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I guess my pc isn’t fast enough to run GTA IV (PC Version)
Posted by Reaper-X Dec 15 2008 4:30 am
So yesterday i just installed GTA4 (after the long installation process and that’s include updating the Gamesforwindows Runtime that is required in order for you to be able to play the game unless you decided to block gta 4 with your firewall). At first i thought that my pc would be able to run this game without any problem because so far i can play various game such as assassin creed, devil may cry 4, crysis warhead, fallout 3, and many others modern games perfectly fine on my pc (even if i couldn’t use AA / Antialiasing) on 1280×720 resolution (i’m playing on HDTV), but i guess i was wrong.
When i started GTA4 without using any additional command line, i couldn’t change any graphic settings and this game only allows me to play on 800×600 or 1024×768 resolution with low texture quality, and with 1 view distance (which is the lowest settings) because this game thinks my computer isn’t fast enough to handle higher configuration.
And so i decided to search around the net for possible options to tweak GTA4 graphic settings manually without being restricted and found one. And then i try to implement the tweak by simply doing:
1. Create a new text file called commandline.txt in your GTA 4 installation directory (where GTA4.exe can be found)
2. and put these into the commandline.txt file:
-norestrictions -nomemrestrict
3. Then launched GTA4 again, and finally i can change anything i want from the graphic settings
As i’ve stated before, i always run my games on 1280×720 resolution, so i just simply change the resolution to 1280×720, texture quality to Medium and render quality to Medium, and all others settings at half from the maximum allowed value and restarted the game again … and voila …
Note: I don’t know why the screenshot is just too dark because i can see it perfectly fine in-game
As you can see in that screenshot, all vehicle seems to be flying and not all textures has been loaded … and so i change the resolution to 1024×768 and …
Everything seems to be okay and textures can be loaded much faster (even faster on 800×600 resolution) except it looks better on higher resolution (obviously)
Btw i’ve also tried changing the texture to High … and guess what … i can’t see anything other than cars and people, everything looks blue without any textures
And the conclusion … i think i’m going to put GTA IV on hold because i’ve played it before on xbox 360 without problem and reached the last stage before my 360 broke and needs to get repaired (i haven’t repaired it till now because it’s too expensive) and beside i’m currently addicted to Football Manager 2009 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 :P
p.s if you’re currently thinking on buying GTA IV, i’d suggest you to double check your pc specs first and check on how well it’ll perform on GTA IV (well if you don’t mind playing on low resolution then there should be no problem for you) or buy the console version
p.p.s i’ve also tried installing the latest beta driver from Nvidia (because they recommended it) 180.84 … but instead of making GTA IV runs faster, it’ll keep crashing my pc. And that’s only when i tried to go to the NVidia Control Panel
Update: So i just upgraded my pc (actually i wasn’t planning on upgrading my pc but since my Abit AN9–32X dead, i feel the need to upgrade my comp)
Btw with my new spec: (i don’t think i need to list the mobo and ram because the most important thing to consider is your processor and VGA Card with at least 512 of VRAM) AMD Phenom X4 9950BE, and HIS 4830 VGA Card with 512VRAM (budget series card) i was able to run this game at the highest renderer setting with medium settings texture at 1280×720 resolution. Without the need to use any additional tweak other than fullspecaudio
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i played in my computer gtaiv and it was very slow with the lowest graphics for game: my pc: 2gig of ram with procesor intel core 2 duo 2.66ghz. with graphics card xfx512mb 8400geforce. please some one tell me what i do and my graphics card low to play gtaiv fast or not????
