and SimCity 4 does not work. It loads but is painfully slow. The mouse cursor won't even move smoothly across the screen.

I have been all over the internets looking for patches, solutions and help. All that I can find is that the Intel-Core Duo Macs don't run a bunch of Aspyr ported games. This is brutal, its not being advertised at all. I have the Aspyr Game Agent program which should say, don't buy this game because it won't work.

I called Aspyr, and EA tech support and they just say that it is a well known glitch and with the game being so old they are not likely to fix it. Yet if you go to any Apple Store or use the Aspyr Game agent you'll be lied to and told that it will work. I like Apple, I LOVE my new macbook but this has to change.

71 of 88 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Couldn't get this Game Up and Running!

Written by JP from Palo Alto

Dec 6, 2007

To make a long story short I have a iBook G4 1.2 Ghz, once the game loaded it got slower and slower and slower until it froze up. Aspyr customer service was unable to shed any light on the problem. It is a Darn shame a great game won't run on computers it is supposed to.

Hope you have better luck than I did!

82 of 111 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Does not run

Written by JS from hauppauge

Aug 24, 2007

I have a 6 month old Macbook 1.8Ghz with 1 Gig of ram. The game simply doesnt run and is impossible to play. Once you have more then one building up the game slows down to a snails pace. 1 year in the game at full speed mode takes about 10 minutes in real time. Zooming in or out is tedious and annoying as it takes so long for the graphics to render. It is simply unplayable. Aspyr does not even address this issue on their website. How Aspyr can put this game on the shelves for years without fixing it is unbelievable. How apple, can sell this game in their store at a price of $60 is even more of an outrage.

69 of 94 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Computer-freezing at its finest

Written by RC from Silver Spring

Aug 8, 2008

I feel a little odd writing a review since I'm still in the process of working with tech support at Aspyr, but out of the box this game has critical problems. My computer is ridiculously above the recommended system, yet it cannot run the software without lagging-freezing in the tutorial. I've done some maintenance work and installed the game in a fresh account and the root directory, all to no avail. Since they ask that you install it to the root directory, I assume the thinking is the performance issues are disk related, and I have 4 gigs of ram so I decided to try running it from a disk image, still to no avail. It's sad to see a game I have admired and enjoyed since almost the dawn of PCs, in such a state of disarray: I hope tech support can get this game up and playable for me quickly, else I'll be forced to seek a refund.

47 of 61 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

FREEZES LIKE CRAZY

Written by SK from SAN ANTONIO

Sep 26, 2008

To start off, my Deluxe Edition only has the Rush Hour game, and not the Sim City game. When I start the game, it opens to all these tutorials that I have already done, so I don't even know what to do next. When I do click on something, it takes FOREVER to load. And when it finally opens, it is immediately frozen. It doesn't work at all! When I try to exit out of the game, it continues to freeze and doesn't let me get out. I end up having to hold the power button down on my MacBook. Whenever I try to play this game, I just end up getting in a bad mood. Complete waste of 60 dollars.

36 of 40 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Sim City 4 is great, but Aspyrs support is horrible

Written by PZ from Playa Del Rey

Jun 21, 2007

I recently purchased a new Macbook Pro (2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8600M GT, etc.) along with it I purchased Sim City 4. I spoke to the genius bar and multiple reps assured me that even though this game lacks the Universal logo the shear power of this machine will make no difference in game play itself.

After spending countless hours trying to find the solution, and receiving nothing but "we think there is a problem with our games and the new video card on macbook pros" from Aspyr, I'm heading back to Windows where the game actually runs normally.

I get nothing but horrible performance, every object in the game that is supposed to be animated "blinks", of course now I can't return the game because the box has been opened. Good news is that my macbook pro was not purchased over 2 weeks ago - so I might be heading to return this "it just works" machine.

The game itself is amazing, you will find yourself controlling absolutely anything that has to do with a life in the city from the managerial point of view (of course there is room for improvement, but you take what you can get). Big improvement from the previous game - regions... try this game if you have a PPC or a Windows machine. Aspyr needs to get their act together on supporting this as well as other titles that just don't work on the new macbook pros.

56 of 86 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Incompatible with Snow Leopard 10.6

Written by SC from Berlin

Sep 4, 2009

If you have Snow Leopard 10.6 avoid buying this until Apple sort their stuff out - which they hopefully will.

It's a great game, but only if you're using 10.5 or lower.

14 of 15 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Very Very Slow

Written by CN from Mission

Mar 10, 2009

So slow you cant play it. Macbook Pro 2g of ram 7200 rpm drive.

