# GTA IV Performance



## MaxAwesome (Dec 4, 2008)

In the last hour i've been reading forums and watching videos and pretty much everyone is complaining that the game runs like crap even of powerful hardware (like E8400 + Radeon 4870 shown in this video (read the description) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w5CQRlO430) and that the game won't let them go beyond medium settings, bla bla bla... and then I come across this post from GTAforums: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=378730

There, you have some sort of disclaimer that seems (to me at least) like a lame apology for the game running and looking like crap.

They say that this game is meant for the future generation of hardware??!! How much bullshit is that? What's the point even? I mean, the game looked awesome on consoles that are running on 3-yr-old hardware that basically would get destroyed and obliterated by current PC hardware...  and even powerful PC's are being raped by this game? 

Does anyone think this is just a bad console port? 

How can a solid, powerful CPU like that and a top-end GPU run the game like crap?


----------



## ktr (Dec 4, 2008)

Bad console port? Yes... Ambitious console port? Yes!!!

I knew from playing GTA4 on my console, that the game will require a great amount of engine coding and optimization to work on a PC. R* has spent a great amount of time and money making the game on the console, so having it ported over for the PC within 6-7 months is very short...especially to support the array of hardware out their. And this is not like the other GTA's on the PC. For GTA4 PC...R* has to port the RAGE engine, and euphoria, which has yet to be done in any other game.

Even though the console are based on 2 generation old hardware, it just shows that proper coding for them can do...


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 4, 2008)

I dont think the youtube link you provided is too bad. Sure it could be even better, but its pretty impressive: it's better than previous GTA versions.

>> I watched the whole clip right through. It's just amazing to see how this has come on since GTA2 (first GTA game i played).


----------



## Easy Rhino (Dec 4, 2008)

that is why you never "buy" a game that is ported.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 4, 2008)

Rockstar is one of the few publishers that actually tries to get ports right.  Grand Theft Auto 3 (and sons) and Bully: Scholarship Edition were done exceptionally well.  Maybe this new engine they are using for GTA4 isn't as good at porting (rather, designed to be a rapid port so they don't spend the time to get everything just right).  I don't know for sure because I haven't played it yet...


----------



## PP Mguire (Dec 4, 2008)

Guy could have his system setup like crap. 

Also the game is supposed to look alot better on PC than Console. Supposedly they tuned the graphics down to run on the older console hardware.


----------



## James1991 (Dec 4, 2008)

PP Mguire said:


> Guy could have his system setup like crap.
> 
> Also the game is supposed to look alot better on PC than Console. Supposedly they tuned the graphics down to run on the older console hardware.



yes it is supposed to look better but the graphics quality settings are limited based on how much VRAM you have. 2 4850's(512MB) in crossfire are limited to medium texture quality.

if you are using Crossfire or SLI it only detects the VRAM on one of the cards


----------



## LittleLizard (Dec 4, 2008)

MaxAwesome said:


> In the last hour i've been reading forums and watching videos and pretty much everyone is complaining that the game runs like crap even of powerful hardware (like E8400 + Radeon 4870 shown in this video (read the description) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w5CQRlO430) and that the game won't let them go beyond medium settings, bla bla bla... and then I come across this post from GTAforums: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=378730
> 
> There, you have some sort of disclaimer that seems (to me at least) like a lame apology for the game running and looking like crap.
> 
> ...



that is exactly what happen with crysis, when it first came out no one could play it on high at high resolutions and a couple of generations later we can, so it will happen the same, wait a year to play it on high and you are done


----------



## phanbuey (Dec 4, 2008)

which is why 1GB is the new 512


----------



## James1991 (Dec 4, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> which is why 1GB is the new 512


----------



## AsRock (Dec 4, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> I dont think the youtube link you provided is too bad. Sure it could be even better, but its pretty impressive: it's better than previous GTA versions.
> 
> >> I watched the whole clip right through. It's just amazing to see how this has come on since GTA2 (first GTA game i played).




Dunno about you but that vid made me want to buy it LMAO.  Thing is today people will bitch what ever is done.  Always some one complaining some thing not look as good as they want some thing or a game crushes there comp when it does have high requirements.

Only thing i see wrong is the min and max specs on the box should of been higher.


----------



## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Dec 4, 2008)

Whenever i decide to get it ill let you know how it goes on my rig.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 4, 2008)

James1991 said:


> yes it is supposed to look better but the graphics quality settings are limited based on how much VRAM you have. 2 4850's(512MB) in crossfire are limited to medium texture quality.
> 
> if you are using Crossfire or SLI it only detects the VRAM on one of the cards


Considering the game is 13+ GiB on disk and over 16 GiB installed, most of that density is probably comprised of high resolution textures.  Then consider the type of game (open) GTA is.  I don't know what Rockstar was smoking but those things combined are just ridiculous.  I'd say it wouldn't be far fetched to require a 2-4 GiB video card in order to *not* down scale images.

Bottom line: consoles ain't got nothing on what the PC version is designed to do even if no PC hardware is on par to do it.


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

I've been playing it for the past few hours and it's good.  The fact of the matter is there are so many textures that need to be drawn in this game that anything below a GTX280 won't cut it at it's highest settings.  I'm playing at 1920x1200 on a 4870 and I'm getting around 30fps with no big drops in framerate.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 4, 2008)

ya but no AA is no excuse for a PC game. 

that goes to prove that Rockstar made some mistake in porting it. 

also, its a way to say that next gen PC's will play this game on max, rather than accepting your own mistakes for bad coding. 

Crysis didn't have that excuse, so it will be slammed more than this game


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

So does AA not work if being forced for Nvidia either?


----------



## Mussels (Dec 4, 2008)

James1991 said:


> if you are using Crossfire or SLI it only detects the VRAM on one of the cards



because thats all there is. crossfire and SLI do not add ram. dont blame rockstar, for the video card manufacturers problem.


----------



## Exavier (Dec 4, 2008)

I'll order it soon when I have the money for my new ram (soon!) and see what it can do on a quad and 4870X2..hopefully over 40fps at 1920x1080..either way, should look fantastic on my 40"


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 4, 2008)

James1991 said:


> 2x 4850's(512MB) in crossfire are limited to medium texture quality.
> 
> if you are using Crossfire or SLI it only detects the VRAM on one of the cards



eh? Perhaps you are confused how croffire/SLI works. It is 2x512MB. Each GPU gets its own 512MB. If you have a texture, it has to be IN BOTH memories. It has to duplicate everything.  So OF COURSE there is only 512MB memory to play with for graphics settings.  The other 512MB is just "mirroring" (to some extent) what is already happening in the other 512MB.  YOU CANNOT LOAD 800MB of graphics assets into a 512MB memory map. Likewise you cannot load 800MB of graphics into a memory map of 512MB on one GPU and another 512MB on another GPU.  There is NO ring bus between the memories. GPU 1 cannot access memory of GPU 2 and vice versa.


----------



## EviLZeD (Dec 4, 2008)

As i posted on another gta thread 

rockstar posted this info on their site somewere help tweak some settings



rockstar? said:


> Most users using current PC hardware as of December 2008 are advised to use medium graphics settings. Higher settings are provided for future generations of PCs with higher specifications than are currently widely available.
> 
> Graphics settings are limited by system resources by default. 256MB video cards force minimum settings by default. If a user bypasses these safety measures using command line arguments and exceeds their system resources, the users gaming experience may be compromised.
> 
> ...


----------



## Deleted member 3 (Dec 4, 2008)

ktr said:


> I knew from playing GTA4 on my console, that the game will require a great amount of engine coding and optimization to work on a PC.



You could see that by the colors of the pixels? Care to explain it?


----------



## Katanai (Dec 4, 2008)

Come on! :shadedshu I was really waiting for this but now I'm totally disapointed. Future hardware my ass. How much memory does the 360 or the ps3 video card have? Cause if it can run at 720p on those consoles it should run at 1080p on a good PC.

This sucks.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 4, 2008)

Last FAIL game of this Year. 

Lots of great and much anticipated games were released this year, but were FAILS due to graphic settings or gameplay. 

STALKER: CS - FAIL due to high graphic demand and not so good as original STALKER and bugs

FARCRY 2 - Probably the biggest FAIL, silly and repetitive gameplay elements. Good looking tho

NFS Undercover - EA , enough said

GTA IV - most anticipated , FAIL, run rockstar social club and games for windows just to run the game ? what kind of DRM sh*t is that. Blame current hardware for bad coding and say that next gen hardware will run the game on full settings. ROFAIL

COD:W@W - WWII , not again ! :shadedshu  
                   Whats up with such a linear gameplay, you can't even climb small hill or cross over small trees on the side. Partial FAIL


----------



## RadeonX2 (Dec 4, 2008)

Add NBA 2K9 to your FAIL list, both console and pc are swarming with bugs


----------



## DaMulta (Dec 4, 2008)

This game(I have not tried or looked at pc yet)on PS3 dragged. It would have slow downs all over. 

When I seen that I knew that on a PC your gong to need one hell of a killer setup to run. Tri 280GTX or Dual 4870x2 is the only way I see it going on with a top high end quad at 4.0Ghz.

This is just my guess tho......


Has anyone started to try and rename the for the exe?

See if Like obliovon.exe is better or so forth..


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 4, 2008)

I picked the game up last night, and I think the problem is that PC gamers expect more from PC games than consoles.

On my setup(Q6600, 4GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12, SLI-9600GSO's) the game is smooth, looks better than the PS3 version and maintains better framerates.  I wouldn't call that a crappy port, I would consider that a good port.

Resolution plays a huge part in this issue.  If you look at the resolution the game is being rendered at on the consoles, it is 720p, or 1366x768.  Thats only 1,049,088 pixels that need to be rendered.  Now you have people starting to play the game on PCs, a standard 1280x1024 LCD means you are now rendering 1,310,720 pixels.  Thats 25% more pixels rendered on the PC vs. the Consoles.  So even with the settings lowered to make the PC version look like the Console version(which for me seemed to be all medium or low settings), the PC version is still rendering more pixels, so of course it is going to be more demanding.  Moving up to 1680x1050 means you are rendering ~68% more pixels.

Add to that, the fact that it is much harder to optimize games for PCs than it is for Consoles.  With Consoles, you have to optimize the game for, maybe, 3 different setups.  With PCs there is an infinite number of configurations.

Of course PC gamers expect a little bit more.  They expect to play all their games at high settings, at much higher resolutions than console gamers.  So many will complain if they can't play the game at maximum resolutions and high settings and call it a shitty port.

Any port that looks better than the console and runs as smooth or smoother on mid-range PCs at 1366x768 is a sucessful port, IMO.  From what I have experienced in the GTA:IV on the PC, Rockstar has managed to do this.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 4, 2008)

I can has 1Gb Vmem and quad core, please tell me this is a multithread game.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 4, 2008)

I would assume it is multi-threaded, it would almost have to be on the consoles since the only way to get good performance out of their CPUs it to multi-thread.  So I would hope they did the same on the PC port.


----------



## Deleted member 3 (Dec 4, 2008)

Steevo said:


> I can has 1Gb Vmem and quad core, please tell me this is a multithread game.



Considering they recommend a amd tri or intel quad core and minimum states a dual I would imagine it uses at least three threads.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 4, 2008)

Dan is here, and always with the logic of looking and thinking, Why I oughtaaaa.


----------



## ktr (Dec 4, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> You could see that by the colors of the pixels? Care to explain it?



As I stated, this is the first pc game to use RAGE and Euphoria. I didn't say that the game is impossible to be ported, but it is gonna take a lot of work to do so. And R* pulling this off in 6 months is a very short time, for such an ambitious game with an ambitious array of technology. They are moving from a 8-thread PPC cpu to a no more than 4-thread x86 cpu (excluding the recently released the 8-thread i7). Atm, they done a great job, and that is possibly the reason why R* put the disclaimer stating that current hardware will not max out the game. As for the video cards, that just bad coding...both on part of R* and current drivers/hardware (I am saying hardware because to max out the game in texture detail, draw distance, and rendering quality you need VRAM greater than the typical 512mb...perhaps around 1gb).


----------



## DaMulta (Dec 4, 2008)

I believe they already have programs to convert coding into direct x from ps3. To make games easier to port over to other systems.


----------



## Deleted member 3 (Dec 4, 2008)

ktr said:


> As I stated, this is the first pc game to use RAGE and Euphoria. I didn't say that the game is impossible to be ported, but it is gonna take a lot of work to do so. And R* pulling this off in 6 months is a very short time, for such an ambitious game with an ambitious array of technology. They are moving from a 8-thread PPC cpu to a no more than 4-thread x86 cpu (excluding the recently released the 8-thread i7). As for the video cards, that just bad coding...both on part of R* and current drivers/hardware.



No, you stated you could see it would be a lot of work to port _by playing the game on a console_. I have no clue how those engines are build or anything. The fact that it hadn't be ported yet doesn't mean that much though. Unless you could enlighten me there I'm failing to get your point. Why would this be more work to port than any other random engine? The amount of threads isn't that relevant as it'll work just fine. Besides, are they even utilizing 8 threads efficiently on the PS3?


----------



## DaMulta (Dec 4, 2008)

ps3 is a cell chip and process the data differently.

More like a GPU than anything, and I think if you mixed ATi/Nvidia cores with the right program you could do what the ps3 does, and almost just the same on how it runs it.

In fact I think if you ran a ATi card for direct memory access/stream
http://ati.amd.com/developer/techre...el_Virtual_Machine_for_GPUs(SIG06_Sketch).pdf

From back 1900xt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_parallelism

http://www.mathematik.uni-dortmund.de/~goeddeke/gpgpu/tutorial.html#setupgl1

And we all know what cuda(nvidia physics) is I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_processing_unit


PS3 GPU overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

EviLZeD said:


> As i posted on another gta thread
> 
> rockstar posted this info on their site somewere help tweak some settings





newtekie1 said:


> I picked the game up last night, and I think the problem is that PC gamers expect more from PC games than consoles.
> 
> On my setup(Q6600, 4GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12, SLI-9600GSO's) the game is smooth, looks better than the PS3 version and maintains better framerates.  I wouldn't call that a crappy port, I would consider that a good port.
> 
> ...




First read what EvilZed posted.  Newtekie pretty much sums it up nicely too.  The game IS a successful port.  It runs better on my PC than a Xbox360 or PS3 using the same settings as they use in the console version.  Plus Rockstar was kind enough to include settings that only the best PC's can run.  What in the hell is wrong with that?  Of course, most of the people I see hear bashing Rockstar don't even own the game!  Some people need to get off of thier high and mighty high-chair and start gaming.  (The last comment isn't directed towards anyone in particular.. but you know who you are)  I'm sucked into this game, I played it for hours last night and was late to work today...


----------



## ktr (Dec 4, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> No, you stated you could see it would be a lot of work to port _by playing the game on a console_. I have no clue how those engines are build or anything. The fact that it hadn't be ported yet doesn't mean that much though. Unless you could enlighten me there I'm failing to get your point. Why would this be more work to port than any other random engine? The amount of threads isn't that relevant as it'll work just fine. Besides, are they even utilizing 8 threads efficiently on the PS3?




In term of "a lot of work" as in taking a ambitious game, with new technology to a platform that hasn't been developed before. 

Previous console-to-pc ports uses engines that have already been initially developed for the PC, such as the unreal, id tech4/5, source, havok, etc. Now if R* used those engines, and ported the game within 6 months, then I would understand. But not when the RAGE was designed initially for the consoles, and then ported within 6 months to the PC (when the game was like 4-5 years in development). Euphoria is also a new thing for the PC. Star Wars: FU got canceled for the PC...due to the amount of work and short time frame.

I am assuming that 8 threads are being used, for the game was delayed 6 months for more work for the ps3...and the ps3 power piece is its 8-core cell cpu.

Any ways, with the short time...R* did a decent job. What I am going against is that disclaimer that they put in the readme.txt. They pulled off another crysis...



DaMulta said:


> ps3 is a cell chip and process the data differently.
> 
> More like a GPU than anything, and I think if you mixed ATi/Nvidia cores with the right program you could do what the ps3 does, and almost just the same on how it runs it.
> 
> ...



http://www.ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=22858

^^this is a good post regarding the PS3 hardware, in compare with the 360.


----------



## Deleted member 3 (Dec 4, 2008)

ktr said:


> In term of "a lot of work" as in taking a ambitious game, with new technology to a platform that hasn't been developed before.
> 
> Previous console-to-pc ports uses engines that have already been initially developed for the PC, such as the unreal, id tech4/5, source, havok, etc. Now if R* used those engines, and ported the game within 6 months, then I would understand. But not when the RAGE was designed initially for the consoles, and then ported within 6 months to the PC (when the game was like 4-5 years in development). Euphoria is also a new thing for the PC. Star Wars: FU got canceled for the PC...due to the amount of work and short time frame.
> 
> I am assuming that 8 threads are being used, for the game was delayed 6 months for more work for the ps3...and the ps3 power piece is its 8-core cell cpu.



That still doesn't explain why this would be harder than any other port. If an engine is developed for multiple platforms at once it's not really porting it anymore is it? Nor does it explain how playing it on a console shows this.
I think porting anything between completely different platforms is a crap job. I doubt GTA was any harder or easier. 

Your logic of 8 cores being used because it was delayed 6 months doesn't make much sense either. I'd say it was delayed because they simply weren't done. Just like most games, I'd say there are two main threads or something and several things on the size, hardly causing a load on the other cores.
Would be interesting to check CPU usage on the PC version though, I see no reason why the engine is changed so much that the threads got changed.

Besides, PS3 only has 7 cores, not that that changes anything


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

The car and npc density is run off of the CPU.  With car density set to 100, my q6600 at 3ghz is being used 78% (4 cores) during the benchmark.  Actually GPU is 80%, RAM 60%.  It seems to be using most of my system.  I'm quite sure Rockstar has been working on the PC version of this game before they launched it on the consoles.


----------



## pagalms (Dec 4, 2008)

Two words - *EPIC FAIL*


----------



## Deleted member 3 (Dec 4, 2008)

erocker said:


> The car and npc density is run off of the CPU.  With car density set to 100, my q6600 at 3ghz is being used 78% (4 cores) during the benchmark.  Actually GPU is 80%, RAM 60%.  It seems to be using most of my system.  I'm quite sure Rockstar has been working on the PC version of this game before they launched it on the consoles.



And if you lower that density?


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

With car density set to 50 my quad is being used 62%.   I'll try it even lower once I'm home.



pagalms said:


> Two words - *EPIC FAIL*



Two words:  *GIVE REASON?!!*  I completely disagree with your empty statement.


----------



## ktr (Dec 4, 2008)

erocker said:


> The car and npc density is run off of the CPU.  With car density set to 100, my q6600 at 3ghz is being used 78% (4 cores) during the benchmark.  Actually GPU is 80%, RAM 60%.  It seems to be using most of my system.  I'm quite sure Rockstar has been working on the PC version of this game before they launched it on the consoles.




You can adjust car and npc density? That is fucking lame. That goes against how R* wanted to perceive the game to its audience. So turning them lower just to play the game will result in a different experience...the look and feel. One think I liked about gta4 was how dense downtown gets with cars and peeps. 

Now turning then all to 100%, does it differ to the console version?


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

ktr said:


> You can adjust car and npc density? That is fucking lame. That goes against how R* wanted to perceive the game to its audience. So turning them lower just to play the game will result in a different experience.
> 
> Now turning then all to 100%, does it differ to the console version?



Yes, 100% is close to rush hour traffic everywhere.  I think all this game needs is a better way (perhaps dumber) of setting your settings.  It would be nice if it had a Ps3 or Xbox360 setting for graphics for easy comparison.  The settings I'm playing at look much better than the console version.  Draw distance can be set from 0-100.  On consoles that setting is at 22.  That's what I know so far.

Actually EvilZed posted this earlier:


> Originally Posted by rockstar?
> Most users using current PC hardware as of December 2008 are advised to use medium graphics settings. Higher settings are provided for future generations of PCs with higher specifications than are currently widely available.
> 
> Graphics settings are limited by system resources by default. 256MB video cards force minimum settings by default. If a user bypasses these safety measures using command line arguments and exceeds their system resources, the users gaming experience may be compromised.
> ...


----------



## ktr (Dec 4, 2008)

erocker said:


> Yes, 100% is close to rush hour traffic everywhere.  I think all this game needs is a better way (perhaps dumber) of setting your settings.  It would be nice if it had a Ps3 or Xbox360 setting for graphics for easy comparison.  The settings I'm playing at look much better than the console version.  Draw distance can be set from 0-100.  On consoles that setting is at 22.  That's what I know so far.
> 
> Actually EvilZed posted this earlier:



Wow, I wonder what would be the difference when settings it at 100 for draw distance. I thought the console version was high enough, it kinda reproduced the human eye IMO...as in farther objects will look blurry...a bit blue-ish.


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

For a while I was playing with a draw distance of 14, and missing buildings and the like weren't noticable at all from the ground.  Flying in a helicoptor, things are deffinitely more noticable. My 512mb vid card just doesn't have enough vram to draw more textures at a greater draw distance using 1920x1200.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 4, 2008)

erocker said:


> Yes, 100% is close to rush hour traffic everywhere.  I think all this game needs is a better way (perhaps dumber) of setting your settings.  It would be nice if it had a Ps3 or Xbox360 setting for graphics for easy comparison.  The settings I'm playing at look much better than the console version.  Draw distance can be set from 0-100.  On consoles that setting is at 22.  That's what I know so far.
> 
> Actually EvilZed posted this earlier:



I wish they would release exactly what the settings need to be to match the console's.  We know view distance of was set at 21 for the consoles.  Just by comparing the two on the same screen at the same resolution, it seems like Medium settings on the PC side with the draw distance at 22 gives a better experience than the PS3 version.  

I didn't even realize that SLI wasn't supported, so it is only using one of my 384MB 9600GSO's and it handles the game just fine at those settings.


----------



## W1zzard (Dec 4, 2008)

does it have a benchmark mode?


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 4, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> does it have a benchmark mode?



yes, I know what you are thinking


----------



## pagalms (Dec 4, 2008)

erocker said:


> With car density set to 50 my quad is being used 62%.   I'll try it even lower once I'm home.
> 
> 
> 
> Two words:  *GIVE REASON?!!*  I completely disagree with your empty statement.



It has poor graphics with insane requirements. For example GRID - great graphics with friendly requirements, but here... :shadedshu
I will wait for some patches and hope they'll optimize the game.


----------



## Katanai (Dec 4, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> does it have a benchmark mode?



Hehe looking out for a Crysis type of beast to ad to the suite?


----------



## Steevo (Dec 4, 2008)

Tonight.............


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

pagalms said:


> It has poor graphics with insane requirements. For example GRID - great graphics with friendly requirements, but here... :shadedshu
> I will wait for some patches and hope they'll optimize the game.



