Civ V on Macbook Pro Retina tip

[Nunavut]

I've been running Civ V on my 2012 Macbook Pro Retina, and it was driving me crazy that the cpu fan would kick in at high speed, and the machine would get very hot.

Then I remembered the Retina has 2 graphic cards - integrated (Intel HD 4000) and discrete (NVIDIA Geforce GT 650M). Integrated uses the same memory as your computer, and it's not as high-performing as the discrete card.

By default OS X will pick the card it thinks it should use for applications, but with a tool like GfxCardStatus (http://gfx.io), you can force the computer to use one or the other.

It turns out the integrated graphics chipset is more than capable of running Civ V with high quality textures etc turned on. But the best benefit is extended battery life (and computer life - since heat is the killer of any PC). My laptop's fans no longer run like crazy, nor does the computer get insanely hot.