The game is scheduled to launch in December

Oct 28, 2014 09:05 GMT  ·  By

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is already out for the Windows platform, and the Aspyr Media team is working on the port for Mac OS X and Linux. They have explained, in detail, just what kinds of challenges they are facing when dealing with such a complex title.

Aspyr Media is the same team that ported Civilization V, so they are no strangers to the engine being used or to the series. For the previous game, their work was made easier by the fact that they did the Mac OS X port beforehand. Some of you might know that Linux and Mac OS X are pretty similar platforms, at least in terms of gaming. When a studio ports something for the OS built by Apple, it will most certainly work on Linux as well.

The same was true for Civilization V, but there was a catch. That game had different binary files for DirectX 9 and DirectX 11. Developers had a much easier time and you can guess which version was ported. Now that Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is out, porting the title is a different ball because the Windows version only features the DirectX 11 engine, which means that a complete set of challenges awaits the developers.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is a complex challenge

Even if the team had to just do a DirectX 9 port, there still are problems and bugs that need to be solved, but with a more complex engine, the team of developers has to find new ways to make this work. Also, working simultaneously on Mac OS X and Linux means that they no longer rely on a project already done.

"Our current focus is on improving performance. So far performance has been the biggest development hurdle as we're facing an engine based on Direct X 11 vs. Direct X 9, which Civilization V was based on. This upgrade means lots of new driver issues and development hurdles for the team."

"This is also why our current preliminary system requirements are much higher than Civilization V or the Windows PC version of Beyond Earth. However, our development team is extremely good at what they do, and we expect to make significant strides in performance improvement over the next several weeks," says Russ Looney, one of the developers.

The Aspyr Media team is trying to correct hundreds of bugs and problems, according to the development update that they just posted, but the good news is that they have yet to encounter something that would set them back.

A precise launch date has yet to be announced, but we do know that it’s scheduled to arrive just in time for the holidays. This means that they probably have a little over a month to smooth things out with the engine and to deliver the same kind of good Linux experience, just like they did with Civilization V.