I understand where you are coming from (I love GRID!), but no amount of optimization is going to help any current mainstream video card to process the abnormal amout of textures this game has.  Crysis and the like can't touch the amount of textures there are in GTAIV, hence it's size. I'm trying to secure a GTX280 to see how this game looks with high textures at a high resolution.  I'm hoping the lack of AA support won't be as much of a problem, though really it isn't, like I said I've been playing this game a lot since I got it yesterday and it's awesome.  No, I can't play on the highest settings and that's just fine.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 4, 2008)

pagalms said:


> It has poor graphics with insane requirements. For example GRID - great graphics with friendly requirements, but here... :shadedshu
> I will wait for some patches and hope they'll optimize the game.



You have to consider what is going on in the game.  You can't simply say it doesn't look as pretty as other games, so it has poor graphics.  The number of textures, NPCs, cars, and buildings in GTA:IV is huge, no other PC game probably even comes close to how much is going on.  Yes, everything in the game doesn't look as good as it might look in other games, however other games don't have as much stuff in them.  The more stuff in the game, the less detailed everything has to be.  It isn't like Crysis, where you might have _maybe_ 3 vehicles being rendered at once, and _maybe_ 5 NPCs.  You can stand still and look around in GTA:IV and see 15+ vehicles all being rendered, and 30-40 NPCs.  That is a lot to render, of course it isn't going to nearly as detailed.  But, IMO, considering the number of things being rendered, they are pretty damn detailed.  Each has semi-realistic damage characteristics, and they do look like cars and people.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 4, 2008)

So I could try and play it at high with a gig of vram and a quad at 3Ghz and 4Gb RAM?


----------



## erocker (Dec 4, 2008)

Steevo said:


> So I could try and play it at high with a gig of vram and a quad at 3Ghz and 4Gb RAM?



Don't know.  According to the way the settings work in the game you should be able to.  As you raise the settings it counts how much V-RAM it's going to use.


----------



## RadeonX2 (Dec 4, 2008)

darn another game that would surely crawl to hell on my PC :shadedshu


----------



## Steevo (Dec 5, 2008)

25%.......


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 5, 2008)

I will never buy this game until Rockstar gets rid of all the DRM (SecuROM and Games for Windows).  I can deal with one or the other but not both.  It demonstrates a customers-last mentality.  Their loss.


----------



## wolf (Dec 5, 2008)

it'd be interesting to see the new quadro with 4gb of ram play this game at maxx  perhaps when  sli works for GTA4 someone will somehow get 2 of those beasts (quadro fx5800?) working together for blissness

does a quadro game as well as its geforce sibling or is some modding needed?


----------



## xu^ (Dec 5, 2008)

i bought GTA 4 on release and tbh im very happy with it .

Runs pretty decently in High settings 1680*1050 ,getting around 40 - 50 fps most of the time.

can't go any higher than "high" due to gfx card ram which is 896mb,but is enough to get me off medium.According to the game im using 876mb of avail gfx vram ,i assume the remaining 20mb vra is being used for windows etc.
I'm also averaging roughly 75% - 78% CPU usage and around 70% ram usage.

yeah the R* Social Club thing is a pain but i can live with it ,hopefully they may remove the disk check in a patch.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 5, 2008)

I flashed a new BIOS to fix some issues I was having and low and behold. Windows did not like it. So I was up untill 3AM reinstalling. It is at 21% when I left home as it went to sleep last night. So mebey later tonight, but probablu not as I have a anniversary dinner with my wife, and she might be disappointed if I stay home to play GTA.  AKA lackanookie disease.


----------



## DaMulta (Dec 5, 2008)

http://files.filefront.com/3danalyzer+v236rar/;5422262;/fileinfo.html

anyone wanna try this program and see if they can get it running better?


----------



## PCpraiser100 (Dec 5, 2008)

Saw the videos on Youtube, the damn game can't takes dual-cores for $h*t. Its playable, however 30fps with an E8400 /w/HD 4850 1650x1050? C'mon.


----------



## farlex85 (Dec 5, 2008)

PCpraiser100 said:


> Saw the videos on Youtube, the damn game can't takes dual-cores for $h*t. Its playable, however 30fps with an E8400 /w/HD 4850 1650x1050? C'mon.



30fps? Sounds good to me. Newteckie really explained it well on the first post of the last page. I'll be picking this up shortly.


----------



## PCpraiser100 (Dec 5, 2008)

farlex85 said:


> 30fps? Sounds good to me. Newteckie really explained it well on the first post of the last page. I'll be picking this up shortly.



Thanks farlex. However the perfmance is still somewhat unacceptable for high-res gamers.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 5, 2008)

At lunch is my next chance.


----------



## jbunch07 (Dec 5, 2008)

So would a system like mine be able to run this game on max settings @1680x1050?

@erocker, you playing on a 4870 right?


----------



## farlex85 (Dec 5, 2008)

PCpraiser100 said:


> Thanks farlex. However the perfmance is still somewhat unacceptable for high-res gamers.



 I consider 1680x1050 to be fairly high res. 1920x1200 will be a challenge, but such is pc gaming. If you drop the dough on a monitor of that res, you can expect to drop lots of dough for a system to run games smoothly on it. To expect anything less is an exercise in futility.  As already said, this game has a ridiculous amount of textures to render, they could have dumbed it down to make it run smoother on lesser hardware, but I personally would rather them push the limits of what the hardware can do, even if I can't enjoy it fully for a bit down the road.


----------



## ShadowFold (Dec 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> So would a system like mine be able to run this game on max settings @1680x1050?
> 
> @erocker, you playing on a 4870 right?


No. Unless you find 15-20 fps smooth.


----------



## farlex85 (Dec 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> So would a system like mine be able to run this game on max settings @1680x1050?
> 
> @erocker, you playing on a 4870 right?



I would imagine it would run fairly smooth, you have about as powerful a gaming rig as one could have right now w/ that x2. You might have to tone down the aa or af a tad, but you should have it looking great no problem.


----------



## jbunch07 (Dec 5, 2008)

Hmm, well I would like to buy it but I want to play at max settings...Eh what the hell cant hurt I guess. Ill give it a try and report back


----------



## ShadowFold (Dec 5, 2008)

My friend has a HD 4870X2 and a QX9650 and he can't run this game at all. He has to play it with everything at 0% and low render just to get 30fps. I don't even want to talk about it on my rig, got my money back on steam by opening a dispute with my bank.


----------



## jbunch07 (Dec 5, 2008)

what cat was he using?


----------



## farlex85 (Dec 5, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> My friend has a HD 4870X2 and a QX9650 and he can't run this game at all. He has to play it with everything at 0% and low render just to get 30fps. I don't even want to talk about it on my rig, got my money back on steam by opening a dispute with my bank.



What res? I would have to say it doesn't seem like your friend has everything running properly. If he does and that is the case, then that is poor indeed.


----------



## ShadowFold (Dec 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> what cat was he using?



Probably 8.11 what ever the latest is. He usually calls me when they release the new ones so I'm guessing he is up to date 



farlex85 said:


> What res? I would have to say it doesn't seem like your friend has everything running properly. If he does and that is the case, then that is poor indeed.



I was at his house when he got it because I wanted to see how it ran on a super computer.. He tried 1024x768 on his 15" then he hooked it up to his normal 1920x1200 then tried doing 1360x720 and no luck.


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 5, 2008)

In summary,

GTA4 requires a 1GB video card (or 898MB GTX260) to run smoothly at "high" resolutions. And a dual >3.2Ghz or quad >2.4Ghz to run smoothly.

If you have a 512MB card, then you need to down some of the graphics details AND run at a lower resolution.

This game cannot pull HD "1080i" quality UNLESS you have a 1GB card and a quad system. If you DO, then you can get better than the console quality. http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=1089832&postcount=43

Now stop whining. Put your resolution to 1280x1024 or 1280x900 depending on your TFT format, and STFU.


----------



## farlex85 (Dec 5, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> Probably 8.11 what ever the latest is. He usually calls me when they release the new ones so I'm guessing he is up to date
> 
> 
> 
> I was at his house when he got it because I wanted to see how it ran on a super computer.. He tried 1024x768 on his 15" then he hooked it up to his normal 1920x1200 then tried doing 1360x720 and no luck.



Same performance across all res? Did he try turning down the aa and af (did he have them forced in catalyst) before turning down the rendering?


----------



## jbunch07 (Dec 5, 2008)

hmm, Seems like i read somewhere that 8.12 is supposed to be allot better for GTA, but only the beta version is out now, so im not sure what im going to do, I may just hold off a little bit


----------



## ShadowFold (Dec 5, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> In summary,
> 
> GTA4 requires a 1GB video card (or 898MB GTX260) to run smoothly at "high" resolutions.
> 
> ...



I was playing on 1440x900 and tried lower reses and it still ran like crap. Not only does it run like crap it looks like crap. Its unexscusable this game will not run on a 500$ dual gpu card. Its just rediculous. How can you stand up for this game? I don't get it


----------



## farlex85 (Dec 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> hmm, Seems like i read somewhere that 8.12 is supposed to be allot better for GTA, but only the beta version is out now, so im not sure what im going to do, I may just hold off a little bit



I would try a "demo" first.


----------



## jbunch07 (Dec 5, 2008)

farlex85 said:


> I would try a "demo" first.



"demo" hmm...will look for one


----------



## ShadowFold (Dec 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> "demo" hmm...will look for one



This game seems hit or miss so please do. Don't waste your money on this game..


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 5, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> I was playing on 1440x900 and tried lower reses and it still ran like crap. Not only does it run like crap it looks like crap. Its unexscusable this game will not run on a 500$ dual gpu card. Its just rediculous. How can you stand up for this game? I don't get it


yep, I dont get it either, why you are having such a bad time with it. It doesnt make sense. Please read their graphics manual and set your GPU as they said, or lower, to CHECK that something small isnt farking your system.

http://www.rockstargames.com/support/gta4pc/docs/GTAIV Graphics Settings.doc


----------



## ShadowFold (Dec 5, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> yep, I dont get it either, why you are having such a bad time with it. It doesnt make sense. Please read their graphics manual and set your GPU as they said, or lower, to CHECK that something small isnt farking your system.
> 
> http://www.rockstargames.com/support/gta4pc/docs/GTAIV Graphics Settings.doc



I already did that crap. Too late if they release a patch now I already got a refund.


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 5, 2008)

Bad luck! And thanks for the warning to all ATI owners.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 5, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> http://files.filefront.com/3danalyzer+v236rar/;5422262;/fileinfo.html
> 
> anyone wanna try this program and see if they can get it running better?



that won't do a thing. 

that is a sort of DirectX 8  , Pixel Shader 1.1 emulator for chips that don't support those functions.


----------



## EviLZeD (Dec 5, 2008)

apparently theres a performance fix on http://www.xfastest.com/viewthread.php?tid=16316&extra=page=1 this site  my guess its the 180.70 drivers

also disabling the video recoding function in options improves fps


----------



## J-Man (Dec 5, 2008)

Already beat this game on PS3.


----------



## Darknova (Dec 5, 2008)

GTA 4 performance, well on my PC it goes like this -> "crash to desktop"

Yup, bought it on the release date, got it home, never managed to get it working. Originally I was getting errors about it not being able to connect to that stupid Rockstar Social Club, then once I disabled that (logged out lol) it crashes immediately after the intro movies, and from what I've read, I'm not the only person having the same issue who has an ATi Radeon card.

erocker, I'd love to know how you got it working...


----------



## DaMulta (Dec 5, 2008)

wolf2009 said:


> that won't do a thing.
> 
> that is a sort of DirectX 8  , Pixel Shader 1.1 emulator for chips that don't support those functions.



A guy on youtuybe used it to play crysis on a intel gpu....


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 5, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> A guy on youtuybe used it to play crysis on a intel gpu....



thats what it does, emulate a graphic card albeit works really slow .


----------



## DaMulta (Dec 5, 2008)

so it does not rip out certain things?


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 5, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> so it does not rip out certain things?









here's what the game window looks like

so you can only emulate upto 9800 pro. no use really


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 5, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> I was playing on 1440x900 and tried lower reses and it still ran like crap. Not only does it run like crap it looks like crap. Its unexscusable this game will not run on a 500$ dual gpu card. Its just rediculous. How can you stand up for this game? I don't get it



I find your experience odd, as I can run it on a single 9600GSO(I thought two in SLI, but the game doesn't support SLI, so it was really one).  It plays on the 9600GSO, that I paid $50 for, at the same resolution as my PS3 and it looks better.

Why do I have this feeling that you haven't actually played the game at all.  Do you even expect anyone to believe that his HD4870x2 couldn't play it even on low?  Really, do you think everyone is that dumb?

I hope to try it on my HD4670 tonight to see how it will run on an ATI setup, the low end dual-core in the rig should be interesting also.


----------



## L|NK|N (Dec 5, 2008)

I look forward to playing this game. Even if it means medium settings. To all of those who are feeling screwed, no one forced you to buy the game.


----------



## MaxAwesome (Dec 5, 2008)

Like someone said earlier, I find it a bit ridiculous that decent Dual Core CPUs are failing to run this game flawlessly. CPUs like E6x00, E7x00 and not to mention the high-end ones E8x00, should run this game like a breeze. So far, C2D kick major ass on any game you throw at them. I will use Assassin's Creed as an example: That game had an insane numbe of pedestrians on screen at any given number, and my CPU (E8400) didn't even break a sweat on the highest settings... My point is, all the previous GTA games had traffic/pedestrians on the street at all times and it managed to run great on older hardware (come on, I played GTA: San Andreas on a 4-year-old Pentium 4 @ 1.3ghz!) To me it is just unacceptable that perfectly capable hardware that will still rock future games for sure (don't even say they won't, I'll bet you you will see C2D CPUs rocking hard for a long time) simply fail to run this game! 

There is no excuse for a game to run this poorly on perfectly adequate and capable hardware. And that "this game is meant for future hardware" story is just plain BS.

Even the lowest C2D (E2x00),when OCe'd at 2.5+ghz, are plenty for any game out there...


----------



## xu^ (Dec 5, 2008)

I think the game is much more dependant on GPU rather than CPU ,it says in the manual any card with 256mb vram will autoset at "LOW" gfx options ,a 512mb card will set to MEDIUM ,and above 512mb is HIGH ,it runs pretty good on my 260s 896mb ,but i think it ideally needs 1gb vram to get the most from it.

Unfortuantly for ATI owners it seems GTA4 appears to have some major performance problems with most if not all ATI cards ,hopefully things like that will be fixed asap in a patch or driver update.


----------



## erocker (Dec 5, 2008)

LiNKiN said:


> I look forward to playing this game. Even if it means medium settings. To all of those who are feeling screwed, no one forced you to buy the game.



It will be great when multiplayer starts working and the Rockstar Social Club problems are gone.  With either of my systems the game plays great at the settings they're at it blows away the console version.  People are getting upset because their high-end systems arent' able to max this game out, which is something they are used to.  Anyone else remember the original Far Cry or Oblivion?  Not much could play those games at over medium settings when they were released.  They got better over time and the games were both great.  The city, life, atmosphere, mass traffic are stunning for this game.  The lack of anti-aliasing kinda sucks right now, however if you feel it's necessary send ATi and Nvidia feedback and let them know you want the option to force AA in the game. It may or may not happen but it's worth a try. Buy this game, don't sign into Rockstar Social Club at the moment, set your settings and enjoy it.  It's a GREAT game.


----------



## EviLZeD (Dec 5, 2008)

Hey guys new beta driver for nvidia cards is out optimized for gta IV http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_gtaiv_downloads.html 180.84


----------



## erocker (Dec 5, 2008)

Awesome, thost will be the drivers I install when I get my new Nvidia card.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 5, 2008)

Built in benchmark scoring.



Statistics
Average FPS: 37.40
Duration: 37.33 sec
CPU Usage: 64%
System memory usage: 72%
Video memory usage: 81%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: High
View Distance: 40
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series 
Video Driver version: 7.14.10.621
Audio Adapter: Speakers (SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio)
AMD Phenom(tm) 9850 Quad-Core Processor

File ID: Benchmark.cli


Draw distance seems to be the limiting factor, at anythign abovbe that it gets choppy. And you start missing textures, but that could be the vmem not providing data fast enough, or a bit to high on the overclock of the vmem.


----------



## erocker (Dec 5, 2008)

So you ARE able to use high textures with your card!  Nice.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 5, 2008)

Looks nice to me.


2X AA
4X AF
High quality textures
Adaptive AA High quality


Lowing the vmem doesn't fix the missing textures. However on the second run through the textures are all there.


----------



## erocker (Dec 6, 2008)

I don't think AA is working, but it's not supposed to yet.  It does look good.


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 6, 2008)

^^ Steevo, THANKS for the screenshot. The graphics are amazing compared to what I was expecting given all those whiners in previous posts.  But WAIT, you have the 1GB 4850. I think that is the clue. This game just isnt happy on ATI 512MB but needs more.

Why are so many peeps whining? If you run good at high graphics on your resolution, I'm sure 512MB'ers can do it with medium settings on a slightly lower resolution.


----------



## EviLZeD (Dec 6, 2008)

I believe your graphics cards memory determines what settings gta allows but this can be bypassed using some parameters to the shortcut of the game. I read somewere to max gta 4 you need around 1.4gb or graphics memory.


----------



## erocker (Dec 6, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> ^^ Steevo, THANKS for the screenshot. The graphics are amazing compared to what I was expecting given all those whiners in previous posts.  But WAIT, you have the 1GB 4850. I think that is the clue. This game just isnt happy on ATI 512MB but needs more.
> 
> Why are so many peeps whining? If you run good at high graphics on your resolution, I'm sure 512MB'ers can do it with medium settings on a slightly lower resolution.



Above 512mb is the key for the high texture settings.  With my 4870 512mb, I can play on 1920x1200 everything maxed except textures where I'm limited to "medium" and the draw distance is limited to 24.  It does look good.


----------



## wolf (Dec 6, 2008)

i have a 1gb 9600GT nicely overclocked that i might test... reckon high is possible on a 8800GTX's 768mb?


----------



## erocker (Dec 6, 2008)

Yes, and I think high will be available with your 9600GT 1gb as well.


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 6, 2008)

In other news, 

die hard fans of the GTA series buy up all stock in nVidias QUADRO professional FX 5800 GPU with 4GB ram at a cool $3499. Put two of those in SLI and it will *BLOW* GTA4  (once they have patched the crossfire/SLI issue).

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-Quadro-FX-4800,6654.html


----------



## wolf (Dec 6, 2008)

itll be on a 1440x900 screen, so res wont be an issue, im sure if i keep the draw distance moderate ill be fine 

the hard part will be filling my 28"s 1920x1200 with a 4870 512.....


----------



## wolf (Dec 6, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> In other news,
> 
> die hard fans of the GTA series buy up all stock in nVidias QUADRO professional FX 5800 GPU with 4GB ram at a cool $3499. Put two of those in SLI and it will *BLOW* GTA4  (once they have patched the crossfire/SLI issue).
> 
> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-Quadro-FX-4800,6654.html



from that review.. "there is support for SLI frame rendering."

HELLO


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 6, 2008)

HELLO!

You cant SLI/crossfire in GTA4


----------



## frankie827 (Dec 6, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> In other news,
> 
> die hard fans of the GTA series buy up all stock in nVidias QUADRO professional FX 5800 GPU with 4GB ram at a cool $3499. Put two of those in SLI and it will *BLOW* GTA4  (once they have patched the crossfire/SLI issue).
> 
> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-Quadro-FX-4800,6654.html



*die hard fans that have no price limit and dont realize the quadro series isnt meant for gaming *


----------



## wolf (Dec 6, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> HELLO!
> 
> You cant SLI/crossfire in GTA4



not yet, but in time...


----------



## erocker (Dec 6, 2008)

Here's my bench:









Those are the highest allowable settings for the HD4870 512mb
Q6600 @ 3.0ghz RAM @ 1066


----------



## wolf (Dec 6, 2008)

is that 38fps pretty solid or is there a large fluctuation?


----------



## erocker (Dec 6, 2008)

wolf said:


> is that 38fps pretty solid or is there a large fluctuation?



Solid.  It did dip to 28 fps a couple times but that's as low as it goes.


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 6, 2008)

Thank you erocker for some objective data.

You have a 4870 512MB and can run 1920x1200 without problems! Great. What is everyone complaining about? 

We need a new thread started with GTA4 BENCHMARK results, CPU, GPU and RAM, FPS... with a standard set of texture, render, view.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 6, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> Thank you erocker for some objective data.
> 
> You have a 4870 512MB and can run 1920x1200 without problems! Great. What is everyone complaining about?



thats just a benchmark, not actual gameplay


Does the game dip below 20fps in gameplay ?


----------



## erocker (Dec 6, 2008)

wolf2009 said:


> Does the game dip below 20fps in gameplay ?



No. The lowest it has gone that I've noticed is 24, with a hell of alot going on.  It goes as high as 60, but generally stays in the upper 30's to low 40 range.  Those are the settings I play at.  I actually turn the amount of vehicles down to 70, because having so much traffic can be annoying!

I'm dl'ing/installing it on my other (nvidia 9800GTX+) rig right now.


----------



## Viorel (Dec 6, 2008)

erocker said:


> No. The lowest it has gone that I've noticed is 24, with a hell of alot going on.  It goes as high as 60, but generally stays in the upper 30's to low 40 range.



25-35 here, but is very playable


----------



## Steevo (Dec 6, 2008)

The cutscenes seem to take more time/power to render than the actual game.


----------



## Whilhelm (Dec 6, 2008)

So is AA going to be supported at some point or is this yet another console port with no AA support. That was the biggest improvement that I was looking forward to with this release.


----------



## pagalms (Dec 6, 2008)

I got 4fps more with Quadro FX 178.26 drivers than with Geforce 180.70. 
And btw: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_gtaiv_downloads.html


----------



## xu^ (Dec 6, 2008)

Rockstar have just revealed on our forum that a patch for GTA IV PC is due to be made available in the next few days. Here is what they had to say:

    Driver News

    We’re pleased to announce that in co-operation with Nvidia a new driver has been released that improves performance and fixes a major issue with 7900 series cards. If you haven’t gotten the driver yet download it here: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_gtaiv_downloads.html

    ATI has also agreed to officially release Catalyst 8.12 which will release on Dec 10th from http://game.amd.com. Expect significant performance improvements when using this new driver.
    Patch Is On The Way

    We are working on making a patch available in the next few days. Since Grand Theft Auto IV is a Games For Windows – Live game the patch must be certified by Microsoft before release. The patch is already at Microsoft and we expect a speedy approval. The patch contains a variety of fixes including:

        * A fix to the crash after legal screen that some German customers were reporting.
        * Numerous improvements to the video editor: Smarter naming of videos, improved rendering quality, better fx during replays
        * Fix to bowling while using certain sensitive mice
        * Fix for ATI 1900 shadows
        * Overall savings to memory
        * Graphic improvements to particle systems and mirrors
        * Multiplayer character settings are preserved
        * Support for DirectInput controllers. Note: The current hack way of supporting these controllers may not work with the improved functionality. So we recommend you remove the hack before upgrading to the patch.

    Issues with power management software have also been fixed (slow speed, double speed issues). Even after the patch comes out setting power management software to maximum performance is recommended. We’ve seen cases where power management software does not detect the game is running and puts the CPU in green mode.