Based from your specs, it seem your graphic card is the source of the problem, if you decided to upgrade your vga card just make sure to get at least ATI 4830 (the cheapest on the 4800 Series on ATI), or GeForce 9600GT (i’m sure Geforce 8800 can handle it without problem but well i think it’s better to get 9600 instead) ;)
p.s after i changed my vga card into 4830 … i can play this game without problem, and oh btw i have Phenom Quadcore 9950BE
ma specs are
asus commando mainboard p965 chipset
4 gigs of 1066 mem
SBXFI fatality sound
bfg 8800gts 512 mb vid
intel quad core 2.4 @ 3.2ghz
raptor drives through out
And like with all games I play it runs like a hot knife thru butter
I don’t understand it, some companies make their games run on many settings to maximise sales. GTA IV can obviously run on an xbox so should even run on a 6600GT and cpu of it’s time, unless they are saving dvd space, which costs nothing. Mines maxing one core out on a fresh XP (except having dow2 and steam installed), just on the menu with a 9600GT and 3800+ x2 at 2.6 ghz, which can’t make sense.
Looks like it’s too buggy for me and I’ll take it back as not fit for purpose, wondering if it has anything to do with the millions they got from microsoft for xtra content, synical I know, but who knows.
Hey my surname is also Kent
*Old* DELL XPS “GEN 5″ (Huge silver tower)
Single Core Pentium 4 @ 3.60 Ghz w/HT
1 gig ram
GeForce 6800 (!!!)
(w/178.24 driver)
Yes I can play this game, very good in fact which surprises the hell outta me, EXCEPT the “Resource Usage” meter limits me to only View Distance = 1. How can I override that damn Resource Usage limiter to get a view of at least 20?
tri-marketing@hotmail.com
now iupgrade my pc to
8tb ram
100tb HD
2gb Graphics card
and a fastest processor
its like a super computer
so can i run it 9GTA IV)
uhh thats a 4200 x2 at 2.2×2 =4.4
rasmus nice rig man unfortunately i get tha problem where i get no hud or pause screne but w/e i think my gpu is too weak
cpu:amd 4200 stock setting @2.2Ghz
ram:2gb ddr2
gpu: nvidia 7300 (lolz i kno)
hdd: 250gb sata maxtor,160gb ide barracuda
gtaIV takes crysis name of “can u run me?”
Hey all i can run that game with extreme high setting this is my system
AMD Phoenom 2.5 * 4 = 10.0 ghz
Nvidia Geforce 280x card
8 gb 1066 ram
1 TB sata Hdd
# amrit
i doubt your pc can run GTA IV unless you plan on upgrading your RAM and VGA card
# Daniel
Can’t see the HUD and white dots? does the game plays normal if you don’t apply the tweak?
duude, i did exactly what you did, i see everything good, but there is white dots, and cant see the HUD or the pause menu…any suggestions?
I read alot about these problems with gta IV,
but i dont have any problems! i can run the game very smooth with high settings
my specs:
geforce 8800 GT 512 mb
2 gig ram ( ddr 2)
dual core E8400
running at 1680×1050 ( 22″ inch)
no problems so far
hi guyss i am going to download gta4 from net.but i confused to that IS my PC can run GTAIV.,i have
80 gb HArd disc mostly free
512MB RAm
128mb graphics card
INtel dual core processor 1.8 with 1mb cache an
plz help and tell me my email id is amritvrk77@yahoo.com
god bless u if u help me and give u a GF
hm since you’re using a 8800GTS, try changing the base resolution (in game) into 1024×768 first for the base quality you prefer and then do the same step for the rest ;)
p.s don’t forget to remove the height and window size from the command line first
ok been playing for around an hour and it’s running fine. shadows are very grainy though but thats ok with me. thanks alot Reaper for your help
wow it worked. i am running gta 4 in 1280×1024 resolution
Well if it’s for me i always choose to show all file extensions so there’s no need for me to worry about double file extension ;)
just go to Tools -> Folder Option -> View tab -> and uncheck hide extensions for known file types, and if it shows you .txt.txt extension you just need to rename it into commandline.txt and done
and yes, that is correct you just need to put that into your main GTA4 Folder (where GTA4.exe can be found)
Thanks for the info Reaper. So when I make this commandline.txt do I name it commandline.txt cause then the text file would be commandline.txt.txt Just making sure on how to save this text file. And just save the file in the main gta 4 folder right?