30 of 60 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

DONT BUY THIS GAME

Written by KW from norwalk

Aug 23, 2009

Sim City 4 for the mac is horrible. I am a senior in college and I have been playing sim city 4 on a pc since freshman year. i fell in love with this game and had tons of fun with it on a pc. It ran perfectly with no problems, even when i had a city of 2 million. However this game is horrible on a mac and doesn't run well even with a population of 300. I regret spending my 60 dollars on it. By the way this game is 20 dollars for the pc wit no headaches. My mac has 4 gb of ram and a 2.8 ghz processor. Sometimes i feel like getting rid of my mac and going back to my pc for my game. I;ve come to realize macs aren't all what they were said to be. this is most likely the last mac i will ever own and its partially due to stupid things like this.

14 of 30 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Super slow

Written by MT from Nepean

May 2, 2009

Its like trying to play a brand new game on a really old computer. It is slow to respond to what you are doing and most of the time you cant even figure out what's going on. If this game was really made to work properly on a mac they should say what one so the rest of us don't have to waste our money on it.

16 of 36 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

I'd love to say it's great but...

Written by DG from Belfast

Jun 20, 2006

..having owned the game for 2 days I've failed to get it running. It loads to the 'map' section and then crashes before I can play a game.

I've tried everything imaginable to remedy the problem. Aspyr support have not helped me an iota either.

My computer is a very capable 1.67ghz powerbook and should run this with ease but alas nothing.

A spectacular waste of money

73 of 156 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

worst

Written by GC from Oklahoma City

Jul 19, 2007

it is bad and that is all i can say about this HORRID game

19 of 95 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Bummed Out

Written by WR from Anoka

Dec 9, 2008

Attn: Intel Mac users,
Save the $60 and the headache, this game does not run well on an Intel mac.
It also doesn't seem like Apple or Aspyr are doing anything about this either. I've had the game for about a year now and am still waiting on a patch to make it run smoothly and more enjoyable. Meanwhile anyone running windows XP can get a copy for $20 and run it flawlessly.

66 of 77 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Poor performance

Written by BL from Brooklyn

Oct 11, 2007

I grew up on the SimCity games and I've spent countless hours building cities in previous versions. SimCity 4 was my first experience with a Mac port, and I must say it was terribly disappointing. I have seen this game played on three separate machines (ibook G4, macbook, and a macbook pro) and they all have had laggy results.

I'm sure the game would be much more enjoyable if it actually played at a decent speed.

That being said, I found myself quite annoyed with some of the new features. The city advisory overreact constantly. Having to manage the budget of every single school, hospital, fire station, and police station is tedious. I thought the idea of a region was cool in theory, but I always liked making one humongous city as opposed to 3 dozen little ones. And am I the only one annoyed by the automatic roads placed when you zone an area?

I think I'll just go back to my PC version of SC3000.

74 of 108 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Great game, poor performance

Written by KD from Madison

Dec 8, 2007

This could be a great game (as were the other SimCity games before it),; however, it's a terrible port by Aspyr. On PowerPC Macs (dual G4 and a dual G5), the performance is slow and laggy when cities grow to a moderate size. On my MacBook, the game is almost unplayable, since it's not Universal.

117 of 203 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Could have been great

Written by SM from Haslet

Jan 1, 2009

Being a fan of SimCity since I had the original when I was a kid, I was really excited to pick up this game for my MacBook. I didn't pay much attention to the fact that it wasn't a Universal game because I've never had a problem running the PowerPC stuff on my intel macs. It wouldn't even load on my MacBook without the "beta" universal binary patch from Aspyr and even with the patch it was still unplayable. I did get it to run decently on my intel iMac using rosetta but it bogs down really bad when the city starts getting bigger. I put up with it for a couple of weeks just because I love SimCity but I eventually couldn't put up with the performance issues anymore and I'll probably end up just trading this one in to the used bookstore. Get SimCity for another platform. Don't waste money on the Mac version unless you still have a decent PowerPC Mac at home.

33 of 41 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

Great game, poor performance

Written by JK from Honolulu

Jul 11, 2008

When I recently purchased a new iMac, Simcity 4 was the first game I purchased. However, I was deeply disapointed at the performance on my machine. I went the Aspyr website and couldnt download any patches they provided. I also am not able to load my itunes into the game, despite the claim on the box. Its good to hear that others are having better experiences because I really regret buying this game.

27 of 32 people found this useful

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition by Aspyr

This was my favorite game

Written by WD from bartlett

Dec 5, 2008

This game on the pc rocks however on the mac it is sluggish even with a 2.5 dual intel and 2gb of ram. It runs like a beast!

15 of 26 people found this useful