    Besides the patch we’ve also improved the way the Social Club handles data this should have greatly reduced or eliminated the Mma10 error. If you are still receiving this error after logging in and out of Social Club we would like to know as much info as you can about it.


Source: http://www.gta4.net/news/index.php


----------



## Wingo101 (Dec 6, 2008)

Good news


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 6, 2008)

Yeah, great news!  Can't wait to play this game  
Found this:






Seems a quad benefits quite a lot from this game.  Multithreaded FTW!


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 6, 2008)

xubidoo said:


> We’re pleased to announce that in co-operation with Nvidia a new driver has been released that improves performance and fixes a major issue with *7900 series cards*. If you haven’t gotten the driver yet download it here: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_gtaiv_downloads.html
> 
> ATI has also agreed to officially release Catalyst 8.12 which will release on Dec 10th from http://game.amd.com. Expect significant performance improvements when using this new driver.
> Patch Is On The Way
> ...



Funny, with the way people talk about how poor the performance is on such high end hardware, you would think old hardware like the 7900 series and 1900 series wouldn't be able to play it at all...:shadedshu


----------



## Steevo (Dec 6, 2008)

After playing awhile last night.


System Memory speed seems to make a huge impact on the way the game plays.  Changing my timing had a two frame per second difference.

Plus you get a lot of texture corruption from over clocking your video memory to high.  I changed mine too high and ended up with a lot of graphics corruption.


----------



## newconroer (Dec 6, 2008)

Is this equally problematic in XP and Vista or?


----------



## Irish_PXzyan (Dec 6, 2008)

hey guys.

I do plan on buying this for the PC but I am not so sure.
I have it for the PS3 tho.

With my system, should I expect to run this game on high settings??? Or should I expect lag??

Is this game even worth buying on PC???


----------



## xu^ (Dec 6, 2008)

it will probably run on high settings for u ,as u have 640mb vram ,but turning it down to Med doesnt seem to make it look much different and it does run a lot better.

altho if uve already got the PS3 version ,why would u want the PC ver ?
yes it has extras that the PS3/360 versions dont but i dont think they make a huge difference to the game.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 6, 2008)

Irish_PXzyan said:


> hey guys.
> 
> I do plan on buying this for the PC but I am not so sure.
> I have it for the PS3 tho.
> ...



Don't expect all high, that is really the issue most are having, they expect the game to max out on their hardware, and whine if they have to lower settings.

However, you should have no problem with the game on medium, which blows the console version away in terms of graphics.


----------



## Irish_PXzyan (Dec 6, 2008)

That's good enough for me!

Now I just have to decide if I should even bother with the PC version!


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 6, 2008)

Personally, I wouldn't.  I have it on the PS3, and got the PC version.  Honestly, the PC version doesn't offer enough over the PS3/Xbox360 versions to justify the cost.


----------



## Polarman (Dec 6, 2008)

I'll wait a bit before buying this game. Let driver issues and patches sort it out first.

I'm not in any hurry!


----------



## Chryonn (Dec 7, 2008)

Re: the DRM, how many installs does it allow you, 3 or 5?


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 7, 2008)

There is no install limit.


----------



## Nick89 (Dec 7, 2008)

GTA IV, the crysis killer.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 7, 2008)

It runs fine with me, idk what the problem is. Even all settings at the max it only goes about 20fps which isnt bad.


----------



## jbunch07 (Dec 7, 2008)

most people would consider 20fps unacceptable.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 7, 2008)

The Console version was capped at 30FPS, and it often dropped below that on my PS3.  Though it is true, that most PC gamers don't consider 20FPS acceptable.  Again, this goes to my point that PC gamers tend to be hard headed in their beliefs that every game should run at 60FPS+ on Max Settings, on their Mid-Range hardware, at extreme resolutions.  And if that doesn't happen, then they usually whine about the game being un-optimized(which I don't know how they can claim that without looking at the code) and crappy.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 7, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> most people would consider 20fps unacceptable.



Actualy considering I have a single card that is two generations old and at max settings at 1680 x 1050 it isnt that bad.



newtekie1 said:


> The Console version was capped at 30FPS, and it often dropped below that on my PS3.  Though it is true, that most PC gamers don't consider 20FPS acceptable.  Again, this goes to my point that PC gamers tend to be hard headed in their beliefs that every game should run at 60FPS+ on Max Settings, on their Mid-Range hardware, at extreme resolutions.  And if that doesn't happen, then they usually whine about the game being un-optimized(which I don't know how they can claim that without looking at the code) and crappy.



So true, Especially with crysis, people claiming that the game is un-optimised simply because it doesn't run well on their 8600.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 7, 2008)

a) Games only rake in a lot of money in the first 90 days on the shelf so, why make something that can't run on the best settings for two more years when people will have moved on to a different game by then?
b) The game got stuck on the loading screen twice so far.  Requires ctrl+alt+del and termination to break it out of it.
c) I'm having a lot of problems with precaching not working properly.  After playing about an hour, the world becomes gray except for a few things like street lights.  I have to load a save for it to correct it.
d) Frequently, cutscenes seem to be held up for no apparent reason (the view doesn't pan or anything for about 30 seconds).

Hell, I don't think I have been able to play the game for longer than two hours without encountering one of the last three points.  Comparing that to GTA I through GTA San Andreas, this game is riddled with bugs.


In addition to those issues, most of the cars drive like tanks.  The brakes are ineffective as is the steering.  As such, they behave like they are much heavier than they really are.  The driving is much slower paced now than in the previous games because of it.

Overall, I like how they kept the general feel from the GTA3 games.  It is also good on length but rather repetitive compared to the previous games.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 7, 2008)

a) The current high end hardware can max the game out.
b) Only twice?  Fallout3 has crashed probably a dozen times on me, I still keep playing it.  PC games crash, that is just what happens.  I don't think I've seen a game come out in several years that didn't have some bugs in it at release.
c) I haven't experience this issue, but I don't doubt it exists.  There are bound to be bugs in newly released games, it is what happens when you have so many different combinations of hardware and software to deal with.
d) Again, I haven't encounted this, but I'm sure it is one of those bugs that happen with initial game releases.

As for the cars, they seem to drive pretty much the same as the console version.  The driving physics are very arcadish, they are meant to be like that.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 7, 2008)

A) Would you dare make a game that has outdated graphics as soon as it was available?
B) No crashes, you just need alot of RAM.
C) Caching is a issue hotly debated, do it and you run the risk of making a system slow and unresponsive by overloading it unless they have top notch specs, don't do it and the people with top notch specs are crying as the load times from disk suck.
D) The cuscenes require more processing power from the tests I have done, they require huge amounts of textures to be moved around and loaded, more than any current graphics card has onboard, and thus the system memory gets involved, and then you have latentcy.



I got the 4850 Gb1 as I know this game was going to use it, and 4Gb of system memory running tight timings and fast still makes it cry for mercy.


----------



## Mussels (Dec 8, 2008)

'poorly coded' means that no matter the hardware it doesnt run good. supreme commander is poorly coded with the AI, because even my CPU cant keep up in later games - you try and find a stock CPU as powerful as mine, and you'll see why the game is 'poor' - so few people can truly play it!

GTA IV aint so bad, as at least you can turn settings down til it works.


----------



## mikey8684 (Dec 8, 2008)

Has anyone been able to run this higher than Medium ? 

I figure it has something to do with the Vram meter at the bottom of the graphics options.
Which is a pretty cool feature I think.

Anyway the game runs pretty good for me maxed out (Medium) @ 1920x1200 ... probs 20-30fps which im happy with for now ... ITS GTA IV FFS lol


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> b) Only twice?  Fallout3 has crashed probably a dozen times on me, I still keep playing it.  PC games crash, that is just what happens.  I don't think I've seen a game come out in several years that didn't have some bugs in it at release.


True.  The difference being is that GTA4 takes a good 3 minutes to get running again going through damned RGSC, lengthy "legal" screen, two rockstar images, another load screen, then you gotta freakin' drive all the way back to where you were.  It also doesn't crash, it hangs.  So that means another 15 seconds wasted terminating it.  FO3 crashes to desktop so it only takes about two clicks and hardly any waiting to get very close to the point it crashed.

By the way, add a third tick to that hang-up list.

No game is perfect any more out of the box because of patching.  They don't make them like they used to (that is, quality in a box). 




newtekie1 said:


> As for the cars, they seem to drive pretty much the same as the console version.  The driving physics are very arcadish, they are meant to be like that.


My beef is they aren't as arcadish as GTA3.  Seems like I spend all my time braking in GTA4 when in GTA3, it was all about going fast.  Because of that, GTA3 and sons are much more exciting in chases and other high-speed events.  GTA4 is pretty dull.





Steevo said:


> B) No crashes, you just need alot of RAM.


3 GiB isn't enough?



Steevo said:


> C) Caching is a issue hotly debated, do it and you run the risk of making a system slow and unresponsive by overloading it unless they have top notch specs, don't do it and the people with top notch specs are crying as the load times from disk suck.
> D) The cuscenes require more processing power from the tests I have done, they require huge amounts of textures to be moved around and loaded, more than any current graphics card has onboard, and thus the system memory gets involved, and then you have latentcy.


Then why didn't they add a feature which vastly scales back on textures count?  Seriously, I need only seven textures (they could just be solid colors too):
1. Building
2. Road
3. Me
4. Enemy
5. Friendly
6. Vehicle
7. Police
Why give me more than that if it is going to interrupt the flow of the gameplay?




Steevo said:


> I got the 4850 Gb1 as I know this game was going to use it, and 4Gb of system memory running tight timings and fast still makes it cry for mercy.


Ridiculous.  I wonder how many returns GTA4 is going to get because they over-speced it.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 8, 2008)

I just realised its 14 odd gigabyte  Compared to the consoles which are about 7gb what the hell have they added.

I do love the graphics though, I mean the draw distances and the detail level for far away objects is amazing, no wonder why it takes a beefy card to draw an entire city at that level of detail.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 8, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> True.  The difference being is that GTA4 takes a good 3 minutes to get running again going through damned RGSC, lengthy "legal" screen, two rockstar images, another load screen, then you gotta freakin' drive all the way back to where you were.  It also doesn't crash, it hangs.  So that means another 15 seconds wasted terminating it.  FO3 crashes to desktop so it only takes about two clicks and hardly any waiting to get very close to the point it crashed.
> 
> By the way, add a third tick to that hang-up list.
> 
> ...



Fallout was just an example I used, and in my case, Fallout 3 doesn't crash to desktop, it hangs. Or comes up with the warning from Vista saying it has crashed, which I can't click on because the game is still the focus.  Meaning I have to alt+tab to the desktop.  Then fallout 3 is still covering the entire screeen, except the box, and I have no mouse, I just have to hit enter to close the crash warning, and then I am finally back at the box.

And in Fallout, you are pretty close to where you left off, sometime.  However, I've spent an hour walking around doing things in the Wasteland, only to have it crash on me and that hour of work is gone.  With GTA:IV, a crash isn't likely to cost you much time of gameplay, and once you know the game, you can get to pretty much any place in the city from anywhere else in 5-10 minutes.

As for the cars, the take a little more skill to get used to driving, but once you do, you can get going pretty damn fast.  I almost never use the brakes, but I do use the handbrake a lot.



FordGT90Concept said:


> Ridiculous.  I wonder how many returns GTA4 is going to get because they over-speced it.



I don't think I would accept returns on this game based on that reason if I was a game store.  Mid-Range hardware has no problem playing this game, if I can play it on my 9600GSO, people have no reason to complain.



DrPepper said:


> I just realised its 14 odd gigabyte  Compared to the consoles which are about 7gb what the hell have they added.
> 
> I do love the graphics though, I mean the draw distances and the detail level for far away objects is amazing, no wonder why it takes a beefy card to draw an entire city at that level of detail.



I'm going to guess the much higher res textures is probably the main reason.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Fallout was just an example I used, and in my case, Fallout 3 doesn't crash to desktop, it hangs. Or comes up with the warning from Vista saying it has crashed, which I can't click on because the game is still the focus.  Meaning I have to alt+tab to the desktop.  Then fallout 3 is still covering the entire screeen, except the box, and I have no mouse, I just have to hit enter to close the crash warning, and then I am finally back at the box.
> 
> And in Fallout, you are pretty close to where you left off, sometime.  However, I've spent an hour walking around doing things in the Wasteland, only to have it crash on me and that hour of work is gone.  With GTA:IV, a crash isn't likely to cost you much time of gameplay, and once you know the game, you can get to pretty much any place in the city from anywhere else in 5-10 minutes.


I get those kinds of crashes in NFS:Undercover.  They are a PITA.  I usually just end up pushing the reset button on my tower when they happen.

Fallout 3 crashes do the Send Report dialog thing for me so they're quick.  It doesn't seem like the game remained full screen when it crashed.  I'd be driven nuts on that game too if it didn't get out of full screen.  Seriously, when is Microsoft going to add a key combo to force any full screen app running off?




newtekie1 said:


> As for the cars, the take a little more skill to get used to driving, but once you do, you can get going pretty damn fast.  I almost never use the brakes, but I do use the handbrake a lot.


I find myself holding the brake for half a second to a second, realising it isn't enough, and then using the hand brake too.  Usually I end up putting the car sideways before hitting that police car/wall.


Don't get me wrong, the game is pretty good.  It beats the crap out of Far Cry 2 and Need for Speed: Undercover but, I just expected smoother gameplay (as in interruptions to the flow of the game--not graphics) like the GTA3 games.


----------



## AsRock (Dec 8, 2008)

They just sent me a update for social club. don't know what the fixes are though/

Mine happened automatically maybe this is it ?.
http://www.rockstargames.com/support/IV/PC/GFWLupdate/


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 8, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> I'm going to guess the much higher res textures is probably the main reason.



I guess some of it is but 7gb is bigger than crysis worth of textures considering the other 7gb would probably contain textures as well. 

I'm going to try play it on a 3450 to see if it is playable and afaik game stores around here don't let you return the game if your pc can't play it, they warn you when you buy it your pc might not be able to play it.


----------



## ktr (Dec 8, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> I just realised its 14 odd gigabyte  Compared to the consoles which are about 7gb what the hell have they added.
> 
> I do love the graphics though, I mean the draw distances and the detail level for far away objects is amazing, no wonder why it takes a beefy card to draw an entire city at that level of detail.



I was shocked in the previous GTA's for the PC on how big the radio sound track...about 2/3 on the game install!

How big is it in GTA4 PC?


----------



## erocker (Dec 8, 2008)

ktr said:


> I was shocked in the previous GTA's for the PC on how big the radio sound track...about 2/3 on the game install!
> 
> How big is it in GTA4 PC?



Audio is 6.00GB and Data is 5.61GB


----------



## Steevo (Dec 8, 2008)

I can play it on high settings, and with 40 draw distance at high settings, and max everything else but the car population, as that becomes unreasonable to play in. 


I have always loved the audio on the GTA series, plus the ability to add more. There is nothing like the freeroam ability you get with this game. Plus cheats if you want to rampage, and alot of minigames. If you are buying a game for graphics only , don't get this. If you are buying a game for FPS, don't get this. 



My X1800XT couldn't run GTA SA at max settings, just part of the game the the action going on.


----------



## Mussels (Dec 8, 2008)

the 'constant braking' sounds like its based on a controller. PC driving is on or off, you dont have analogue throttle.

bah, that'll get annoying fast.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2008)

It's not that bad.  Just something they need to iron out.  The worst thing is not being able to play the game straight for even 3 hours without having to reload or restart the game.  I think it's all connected to the caching issue (gray world).  I'll try to take a pic of it soon.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 8, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> It's not that bad.  Just something they need to iron out.  The worst thing is not being able to play the game straight for even 3 hours without having to reload or restart the game.  I think it's all connected to the caching issue (gray world).  I'll try to take a pic of it soon.



After playing it all night I realise what you mean about the caching issue or whatever it is, eventualy i get about 10 fps and need to save and restart


----------



## eidairaman1 (Dec 8, 2008)

nvidia even recommends upgrading to their latest Beta Driver (180.84 or something) driver to get the best experience out of GTA 4 on their hardware.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2008)

I don't use beta drivers.

Attached pic of the "gray world."  This definitely isn't the worst it has been but you get the idea.  You can only tell where the road is by the things on and around it.  You can't tell where doors, stairs, etc. are unless you are already familar with it.

As you can tell from the previous post time stamp, it got to that point in just over an hour of playing.  I think it happens quicker the more I go in and out of buildings.


If it starts looking like that pic and it decides to show a cutscene, that's when the game hangs on "Loading."


----------



## xu^ (Dec 8, 2008)

maybe a lack of vram ?  

afaik the game sets all low settings if you only have 256mb vram.


----------



## newconroer (Dec 8, 2008)

Well, I'd love to join you all in fretting over poor performance, but I haven't even got that far yet.

Everytime I start a new game I get the loading screens of the characters, then when it goes to start it goes to a black screen, then disconnects the display signal, turns it back on, disconnects, back on with several seconds in between. If I leave it for more than ten seconds, and I force it to close, it corrupts my Direct 3D files and I have to reinstall the GPU driver.


Phooey is the word of the hour!


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 9, 2008)

I've been watching task manager while playing the game and it seems that it uses all 4 cores  which makes me curious as to would my quad at stock outperform a e8600 at stock.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 9, 2008)

newconroer said:


> Well, I'd love to join you all in fretting over poor performance, but I haven't even got that far yet.
> 
> Everytime I start a new game I get the loading screens of the characters, then when it goes to start it goes to a black screen, then disconnects the display signal, turns it back on, disconnects, back on with several seconds in between. If I leave it for more than ten seconds, and I force it to close, it corrupts my Direct 3D files and I have to reinstall the GPU driver.
> 
> ...


Make sure your secreen resolution doesn't have a ultra high refresh rate (Hz).  If you are using an LCD, try 60 Hz.  You could try 75 Hz too--most monitors support that.  If you are using a CRT, 60 Hz is the minimum you should use but I highly recommend 72-85 Hz.  Any higher than 85 Hz can cause problems.

It may also help to have GTA4 and your desktop use the same settings.


----------



## newconroer (Dec 9, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Make sure your secreen resolution doesn't have a ultra high refresh rate (Hz).  If you are using an LCD, try 60 Hz.  You could try 75 Hz too--most monitors support that.  If you are using a CRT, 60 Hz is the minimum you should use but I highly recommend 72-85 Hz.  Any higher than 85 Hz can cause problems.
> 
> It may also help to have GTA4 and your desktop use the same settings.



Ill see if that's it, though it should be the same. The game says 60hz, and that's what the desktop is at as well.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 10, 2008)

Now I really don't know where people are getting their claims of poor performance.  I just ran it on the lowest of my gaming rigs.  Athlon X2 4400+@2.8GHz, 2GB DDR, HD4670 It runs perfectly smooth at 1280x1024 medium settings.


----------



## Mussels (Dec 10, 2008)

i'm installing GTA IV on system in specs. will let you know how it goes.


----------



## sneekypeet (Dec 10, 2008)

Well I was greeted with the no texture issue. I have so far swapped drivers (from 180.48 to 180.84beta), done all windows updates, and eliminated all game content at this point. For now I am waiting the reinstall to see if any of them helped. Sorta sux, but if I can get it to work I will share a more in depth version of the BS I've went through.

Running on system in specs.


----------



## Polarman (Dec 10, 2008)

Source: GTA Forum

_Patch Is On The Way

We are working on making a patch available in the next few days. Since Grand Theft Auto IV is a Games For Windows – Live game the patch must be certified by Microsoft before release. The patch is already at Microsoft and we expect a speedy approval.

The patch contains a variety of fixes including: 

-A fix to the crash after legal screen that some German customers were reporting.
-Numerous improvements to the video editor: Smarter naming of videos, improved rendering quality, better fx during replays
-Fix to bowling while using certain sensitive mice
-Fix for ATI 1900 shadows
-Overall savings to memory
-Graphic improvements to particle systems and mirrors
-Multiplayer character settings are preserved
-Support for DirectInput controllers. Note: The current hack way of supporting these controllers may not work with the improved functionality. So we recommend you remove the hack before upgrading to the patch.

Issues with power management software have also been fixed (slow speed, double speed issues). Even after the patch comes out setting power management software to maximum performance is recommended. We’ve seen cases where power management software does not detect the game is running and puts the CPU in green mode.

Besides the patch we’ve also improved the way the Social Club handles data this should have greatly reduced or eliminated the Mma10 error. If you are still receiving this error after logging in and out of Social Club we would like to know as much info as you can about it._

Like i said b4, I'll wait until they get their act together.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 10, 2008)

Polarman said:


> Like i said b4, I'll wait until they get their act together.



I'd say they did a great job to begin with.


----------



## erocker (Dec 10, 2008)

A GTX260 plays this game very nicely!  Just tried one out today.  Awesome!


----------



## sneekypeet (Dec 10, 2008)

just to refresh from a days worth of effort.

I had the no texture issue on both the 180.48 from the start and installed the 180.84's to see if it would correct it. Well it comes down to this. I tried other methods that should have corrected and have worked b4, but this time it didnt. So I ended up going to control panel and eliminating the Cuda first then the VGA driver...boot to safe mode and run driver sweeper....restarted. Redownloaded a fresh 180.84 from Nvidia's BETA section, and bam I has no more issues!


----------



## Mussels (Dec 10, 2008)

this game looks like total ass.

no AA, textures are low res and blurry, motion blur is so bad its not even properly aligned with the things meant to be blurring... on driver 180.48


----------



## erocker (Dec 10, 2008)

With the textures on high it looks much, much better.


----------



## Mussels (Dec 10, 2008)

erocker said:


> With the textures on high it looks much, much better.



you wanna send me a 1GB card? or at least a hack to make it work...


----------



## eidairaman1 (Dec 10, 2008)

Mussels said:


> this game looks like total ass.
> 
> no AA, textures are low res and blurry, motion blur is so bad its not even properly aligned with the things meant to be blurring... on driver 180.48



180.84 Beta, Recommended for GTA 4- straight out of NVs starfish


----------



## Miracus (Dec 10, 2008)

*Interesting GTA IV FPS tweak*

*Interesting FPS tweak.*

I have made an Interesting discovery on my system which lead too a good 10FPS increase in GTA 4. This will most likely only work for single & multi nVidia GPU user's. I haven't confirmed this with actual FPS comparisons but my tweak makes such a noticeable improvement I didn't feel the need too. Anyway I can't promise it'll work for everyone but HEY what's the harm in trying! lemme know how ya's go.

First things first I have an nVidia SLI enabled setup, but I noticed it worked for both Single or SLI (Better on SLI of course). Also I run GTA 4 under Windows XP 32bit. 