# IntErlOpr and boondox26
I believe you can get additional performance increase by applying tweak from
http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=384473
that basically says
1. Don’t use any override restriction command (delete it from your command line)
2. start gta4 and go to graphics setting
3. set resolution to 800×600 (well i set it to 800×600) and choose any desired option i want and in this case anything that adds vram memory usage like Texture, and view distance except resolution since you’ve changed it to 800×600
4. exit gta
5. add desired height and window size in commandline.txt (in my case im using -widht 1280 -height 720
6. start gta 4 again and go to graphic settings and you’ll notice that despite it says 800×600, you actually run in your desired options :D (in my case 1280×720)
and that’s without any missing textures, etc … or in the other words the game behave normally (well i never experienced any crash other than missing texture so that tweak really helps me to run gta 4 on 1280×720) :D
note:i also perform additional step by using -availablevidmem , although i think it’s not necessary if you have more than 512MB VRAM (well i’m only using 327MB of VRAM)
full commandline i’m using:
-width 1280 -height 720 -availablevidmem 1.403 -fullspecaudio
and settings displayed on GTA settings:
res: 800×600
texture:medium
render:high
view distance:20
on GTA IV version 1.0.1.0 (patch 1 applied)
the only downside of this method is…
you can’t go to graphics setting screen again and you’ll have to force closing gta4 process
hmm installing xp just made it worse lol. on vista i can get the resolution to 1024×768 with low settings. playable but i like to play games at 1280×1024
Always been stuck with underpowered PC’s in the past, so I decided to forgo a next gen console (360, PS3, Wii) and get me something that caned. Took 3 months of not spending a cent I wasn’t required to. I figure stuff it, 9 months later I can still play anything on high settings. Bitch is GTA IV doesn’t appear to use the 2nd graphics card so if anyone is thinking of going dual it won’t help. At least it only show’s the RAM from the first card on the options screen.
just make sure to backup your xlive account and your gta iv save game first (unless you want to play from scratch) :P
C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Rockstar Games
and
C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\XLive
because one thing that pissed me off is i have to play everything from start again (unless someone want to share their savegame and including their xlive data lol)
and btw to those who love to hack game you can try the xlive wrapper made by Rick at (well at least i can be invincible on the pc version unlike on xbox 360 so no problem at restarting from scratch again) lol
http://blog.gib.me/2008/12/16/hacking-grand-theft-auto-iv-part-ii/
note: you need to know how to hack game first otherwise that wrapper is useless
lol nice post reaper. that is pretty funny. i decided to re-install windows xp. maybe it will run better now. will see though.
# Bunie
Have tried the beta driver but instead of making gta 4 fast it keeps crashing my pc (whenever i try to go to nvidia control panel) so i revert to the 178.24 driver and works just fine ;)
so for now i just use 1024×768 with 16:9 aspect ratio (thanks God rockstar allow you to override aspect ratio lol)
and btw … it seems NASA sues rockstar games :P
http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=380801&st=0
well so far Fallout 3 runs a little better so yay for that
will the forceware drivers interfere with my other games? i hope they will still work ok lol
Dude, get the Beta drivers! I was too lazy to read wjhat video card u have, if u posted it at all, but Nvidia has released beta forceware specificly for GTA4, and ATI is releasing some soon!
My pc specs are :
AMD Athlone 64×2 5200 2.7Ghz
3GB DDR2 800Mhz ram
9600GT 512 MB DDR3
160GB HDD
19″ LCD screen(BenQ)
Winfast Motherbord.
If I had killed that f**ker Roman would be alive!!!!
(Sorry for that, I couldn’t help myself :) )
Thx for the info, that’s maybe the thing that causes that I have to press some buttons more than once and harder to make them work :D
Yeah the patch didn’t help my PC one bit. Oh well, I will just scrap this game from my list. I love GTA games too lol
WOW!!!
