underway as of January 1995, and the game was announced that month at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show. The game was developed for Microsoft Windows due to the operating system's increased prevalence. Franco produced the game on behalf of Accolade, while Brad Fregger produced it for Cinematronics; they both also handled the game design. Fregger joined the development team in 1996, when Cinematronics contacted him to help finish the game. Dennis Clark programmed the physics, while Mike Sandige programmed the rendering. Jim Mischel programmed the course designer. The game includes 16.7 million colors. The game does not support 3D cards, as it already uses a fast rendering engine. Another factor was scheduling and the competitive market, prompting Accolade to release the game without 3D card support. The game has 32 megabytes' worth of sound, which include regionally authentic bird sounds for the golf courses. The game uses DirectSound, and its multiplayer mode utilizes DirectPlay. The course designer was modeled after Nicklaus Productions' computer-aided design system. Accolade began shipping the Microsoft Windows version on March 25, 1997. In May 1997, Accolade announced that it would release the game on Macintosh later in the summer. A free upgrade with several new features was released online in June 1997. That month, Accolade announced it would release the game on DVD in the summer, to take advantage of the format's increasing popularity. A PlayStation version, titled Jack Nicklaus '98 and featuring the same courses as Jack Nicklaus 4, had been scheduled for release in late 1997, although it was never released. The Macintosh version was published by MacSoft. An online game, Jack Nicklaus Online Golf Tour, was released in 1998. It was based on the Jack Nicklaus 4 game engine, and online courses created with Jack Nicklaus 4 were playable through Jack Nicklaus Online Golf Tour. Reception Jack Nicklaus 4 received positive reviews, but sold poorly. The game was praised for its graphics, its multitude of online courses, and its course designer, although some reviewers were critical of the inability to create custom objects with the designer. Some praised the golf ball animations for their realism when hitting different terrains. Scott A. May of Computer Gaming World called it "the preeminent golf simulation of our time" and an "absolute model of perfection" with nearly "everything you could ever hope for" in a golfing video game. Anthony Baize of AllGame praised the game for its