Current Drivers: Forceware 180.84 Beta (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_gtaiv_downloads.html)

*STEP 1:*
*nVidia Control Panel Settings:*

Anisotropic filtering = App-Controlled
Antialiasing - Gamma correction = Off
Antialiasing - Mode = App-Controlled
Antialiasing - Transparency = Off
Conformant texture clamp = Use hardware
Error Reporting & Extension Limit = Off
Force Mipmaps = Trilinear
Maximum Pre-rendered frames = 2      (KEY ASPECT IN THIS TWEAK)                                 
Multi-Display/mixed-GPU acceleration = Single Display Performance Mode
SLI Performance Mode = Force alternate frame rendering 2
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD Bias = Allow
Texture Filtering - Quality = High Quality
Threaded Optimization = On
Triple Buffering = On
Vertical Sync = Force On
Both SLI and GPU PhysX are enabled too. 

*STEP 2:*
*GTA IV Settings:*
NOTE: I have tweaked my GTA IV shortcut to bypass the Graphical restrictions. To do this make a shortcut on your desktop for the "LaunchGTAIV.exe" under your GTA IV root directory (Note: this file does not have a normal GTA icon, so it doesn't stand out easliy). Next right click on the desktop shortcut, click properties and copy "-norestriction" (not the quotes) and paste it into the end of the "Target" line after the quotes so it should look something like this. 

*"C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV\LaunchGTAIV.exe" -norestriction*
(Location may vary from user to user)

Then ALWAYS launch your game from this shortcut NOT from the damn "PLAY" button on the Rockstar SocialClub launcher.


Resolution = 1650 x 1050
Aspect Ratio = Auto
Texture Quality = High                     (Before Tweak = Med)*
Render Quality = Highest                  (Before Tweak = High)*
View Distance = 25
Detail Distance = 50                        (Before Tweak = 25)*
Vehicle Density = 25
Shadow Density = 6                        (Before Tweak = 3)*

* These were my specs before I did the tweak and It was barely playable!

PC Specs at the end of my post.

Now that all my settings are out of the way I want to cut to the most important tweak that I came across throughout my hours of fiddling, start n' stopping and updating etc. You may have noticed earlier i mentioned "KEY ASPECT IN THIS TWEAK" beside the "Maximum Pre-rendered frames" setting on my nVidia Control panel, well of all the minor adjustments I made, THIS setting made the most notable improvement, and by that I do mean from literally unplayable on LESS settings than what I'm NOW using to VERY PLAYABLE on MUCH HIGHER settings. Basically the whole basis of my tweak lies solely on this lucky number 2, because I tried every other number of Pre-rendered frames up to 5, surprisingly 0 pre-rendered frames didn't free up the CPU anymore than when it was pre-rendering 4 frames, 3 improved my FPS notably, but 2 improved it even more, once I went down to 1 my FPS dropped again.

As I have said over and over again, this worked considerably well for me, my suggestion would be try these settings on your own system but changed the number of pre-rendered frames numerous times whilst restarting the game to see if there are any changes.

I hope this works as well for you guys as it did for me. =)


----------



## NazGulPRB (Dec 10, 2008)

Cat 8.12 WHQL vs 8.11 (2x4850 CF)

13 FPS up (52 vs 39)

1650x1280 med/high settings


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 10, 2008)

NazGulPRB said:


> Cat 8.12 WHQL vs 8.11 (2x4850 CF)
> 
> 13 FPS up (52 vs 39)
> 
> 1650x1280 med/high settings



thats ALOT for a driver change


----------



## NazGulPRB (Dec 10, 2008)

Yep. Checked it a couple of times though in the 8.12 setting. Could be that 8.11 result was a bit low...


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 11, 2008)

I just got my first exit to the desktop--no error messages, no send error report dialog.  I was looking through stats and just clicked on "Misc" when it happened.  At least it auto-saved a few seconds before.


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 11, 2008)

This game is a huge disappointment.  The jaggies are killing me, it looks AWFUL without AA!  Also the shadows are fucked up, I think they're called "soft shadows" and they're made up of thousands of dots, it's like watching a million black ants crawl around infront of you.  Also the -noresctrictions command in the target hack isn't working for me.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 11, 2008)

oli_ramsay said:


> Also the shadows are fucked up, I think they're called "soft shadows" and they're made up of thousands of dots, it's like watching a million black ants crawl around infront of you.  .



I am getting that too, i thought maybe that was just me or the drivers. 

That happens to me in COJ too


----------



## erocker (Dec 11, 2008)

It's what medium textures looks like at high resolutions, the shadows seem to be affected too.


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 11, 2008)

Every time I try to launch the game via the GTAlauncher shortcut (which has -norestrictions in teh command line) it fails to launch, instead brings up the R* social club window.  That must be why I can't access the High texture quality in-game.  Anyone found a way around this?


----------



## erocker (Dec 11, 2008)

How much vram does your video card have?


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 11, 2008)

"only" 512MB, however the -norestrictions command should still allow selection of high texture quality, I just can't launch the game via the shortcut which has the norestriction command.  I can only launch it through the "play" button on the R*SC window


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 11, 2008)

I launch GTA4 only through RGSC.  Try adding the flag to RGSC and starting GTA4 via RGSC.  I'm not certain RGSC passes the flag on to the game but that's really the only way you could add flags to it that aren't ignored.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 11, 2008)

The new 8.12 drivers pushed me up 


Statistics
Average FPS: 38.20
Duration: 37.40 sec
CPU Usage: 59%
System memory usage: 76%
Video memory usage: 74%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: High
View Distance: 32
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series 
Video Driver version: 7.14.10.630
Audio Adapter: Speakers (SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio)
AMD Phenom(tm) 9850 Quad-Core Processor

File ID: benchmark.cli



And I bought a new controller, and it doesn't work. apparently the game only supports the 360 controller. Asshats.


the missing textures are now also less of a issue, and the CPU useage has dropped.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 11, 2008)

And a friend posted this elsewhere.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Put a text file called commandline.txt in the same folder as launchgtaiv.exe.

Paste the following into it:
-norestrictions -nomemrestrict


----------



## erocker (Dec 11, 2008)

Here's some screens of the game lookin great.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 11, 2008)

A captured video, 891Mb transformed to a 15Mb MPEG 4 in 22 seconds. Then uploaded.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuf0gIsX-gE



Fraps takes a heavy toll on gaming performance when capturing fullscreen, 30FPS video.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 11, 2008)

it does support other controllers 

i installed the game on my 2nd pc and my Logitech Rumblepad 2 wireless works fine in it.


----------



## timta2 (Dec 11, 2008)

There is also a controller hack. Details in this link...
http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=379477

I used the software that came with my Saitek controller to map keyboard buttons to it. It took a while and then I realized that the game is unplayable without making me sick to my stomach because of the low frame rates. I can't wait until we get some updates!


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 11, 2008)

those SS's look awesome erocker, what settings are you using there?  I take it that the texture's on "high".


----------



## miloshs (Dec 11, 2008)

Just tested it on my sig rig...

On average 27-ish FPS.... lowest 16 FPS, highest 39 FPS, 5 minute run...

Settings were:
Res - 1680x1050
Tex - medium
the next one (forgot what it was ) - high 
draw dist - 25 (wont let me set higher)
cars - 100
details -100
shadows - 16

Thats kinda OK...  but what annoys me the most is the following..

I realise that most of you guys are not from easter europe (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia...) so you can't relate with Niko Bellic, but imagine this...  Well our Niko and his buddies throw in some Serbo-Croatian sentences/words every once in a while, and while you guys don't understand it i can't help it but feel funny as i hear my language get spoken in the ways of MICROSOFT SAM!!! It's bloody ridiculous...   get a bloody actor or someone off the street who would do it for 500$ or less...   This is ridiculous for a game of this magnitude!!! If you're gonna do it, do it right...  am i right or am i right?

Imagine a game in English spoken by Microsoft SAM!?!?!? OMG....


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 11, 2008)

Figured out how to enable high texture quality another way; create a new text doc in the GTA folder (the one with GTAIV.exe and LaunchGTAIV.exe) and name the text file commandline.txt

Put:

-norestrictions
-novblank
-nomemrestrict

in the document and save it.

Next time you run it it should allow you to select "high".


----------



## miloshs (Dec 11, 2008)

oli_ramsay said:


> Figured out how to enable high texture quality another way; create a new text doc in the GTA folder (the one with GTAIV.exe and LaunchGTAIV.exe) and name the text file commandline.txt
> 
> Put:
> 
> ...



Well DUH! it says the same thing 6 posts before  ...   but we forgive you, at first i tought it was a part of the signature too


----------



## erocker (Dec 11, 2008)

oli_ramsay said:


> those SS's look awesome erocker, what settings are you using there?  I take it that the texture's on "high".



1920x1200
Textures: high
Rendering: very high

Draw distance: 26
Detail distance: 50
Vehicles: 38
Shadows: 16


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 11, 2008)

erocker said:


> 1920x1200
> Textures: high
> Rendering: very high
> 
> ...



Is that with your quad or dual?  And how much VMEM do you have? 



miloshs said:


> Well DUH! it says the same thing 6 posts before  ...   but we forgive you, at first i tought it was a part of the signature too



lol oops, didn't even notice!


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 11, 2008)

timta2 said:


> There is also a controller hack. Details in this link...
> http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=379477
> 
> I used the software that came with my Saitek controller to map keyboard buttons to it. It took a while and then I realized that the game is unplayable without making me sick to my stomach because of the low frame rates. I can't wait until we get some updates!



If you are getting unplayable framerates, you need to turn down some settings.  Your weak rig isn't going to max this game out, but it should handle medium just fine, and still look too too.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 11, 2008)

timta2 said:


> There is also a controller hack. Details in this link...
> http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=379477
> 
> I used the software that came with my Saitek controller to map keyboard buttons to it. It took a while and then I realized that the game is unplayable without making me sick to my stomach because of the low frame rates. I can't wait until we get some updates!



lower the settings especially draw distance and how many vehicles there is because those are very cpu intensive, this game uses four cores.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 11, 2008)

With fraps on last night I stay around 36 FPS, and dip to 31 as the lowest, The peak was 50's for a short time.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 11, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> lower the settings especially draw distance and how many vehicles there is because those are very cpu intensive, this game uses four cores.



Exactly, this game is extremely CPU intensive(which isn't surprising).  Cheap CPUs simply aren't going to cut it.  The E4000/5000 series is a minimum I would say, and only if you have a good 3GHz+ overclock on them.  The E2000 series and lower is going to drag at this game, even with a good overclock on them, unless you lower the settings.  Especially vehicle desity and draw distance.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 11, 2008)

turn off the clip capture feature, that will solve performance and crash issues


----------



## AsRock (Dec 11, 2008)

wolf2009 said:


> turn off the clip capture feature, that will solve performance and crash issues



Umm which crash does it solve ?. Is it the unrecoverable error type hat asks if you want send info to MS ??.

I do believe i had mine on the 1st time i installed the game but  this time i have had it disabled without a single crash. The worsted crashes are that require you to reinstall.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 11, 2008)

game seems to run a lot smoother with the video capture turned off


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 11, 2008)

At me the picture is better than at prefix Sony play station 3 and, xbox360 look темболее gta4 фьурика, and европе europases left глюченные bad versions the game version not дароботанная, and in Russia awakes 19 декарбя and at us already pirates зделали пиратку on December, 4th and have cracked gta4 and 200.000$ that that they потратели on protection of game against a piracy it have not helped потомучто in россия in россии very much талантлевые people there live hackers итд, well and still game excellent I already play, but I wait the Russian licence look my screenshots and the video review a game плей

http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3017.html

http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3010.html

video game play GTA4


----------



## erocker (Dec 11, 2008)

We don't need to know that you are a "game pirate", nor do we care, nor is it acceptable to talk about here.  The video looks good.


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 11, 2008)

My results in game GTA4=Here so game GTA4 at me goes in a fantastic way yes???????
Statistics
Average FPS: 37.98
Duration: 1.53 sec
CPU Usage: 74%
System memory usage: 74%
Video memory usage: 53%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Service Pack 3
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series 
Video Driver version: 6.14.10.6879
Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+

File ID: benchmark.cli

////////////////////////
Statistics
Average FPS: 45.08
Duration: 1.35 sec
CPU Usage: 78%
System memory usage: 65%
Video memory usage: 34%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Service Pack 3
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series 
Video Driver version: 6.14.10.6879
Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+

File ID: benchmark.cli 

смотрите видео RUSSIAN MUSIC VIDEO CLIP http://video.mail.ru/bk/drum_s/12/41.html?tagpos=c_11#c_11


----------



## erocker (Dec 11, 2008)

oli_ramsay said:


> Is that with your quad or dual?  And how much VMEM do you have?
> 
> 
> 
> lol oops, didn't even notice!



E8600 @ 4ghz (it needs the speed for this game), GTX260/216 896mb GDDR3 650/1100


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 11, 2008)

erocker said:


> We don't need to know that you are a "game pirate", nor do we care, nor is it acceptable to talk about here.  The video looks good.




I not the pirate, I tell that in россии a piracy процвитает continually in any shop in any market and on a techno the market it is possible to buy piracy production, without speaking about that that on the Russian sites it is possible to download 98.8 % of the licence and пиратки so not I питат and Russia number one on a piracy in the world.С one party well, it is possible to buy пиратку for 10$ and the licence of the same game costs 55$ but gta4 I have bought пиратку потомучто I cannot wait more and the licence the purchase, извените for ломанный English language but as I can so I translate


----------



## miloshs (Dec 11, 2008)

OMG!  Please don't use the translator anymore...


----------



## Nick89 (Dec 11, 2008)

*Wanted as a pedophile*

Go to a TW@ Internet Cafe, log into a computer, and enter ww w.littlelacysurprisepageant.com as a URL to get an instant five star wanted level as a pedophile.

LMAO...


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 11, 2008)

GTA5 needs to be based in 2 cities. One, in Russia, Moskva, and with an an airport so you can "hyperspace" to Detroit. A bit of inflight entertainment as the new city maps load. Nice, two different cultures, completely different music, scenary, missions, russian mafia in moscow vs gangs and unions in detroit. Smuggle cocaine, diamond, hookers on the plane and through immigration. Bribe the officials. *CANT WAIT.
*

You saw it on TPU first


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 11, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> GTA5 needs to be based in 2 cities. One, in Russia, Moskva, and with an an airport so you can "hyperspace" to Detroit. A bit of inflight entertainment as the new city maps load. Nice, two different cultures, completely different music, scenary, missions, russian mafia in moscow vs gangs and unions in detroit. Smuggle cocaine, diamond, hookers on the plane and through immigration. Bribe the officials. *CANT WAIT.
> *
> 
> You saw it on TPU first


Actually i've seen it all over GTA IV Threads even before the launch of GTA IV on consoles.


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

Here as I play new my video GTA4, your comments I wait... http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3025.html


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 12, 2008)

nice 
I hope I can find her in the GTA4 hotel!


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 12, 2008)

People running rivatuner experiencing texture problems, make sure you upgrade to the newest version of rivatuner released today, it appearently fixes some texture issues with GTA:IV.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 12, 2008)

That was eff'in hilarious!


So... I went out eating with Roman and I had to take him back to his apartment.  I got my Turismo and Comet parked in front of Roman's apartment so the drop off point is mostly blocked.  I thought, yeah, he'll just do one of those magical relocating acts and spawn outside of the car, no problem.  So I park with the his door right next to the Turismo.  And then he punches me right in the face with a right hook!  I fall out of the car and he slides over to my seat swearing.  Then he got out of the car like nothing happened.

I'm gonna try it again. XD


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 12, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> That was eff'in hilarious!
> 
> 
> So... I went out eating with Roman and I had to take him back to his apartment.  I got my Turismo and Comet parked in front of Roman's apartment so the drop off point is mostly blocked.  I thought, yeah, he'll just do one of those magical relocating acts and spawn outside of the car, no problem.  So I park with the his door right next to the Turismo.  And then he punches me right in the face with a right hook!  I fall out of the car and he slides over to my seat swearing.  Then he got out of the car like nothing happened.
> ...



Careful with that, I've noticed that with the Roman side missions like that, after you return him to his apartment it autosaves.  If you load from that autosave, your cars will be gone.  It happened to me all the time in the PS3 version, I don't know about the PC version.

I got in the habit of getting out of my car after dropping him off, and getting into each one of the cars I had parked there, then saving again by running up into the apartment and sleeping.


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

My new videoclip about GTA4 look all

http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3028.html

My new videoclip about GTA4 look all


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 12, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Careful with that, I've noticed that with the Roman side missions like that, after you return him to his apartment it autosaves.  If you load from that autosave, your cars will be gone.  It happened to me all the time in the PS3 version, I don't know about the PC version.
> 
> I got in the habit of getting out of my car after dropping him off, and getting into each one of the cars I had parked there, then saving again by running up into the apartment and sleeping.


Nope, no problems.  In fact, I left cars parked in front of apartments I don't own (including Playboy X) and it still saves the car.  They must have got that bug fixed in the port to PC.


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

Your English version глюченная and badly works, at us in Russia in Russia выдет the Russian version and from Company  1S


----------



## kenkickr (Dec 12, 2008)

I was watching my cousin play this on his system and it is choppy as hell.  The only things I think it could be are the proc or not enough ram.  Here are his specs:

Athlon 64 3000 2.0Ghz
1Gb DDR400
WD 160GB SATA
Gecube 3870.

I tried this morning to find requirements but had no luck so do you think he needs an upgrade in the proc or ram or is this game just going to be choppy and stalling all the time?


----------



## xu^ (Dec 12, 2008)

Min sys req are a dual core cpu so thats his problem ,or at the least the worst of them.


----------



## Grings (Dec 12, 2008)

I saw someone ask a few pages back if this runs high textures on a 640mb g80, (but couldnt find the post again), and didnt see a direct reply... unfortunately, no, it dosent medium only


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 12, 2008)

Grings said:


> I saw someone ask a few pages back if this runs high textures on a 640mb g80, (but couldnt find the post again), and didnt see a direct reply... unfortunately, no, it dosent medium only



You can always do the hack to get high textures.  It runs fine with 512MB of VMEM, I dunno why they disbled it.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=1100234&postcount=193


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3028.html?smslast_from_main=1


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3025.html

http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3020.html


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 12, 2008)

I'm happy playing this on my 9800GT 1GB, everything on High and Highest. Only the view distance slider is at 20, otherwise all are maxed at 20-60 fps. Mostly it stays above 35 .

All those who purchased 1 GB cards, must be grinning right now


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

9800gt 1gb VS 48501GB =9800GT 24FPS /4850 29FPS


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 12, 2008)

russian4850 said:


> 9800gt 1gb VS 48501GB =9800GT 24FPS /4850 29FPS



maybe, but my 9800GT is overclocked 33%


----------



## Mussels (Dec 12, 2008)

russian: there doesnt seem to be any need to keep posting link after link to your videos. no one seems interested, and i definately cant understand half of what you're saying.


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 12, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Nope, no problems.  In fact, I left cars parked in front of apartments I don't own (including Playboy X) and it still saves the car.  They must have got that bug fixed in the port to PC.



That worked in the PS3 version also, as long as there is the yellow markings on the street, you can save cars there.  Even if you don't own the safe house.

It seemed to me that it didn't happen so much at the first safe house, but more so at the second safe house you get.  I think it is because the arrow to drop him off is directly in the middle of the saved cars spot, forcing you to drive the car slightly into the spot to get him to get out.  Which then off course means you have 3 cars in the spot, so all the cars get deleted.  Of course, the easy way around this was to just get out of your car and walk up tot he arrow with Roman.



kenkickr said:


> I was watching my cousin play this on his system and it is choppy as hell.  The only things I think it could be are the proc or not enough ram.  Here are his specs:
> 
> Athlon 64 3000 2.0Ghz
> 1Gb DDR400
> ...



Minimum requirement is a dual core processor and a clock speed of 2.4GHz on the AMD side.  So not only does he not have a dual core processor, but it isn't even clocked high enough.

The next issue is going to be the amount of system RAM.  The minimum is 1GB for XP or 1.5GB for Vista.  However, 2GB is what I would consider the minimum.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 12, 2008)

I upped the core clocks on my 4850 to 730 and changed the render to highest, as well as full shadows, and managed to squeeze out another 2FPS. Must be pencil mod time at my house.


----------



## EnglishLion (Dec 12, 2008)

kenkickr said:


> I was watching my cousin play this on his system and it is choppy as hell.  The only things I think it could be are the proc or not enough ram.  Here are his specs:
> 
> Athlon 64 3000 2.0Ghz
> 1Gb DDR400
> ...



Definitely need more RAM than that.  I have an intel dual core @ 3.4GHz and a 4850 but with only 2GB of RAM I struggle to find suitable settings for 1680x1050 (I am on Vista though!) 



wolf2009 said:


> All those who purchased 1 GB cards, must be grinning right now



I'll grin then  Just got a 4850 1GB and at the time wasn't sure whether it was worth getting the 1GB version, glad I did now!


----------



## EviLZeD (Dec 12, 2008)

Dont know if any of you guys seen this but its pretty damn funny hitler rants about Gta 4 on the pc
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=W9S_7FfJhsY

theres also a securom version haha


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

russian game play GTA4 /Video http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3029.html


----------



## EviLZeD (Dec 12, 2008)

Considering how old my system is its running pretty nicely for me heres me settings im getting average of around 23fps but its pretty playable. Im not using the -norestrctions command because that causes buildings and textures to dissapprear for me instead i launched the game before loading or starting the game from the menu i change textures to medium lowering resolution and draw distance then apply it and load my save. 

Now once the games map has been loaded it needs a restart to apply any new texture changes with my game loaded i change textures to low (so the game frees up resources when it really cant until i restart the game) and up the res this way the game stays at medium textures until i restart the game.


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 12, 2008)

http://foto.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2928/2967.html


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 13, 2008)

Has anyone else has BSODs while paying this?  I've had 2 so far.  Gonna raise my CPU voltage to 1.475 (I know it's high) and see if that helps.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 13, 2008)

Rockstar has released the patch for GTA4 ,download it via Games for Windows Live.

32mb Patch


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 13, 2008)

xubidoo said:


> Rockstar has released the patch for GTA4 ,download it via Games for Windows Live.
> 
> 32mb Patch



PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me it adds support for anti aliasing!!!

EDIT: Just applied patch and it fucks up the camera angle.  Now the camera constantly pans behind Nico and looks up to the sky, when you're aiming a weapon it crosshair goes straight up and looks into the sky too.  No AA support is added either...  Good going R*!


----------



## AsRock (Dec 13, 2008)

Just about try it my self and on Fileplanet  the patch file is 65.4MB not 32MB.
http://www.fileplanet.com/195520/190000/fileinfo/Grand-Theft-Auto-4---Patch-#1


----------



## xu^ (Dec 13, 2008)

if you DL it via Windows live its approx 32mb.


----------



## AsRock (Dec 13, 2008)

xubidoo said:


> if you DL it via Windows live its approx 32mb.



 rar file that contains a few files which 2 of them are 33MB each so maybe MS live only tells you of the setup file size.


My wife will hunt RS and my self down if this messes up our game lol.

EDIT: The spinning \ looking up is a controller making it do that.  Try configuring the controller in windows before starting the game.

It's for sure a controller issue i have to restart the game or logout of live  to get it to stop.  All though i am using a joystick but this is whats doing it for sure.