You guys seems have powerful pc compared to me especially IntErlOpr lol. Guess i need to work even harder to at least upgrade my graphic card
my current pc spec:
Corsair 2x 2GB PC5300 DDR2
Zotac 8600GT 256MB VRAM DDR3
Athlon64 X2 5200+ (Windsor)
WD SATA II for the HDD
And with that specs i can only choose 1024×768 resolution
# Nathar
Be careful GTA IV Patch 1 add another bug
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/43548/GTAIV-PC-Patch-Adds-Bugs-Rockstar-Suggests-Spinning-Controller-Fix
Yeah, the problem is that its stand-alone release was released by microsoft, not rockstar :D (Guess I read this on the page where I got the link for download)
Nevermind, I found it
Ok where do you get the patch cause I checked http://www.rockstargames.com and there isn’t one listed there.
You really need to update your graphics card drivers and apply the latest patch for this to work well. Although the patch is apparently causing trouble for some people.
On my rig:
C2Quad 9550 Oc’d @ 3.3Ghz
4Gb Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066Mhz
Gigabyte GeForce 9800 GX2 1Gb
Vista Ultimate x64
1440 x 900 Res
Texture – Medium, Render – High
I was originally getting 40 fps, the drivers and patch gave me +5fps a piece so I’m sitting on around 50 now. If only the goddam game would stop crashing, sometimes it happens after 5 mins, sometimes an hour but it bugs the heck out of me.
I didn’t buy this game yet due to some bugs it has. I know there will be a patch soon that is supposed to solve alot of issues.
My PC specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.0Ghz overclocked to 2.2Ghz
2.5GB RAM
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
My friend did let me borrow his game for a day lol. Of course the video settings were only 800×600, everything on low. So I might try this method to change stuff around and see how it works.
Also I have received a pre-beta of Windows 7 from Microsoft. I am in the tech membership with them. Must say it does run better so far. Basically it’s just Vista #2. Some things look different but thats it. Also, when it is released it will have DirectX 11. The first actual beta comes out on January 13. So when i receive it i will post more about it if you guys want me to.
i put a cheap used system together a few months ago:
e4300 @ 3ghz (orig = 1.8ghz)
2gb ddr2 adata ddr800mhz
gf 9600gt
1280×1024 resolution
gta4 runs fine for me.
textures medium
render quality high
settings as seen in the vide menu:
25
37
26
3
resource 437/482
benchmark:
average fps 31.89
Oh, I’m sorry for that novel, but I even forgot something :D . I’m running it on Intel Core2 Duo @ 2.2 GHz and Ati Radeon HD2600 XT (512 MB RAM -the graphics card’s one, pc’s is 2 GB :D ) and untill now, no game has been laggy :D (on not-the-highest-one settings :D ).
I had problem like this one, but, well, i could see textures, but my fps was too low for my pc (with medium settings). So I did the same as you, search the net, and found a patch and new driver for my graphics card :) . So I installed the patch, tried the game and it was about 5fps faster. Then I installed the graphics driver, restarted computer and… everything crashed :D I had 8bit graphics with 640×480 resolution and a message saying something like that the driver is not supported by my card appeared. I thought I installed wrong driver, so I carefully downloaded and installed new one, restarted pc and the same thing happened again, even driver roll-back did not help, it was worse, I just saw black screen after booting, well, I thought that my graphics card is gone, but then I remembered about the system restore point :D , so I restored my system and everything is ok, and gta works by 5fps better :D (that means about 24 :D :D )
i ran the game on Medium im runing intel pentinum d 915 dual core 2.8gig sata1 500gig drive x1650 ati 512mb card game ran great at 1024×768
Hi
The Game underperforms. In your options by you detail setting, you will see at the bottom there are like 250MB/449MB. That is how much you can take on graphix. My brother has an 8800GTS and he cant even play it full detail.
to be honest, i’m extremely disappointed too :( because i thought that at least with just a single Geforce 8600 GT i would be able to play this game normally just like many other modern games
i’m thinking that at least i’ll need a VGA Card with 768MB VRAM to be able to play this game in high resolution
i was going to try this game… now perhaps i will reconsider.