So after advocating avoiding the first iteration of new gadgets and programs, I finally ponied up for the latest revision of Mac laptops, the Macbook Pro with Intel’s Santa Cruz Core 2 Duo chip. It also happens to have a new generation of video controller chips, Nvidia’s GeForce 8600M GT. Ho hum…or not.
One reason for the upgrade was to run software like Lightroom and Civ IV that struggled, at best, on my three-year-old Powerbook G4. So how surprised was I after installing Civ IV and its most recent patch to discover that the game continually crashed because of a video driver issue? Very. Very, very. I wrote to the game’s publisher, Aspyr and received the following polite reply:
At this time, we are aware of issues that occur on the new MacBook Pros with nVidia GeForce 8600 video cards. This machine was released a very short time ago, with a brand new video card, with a brand new type of chipset, to the Macintosh computer line, and is officially unsupported with all games at this time.
However, we are working to resolve this and to bring affected games up to speed. Though no timeframe is available right now, we hope to be able to provide full support to the new MacBook Pro in the near future.
Have a good day!
Oh well, at least my productivity won’t be impaired. Hurry up and wait.
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