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 13, 2008)

AsRock said:


> rar file that contains a few files which 2 of them are 33MB each so maybe MS live only tells you of the setup file size.
> 
> 
> My wife will hunt RS and my self down if this messes up our game lol.
> ...



I'm not using a controller and the camera issue is still there, making the game unplayable.  Also after I applied the patch, instead of saying "press space to apply" it says "press Y to apply" and has a pic of an xbox 360 controller button instead of a spacebar button.

*sighs* :shadedshu


----------



## AsRock (Dec 13, 2008)

oli_ramsay said:


> I'm not using a controller and the camera issue is still there, making the game unplayable.  Also after I applied the patch, instead of saying "press space to apply" it says "press Y to apply" and has a pic of an xbox 360 controller button instead of a spacebar button.
> 
> *sighs* :shadedshu



h mine was flickering the xbox buttons too but the keyboard keys were  changing one to the other.  Maybe plug a joystick in and see if it keeps swaping around for you too.

all though i do have a worse issue which is a sound one were you do not hear weapons 99% of the time.

Wife dunno yet HA. have a few hours to get it sorted or she going be pissed lol.


----------



## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Dec 13, 2008)

Uses a single card only though 


Any of you guys know how to remove the 30fps cap in game?


----------



## xu^ (Dec 13, 2008)

turn off vsync ?


----------



## phanbuey (Dec 13, 2008)

I dont even know if SLI is working lol... both GPU's heat up during the game with it enabled but the bench is still the same as just using one... what a  and anytime i spin to look at anything it jerks... driving around at full speed with 25FPS is awful. cant wait for the patch


----------



## xu^ (Dec 13, 2008)

the patch has been out since yesterday ,don't count on it increasing ur FPS tho.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 13, 2008)

xubidoo said:


> the patch has been out since yesterday ,don't count on it increasing ur FPS tho.



ya, it puts more bugs into the game


----------



## phanbuey (Dec 13, 2008)

these graphics are absolute garbage for the performance. as far as im concerned the game is barely playable on all medium settings on this rig... lol at the rating...


----------



## X800 (Dec 13, 2008)

It runs fine on a Ati HD2900XT 1GB .The new driver set did all the diffrence i run everything at high at res 1280*1024 =) .


----------



## AsRock (Dec 13, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> these graphics are absolute garbage for the performance. as far as im concerned the game is barely playable on all medium settings on this rig... lol at the rating...



Well i think the graphics are good even more so for all the crap thats going on.

As for performance i et 18 to 50fps typically 25\35fps out side but is very playable and this is with 100% cars too. No chance of AA even if it was a option with my card.

Overall i'm very happy with the game my self ( Liked SA missions more though ) just pissed that they rushed the patch so fast.


----------



## phanbuey (Dec 13, 2008)

AsRock said:


> Well i think the graphics are good even more so for all the crap thats going on.
> 
> As for performance i et 18 to 50fps typically 25\35fps out side but is very playable and this is with 100% cars too. No chance of AA even if it was a option with my card.
> 
> Overall i'm very happy with the game my self ( Liked SA missions more though ) just pissed that they rushed the patch so fast.



25FPS is playable, but not very well... its fine for RPGs but not for First-person or GTA-style games - like when driving at really high speeds 25FPS makes it REALLY hard not to crash...


----------



## AsRock (Dec 13, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> 25FPS is playable, but not very well... its fine for RPGs but not for First-person or GTA-style games - like when driving at really high speeds 25FPS makes it REALLY hard not to crash...



Don't bother my driving till it goes lower than 19FPS which is fair rare.
The 8.12 drivers did not help as i lost 2+ FPS compared to 8.8 drivers and the 8.8 drivers were on higher traffic \ view distance..


----------



## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Dec 13, 2008)

ah. my bad. game is not capped at 30fps... anyways, pressing 'P' in game will turn on Motion Blur and Depth of Field effect. Pretty nice.. I noticed no hit in performance and is very handy for those who has a smaller view distance since it will blur out distant detail. It looks better imo also.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 13, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> 25FPS is playable, but not very well... its fine for RPGs but not for First-person or GTA-style games - like when driving at really high speeds 25FPS makes it REALLY hard not to crash...



I drive better with low fps  gives me time to think


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 14, 2008)

Reviews at amazon.co.uk (and amazon.com) are hammering this game: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/product/B001EO74NW/&tag=tec053-21

Are people overreacting, or do you agree that performance, and DRM invasion (not unobstrusive DRM), but how it is implemented in GTA4, crashes and key-controls etc warrant these low scores.


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 14, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> Reviews at amazon.co.uk (and amazon.com) are hammering this game: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/product/B001EO74NW/&tag=tec053-21
> 
> Are people overreacting, or do you agree that performance, and DRM invasion (not unobstrusive DRM), but how it is implemented in GTA4, crashes and key-controls etc warrant these low scores.



People are jumping on the omfgwtf it doesn't run on my at 12 trillion fps so it is bad. Also they are complaining about the bugs when most programs are bound to have bugs when they are released.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 14, 2008)

i was getting regular crashes to desktop at 1st ,untill some1 suggested turning off the videoclip option ,hardly a crash since and it runs pretty decently for me ,25 - 60fps depending wat going on and is perfectly playable ,the odd occasion it can drop under 20fps and then yes its bad ,but that is pretty rare.

Since installing the patch i cant say ive noticed anything different at all.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 14, 2008)

Camera/keyboard issue with new patch
Posted by adamcs at 15:57. Category: General

Some users are experiencing a "spinning camera" issue after installing the new GTA IV PC patch. Rockstar Games has apologised for this, and provided a temporary solution at our forums:

To fix the issue:

      A1) Unplug any DirectInput controllers (gamepads, joysticks etc..)
      A2) Reboot your computer
      A3) Launch GTA IV 

If the issue persists, the following instructions are provided as a guide to assist you in deleting the conflicting DirectInput drivers:

      B1) Exit game
      B2) Go to Start->Control Panel->System->Hardware Tab->Device Manager->Human Interface Devices
      B3) Locate drivers for devices
      B4) Delete drivers for devices
      B5) Launch GTA IV 

**Some users are able to reinstall the drivers for their DirectInput devices, with the device attached, and have found that it will work in game. If you do attempt to reinstall your device and the problem resurfaces, please follow steps B1-B5 again.


Source: http://www.gta4.net/news/index.php


----------



## AsRock (Dec 14, 2008)

xubidoo said:


> Camera/keyboard issue with new patch
> Posted by adamcs at 15:57. Category: General
> 
> Some users are experiencing a "spinning camera" issue after installing the new GTA IV PC patch. Rockstar Games has apologised for this, and provided a temporary solution at our forums:
> ...



Patch courses sound issue's too for some me being one of those. So i did a uninstall and reinstall  and now the game don't work as good as it seems that it's kept the sound bug and requires a reboot for the bug to be gone.

So MAYBE if some one has a sound issue after installing the patch try restarting the system.


----------



## jaxxxon (Dec 14, 2008)

game run great for me on high settings, but i cant increase the draw distance above 60, it wont let me because of memory or something.  cant see why though everything runs fine, and i cant see a problem increasing the draw distance either, it just wont let me !!!


----------



## Darknova (Dec 14, 2008)

Got myself a new 1Gb 4870 (last 4870 died ) and I'm running it at High with it's recommended settings and it looks fantastic with minimal stutter (generally just after loading or driving really fast).


----------



## newconroer (Dec 15, 2008)

Between lack of AA and vsync, the screwed up 'mesh' shadows, the no non-360 controller support, and terribly clunky performance(even with the patch), I can say that I cannot be bothered to even get through the first mission until things get ironed out.

99% of the time, I haven't the problems whether stability or performance that most people do with 3d apps, but this time around, I am in the same boat.


Shame too, I was looking forward to this.


----------



## SUPERREDDEVIL (Dec 15, 2008)

Very bad Port.

look my Rig, i get CODWAW with max settings, 16X of AF and 8X of AA, NFS undercover with the same things and this games runs very fast, smooth playing, no glitches, then i put this GTA4 on my pc and get medium settings, at 20 FPS.... or lower....  BAD PORT; BAD GAME

thats my opinion.


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 15, 2008)

newconroer said:


> Between lack of AA and vsync, the screwed up 'mesh' shadows, the no non-360 controller support, and terribly clunky performance(even with the patch), I can say that I cannot be bothered to even get through the first mission until things get ironed out.



I wish I had your optimism, I seriously doubt they'll bother fixing the AA (or lack thereof), the fucked up shadows, etc etc.  It's bitterly disappointing to wait for something this long and when it arrives it looks like a bodged port.  I think it's absolutely pathetic that AA can't be enabled and whoever's decision that was should be hung, drawn and quartered (maybe a little harsh, but meh).


----------



## AsRock (Dec 16, 2008)

SUPERREDDEVIL said:


> Very bad Port.
> 
> look my Rig, i get CODWAW with max settings, 16X of AF and 8X of AA, NFS undercover with the same things and this games runs very fast, smooth playing, no glitches, then i put this GTA4 on my pc and get medium settings, at 20 FPS.... or lower....  BAD PORT; BAD GAME
> 
> thats my opinion.



I think it's a good port my self all things considered.  Ok it has it's problems but so do many other games which turned out great ones later on.


I'm just glad they had the balls to pull this game of as it must of took a hell load of time to do. Pisses me off when people say HL2 was so good i did not think so all the loading all the time before you knew it you had to load a new area.

There's no pleasing people these days and there's always some body to complain like they did about fallout 3 Oblivion and what ever game thats come out.   

In the end maybe you should of waited before buying it as it's always a risk buying a game thats ported.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 16, 2008)

SUPERREDDEVIL said:


> Very bad Port.
> 
> look my Rig, i get CODWAW with max settings, 16X of AF and 8X of AA, NFS undercover with the same things and this games runs very fast, smooth playing, no glitches, then i put this GTA4 on my pc and get medium settings, at 20 FPS.... or lower....  BAD PORT; BAD GAME
> 
> thats my opinion.



I hope you do know that all the games are not made on the same 3D Engine. 

Alkso I do hope that it takes more graphical power to render 30 objects + the whole city ( pedestrians +cars+ other buildings) in GTA 4 than rendering about 5 cars and buildings and a small city in NFS Undercover , or 10 enemies and some foilage in CODWAW and a limited area .


----------



## KainXS (Dec 16, 2008)

i keep getting alot of missing textures with my sli gx2's so i am waiting for another patch

im so tired off getting bad ports


----------



## eidairaman1 (Dec 16, 2008)

coded for console, which are Non X86 and they dont take time to optimize code cause to them its about quantity and not quality.


----------



## newconroer (Dec 16, 2008)

AsRock said:


> I think it's a good port my self all things considered.  Ok it has it's problems but so do many other games which turned out great ones later on.
> 
> 
> I'm just glad they had the balls to pull this game of as it must of took a hell load of time to do. Pisses me off when people say HL2 was so good i did not think so all the loading all the time before you knew it you had to load a new area.
> ...




People have given numerous and valid examples of how it's a bad port; why don't you tell us some examples of how it's a good one?

It's true that there's no pleasing people these days, as the saying goes with women too, however look at the PC consumer percentile that's dissapointing in GTA IV. We're talking numbers like over 90%. That's worse than Crysis was, yet Crysis, despite a slight bit of unoptimized coding (probably due to new hardware popping up during development), was not a port, it was just simply demanding, and for some they didn't care, because they were too busy playing with themselves while watching the visuals!

As for your last comment...wait till when to buy it? Why should there be a risk when buying a game that's ported? How about developers stop being lazy **** asses and stop porting altogether?

The problem with developers is that they are controlled by corporate bozos with some grandeur vision for their product(much like some over the top interior decorator with a lisp named Jonas), and this means that whatever experience or ideas they have, will be squandered for the sake of quantity over quality. You see it all the time with MMOs, Age of Conan anyone? 

Rockstar used to be one of the few development teams that ran their own show, and came out of nowhere to produce games in their own vision, without needless restraint. The bigger Rockstar has become, the worse their games have become.

There's no coincidence to it.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Dec 16, 2008)

RockStar Game botching= Midnight Club 3, GTA 4 and Table Tennis, Unsure of San Andreas.



newconroer said:


> People have given numerous and valid examples of how it's a bad port; why don't you tell us some examples of how it's a good one?
> 
> It's true that there's no pleasing people these days, as the saying goes with women too, however look at the PC consumer percentile that's dissapointing in GTA IV. We're talking numbers like over 90%. That's worse than Crysis was, yet Crysis, despite a slight bit of unoptimized coding (probably due to new hardware popping up during development), was not a port, it was just simply demanding, and for some they didn't care, because they were too busy playing with themselves while watching the visuals!
> 
> ...


----------



## AsRock (Dec 16, 2008)

newconroer said:


> People have given numerous and valid examples of how it's a bad port; why don't you tell us some examples of how it's a good one?.



To me the playability is better than SA and it does actually looks better than SA.  Problem is most of the time people want miracles these days and start imagining some crazy shit.

No loading during playing ( this is some thing that makes this kind of game extremely hard to make)
Graphics are a improvement over SA and then some ( IF AA gets fixed it be even better ).
The roads are better in GTA 4 more bumps and such
More stuff that can be knocked over
Better police ( AI ) and work better than they did in SA. Plus other AI work great too.
Example: Police will try to cut you off and arrest you. AI take cover.
Physics are much improved over SA.
Car damage is much improved.



> It's true that there's no pleasing people these days, as the saying goes with women too, however look at the PC consumer percentile that's dissapointing in GTA IV. We're talking numbers like over 90%. That's worse than Crysis was, yet Crysis, despite a slight bit of unoptimized coding (probably due to new hardware popping up during development), was not a port, it was just simply demanding, and for some they didn't care, because they were too busy playing with themselves while watching the visuals!



Well rule 1 is that your always wrong(weman). Crysis  ? what a laugh now your talking of crap and boring games that have no real playability and is just about graphics  and then people wounder why there's no playability in games.



> As for your last comment...wait till when to buy it? Why should there be a risk when buying a game that's ported? How about developers stop being lazy **** asses and stop porting altogether?



And people would still complain lol..

What probably happened is that they added textures and stuff to the game as well to make more people happy as they always expect it be better than what it's ported from.


There's a risk in buying any game these days for example FC3. Thank GOD i did not buy that game..




> The problem with developers is that they are controlled by corporate bozos with some grandeur vision for their product(much like some over the top interior decorator with a lisp named Jonas), and this means that whatever experience or ideas they have, will be squandered for the sake of quantity over quality. You see it all the time with MMOs, Age of Conan anyone?



Sad but true and is the reason i hate buying EA or Atari games.



> Rockstar used to be one of the few development teams that ran their own show, and came out of nowhere to produce games in their own vision, without needless restraint. The bigger Rockstar has become, the worse their games have become.
> 
> There's no coincidence to it



Yeah well for a game like this to be on the shelfs of most country's is very surprising at the least. Same happens with every thing made today if it's not costs or a publisher wanting a dead line.  They did what they could in the time frame they had, people could be happy that EA or Atari are not the publisher at least there some hope of a patch or patches to fix what is wrong with the game as EA would just leave it and let you suck it up.

If i am mad at any thing with Rockstar is that they rushed the patch WAY to fast.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 16, 2008)

The performance is fine. For a game this immersive/huge you have to expect to use some crunching power. Just because they designed the console version for the console, and have options for those with huge hardware doesn't mean that everyone is going to be able to play it on all high settings.


----------



## crazy pyro (Dec 16, 2008)

How badly is this going to run on a Pentium D@2.8GHz, 1.5Gb RAM and an Nvidia 6200 LE with 256Mb VRAM?
Would I be safe making a £10 bet with my friend saying he needs a new graphics card for it to run well (we're talking minimum settings here)?


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 16, 2008)

crazy pyro said:


> How badly is this going to run on a Pentium D@2.8GHz, 1.5Gb RAM and an Nvidia 6200 LE with 256Mb VRAM?
> Would I be safe making a £10 bet with my friend saying he needs a new graphics card for it to run well (we're talking minimum settings here)?



absolutely, he won't get more than 5 fps imo
make a 50 bet , that he needs a new system


----------



## crazy pyro (Dec 16, 2008)

Lol, Ok then. Cheers, that way I'll be able to afford the game myself (I'll bet his copy of the game on it). He's on XP too but meh.


----------



## Chryonn (Dec 16, 2008)

> like some over the top interior decorator with a lisp named Jonas



bloody brilliant! are you talking from experience newconroer?


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 16, 2008)

Hello, I'm Russian!  Here are some of my GTA IV videos!  Bless you all!
 1 video http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3045.html
 2 video http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3029.html
3 video http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3038.html


----------



## xu^ (Dec 16, 2008)

cant you post anything else besides video links?

sigh


----------



## EnglishLion (Dec 16, 2008)

crazy pyro said:


> How badly is this going to run on a Pentium D@2.8GHz, 1.5Gb RAM and an Nvidia 6200 LE with 256Mb VRAM?
> Would I be safe making a £10 bet with my friend saying he needs a new graphics card for it to run well (we're talking minimum settings here)?



I doubt it'll even start after all the minimum specs ask for a 7900 or X1900.  It runs on my spare rig with a 7900GS but @ 800x600 with minimum everything and it's not smooth not by a long shot.


----------



## crazy pyro (Dec 16, 2008)

It is supposedly running but VERY badly as in it's only giving him outlines and he's saying everything's gone blue, not sure if he means like a photo negative though.


----------



## erocker (Dec 16, 2008)

The Pentium D is below minimum spec as well as the 6200.  Don't bother installing the game on that system.


----------



## crazy pyro (Dec 16, 2008)

He claims it's running but only in safe mode at very minimum settings and the GPU's rending about a 10th of what it should be so yeah, he needs an upgrade.


----------



## lemonadesoda (Dec 16, 2008)

Given the consensus that GTA4 is a botch and rude violation of customer goodwill (all that DRM, securerom and forced online stuff), I ask you this question:

1./ Is GTA San Andreas worth buying (today) since I aint going down the GTA4 path

(Shame really, because GTA4 sure DOES LOOK good. I'd really like to jack around in a virtual NY. Been a long time since I was there).


----------



## erocker (Dec 16, 2008)

GTA SA is totally worth buying if you can get it for cheap.  I pre-ordered GTA IV on Steam and got GTA VC for free.  The couple days I played Vice City, I had a blast.  San Andreas is better graphically than VC and plays very smooth on the PC.


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 16, 2008)

The problem is people like to bitch about everything, Microsoft, Vista, games etc..
People on the internet = People behind the wheel (of a car).


----------



## Steevo (Dec 16, 2008)

I love SA, plus all the mods......... It still takes some crunching power to do SA if you want the pretties. At 1680X1050 it made my X1800XT cry, and the HD3870 palyed it smooth.


----------



## erocker (Dec 16, 2008)

Anyone playing Multiplayer yet?  It's very fun!


----------



## EnglishLion (Dec 16, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> Given the consensus that GTA4 is a botch and rude violation of customer goodwill (all that DRM, securerom and forced online stuff), I ask you this question:
> 
> 1./ Is GTA San Andreas worth buying (today) since I aint going down the GTA4 path
> 
> (Shame really, because GTA4 sure DOES LOOK good. I'd really like to jack around in a virtual NY. Been a long time since I was there).



San Andreas is a good game.  Some really amusing parts to the storyline.  SA is great for a free for all too - the push bikes and planes are fantastic.

I think GTA4 is better when it comes to fun in the cars though


----------



## xu^ (Dec 16, 2008)

i just reinstalled SA meaning to give it a go while playing gta4 ,but it looked that bad imo i just couldnt play it and ended up uninstalling it again.

i even installed some hi res texture mods etc and compared with gta4 it still looked terrible.


----------



## erocker (Dec 16, 2008)

I think GTA IV looks great!  Awesome game, I play it as much as I can.


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 16, 2008)

What do you say about the fact that the English version of GTA4 bad, terrible nedorabotannaya poorly Set, all slows down, everyone proposes, and powerful computers, it hangs on 19 December in Russia vydet license GTA4, and I can tell you exactly that localization of the company 1S Wakes better than your English version.....
 I now play piratskkuyu copy of the game, I am for it zaplptil 200 rubles is gdeto 8 dollars and 8 dollars, I play GTA4 Here's my video review of the game and how I play, see a video of the game, waiting for your comments Americans and Europeans so uvazhaemmye. ...
Russian video server  http://video.mail.ru/mail/apocalipsis20088/2933/3057.html
American video server  http://ru.youtube.com/my_videos_edi.../my_videos2?pi=0&ps=20&sf=added&sa=0&sq=&dm=2

So at this kompyutore I play GTA4 My Computer Operating System = Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 
Monitor = Asus VK221 [21.6 "LCD] 
CPU = AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual core processor 2.600ghz 5000 + 
Motherboard = Foxconn MCP61PM2MA/MCP61SM2MA/MCP61VM2MA (2 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN) 
Chipset motherboard = nVIDIA nForce 6100-4xx, AMD Hammer 

DIMM1: Kingston 1 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 @ 200 MHz) 
DIMM1: Kingston 1 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 @ 200 MHz) 
RAM = 2048mb 
Video = ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (1024 Mb) Sapphire ATI Radeon hd 4850 1GB 
Disk drives = WDC WD2500JS-60NCB1 (232 GB, IDE) 
Optical = ATAPI DVD D DH16D2P (16x/48x DVD-ROM 
ATX 550W power supply unit


----------



## erocker (Dec 16, 2008)

It runs fine with my "American" copy of the game.  Whatever argument you are trying to pose is empty.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 16, 2008)

tbh i don't have the faintest idea of what he is talking about


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 16, 2008)

erocker said:


> It runs fine with my "American" copy of the game.  Whatever argument you are trying to pose is empty.


I have nothing, I just do not try to download online English version of the game set kryak Mr. jeopardized game english version, auto-gas was removed, drunken camera also glyukov No, but sometimes pretormazhivaet is due to Toco that it broke, I heard the Americans potrateli 200,000 dollars, and that interpreted in Russia pirate copy of the game prodaetsya for 8 dollars a vein mozhit her to buy a license wakes cost us in a small box $ 13 dollars a box in a box in a big box wakes cost 29 U.S. dollar, so that on 19 December, Russia has poyavitsa official license games from 1C 1s to localize and translate gta4 game I play now in power in piratku pirated copy of the game, so the Russian broke the game and abruptly broke can be served with our download it for free


----------



## erocker (Dec 16, 2008)

What does that have to do with GTA IV Performance?  This forum isn't for the discussion of pirating games. Period.


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 16, 2008)

erocker said:


> What does that have to do with GTA IV Performance?  This forum isn't for the discussion of pirating games. Period.



Okay okay, I silently American, Russian language you can understand me in Russian writing, by the way in the Russian language more obscene and more obscene steep than in other languages Mr. koshilotno obrachnoe chmo example, as the Americans and the only poshol know damn model you man, this that children need to mate girlfriend 
русский  > английский  поменятьПеревести   
  Предложить лучший вариант перевода


----------



## russian4850 (Dec 17, 2008)

.


----------



## a_ump (Dec 17, 2008)

wtf.......


----------



## eidairaman1 (Dec 17, 2008)

its funny he is trying to say we need games like this so we can pick up women, at least thats how it sounds, tbh majority here have Women and PCs heh.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Dec 17, 2008)

ive been looking into buying this game, but luckly ive been cough up/interrupted every time ive gone to get it. 

What do you guys think about my system and do you think it will play, and be worth playing on it? And what FPS do you think i could pull off?


----------



## a_ump (Dec 17, 2008)

don't own it, but a fair guess would be medium maybe some high details/settings here adn there, which is above the graphics on the consoles.


----------



## AsRock (Dec 17, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> Given the consensus that GTA4 is a botch and rude violation of customer goodwill (all that DRM, securerom and forced online stuff), I ask you this question:
> 
> 1./ Is GTA San Andreas worth buying (today) since I aint going down the GTA4 path
> 
> (Shame really, because GTA4 sure DOES LOOK good. I'd really like to jack around in a virtual NY. Been a long time since I was there).



Great game worth playing.  Graphics are old but still loads of fun to play still.  I was on my 3 time though it since it was released,  but stoped with GTA 4 coming out.




erocker said:


> Anyone playing Multiplayer yet?  It's very fun!



Why ya up for some COOP ?... . Only had a quick at it my self as i don't play games with people i don't know at all as there normally asses lol.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 17, 2008)

ive had a brief go online in FFA mode at the airport ,was good fun.

but mainly playing single player atm.


----------



## jaxxxon (Dec 17, 2008)

russian4850 said:


> Okay okay, I silently American, Russian language you can understand me in Russian writing, by the way in the Russian language more obscene and more obscene steep than in other languages Mr. koshilotno obrachnoe chmo example, as the Americans and the only poshol know damn model you man, this that children need to mate girlfriend
> русский  > английский  поменятьПеревести
> Предложить лучший вариант перевода



I literally LOLLED at that one.  

BTW I dunno why but it runs fine at maxed out settings for me, the only problem is I cannot increase draw distance above 60 as it says my video card memory is not enough.  But as I'm getting 40 FPS on average, I can't see a problem with increasing that a bit more.  Surely that should be up to me.  Seems rediculous to me.  I could happily play this at 30FPS with a better draw distance.


----------



## Viorel (Dec 17, 2008)

jaxxxon said:


> I literally LOLLED at that one.
> 
> BTW I dunno why but it runs fine at maxed out settings for me, the only problem is I cannot increase draw distance above 60 as it says my video card memory is not enough.  But as I'm getting 40 FPS on average, I can't see a problem with increasing that a bit more.  Surely that should be up to me.  Seems rediculous to me.  I could happily play this at 30FPS with a better draw distance.



You can put -norestrictions and/or -nomemrestrict in a commandline.txt in the GTAIV folder and increase the view distance to 100 

I'm playing in 1680, high textures, very high rendering (or something like that, I have the game in Spanish ), view and details in 100, cars 100 and shadows 8.
With all in Low I only have 2 or 3 fps more


----------



## erocker (Dec 17, 2008)

Where exactly do you put the command line?


----------



## Viorel (Dec 17, 2008)

Here: \Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV

Also you can put -novblank for shorter loading screens, is a "hotfix" provided by Rockstar and works fine for me.

I'm using this: http://xs434.xs.to/xs434/08513/comml878.jpg

(Sorry for the english, I hope you can understand me )


----------



## wolf (Dec 17, 2008)

jaxxxon said:


> BTW I dunno why but it runs fine at maxed out settings for me, the only problem is I cannot increase draw distance above 60 as it says my video card memory is not enough.  But as I'm getting 40 FPS on average, I can't see a problem with increasing that a bit more.  Surely that should be up to me.  Seems ridiculous to me.  I could happily play this at 30FPS with a better draw distance.



maybe the game knows if you set it any higher it run run out of vram and bog down your gpu.

imonna go with what the game reccommends.


----------



## miloshs (Dec 17, 2008)

With the commandline.txt i can run it all maxed out, and i get 22-ish FPS on average, thats on my sig rig...  and when i turn it down to high/high/20/60/80/4 i can get almost 35-ish on average...

Game is still playable on all maxed out, with occasional "downs" in framerate to something like 12-13fps, and "ups" to 26-28fps...

And mind that my rig is not OC'd its all stock ...  

what im saying is, those tweaks are there to help, and they do a good job...  before that i had severe problems playing on medium/high/20/50/50/2....


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 17, 2008)

Viorel said:


> You can put -norestrictions and/or -nomemrestrict in a commandline.txt in the GTAIV folder and increase the view distance to 100
> 
> I'm playing in 1680, high textures, very high rendering (or something like that, I have the game in Spanish ), view and details in 100, cars 100 and shadows 8.
> With all in Low I only have 2 or 3 fps more


I don't know what system you have but i find that very hard to believe you can play with that settings.


----------



## Viorel (Dec 17, 2008)

D3mon_Hunt3r said:


> I don't know what system you have but i find that very hard to believe you can play with that settings.



Don't believe me then 


I post this days ago (here http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1092043#post1092043 ):
http://xs234.xs.to/xs234/08495/123123927.jpg

And now I'm playing with this:
http://xs134.xs.to/xs134/08513/untitled370.jpg

Of course i have "downs", but the game in 25-35 FPS is very playable and looks very good in high.
The Vram changes to 100%, but i have the same FPS and the same performance.
The only thing that affects my FPS is the Detail Distance, but as i say before, only 2 or 3 fps, don't know why, I just know I'm playing


----------



## James1991 (Dec 17, 2008)

Viorel said:


> Don't believe me then



i will believe you. my 4850's(CF) struggle to play it on medium(20-30), but they play it with everything maxxed out at 40-60FPS

my screen is 1680x1050 if that helps


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 18, 2008)

Viorel said:


> Don't believe me then
> 
> 
> I post this days ago (here http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1092043#post1092043 ):
> ...


Could you enlight me what are your specs? I have a 4870X2 and i have to play in medium, and i get pretty low FPS!


----------



## erocker (Dec 18, 2008)

D3mon_Hunt3r said:


> Could you enlight me what are your specs? I have a 4870X2 and i have to play in medium, and i get pretty low FPS!



You have a problem with your system/drivers/other..


----------



## miloshs (Dec 18, 2008)

D3mon_Hunt3r said:


> Could you enlight me what are your specs? I have a 4870X2 and i have to play in medium, and i get pretty low FPS!



Install 8.12 CAT, Reinstall GTA IV, apply patch, create commandline.txt in your GTA IV folder, and copy paste the following into your commandline.txt:

*-norestrictions
-novblank
-nomemrestrict

-width 1680
-height 1050
-texturequality 2
-renderquality 4
-shadowdensity 9
-viewdistance 70
-detailquality 100
-fullspecaudio*

OFC replace width/height with the resolution on your monitor, and youre set....  works wonders for me at least...  
Sig rig...  heres a benchie from the game...

_*Statistics
Average FPS: 35.85
Duration: 37.24 sec
CPU Usage: 71%
System memory usage: 51%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 71
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional x64 Edition
Service Pack 2
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series 
Video Driver version: 6.14.10.6891
Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output
AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor
AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor
AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor
AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor

File ID: Benchmark.cli
*_

All i can say, the game is really playable, no freezes or stuff like that...  real smooth except in some areas where i get 25-ish fps, and somewhere 40-ish fps...  

Hope this helps...


P.S. everyone should really put info into their system spec so we can help eachother better and faster...  thank you


----------



## Viorel (Dec 18, 2008)

D3mon_Hunt3r said:


> Could you enlight me what are your specs? I have a 4870X2 and i have to play in medium, and i get pretty low FPS!



You can see my System Specs now 

But yes, as Erocker says, you have a problem with something


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 18, 2008)

Statistics
Average FPS: 20.02
Duration: 36.85 sec
CPU Usage: 64%
System memory usage: 90%
Video memory usage: 90%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 71
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Video Driver version: 7.14.10.630
Audio Adapter: Digital Output (HDA XPLOSION 7.1)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU           @ 2.40GHz

File ID: benchmark.cli

My results with your commandline.txt

I have no OC what so ever on my PC. At the moment.

I'm using Cat 8.12 already.


----------



## erocker (Dec 18, 2008)

Looks like it's not using enough of your CPU for some reason.  Make sure chipset drivers, bios, windows update, driectX, sound etc. drivers are all updated.


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 18, 2008)

I'm an updating freak. 
Perhaps it's because a i run a lot of background tasks...
I have 101 running processes right now.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 19, 2008)

D3mon_Hunt3r said:


> I'm an updating freak.
> Perhaps it's because a i run a lot of background tasks...
> I have 101 running processes right now.




ouch and i thought mine was bad @ 68


----------



## Lionheart (Dec 19, 2008)

whats GTAVI like on PC, is that buggy and horrible or is it ok.


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 19, 2008)

CHAOS_KILLA said:


> whats GTAVI like on PC, is that buggy and horrible or is it ok.


Its more than ok, its great.

Just a bit troublesome.


----------



## Viorel (Dec 19, 2008)

CHAOS_KILLA said:


> whats GTAVI like on PC, is that buggy and horrible or is it ok.



Buggy but not horible, its a great game 


Anyone is having problems with peds in cars?
I can't see them at distance, only in covertibles or when I'm at 20 feets from the cars, so i can't kill them with my sniper


----------



## Lionheart (Dec 19, 2008)

hmmm is it worth picking up, i played it on the ps3 and it was fun to muck around with


----------



## techjunkie (Dec 19, 2008)

I did the commandline.txt tweak and now I play at max settings on my 4870 512 mb. I don't notice the game getting slower after gaming at max settings. WTF was rockstar thinking that a 512mb card cannot handle the high texture settings ??

noobs at rockstar 

Game plays smoothly at 1440x900


----------



## AsRock (Dec 19, 2008)

Viorel said:


> Buggy but not horible, its a great game
> 
> 
> Anyone is having problems with peds in cars?
> I can't see them at distance, only in covertibles or when I'm at 20 feets from the cars, so i can't kill them with my sniper



Dam and i was annoyied when it was happening to me from 200-300m+ lol



techjunkie said:


> I did the commandline.txt tweak and now I play at max settings on my 4870 512 mb. I don't notice the game getting slower after gaming at max settings. WTF was rockstar thinking that a 512mb card cannot handle the high texture settings ??
> 
> noobs at rockstar
> 
> Game plays smoothly at 1440x900



Yeah noobs they only built the game .  THere's no pleasing everyone.


----------



## Wingo101 (Dec 19, 2008)

Hey Guys, where can I download the latest GTA IV patch from?

Sorry for the silly question, but I can't seem to find it.


----------



## Viorel (Dec 19, 2008)

Wingo101 said:


> Hey Guys, where can I download the latest GTA IV patch from?
> 
> Sorry for the silly question, but I can't seem to find it.



http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1291/Grand_Theft_Auto_IV:_Patch_#1.html


----------



## Wingo101 (Dec 19, 2008)

Thanks man!


----------



## erocker (Dec 19, 2008)

Anyone know how the commandline.txt works through Steam?


----------



## warup89 (Dec 19, 2008)

erocker said:


> Anyone know how the commandline.txt works through Steam?



I read somewhere you had to put the commandline.txt in the "Steam/SteamApps/Common/Grand Theft Auto IV/GTAIV" Folder


----------



## erocker (Dec 19, 2008)

warup89 said:


> I read somewhere you had to put the commandline.txt in the "Steam/SteamApps/Common/Grand Theft Auto IV/GTAIV" Folder



I've done that and nothing.  The only time I really need my draw distance set any higher is in a helicopter, even so the draw distance is still better than the console version.  It's just the only place I'm limited, everything else is at it's highest.


----------



## warup89 (Dec 19, 2008)

I remember my commandline.txt not working, I really dont know why, but after i put them in a certain order, they started working. so if you wanna give a shot at it here's my commanline.txt, try it out.

-also you can try this:


> go to
> C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\grand theft auto iv\GTAIV\
> 
> create shortcut to LaunchGTAIV.exe
> ...


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 19, 2008)

I have my commandline in the same folder as the main exe's and works fine. 

I have Steam version btw.


----------



## erocker (Dec 19, 2008)

D3mon_Hunt3r said:


> I have my commandline in the same folder as the main exe's and works fine.
> 
> I have Steam version btw.



Ok, so all you do is drop the commandline.txt file into the GTAIV folder?  Why in the heck isn't it working for me?  I don't need to do it or anything, it's the principal of it all.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 19, 2008)

silly question but you sure its not named commandline.txt.txt  ?


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 19, 2008)

Here is mine.



By d3mon_hunt3r


----------



## miloshs (Dec 19, 2008)

For all the guys running Quad's...   i found out that running GTA IV with "-fullspecaudio" command in the commandline.txt increases performance, and also increases load on the CPU...  on my system i gained 2-3 FPS by inserting that command in the txt file...   Also increases load by additional 5%, at least on my rig...


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Dec 20, 2008)

miloshs said:


> For all the guys running Quad's...   i found out that running GTA IV with "-fullspecaudio" command in the commandline.txt increases performance, and also increases load on the CPU...  on my system i gained 2-3 FPS by inserting that command in the txt file...   Also increases load by additional 5%, at least on my rig...



what are your game specs at, like resolution fps etic?


----------



## miloshs (Dec 20, 2008)

pepsi71ocean said:


> what are your game specs at, like resolution fps etic?



Oh sorry forgot about those... 
Heres bench with my rig...

*with 4850 in the rig*
Statistics
Average FPS: 35.85
Duration: 37.24 sec
CPU Usage: 71%
System memory usage: 51%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 71
Detail Distance: 100


*with 4870 in my rig*
Statistics
Average FPS: 37.36
Duration: 37.10 sec
CPU Usage: 65%
System memory usage: 47%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 71
Detail Distance: 100

*with 4870+4850 CF in the rig*
Statistics
Average FPS: 38.87
Duration: 37.15 sec
CPU Usage: 68%
System memory usage: 48%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 71
Detail Distance: 100


not much of a gain, eh? Im guessing it would show much more gain from CF if i was able to play on a Full HD monitor/tv...  but i just had so little time, and wanted to test it out at the same settings as mine...


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Dec 20, 2008)

interesting, i'll have to pick up a copy of GTA IV at Best buy and see how it works on my rig.


----------



## AsRock (Dec 20, 2008)

miloshs said:


> Oh sorry forgot about those...
> Heres bench with my rig...
> 
> *with 4850 in the rig*
> ...



I heard CF is not working earlier on in this thread.


----------



## Viorel (Dec 20, 2008)

erocker said:


> Ok, so all you do is drop the commandline.txt file into the GTAIV folder?  Why in the heck isn't it working for me?  I don't need to do it or anything, it's the principal of it all.



I don't have Steam, but my commandline doesn't work if I use this (like the txt's in the previous page):
-command1 -comm2 -comm3

And work if I use:
-command1
-comm2
-comm3

Have you tried in both ways?


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Dec 20, 2008)

Viorel said:


> I don't have Steam, but my commandline doesn't work if I use this:
> -command1 -comm2 -comm3
> 
> And work if I use:
> ...



programs work linear, so each command is read per line, thus why it does work in the first set, ony the one where you having it go down.


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 20, 2008)

My commandline.txt is written in the second way too.


----------



## Jaffakeik (Dec 20, 2008)

strange latly i dont get any game problems.all go fine.atleast now i can play longer than hour and dont get kicked out of game like always was.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Dec 20, 2008)

Arciks said:


> strange latly i dont get any game problems.all go fine.atleast now i can play longer than hour and dont get kicked out of game like always was.



is that in multiplayer? 


i finally bough both GTA IV, and COD WAW, and i had to choose which game to take now, and which to hold till christmas, so i chose to keep GTA till Christmas, so i'll report what the game does FPS and what not wise then. it will be interesting to see none the less.


----------



## erocker (Dec 21, 2008)

Viorel said:


> And work if I use:
> -command1
> -comm2
> -comm3
> ...



That works, and I have to start the game using a shortcut instead of through Steam.  So here's a video with everything maxed out 1920x1200 resolution using the 2nd system in my specs.  The E8600 is at 4ghz and the card is at 700/1400/1100

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW0jT0V3D_Q

-Be sure to sign in and select "watch in high quality"


----------



## newconroer (Dec 21, 2008)

The best thing to do, is to not use the -unrestricted commands, but rather setup the game with all your visual quality, but at a lowly resolution, like 800X600, then save it. This means that you're only using a portion of your available memory capacity, that's how the game sees it.

Exit the game.

Setup a command.txt or command line in your executable shortcut, that specifies the resolution you want, i.e. 1920X1200. When you enter the game, it will run at that resolution, and the game will not scale automatically because it still thinks your using resources for 800X600. 

This is a better, though more long-winded approach, to using "-unrestricted" variables, because the game will still scale automatically, no matter if a restriction is in place or not.


Never the less, the shadows still look like crap, and the performance isn't impressive.


The worst thing is how the patch broke all controller use, except the Xbox 360; it seriously does seem like a Microsoft sabotage, and I usually don't bite on those types of conspiracies.


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 21, 2008)

Does anyone think they'll every fix the lack of AA?  ;_;


----------



## newconroer (Dec 21, 2008)

Doubtful Ramsay...at least we know it's not a priority.

Apparently there was an off-comment made by Rockstar regarding something to do with consoles not having DX10, and therefor no AA????

They obviously know DX10 is not a requirement for anti-aliasing, but maybe rather should have expanded to say that because of console limitations, and subsequentley, a bad port job, the PC was not graced with AA.


----------



## Black Panther (Dec 22, 2008)

Playing on *desktop* in system specs:
I created the txt file to be able to get into high textures. 
Leaving all other settings the same, I think the fps is quite good considering I'm using 800MB+ vram when my card only has 512MB.

Statistics
Average FPS: 41.79
Duration: 37.07 sec
CPU Usage: 94%
System memory usage: 48%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 34
Detail Distance: 49

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 
Video Driver version: 180.48
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz (oc'd to 4.0Ghz)


I really hate the lack of antialiasing though... I'll be checking what happens if I force it through the Nvidia control panel...

I have to read about to see what difference 'view distance' and 'detail distance' make to the game, or try them out myself.

Also, I find it kinda shocking that it uses a whopping 94% CPU power considering it's an E8400 @ 4.0Ghz... even though temperature-wise I'm at a very safe 44 degrees ingame/benchmark max.

*Edit*: Just read the previous posts on this page --- What do you mean lack of AA?!?!?
You mean you can't force it in the control panel??? (oh noes!)


----------



## erocker (Dec 22, 2008)

oli_ramsay said:


> Does anyone think they'll every fix the lack of AA?  ;_;



It's up to ATi and Nvidia if they can make their cards force AA in the game.  There is no AA in the XBox or PS3 versions and I'm quite sure they left it out of the game all together.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Dec 22, 2008)

they do that because their hardware cant be upgraded and it degrades performance so low for those consoles that it makes the games run at snail speed. TVs tend to stick to a 60Hz Refresh and it doesn't matter if its the HD tvs or not thats reason console games tend to run better than PC parts because if you have the hardware you can run the PC game at higher Detail and maintain a 60 FPS. Greatest Example for me was Need for Speed Underground on a 15.4 Screen laptop, Running on a 9800 256 Mobility vs XB on a TV, I could pump the Graphics Up to Max without it affecting the PC in Multiplayer. People would walk by and notice how great the game looked on PC and i said that's the advantage the PC has over console.


----------



## warup89 (Dec 23, 2008)

I found this on GTA forums, i havent test it yet but it looks pretty nifty

*Enable GTA to use system ram for VRAM*



psx2p said:


> this comes from the ultimate guide that's stuck to the forums, i noticed that if you double you multiplier the game will use ll the on board ram on your GPU as well as system ram,
> 
> don't use this if your already maxing out your system ram and your Vram.
> (i have 4 gigs system RAM and 512mb VRAM gta does not use all my system ram, so i use the left over system ram for Vram)
> ...



_source_

_EDIT:
btw even though i haven't used this yet I noticed that GTA uses more than half of my 8gb RAM (taking to account this is a 32b app. meaning it fully used 4gb's, not counting OS and the rest)_


----------



## Nick89 (Dec 23, 2008)

miloshs said:


> Oh sorry forgot about those...
> Heres bench with my rig...
> 
> *with 4850 in the rig*
> ...



With my 4850 all I get is:

Statistics
Average FPS: 21.62
CPU usage: 86%
System memory usage: 82%
Video memory usage: 96%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1280x1024 (60 hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 28
Detail Distance: 60

Using cats 8.12 BTW

My Cpu is over clocked to 3.2ghz and my ram is doing 533mhz(1066Mhz) my 4850 wont OC at all.:shadedshu WTF

I have all my settings WAY lower and I get 15 less FPS? with the same card? WTFH


----------



## xu^ (Dec 23, 2008)

Warup,  i did try that myself and found for me at least its pretty much useless as it causes my game to crash after a couple of minutes 

judging by how much my HD was thrashing it "DOESN'T make normal ram act as vram ,more like makes your pagefile act as vram.

i have 4gb ram and 896 vram ,after enabling that command it let me pick up to 1752 vram  and it simply thrashed my hd ,and made the game crash ,b4 it crashed ,my normal ram usage for the game was around 75% usage which is wat i normally get with no switch active.

normally i can play the game for hours with no crashes ,nice idea but for me it just doesnt work.

Statistics
Average FPS: 49.04
Duration: 37.19 sec
CPU Usage: 73%
System memory usage: 68%
Video memory usage: 91%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Very High
View Distance: 32
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
Video Driver version: 180.84
Audio Adapter: Z-10 (2- Z-10 USB Speaker)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6600  @ 2.40GHz @3.2ghz


----------



## Tatty_One (Dec 23, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> which is why 1GB is the new 512



Your right......it is


----------



## Tatty_One (Dec 23, 2008)

Cannot quite understand the need for the command line mentioned earlier to free up unused "system" ram as VRam, I though that is what happens in any case if the VRAM is insufficient???


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 23, 2008)

erocker said:


> It's up to ATi and Nvidia if they can make their cards force AA in the game.  There is no AA in the XBox or PS3 versions and I'm quite sure they left it out of the game all together.



I thought the game blurred edges so that AA wasn't needed.


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 23, 2008)

Nick89 said:


> With my 4850 all I get is:
> 
> Statistics
> Average FPS: 21.62
> ...


Not to mention the resolution. I have a 4870X2 and i don't understand it either...


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 23, 2008)

Nick89 said:


> With my 4850 all I get is:
> 
> Statistics
> Average FPS: 21.62
> ...



Wierd I get more fps at 1680 x 1050 and I have a worse card than you


----------



## Black Panther (Dec 23, 2008)

Statistics
Average FPS: 42.19
Duration: 37.26 sec
CPU Usage: 95%
System memory usage: 48%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 68
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 
Video Driver version: 180.48
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz

File ID: benchmark.cli

_________________________________________________

Duh I think I'm giving up on this game for now. 

I am running it everything maxed out - view distance 68 and fps 42.19 in the benchmark, and it's milky smooth during gameplay.

I can't understand how people with much better hardware than mine are gettting lower benchmark fps  maybe it's a driver issue? (I'm playing it on the desktop with the single 8800GT 512MB and not with the laptop sli). Maybe the oc'd E8400 helps? I dunno...

What makes me give up for now however (it's otherwise a great game) is the lack of AA. There are so many jaggies I'm not accustomed to that, the game actually makes me dizzy and sick at the stomach - it's like playing a game in the 90's... 

I'd much prefer having to put textures on medium rather than high, and at least some AA just to be kinder on my eyes.

Duh I did try to force AA in the Nvidia control panel - tried 2xAA (normally I find that enough for 1680x1050), 4xAA and 8xAA -- no difference at all. I.t.  j.u.s.t.  d.o.e.s. n.o.t.  w.o.r.k.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread just in case someone figures out how to get a decent AA, or maybe a patch comes out, or a Nvidia driver which enables the forcing of AA through the nvidia cp...

I've been thinking of installing the game on the lappie to get rid of the AA issue - I mean the lappie's 1920x1200 and it's only 17" to render those pixels... but I dunno... I wouldn't want to go through the trouble and get crappy graphics again...

The only feedback I can give to this thread is that I discovered that actually putting the shadows on the lowest possible makes them neater for me. Putting them on lowest makes them look like real life shadows, not like a million ants crawling on the floor. Also, pressing P ingame makes the game look neater & softens the far-away jaggies (though not the nearer ones).

Tbh, I don't think that the game engine is that great.
I mean, if I can game at a playable 40+ fps at the above settings, I should have the option to lower some settings and increase AA and still get a playable game. But this is not possible.
It also makes no sense increasing shadow quality, still get 40+ fps and getting dizzying scurrying ants on the floors rather than proper shadows. I think the shadows are just broken, the same way that self-shadows (on the characters' faces) are broken in Oblivion. Shadows only appear at their best if you lower the slider all the way down.

*Edit: I just saw my previous post on this same page - duh so using higher settings give me a higher fps in the benchmark?!? Now that's really something which doesn't make sense....*


----------



## warup89 (Dec 23, 2008)

seemingly the game prefers quad cores and up, I think since it has to run the physics engine, and all the different kind of IA going around.


----------



## spearman914 (Dec 23, 2008)

warup89 said:


> seemingly the game prefers quad cores and up, I think since it has to run the physics engine, and all the different kind of IA going around.



Yep. GTA IV is optimized to take the full advantage of quads.


----------



## erocker (Dec 23, 2008)

Or a dual core at 4ghz +.


----------



## stefanels (Dec 23, 2008)

Here is mine:

Statistics
Average FPS: 38.45
Duration: 37.21 sec
CPU Usage: 73%
System memory usage: 56%
Video memory usage: 98%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 68
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate  
Service Pack 2
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 
Video Driver version: 180.48
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Creative SB Audigy SE)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8200 @ 2.66GHz @ 3.6GHz

File ID: benchmark.cli


----------



## Nick89 (Dec 23, 2008)

This is getting stupid, I'm getting very annoyed with this game. :shadedshu


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 23, 2008)

Nick89 said:


> This is getting stupid, I'm getting very annoyed with this game



Whats wrong with it


----------



## Black Panther (Dec 23, 2008)

spearman914 said:


> Yep. GTA IV is optimized to take the full advantage of quads.



I can install the game on my laptop (it's got a Q9450 and 8800M GTX SLI) but since the game already runs smooth on desktop and it's only the AA issue which bothers me..... Obviously running it on a quad won't be giving me AA since it appears to just have been forgotten from the game altogether!
:shadedshu  

*erocker *-- I don't think the issue is cpu here. I ran it on desktop with E8400 @ 4Ghz and at 4.2Ghz --- no performance increase. It's a graphics issue -- okay my graphics is mediocre for today (8800GT) but at nearly all settings maxed out (see my last post) I get 40+ fps which is smooth. I'd prefer to get AA or better shadows, and lessen some other settings but this is not possible - because AA is not existent, and shadows look more realistic if you put the slider all the way down, otherwise they'd just look like mad ants running on the floor...


----------



## Nick89 (Dec 24, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> Whats wrong with it



I'm getting 20 average FPS on medium/low settings and people with the same hardware are playing the game on all high settings and getting 35+ FPS average. :shadedshu


----------



## Wingo101 (Dec 26, 2008)

What is a good FPS for GTA IV?


----------



## oli_ramsay (Dec 26, 2008)

Wingo101 said:


> What is a good FPS for GTA IV?



Anything above 30FPS is pretty smooth.


----------



## wolf2009 (Dec 26, 2008)

* I don't think this is a badly coded game, there is so much happening in the game, which is why it uses so much resources. 
*
*Lets see what it does,* 

You have 10-15 Pedestrians on screen, with 10-15 drivers in cars all infused withh Euphoria technology and physics. All with a mind of their own and aware of their surroundings. Now all this physics work is being done on the CPU which is why it uses so much CPU. Sorry dual core guys. 

This is like doing Nvidia PhysX on CPU, obviously it runs slow on CPU than GPU. 

If you don't know what Euphoria is, watch this video
http://www.naturalmotion.com/euphoria.htm

and its implementation in game

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/17055.html?type=flv

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29964.html


----------



## DrPepper (Dec 26, 2008)

wolf2009 said:


> * I don't think this is a badly coded game, there is so much happening in the game, which is why it uses so much resources.
> *
> *Lets see what it does,*
> 
> ...



Exactly my thoughts. Also don't forget the collision damage, random objects being knocked over etc. If they were to optimise the game they would sacrifice image quality and then everyone would complain that it looked crapper than the console version and was a poor port.



Nick89 said:


> I'm getting 20 average FPS on medium/low settings and people with the same hardware are playing the game on all high settings and getting 35+ FPS average. :shadedshu



Maybe because you have a dual core ?  Idk


----------



## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Dec 28, 2008)

IMO the FPS is as honest as it is. The game map is not a matrix btw. From the looks of the roads curve, the whole map looks like one BIG mesh o_0. AI per entity is taxing, and shader per entity is also taxing. Collision detection on physic object, collision detection per entity is also taxing.

Waiting for a patch to get high fps? Youll be rotting in front of your PC and still wont get a jump from 30s to 40s. lol.


----------



## Nick89 (Dec 28, 2008)

all I want is to get decent frame rates at low settings....... with my hardware


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Dec 28, 2008)

Nick89 said:


> all I want is to get decent frame rates at low settings....... with my hardware



up your cpu overclock. your cpu is bottle necking your gfx card.


I recently ran and expierment with my rig.  At 2.4GHz my Xeon (system Specs) averages 24.fps, but at 3.2 it is wide open, i wish the frame limiter was able to be turned off tho. But under ebnch mark im averaging way better close to 45fps. and that is just with a cpu overclock, i didn't keep it there, because im still testing out the rig, but it shows.

Clock was 8x400=32000mhz, and the sb PCI was 101MHz, card was also kept at stock settings.


----------



## Wingo101 (Dec 29, 2008)

Is there any way to change the camera to follow your car like in the previous GTAs?


----------



## MadClown (Dec 29, 2008)

I just got the game the other day, runs ALOT better than I expected, considering people were having trouble getting decent framerates with a 3870 on lower quality, but im getting some good eyecandy with playable framerates in the 20's, believe me this game is very playable at lower framerates.


----------



## twicksisted (Dec 29, 2008)

ive had the game for just over a week and loving it... running it on my quad / 4870 on a 24" screen.
Its a great game but as expected its not giving excellent FPS considering everything that is going on in game.

its much more playable than oblivion was when it first came out... infact i have everything on high and only have slowdowns when theres a sh1tload going on at once and its loading textures etc.


----------



## xu^ (Dec 29, 2008)

the main problem being most ppl expect this game to run at 50 - 60fps or higher because they have a good PC ,then when it doesnt they say its a crap port etc etc ,but the fact is its perfectly playable at 25 - 30fps ,if vsync is enabled u will notice the game is capped at 30fps ,obviously because it run acceptably at that rate.

i get anywhere from the mid 20s up to 70+fps when theres not much going on and its perfectly playable at both ends of the scale.

some games just aint meant to run at 100fps tbh and this is one of them.
ive seen this game running on 4 diff pc`s all with various different specs & run it pretty decently.


----------



## TRIPTEX_CAN (Dec 29, 2008)

I should be getting this game later today. 

I've read that crossfire didnt make a huge difference when it was originally released. Has anyone seen an improvement in crossfire support since the patch and 8.12 released?


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Dec 30, 2008)

not sure, but the game crashes on me to much now, I can se where the textures dissapear so im assuming its a bottle neck issue with the game.

Anyone with 1GB video cards, do you notice a big difference in the quality of game play?


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Dec 30, 2008)

Bjorn_Of_Iceland said:


> IMO the FPS is as honest as it is. The game map is not a matrix btw. From the looks of the roads curve, the whole map looks like one BIG mesh o_0. AI per entity is taxing, and shader per entity is also taxing. Collision detection on physic object, collision detection per entity is also taxing.
> 
> Waiting for a patch to get high fps? Youll be rotting in front of your PC and still wont get a jump from 30s to 40s. lol.
> 
> ...


Wondering one thing with that SLI do you get any slowdowns or fps breaks during gameplay?


----------



## frankie827 (Jan 3, 2009)

how do you all think my pc will play it?

(specs are in the system specs tab)

im using a 20" monitor @ 1680x1050


----------



## frankie827 (Jan 3, 2009)

MadClown said:


> I just got the game the other day, runs ALOT better than I expected, considering people were having trouble getting decent framerates with a 3870 on lower quality, but im getting some good eyecandy with playable framerates in the 20's, believe me this game is very playable at lower framerates.




it is...im playing it at 7 fps with my laptop xD


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 3, 2009)

Should be fine, though you won't be able to play on the highest settings ie. view distance






Here's a screenshot of my PCs performance with 180.84 drivers.


----------



## frankie827 (Jan 3, 2009)

Wingo101 said:


> Should be fine, though you won't be able to play on the highest settings ie. view distance
> 
> 
> 
> ...



what if i got a second gtx 260 (i have a $250 gift certificate to newegg)


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 3, 2009)

You need much more than 896MB Video memory.


----------



## frankie827 (Jan 3, 2009)

thats such bs how they do that


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Jan 3, 2009)

Remove memory restrictions with a command in the commandline...


----------



## DanishDevil (Jan 3, 2009)

James1991 said:


> if you are using Crossfire or SLI it only detects the VRAM on one of the cards



That's because of how Crossfire and SLI work.  They don't add up the RAM like in a system.  SLI/Crossfire is more like multiple computers working together than multiple cores in a system with RAM adding up.  Each GPU is tied to its own RAM, and in order for a GPU to process images for display, it needs to have the textured stored in its respective RAM.


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 3, 2009)

It will probably be a couple of years till we will be able to play with everything on highest/100 without any hacks or modifications.


----------



## Irish_PXzyan (Jan 4, 2009)

With my system I run everything on highest settings but view distance set to 60. I run it smooth and never get any lag??? I see no problems at all. Great game!


----------



## Urbklr (Jan 4, 2009)

Got my copy running:

High Texture
Highest Processing

40 View Distance
70 Detail Distance
40 Car Density
8 Shadow Density

Anything higher I get stuttering, even thou it runs smooth FPS wise. Need more RAM, 2GB isn't cutting it. BTW, I run it in Windows XP 32bit.


----------



## johnnyfiive (Jan 4, 2009)

here is my result with the auto settings.

Statistics
Average FPS: 42.05
Duration: 37.24 sec
CPU Usage: 77%
System memory usage: 65%
Video memory usage: 97%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: High
View Distance: 32
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
Video Driver version: 185.20
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
AMD Phenom(tm) 9600 Quad-Core Processor

runs fine for me, having a blast playing it


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 4, 2009)

Has anyone finished GTA IV yet?

I've been playing since Christmas, but I'm only @ 52%.


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 4, 2009)

Wingo101 said:


> Has anyone finished GTA IV yet?
> 
> I've been playing since Christmas, but I'm only @ 52%.



I completed it a while ago.


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 4, 2009)

Total Play Time?

Screenshot?


----------



## AsRock (Jan 4, 2009)

Wingo101 said:


> Has anyone finished GTA IV yet?
> 
> I've been playing since Christmas, but I'm only @ 52%.



I ended up starting a new live! account and playing MP a lot more lol... Pretty much lost interest in SP as it's no were near as good as SA.


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 4, 2009)

Wingo101 said:


> Total Play Time?
> 
> Screenshot?



reformatted like a million times so I can't get a picture but I've completed it on xbox360 anyway if you want a picture of that.


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 4, 2009)

Nah, just wanna know the total play time?


----------



## Skywalker12345 (Jan 6, 2009)

im installing right now and its taking forever its been like 25 minutes and its still going


----------



## Irish_PXzyan (Jan 6, 2009)

Goes on for ever!!! lol.


----------



## Skywalker12345 (Jan 6, 2009)

seems like it

ima go eat and take a shower and it better be done!


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 6, 2009)

Wingo101 said:


> Nah, just wanna know the total play time?



mission time, as in to complete it?  god i don't know but my brother has averages about 8 hours gaming sessions and he as about 10-15 days down his belt and he is still playing it. he says mulitplayer is pointless but fun.



lucasweir said:


> im installing right now and its taking forever its been like 25 minutes and its still going



yea, mine took like 30 or 40 mins i think, idr exactly.


----------



## Skywalker12345 (Jan 6, 2009)

damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 6, 2009)

well worth the wait imo, i play it when i can, but im contemplating to upgrade to a GTX 280 when prices stabalise lower, lol   then i can get the full effect of the game.


----------



## Skywalker12345 (Jan 6, 2009)

yea i plan on getting another 4850 after i get a water cooling setup going on


----------



## EviLZeD (Jan 6, 2009)

Took me 27 hours to complete this was just doing the main missions (story) im doing the other missions now theres is a bunch of things to do to get to 100%


----------



## erocker (Jan 6, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> well worth the wait imo, i play it when i can, but im contemplating to upgrade to a GTX 280 when prices stabalise lower, lol   then i can get the full effect of the game.



A GTX 260 will do the same.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 6, 2009)

EviLZeD said:


> Took me 27 hours to complete this was just doing the main missions (story) im doing the other missions now theres is a bunch of things to do to get to 100%



27 and counting, lol. yea my bro has been doing all the missions and side jobs as its been going, so i just stopped counting the hours on here.


----------



## Spectrobozo (Jan 6, 2009)

I played the game in a very modest PC, the performance is bad (sometimes framerate can go to 15 or less), even at lower settings, but the game is pure fun, now I'm having some fun in the multiplayer mode...
anyway, I made this video one month ago of the game running here (athlon X2 @ 2.5ghz and 8600gt ddr2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfgCxJY753I


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 6, 2009)

Spectrobozo said:


> I played the game in a very modest PC, the performance is bad (sometimes framerate can go to 15 or less), even at lower settings, but the game is pure fun, now I'm having some fun in the multiplayer mode...
> anyway, I made this video one month ago of the game running here (athlon X2 @ 2.5ghz and 8600gt ddr2)
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfgCxJY753I



thats nuts, lol  welcome to TPU if it hasn't been said already, and you can fill out the system specs so you don't have write things out all the time. welcome and have fun at tpu.


----------



## erocker (Jan 6, 2009)

Anyone get the "warm coffee" achievment?  Kinda funny.


----------



## EviLZeD (Jan 6, 2009)

erocker said:


> Anyone get the "warm coffee" achievment?  Kinda funny.



Haha yea theres a bug with gta 4 it randomly removes acheivements i have around 3 thats been removed and these were acheivements you have to get in order to complete the game (main story) which ive done i remember getting them too


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 9, 2009)

I finally completed the story mode in GTA IV.


----------



## Steevo (Jan 9, 2009)

I finally got me a 360 controller (the only way to play GTA is with controlelrs, the KB & Mouse feel wrong) so I can start really playing it. Tonight hopefully I will be able to get started.


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 9, 2009)

erocker said:


> Anyone get the "warm coffee" achievment?  Kinda funny.



 seems rockstar took the hot coffee controversy and stuck it up the worlds arse


----------



## Wingo101 (Jan 9, 2009)

How do you view the achievements?


----------



## johnspack (Jan 11, 2009)

Just tried it,  runs flat out on my 280,  I think it's the most fun game I may have ever played!  Next to left4dead,  nah this beats it!


----------



## D007 (Jan 11, 2009)

Honestly I was extremely disappointed at this game..
I don't even consider it a game..

You can't buy anything at all anywhere..
no houses, or any type of property.
extended gameplay is useless.
there is no reason to continue playing it after you beat it..
you get no airplane or parachute.
the only helicopter you get looks like it belongs in a tonka toy commercial..
it looks and steers horribly..
and you'll never get a different one.

The only good thing in the game is the new physx.
but after running over 100 people that gets old..

I think this game sucked.. badly..
I didn't even finish the storyline..
It got so boring I didn't even want to play anymore..
I quit just before the end storyline I was so disappointed.
they took out virtually everything great about san andreas.. and made this crap fest.

San andreas is better than 4 on so many levels it's not even funny..
go buy that before you get this piece of crap.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

lol, ive played the game, and i think its better off, i wish that they allowed you to buy houses and all, but buying guns out the back dor of some run down building has this sense of wow.

just ordered my 280 to see how the computer rolls with it.


----------



## D007 (Jan 11, 2009)

you've always been able to buy guns in gta.
it use to be a little shop..
I don't see the difference.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

well, since guns are outlawed in gta4 you can't buy them at ammu-nation anymore.  but i can understand from the way the game roll plays why they don't allow you to buy tons of houses and everything. but i would like to though.


----------



## D007 (Jan 11, 2009)

outlawed? lol..
there is not one thing in that game that would lead you to believe guns are outlawed..
it definitely doesn't seem like it..
theres no point in the game where it says "guns are outlawed"

where did you hear guns are outlawed?
story line?
if so, they did a bad job of clarifying that.
and even then.. the gun shop is so obvious only a retarded cop wouldn't notice it..
so that's a fail in my book on more than one level..lol..

also there should always be a place to park your helicopter..
and you should always get a pimp house at the end..
you get neither.


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 11, 2009)

D007 said:


> Honestly I was extremely disappointed at this game..
> I don't even consider it a game..
> 
> You can't buy anything at all anywhere..
> ...



The reason for that is that if they kept all the stuff from SA they for gtaV or whatever they wouldn't be able to add more stuff in and would almost be the same game. The next game will include more and be comparable to the additions in vice city and then the game after will most likely be like san andreas

GTA3 - VC - SA
GTAIV - whatever comes next


----------



## D007 (Jan 11, 2009)

lol well.. to each their own I suppose..
I still think the game was a huge failure.
the only thing that game consists of is this..
go kill this guy..
go catch that guy..
go get money..
go spend money on guns and end up with 10,000,000 you can't spend anywhere because there's nothing else to do with it..
not a single thing..

you don't take what makes a game great out of the next expansion of the game.. 
you expand on it..

so by your logic.. 
5 should be like 3? lol..
but 4 should not be like 3?

it's ok, i understand you guys want this game to be as good as san andreas..
it's just not..
I'll stop raining on your parade..lol..
but this game in no way what so ever deserves the 9 rating it seems to be getting.
not in the least..


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 11, 2009)

D007 said:


> lol well.. to each their own I suppose..
> I still think the game was a huge failure.
> the only thing that game consists of is this..
> go kill this guy..
> ...



eh  I was agreeing with your point. I told you why they took more stuff out of 4 is so that when the next GTA comes out it has a selling point over IV.


----------



## D007 (Jan 11, 2009)

OOh I see what you mean..
an underhanded method to increase sales..lol..
make a crappy game.. 
then make a better game?

well.. I'll be much more wary about buying the next one, now that this one ruined my aspirations.
I may very likely not buy it at all.
my bad.. 
I misunderstood what you meant.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

D007 said:


> outlawed? lol..
> there is not one thing in that game that would lead you to believe guns are outlawed..
> it definitely doesn't seem like it..
> theres no point in the game where it says "guns are outlawed"
> ...



guns are outlawed in GTA IV, that is why you have to buy them out of borken down buildings. That's why if you go and shoot a gun the cops go after you. did you ever notice that only the criminals have guns?  the normal people don't have guns, guns are outlawed in the game, thus why you have to buy them and the guy says "Stay safe Stay Second Amendment"


----------



## thee neonlightning (Jan 11, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> The reason for that is that if they kept all the stuff from SA they for gtaV or whatever they wouldn't be able to add more stuff in and would almost be the same game. The next game will include more and be comparable to the additions in vice city and then the game after will most likely be like san andreas
> 
> GTA3 - VC - SA
> GTAIV - whatever comes next





D007 said:


> OOh I see what you mean..
> an underhanded method to increase sales..lol..
> make a crappy game..
> then make a better game?
> ...




Another way to look at it , gta 3 was good  , vice city was better ,with motor bikes helis , SA was awesome and had everything  , GTA 4 is now the graphic change over , GTA 5 will follow the same route , this time same graphics , more things , gta 6 will be SA all over with everrything including jets , which were FUC****  AWESOME! 

ok i think that makes sense


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

thee neonlightning said:


> Another way to look at it , gta 3 was good  , vice city was better ,with motor bikes helis , SA was awesome and had everything  , GTA 4 is now the graphic change over , GTA 5 will follow the same route , this time same graphics , more things , gta 6 will be SA all over with everrything including jets , which were FUC****  AWESOME!
> 
> ok i think that makes sense



i agree. the amount of money and resources it took to code the game out like that must have cost a fortune, and i think gta 5 and 6 will be better then gta 4, but its a progression of time. 

D007-
Of course instead of complaining that you wasted your money you should have done your research and then realized that the game wasn't what you were looking for.


----------



## thee neonlightning (Jan 11, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> i agree. the amount of money and resources it took to code the game out like that must have cost a fortune, and i think gta 5 and 6 will be better then gta 4, but its a progression of time.
> 
> D007-
> Of course instead of complaining that you wasted your money you should have done your research and then realized that the game wasn't what you were looking for.



Maybe D007 was a fan of gta originally and like me , buys and expects to be good , however i must go against D007 , the game is actually not too bad 
i think we have all bought a game in the past thinking it would be good but turns out to be awful


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

thee neonlightning said:


> Maybe D007 was a fan of gta originally and like me , buys and expects to be good , however i must go against D007 , the game is actually not too bad
> i think we have all bought a game in the past thinking it would be good but turns out to be awful



yep *turning Point* comes to mind with that. However i give kudos to rockstar, this was a beta launch for the next phase in computer games, i mean the game is so lifelike its sometimes scary the way the people look, or how much more advanced the physics are. the next gta game will hve this image system with more buy toys in it. im sure it will only take time.


----------



## thee neonlightning (Jan 11, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> yep *turning Point* comes to mind with that. However i give kudos to rockstar, this was a beta launch for the next phase in computer games, i mean the game is so lifelike its sometimes scary the way the people look, or how much more advanced the physics are. the next gta game will hve this image system with more buy toys in it. im sure it will only take time.



well , they better get moving ! the lifespan of xbox and all other consols are begining to reach that stage where they are not old , but sitting on the doorstep to it  
will be good to see all the delights of gta return!


----------



## ShadowFold (Jan 11, 2009)

I was thinking of picking this up again since I have a GTX 280 on the way and I have a quad core now. Think I could run it maxed and get 60fps?


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

ShadowFold said:


> I was thinking of picking this up again since I have a GTX 280 on the way and I have a quad core now. Think I could run it maxed and get 60fps?



easily, as long as the quad is overclocked to 3.4Ghz you should shine.

My set up now gets about 45-47ish on decent settings.   My GTX 280 is on the way. how do you like your GTX 280?


----------



## ShadowFold (Jan 11, 2009)

I don't have it lol I got it at Buy.com remember. I can't get my quad to budge past 2.8ghz with out raising volts.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

ShadowFold said:


> I don't have it lol I got it at Buy.com remember. I can't get my quad to budge past 2.8ghz with out raising volts.



how is that Xigmatec S1284 ee going? i have the pre ee revision of the cooler and i love it. What temps do you have now?


----------



## ShadowFold (Jan 11, 2009)

CPU's at 18c-19c, it gets to 30c some times tho.


----------



## D007 (Jan 11, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> i agree. the amount of money and resources it took to code the game out like that must have cost a fortune, and i think gta 5 and 6 will be better then gta 4, but its a progression of time.
> 
> D007-
> Of course instead of complaining that you wasted your money you should have done your research and then realized that the game wasn't what you were looking for.



keep things on an adult level, the condescending tones don't work for me.

if guns were "illegal" and i could care less if they are or aren't..
then you would be arrested for walking around with one out..
which does not happen..
case in point..
and I saw previews for this game with planes involved that made it seem like you would have acess to more.
and they never mention the shortcomings of game in pre-development..
they let you buy it and find out..
this is common knowledge and has been for years..
maybe you should learn business is business..

but consumers have the right to bitch if they so choose..
or so they do in America..
you live in Russia or something?

Why is it someone always comes along and feels they have to jab a guy with a stick even though he's already urked?
what good can ever come from that?


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 11, 2009)

D007 said:


> you really need to check your tone and keep things on an adult level.


i didn't mean to come off as condescending



> if guns were "illegal" and i could care less if they are or aren't..
> then you would be arrested for walking around with one out..
> which does not happen..
> case in point..



I went and asked my brother about the guns issue because he plays the game more then i do.
My brother says guns are illegal because the mayor doesn't want them, thus why guns are not sold through Ammu-nation. instead you have to buy them through the back shop. however it doesn't say anything about the legality of them elsewhere, and sides i doubt the police would want to get into a fight with you unless you shot someone.



> and I saw previews for this game with planes involved that made it seem like you would have acess to more.
> and they never mention the shortcomings of game in pre-development..
> they let you buy it and find out..
> this is common knowledge and has been for years..
> maybe you should learn business is business..



First i run my own company. And if you aren't sure about the shortcomings to a game then wait until after it is out and ask questions to other people about the game. The advertising practices work because you bought the game. Now if you had waited until after the game came out and then asked someone in this thread like "can you fly airplanes in this game" and i would have said, no only the one type of helicopter" Trust me i know how advertising work, and also repeat business.



> but consumers have the right to bitch if they so choose..
> or so they do in America..
> you live in Russia or something?



lmfao, ino i live in the stix of New Jersey, i drive a Dodge Ram 3500 and i have a shotgun rack, along with a 12ga.  Do i sound russian to you?   Driving a Dodge is an American thing, and i wear construction boots and jeans, and im proud to be an American. Im not just an American, im a  Republican, and proud of it. And besides what i said earlier doesn't even begin to sound communist.



> Why is it someone always comes along and feels they have to jab a guy with a stick even though he's already urked?
> what good can ever come from that?


Im not sure what you mean by that

enough of the above said, back to GTA IV thread.


----------



## thee neonlightning (Jan 12, 2009)

ShadowFold said:


> I was thinking of picking this up again since I have a GTX 280 on the way and I have a quad core now. Think I could run it maxed and get 60fps?



you will be fine , iam pretty sure even at normal clock , the cpu will eat GTA4 

if not reply back to this thread soon as


----------



## erocker (Jan 12, 2009)

ShadowFold said:


> I was thinking of picking this up again since I have a GTX 280 on the way and I have a quad core now. Think I could run it maxed and get 60fps?



No way.  I don't know if two of them in SLI would either.


----------



## ShadowFold (Jan 12, 2009)

Alright I probably won't grab it then


----------



## erocker (Jan 12, 2009)

It will still be totally playable.  Hell, I use a dual core and a GTX260 and play at max settings just fine and at 1920x1200.


----------



## spearman914 (Jan 12, 2009)

ShadowFold said:


> Alright I probably won't grab it then



Maybe TRI-SLI 260 216 will get u 60 fps.


----------



## ShadowFold (Jan 12, 2009)

erocker said:


> It will still be totally playable.  Hell, I use a dual core and a GTX260 and play at max settings just fine and at 1920x1200.



How many FPS do you get? I am fine with 35-40..


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 12, 2009)

ShadowFold said:


> Alright I probably won't grab it then



I'll let you know. farther back there is a guy who ran GTA IV with a GTX 280, but i though that was around page 11 or so. But if you want i'll let you know how it goes when i get my GTX in.  And sides even at 1600x900 for resolution the game looks great to me. 

I think what matters more is the 1GB of ram over 512MB. For some reason my hunch is that the extra 512 will make a difference. but testing needs to be done to test that.



ShadowFold said:


> How many FPS do you get? I am fine with 35-40..



with a 8800GT i average 35ish, sometime higher up to about 47. I would think a GTX would manhandle your 40+fps


----------



## erocker (Jan 12, 2009)

Overclocked a bit, you should come close to that.


----------



## erocker (Jan 12, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> I think what matters more is the 1GB of ram over 512MB. For some reason my hunch is that the extra 512 will make a difference. but testing needs to be done to test that.



It most deffinitely makes a difference.


----------



## spearman914 (Jan 12, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> with a 8800GT i average 35ish, sometime higher up to about 47. I would think a GTX would manhandle your 40+fps



35fps all settings maxed??


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 12, 2009)

spearman914 said:


> 35fps all settings maxed??



1600x900, view distance turned to 37 or 40 idr, textures are at max, everything else maxed out. also using the commandtxt workaround for the memory requirements.  It runs like 1200/473 on the warning lable. Game is solid for about 5-8 hours before textures start dissipating. And those frames are with a 3.285Ghz overclock on CPU, Ram 1097@5-4-4-15-2t. Gfx running 760/1030/1884. PCI-Bus@108

Can't go any higher then 1600x900 otherwise game locks up, but that is due to the 512MB of gfx ram. 

I'll run the benchmark test and drip a picture after im done rendering a movie for my sisters project.


----------



## D007 (Jan 12, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> i didn't mean to come off as condescending
> 
> 
> 
> ...





lol.. ok.. moving on..

I also am part owner in my own company ^^..

theres no point in the game where this "mayor" says guns are illegal..
nothing at all that I recall..lol..
there is no time you ever talk to the mayor..
your bro is misunderstanding something I guess.
Or maybe I missed something..
both are possible.
but w/e..

I was born in jersey so I understand the 12 gauge philosophy..

game still sucked though..lol..
as for performance..
hell i run view distance to the absolute minimum.
so I can keep performance where I need it..
in my line of sight.

after the last update though I couldn't play it anymore anyway.. nuked my controller.
I got stuck looking into the sky and whenever I tried to move It hit the escape key..
that was enough to make me give up after all the boring storyline and friendly friend butt kissing contests..

this game felt more like high school social hour than gta.

hey my drug dealing pimping friend..
want to go out and play together?
sure.. lets go play my mass murdering buddy.
we can find some roses and lolipops and gather them in the field..

With all of the sugar in this games tank, I could make coolaid for a year.

I did not pay 50 bucks to play social hour, make everyone happy fun time. 
It annoyed the shiz out of me, every 5 seconds, with corny butt hurt phone calls.
they tried to stretch game play with annoying side dates that are just.. weak..

To me, this game was like hello kitty I am GTA4.


----------



## johnspack (Jan 13, 2009)

Oh,  so there IS a storyline heheh,  I kind of hadn't noticed,  too much fun just running around and grabbing different kinds of cars,  and also I discovered,  boats!  And then trying to outrun the cops,  which I do most of the time.  Running at 1920x1200 with 16:10 aspect,  textures ect at high,  and distances quite high,  I was hitting lows of 20fps and highs in the 50s.  I need to figure out these darn extra settings to stay above 30 min...  I do have a gtx280,  but only an athlon x2 system,  so I'm cpu bottlenecked....  any recommedations for settings?


----------



## erocker (Jan 13, 2009)

johnspack said:


> Oh,  so there IS a storyline heheh,  I kind of hadn't noticed,  too much fun just running around and grabbing different kinds of cars,  and also I discovered,  boats!  And then trying to outrun the cops,  which I do most of the time.  Running at 1920x1200 with 16:10 aspect,  textures ect at high,  and distances quite high,  I was hitting lows of 20fps and highs in the 50s.  I need to figure out these darn extra settings to stay above 30 min...  I do have a gtx280,  but only an athlon x2 system,  so I'm cpu bottlenecked....  any recommedations for settings?



Keep the vehicle count low as that really relies on your processor.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 14, 2009)

Got the GTX 280 in the computer, and i'll run the game and see how things go.  wish me all luck.


----------



## D007 (Jan 16, 2009)

wolf2009 said:


> Last FAIL game of this Year.
> 
> Lots of great and much anticipated games were released this year, but were FAILS due to graphic settings or gameplay.
> 
> ...



exactly..
FAIL...
no game content.. 
and bad performance..
theres a game I'd rather burn than play again..
and I got to the very end. the wedding..
this game was weak..


----------



## erocker (Jan 16, 2009)

I just don't understand your "FAIL" opinions on the game.  If you set the settings in the game to where your hardware can run it it's just fine, and most likely will still look better than the console versions.  I suppose Rockstar should of kept the highest settings out of the game so people with hardware that can't run the game at those settings wouldn't be so dissapointed.  It's a fun game.


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 17, 2009)

Hm after getting my gtx260. I can play this game at 1920 x 1080 at 24fps with vsync on. I don't see why people are complaining.


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Jan 17, 2009)

People fail at their lives so they need to title other fails so they can have a little self esteem.
Oh and this is the internet.


----------



## AsRock (Jan 17, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> Hm after getting my gtx260. I can play this game at 1920 x 1080 at 24fps with vsync on. I don't see why people are complaining.




Because most people who are complaining want 99999999FPS....


24FPS+ is just fine for GTA 4.


----------



## Mussels (Jan 17, 2009)

according to reports from people in this very thread, higher resolutions and settings sometimes give higher FPS.

Being on high with 24FPS and low with 20FPS on the same system, would suck.

Also, most of us PC gamers think 30 is hte minimum FPS for games, and a lot think 60 is.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 17, 2009)

as long as the game isn't choppy and its nice and sharp i don't care how many FPS it runs. 

I give rockstart a lot of credit, i mean look at the game its even more lifelike then san andreas was. Yea so there are some things missing from the game, but given the amount of time and and effort put into the development im still amazed at what was accomplished.


----------



## Steevo (Jan 17, 2009)

New processor 


Statistics
Average FPS: 42.74
Duration: 37.55 sec
CPU Usage: 56%
System memory usage: 64%
Video memory usage: 75%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Very High
View Distance: 40
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series 
Video Driver version: 7.14.10.630
Audio Adapter: Speakers (SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio)
AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 940 Processor

File ID: benchmark.cli


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 17, 2009)

Mussels said:


> according to reports from people in this very thread, higher resolutions and settings sometimes give higher FPS.
> 
> Being on high with 24FPS and low with 20FPS on the same system, would suck.
> 
> Also, most of us PC gamers think 30 is hte minimum FPS for games, and a lot think 60 is.



Well it isn't I get 24fps max its that vsync makes it stay at 24 and I find that very playable.


----------



## DRDNA (Jan 17, 2009)

where does one get GTA4 benchmark?


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 17, 2009)

DRDNA said:


> where does one get GTA4 benchmark?



I believe its in the games settings or in vista you can right click it in the games folder and go to benchmark.


----------



## DRDNA (Jan 17, 2009)

okay i have searched the net and found nothing ...it(bench for GTA4) must be part of the game install ..Oh well


----------



## DRDNA (Jan 17, 2009)

WOW this game is almost 14GB  This must have the potential for very nice graphics...
Well I am downloading the game as I type..$50 poorer
Lets see how humbled I am when I run it...Get-er-done !


----------



## erocker (Jan 17, 2009)

DRDNA said:


> okay i have searched the net and found nothing ...it(bench for GTA4) must be part of the game install ..Oh well



It's in the options of the game.  Your rig will run this game very nicely.


----------



## Widjaja (Jan 18, 2009)

Makes me laugh, seing what kind of rig is needed to play this game.
But I do beileve there is alot of processor work involved in it with all the characters.


----------



## DRDNA (Jan 18, 2009)

Widjaja said:


> But I do beileve there is alot of processor work involved in it with all the characters.



YAY I cant wait .... lol another 3 hours for download ...


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 18, 2009)

DRDNA said:


> YAY I cant wait .... lol another 3 hours for download ...



should have bught the game at BEst Buy lol. then it takes 45 mins to install. lol


----------



## DRDNA (Jan 18, 2009)

pepsi71ocean said:


> should have bught the game at BEst Buy lol. then it takes 45 mins to install. lol



Or I could have used my steam account as they have better download speed for me than Direct2drive...I went with D2D because I dont want Steam putting the Governor on my playing options in the house.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jan 18, 2009)

DRDNA said:


> Or I could have used my steam account as they have better download speed for me than Direct2drive...I went with D2D because I dont want Steam putting the Governor on my playing options in the house.



what do you mean by governor?


----------



## DRDNA (Jan 18, 2009)

installing on two pc's for LAN....opps did i say that.


----------



## DRDNA (Jan 18, 2009)

Download took for ever...The install took 6 minutes.

Statistics
Average FPS: 55.99
Duration: 37.34 sec
CPU Usage: 29%
System memory usage: 50%
Video memory usage: 86%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: High
View Distance: 32
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Business 
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Video Driver version: 7.14.10.630
Audio Adapter: Speakers (SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         920  @ 2.67GHz

File ID: benchmark.cli



It looks and plays nice!


----------



## RadeonX2 (Jan 19, 2009)

I can't believe my card would do well on this game 
well maybe coz I'm using XP

Statistics
Average FPS: 35.17
Duration: 37.19 sec
CPU Usage: 49%
System memory usage: 76%
Video memory usage: 96%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 47
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Service Pack 3
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Video Driver version: 181.20
Audio Adapter: SRS Labs Audio Sandbox
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6600  @ 2.40GHz

File ID: benchmark.cli

Q:
How do I enable high setting on Texture Quality?


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 19, 2009)

@ radeon

Its probably since you have a quad as well. Someone with a dual core at the same settings will have much lower fps since the game uses 4 threads.


----------



## RadeonX2 (Jan 19, 2009)

I guess Quad does help on FPS 
I figured out enabling high on Texture Quality turns out I ran out of video memory...
Is the resource usage the video memory? I only got 489MB and I guess the MB changes every time I start the game


----------



## DrPepper (Jan 19, 2009)

RadeonX2 said:


> I guess Quad does help on FPS
> I figured out enabling high on Texture Quality turns out I ran out of video memory...
> Is the resource usage the video memory? I only got 489MB and I guess the MB changes every time I start the game



Its not that the game is graphically demanding its that think of what the cpu is involved in such as physics, ai and the other cars driving around including managing the gps and the traffic lights etc etc.


----------



## RadeonX2 (Jan 19, 2009)

ya I noticed frame dips below 20FPS mostly at night headlights turned on and my memory usage skyrocket to almost 100% will adding more ram improve performance? currently I have 2x1GB on XP but I don't see any loading stutter.

here is with Texture Quality @ High frame dipping below 20FPS during nightime
system & memory usage @ peak

used the commandline.txt trick to enable Texture Quality on High

Statistics
Average FPS: 33.64
Duration: 37.03 sec
CPU Usage: 57%
System memory usage: 81%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 30
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Service Pack 3
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Video Driver version: 181.20
Audio Adapter: SRS Labs Audio Sandbox
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6600  @ 2.40GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli


----------



## Exavier (Jan 19, 2009)

I'm gonna stick to Saint's Row 2 - at least I don't have to respond to "hay hay niko come bowling" lol


----------



## D3mon_Hunt3r (Jan 21, 2009)

Exavier said:


> I'm gonna stick to Saint's Row 2 - at least I don't have to respond to "hay hay niko come bowling" lol


I prefer having to say that.
Saints Row is just trash compared with this one. IMO.


----------



## oli_ramsay (Jan 24, 2009)

*Grand Theft Auto 4 v1.0.2.0 Patch*

A new patch for GTA IV is out and fixes a few things:



> Graphics Menu:
> Added "Water Quality", "Shadow Quality" and "Reflection Resolution" sliders in graphics menu.
> Added "Definition" and "VSync" toggles in graphics menu.
> Rendering optimizations.
> ...


----------



## AsRock (Jan 24, 2009)

oli_ramsay said:


> A new patch for GTA IV is out and fixes a few things:



There's all so other stuff changed in game it seems too.  You will see when your driving around just the odd thing here and there.


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

*Grand Theft Auto IV Performance*

Sucks. I only get 15-20 FPS.


----------



## thraxed (Feb 14, 2009)

I would think you'd get better then that, i get decent frames with it.


----------



## erocker (Feb 14, 2009)

Is it all patched up and everything?


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

Bad port to me. I get 15 FPS average. Sucks. I'm gonna uninstall.


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

No patch. There's a patch?


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

Wow, 20 pages already.


----------



## sneekypeet (Feb 14, 2009)

J-Man said:


> Wow, 20 pages already.



I think you've been merged into the original thread!


----------



## erocker (Feb 14, 2009)

lol, yeah.  Cmon man you can't blame it on a bad port (which it kinda is) when people with lesser systems do better.  Your's should own it.  Here's the patch: http://www.rockstargames.com/support/IV/PC/patch/index.html

Make sure DX9 is updated too: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en

*You have been assimilated, resistance is futile.


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

Good thinking, rockerboy. Now I should get the most FPS then the rest of you, right?

DX is all up to date apparently so I'll install the patch.


----------



## erocker (Feb 14, 2009)

J-Man said:


> Good thinking, rockerboy. Now I should get the most FPS then the rest of you, right?



Hahahaha!!!  Probablly.


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

Well my system is nearly top notch


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

5 FPS... Joke game.


----------



## ShadowFold (Feb 14, 2009)

J-Man said:


> 5 FPS... Joke game.



Now you know why I don't recommend it and why I got my money back for it.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 14, 2009)

J-Man said:


> 5 FPS... Joke game.



i got 20fps at max everything with a 512MB 8800GT.   However i get no less then 30 in game with the 280.


I just noticed all the complaints are from people with ATI cards, weird.


----------



## J-Man (Feb 14, 2009)

Yeah, ATI, bleh!


----------



## Drizzt5 (Feb 14, 2009)

I played gta4 fine with a single 4850 :/ I didn't see any improvement in that game when I added a second.


----------



## HossHuge (Feb 14, 2009)

Here are my numbers 

HD4850 - only

Statistics
Average FPS: 41.63
Duration: 37.04 sec
CPU Usage: 56%
System memory usage: 24%
Video memory usage: 81%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1600 x 1200 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: High
Water Quality: Very High
Shadow Quality: High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 37
Definition: Off
VSync: On

4850/4830 in crossfire - 

Statistics
Average FPS: 57.14
Duration: 37.01 sec
CPU Usage: 65%
System memory usage: 23%
Video memory usage: 80%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1600 x 1200 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: High
Water Quality: Very High
Shadow Quality: High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 37
Definition: Off
VSync: On


----------



## grunt_408 (Feb 19, 2009)

Drizzt5 said:


> I played gta4 fine with a single 4850 :/ I didn't see any improvement in that game when I added a second.



I have 2 4850's a palit 1gb and a sapphire 512mb and I get better performance without crossfire. They need to patch this game again fix some more bugs coz it has a memory leak problem that is peeving off the world!


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Feb 19, 2009)

I thought I read somewhere that only SLI is supported.  I never saw a reason cited as to why but I doubt that will change.


----------



## Alberto-Elaria (Feb 27, 2009)

*Grand Theft Auto IV question*

hi all,

when i enter in the option in the graphics area to put every thing on high, there is something named source usage when ever you increase something the number increase, what is this ist my video card memory?? or ist  my ram, cuz i played around in my computer and sometimes to go up 490 and now its 433(( source usage is 433)) how can i increase it ??


----------



## DrPepper (Feb 27, 2009)

Alberto-Elaria said:


> hi all,
> 
> when i enter in the option in the graphics area to put every thing on high, there is something named source usage when ever you increase something the number increase, what is this ist my video card memory?? or ist  my ram, cuz i played around in my computer and sometimes to go up 490 and now its 433(( source usage is 433)) how can i increase it ??



You can't increase it. Its your video cards memory its just the way the game reads it I presume. Maybe someone will have a real explanation.


----------



## Cheeseball (Feb 27, 2009)

You can increase it. There are many tweaks that can help you hit 30 to 40 FPS on a dual-core system and get above 50 FPS on a quad-core. A ton of them are on the GTAForums.


----------



## DrPepper (Feb 27, 2009)

Cheeseball said:


> You can increase it. There are many tweaks that can help you hit 30 to 40 FPS on a dual-core system and get above 50 FPS on a quad-core. A ton of them are on the GTAForums.



You cant change how much video ram you have.


----------



## Alberto-Elaria (Feb 27, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> You cant change how much video ram you have.




if ist the video card memory why sometimes i found it 490 and other 433 i have evga 9800gtx+ 512


----------



## erocker (Feb 27, 2009)

It has to do with your monitors resolution.  The higher the resolution the more vram it will take.


----------



## DrPepper (Feb 28, 2009)

Alberto-Elaria said:


> if ist the video card memory why sometimes i found it 490 and other 433 i have evga 9800gtx+ 512



Doesn't it say thatt is how much is free and not whats available. Could be a bug in the game for all I know.


----------



## Cheeseball (Feb 28, 2009)

You can't change how much video RAM you really have (duh), but you can fool the game into thinking you have more VRAM which will increase that limit. There are no detrimental effects in doing that though. I'm on a 9800GT with 512MB, but I lifted the limit all the way to 1GB (963MB) so I can put everything on max.


----------



## ShadowFold (Feb 28, 2009)

My friend is giving me his GTA4 copy tomorrow. What settings should I expect at 1920x1080?


----------



## AltecV1 (Feb 28, 2009)

medium or low


----------



## Cheeseball (Feb 28, 2009)

You can hit high if you use the -nomemrestrict commandline. However you'll probably only be around 25 to 30 FPS since you're on dual-core.


----------

